Day 7-CCNA Introduction to Networking: Staying Motivated

Hello, today I have a lot of review to go over, so I won’t be talking very much about Networking. Instead I want to tell you a few strategies that I use on a daily basis to stay motivated.

This blog is no easy task, I on average, have about an hour and a half of class, as well as editing notes, writing and editing each blog post, and answering the numerous questions that everyone has, as well as reading any and all of the input that you send in via e-mail, on Reddit, and on forum posts every day. This is a huge investment of time, but the benefits outweigh any sort of stress.

The first thing I want to talk to you about, is having your own circle of support. I’m sure all of you have heard this worded some way or another, but it’s extremely important that you have someone you can talk to about your passion and someone who encourages you to keep going. For me, that includes my girlfriend, who doesn’t understand anything about networking, but sits and listens while I babble on about how excited I am to be able to open the command prompt and understand everything I’m looking at! Then there’s my mother who I spout to about all the blog views I’m getting every day. Last, but not least I have all of you who read my blog maybe every day, or a couple of times a week which helps me get out all the meaty stuff to people who understand, and appreciate what I’m doing. This falls into the next portion I’d like to talk about.

Get involved. Getting involved in some sort of CCNA or Networking community can help so much. A vast majority of you come from Reddit, or other forums like Reddit. If you haven’t already, then I challenge you to look through the first two pages of your forum, or /r/ccna and answer every single question that you can. This can be used as a great exercise and beyond all else. Helping people is encouraging! It makes you feel good to know that you made someone else’s life that much easier! Also, you know something that they didn’t know yet! Which really gives you a great sense of progress.

Take a day off. If you’ve been working your mind too much, it’s great to take a day off to let everything sink in from your courses or studies. This can sometimes be even more beneficial than studying, you’re rewarding yourself for working so hard and you’re preventing burn-out. Burn out is when the stress starts to outweigh the benefit and you just end up dropping it all together. Again, this falls into your circle of support, if you’re having a hard time and struggling with stress, talk to someone, or ask the community different things they do to relieve their stress.

Set realistic goals. My goal right now is simply to be prepared to take, and have a date for my CCENT exam by day 45. It’s something I know I can achieve, by a time that I know I can defeat.

One last thing I’d like to mention, if you’re not sure about getting started with Networking. Just do it. Get started today, don’t wait until next week. If you want to learn a little about networking and get your CCENT, or if you want to learn everything you can about networking and aspire to receive your CCIE, the time to start is now. The sooner you start the sooner you’ll be on your way to receiving whatever certification it is that you want to achieve. So the CCENT takes about a month if you’re going at a steady pace? Well why not start now? You’ll have one day out of the way and you’ll finally be on your way to receiving your certification of choice.

You remember that challenge I gave you? I have some questions for you all. For those of you who have already embarked on your adventure. How do you stay motivated? What drove you to start on your adventure into Networking? What was the first thing you learned in networking that really made you excited? You can either reply on Reddit, or post a comment on this blog using the comment box below.

Get involved! Get motivated!

Thank you for reading,

-Trevor Sovetsky (CCNAdventure)

Day 6-CCNA Introduction to Networking: Introduction to IP Addressing

Today’s class was just chock full of information, and boy am I glad that I did that little bit of Binary review yesterday. The class was over-all quite a bit longer than yesterday’s class and at first seemed very daunting, but the feeling of finishing it is inexplicably great. Just how there are easy classes like yesterday’s binary reviews, we also have difficult classes that we may not quite understand all the way through and will have to go back to review some parts in order to get a better understanding. With this in mind, I am no exception. There was a lot of information about Subnet Masks that I’m going to have to take a look at before beginning the next section of our CCENT course.

In our Introduction to IP Addressing we started out by going over the basics such as: What is an IP Address? An IP Address is the mechanism we use to deliver messages from one device to another device. We then went deeper to discuss different portions of an IP address. There are two major portions to an IP address which are called the Network Portion, and the Host Portion. The lecturer gave a fantastic analogy referring to how this is similar to addressing a letter. The host portion of an IP address is very similar to a street address we would put on our envelope. The network portion is similar to the zip code we include to say a more generalized area we are sending our letter.

We then dove into the real meaty parts of IP addressing when we started to discuss subnetting! Subnetting brings us back again to how important being able to convert decimal to binary really is in networking, because, we absolutely HAVE to be able to break down a decimal IP address in order to subnet and mask.

We then very briefly talked about Classless Addressing, which was used from 1995 to current day, and then we went into a little bit of describing what Classful Addressing is, which we used prior to 1995, and is only used today for teaching purposes. The next thing we learned about was address types, “Network”, “Host”, and “Broadcast”, as well as how to identify these address types when looking at an IP address in decimal, binary, and subnet form.

The last part of class was about IP Address Configuration and Verification. If you’re like me and you love to jump into the command prompt. Maybe you even dream of looking at that beautiful black backdrop with white letters and numbers all over the place, you’ll absolutely love being able to do the exercise at the bottom of today’s notes. There was something that was just so satisfying about finally taking a look at our ipconfig in the command prompt and being able to actually recognize and know what we’re looking at! I’m sure a lot of you have had some sort of experience taking a look at ipconfig in order to find your IP address to change something on your wireless network whether it be putting a password on it, or making sure that all the devices that are on your network should be there.

So that wrapped up our Introduction to Networking. The next part of our series will be CCNA: Initial Router and Switch Configuration. Because I have a little bit of review left to do on this last class, tomorrow I’ll be talking about something everyone struggles with at some point or another when at-home studying for certifications. Whether it be your CCENT or CCNP, we all have times when we’re just not sure if we want to go further and I’d like to share with everyone some of my personal philosophies, goals, and ideas that keep me pushing every day. Thank you so far for joining me on my adventure to CCENT!

