Status Update

Things have been a little quiet on the blog lately but I have been pretty much keeping the study momentum going.

I don't think I mentioned it but I haven't actually sat for the CCIE Written Exam yet.  Here in Brisbane there used to be two centres you could sit the exam but one went out of business a few months ago and there is a 4-5 month lead time on doing a computer based exam! In a few weeks I plan to go to Sydney so I will make time to do the exam then.  The CCIE R&S Version 4.0 blueprint for Written and Lab are pretty much in alignment, right now I am moving more to looking at things from what the written exam is interested in.

That said, I'm now at the end of the IPExpert Volume 1 Labs - the final lab has an estimated timelimit of 10 hours and touches on NAT and IOS security topics particularly IOS firewalls both topics which aren't really my strong points.  So I think I'm going to do some more self study in those areas before I face that particular lab.  How do I feel so far about the Volume 1 Workbook?  I've been pretty happy with it, most of the labs have been good but some have been more challenging than others (I guess the areas I spent a lot of time on projects I found particularly easy compared to others I havent had a lot of experience with) - I know I'm going to redo particular labs in the future but it's been good to touch on technology areas.  I'm looking forward to facing the Volume 3 labs. 

One of the things I'm planning on doing is getting used to working to the estimated timeframes for the labs, while I do attempt to black out enough time to sit a lab at home, the reality is there are some interruptions that occur, so I've decided to use a timer program that I can pause when these events crop up.  So far XNote Stopwatch seems fairly reasonable at the moment - I like the idea of being able to set it to be always on top but partly transparent so I can see the time remaining and not lose screen real estate.