Don’t forget to check out the exercise in today’s notes!

Notes day 6

Day 5-CCNA Introduction to Networking: Intro to Binary

Let’s start off by saying, today was very simple. Just like in any college courses you will have your difficult courses that you struggle with or really feel like you learned a lot. As well as some classes that you swear you’ve already learned every bit of what’s being discussed. Even though this was a review for me, I still took down some notes for everyone to read over, including a couple of simple exercises and examples for you to practice with if need be!

So In our introduction to binary we went over why it is that computers use binary. Then we briefly discussed why humans start counting at 1 instead of 0, I was surprised to find out that there are quite a few historical reasons for this, a couple of reasons being: In some religions, 0 was described to be “The Devil”! Another reason being simply that people like to correlate 0 with nothing, thus deeming it an unneeded value.

Once we got to the exercises, things got a bit more interesting. We started out by learning how to count in binary. After we had finished learning how to count  in binary it was time to take a look at converting binary to decimal. If you’re like me and enjoyed the 30 minute-simple math work sheets back in Elementary-School where you would complete as many problems as you could as fast as possible. Then you’ll surely enjoy learning how to convert binary into decimal.

The second exercise was converting decimal to binary. Converting decimal to binary is still fairly simple, and if you enjoy math as much as I do… It may deem no challenge. But to those of you who are still newer to binary, and to those of you who just need a quick review on how to convert binary to decimal, and vice versa. I strongly encourage you to take a look through my notes as a review or as a quick brush-up lesson.

Thank you everyone for reading tonight’s blog post! If you’ve enjoyed reading my posts so far, what do you like about them? If you don’t enjoy them, tell me why! Feedback is greatly appreciated, whether positive or constructively critical!

Cool fact: If you take a look at your computers power button, it should look like a 0 with a 1 in it! Like in binary the 1 stands for on and the 0 stands for off! How fun!

Organized notes with conversion exercise: notes day 5

Day 4-CCNA Intro To Networking: TCP/UDP

Let me start off today’s post by saying wow, that was fun. We finally got to do some hands on work in the command prompt and it was quite a treat to get away from the usual slideshow’s and lectures.

Everything went so smoothly in class today. I think there are a couple of reasons for this. The first reason being; I had an extra cup of coffee today which kept me in the zone! Beside this, taking notes yesterday, editing them, and posting them up for you all to see really made everything stick! For those of you who have started to read my blog, I accredit you to such a wonderful lesson, and thank you for helping me learn! I highly recommend you take as many notes as need be in your future study sessions. Taking notes can help you remember everything, and also gives you a resource to look back on. If you’re too lazy to do this, just click on my notes at the bottom of the post and have a good look over them as you go along with your studies.

So today we jumped head first into defining TCP, and UDP, we had some of the normal every day boring graphs explaining things such as: The characteristics of TCP, which has to do with flow control, and is, connection oriented, as well as Reliable. Then we took a look at UDP, which is lightweight and connectionless. From there we went into the technicalities of TCP’s 3 way handshake, and the 4 way disconnect.

Where the class got really interesting is when we finally opened up the command prompt. We did an exercise that allowed us to see sources that were connecting to our device through TCP! It was so awesome to see everything out in writing! I’ve included this exercise in the notes for you all to give a look at! I’m sure you’ll enjoy it just as much as I did. It’s really awesome to start applying the things we’re learning in our Introduction To Networking class!

Now know, you don’t have to take the same class as me to follow along with my blog posts. Most introductory courses, and books, have a very similar layout of lessons. This blog is meant to be a resource and motivation for everyone getting into networking and should be able to help you in one way or another on your very own adventures into networking.

Thank you so much for reading, I wish you all well on your adventures!

Tonight’s notes include the command prompt exercise, in writing, at the very bottom of the document-Notes day 4

 

DAY 3-CCNA Introduction to Networking: Network Models

Let’s start by saying that like anyone, I too have my ups and downs. Today’s lesson was a lot of information in a very little amount of time and it was a bit rough at first, but boy do I feel great knowing that I came out of that lesson knowing so much more. I turned 30 minutes of videos into an hour of note-taking and clicking back on things that I didn’t understand.

We started out by learning the term “Encapsulation” Which was simple enough. Encapsulation is a large chunk of data (or “segment”) that is chopped into smaller pieces. Those pieces are then chopped up into even smaller pieces which are then addressed and sent out.

I don’t think I could ever describe in a short blog entry all the information that I learned today, but a very simplified version is we learned how this Encapsulation process goes through all of the OSI layers. The lecturer had a great analogy for each step comparing these segments, packets, and frames, to something we’re all familiar with. Letters, not letters like I’m typing right now, but letters as in I’d like to send a letter to my cousin for his birthday. The analogy was similar to this.

The 7th layer, the Application Layer, is getting the letter.

The 4th layer, the Transportation Layer, is preparing the letter by folding it, and then placing it into an envelope.

The 3rd layer, the Network Layer, is putting this envelope into yet another envelope with return address and destination address. (source IP address and destination IP address)

The 2nd layer, the Data Link Layer, is placing this envelope into yet, another envelope, but this envelope has a persons name on it (Mac address)

Then finally the 1st layer, the Physical Layer, is sending this letter, whether it be by mail truck (copper wire), Jet (wireless), or cargo bullet train (Fiber, or Glass)

Put into these simple analogies, the OSI model made a lot more sense to me. There was SO much more that we learned, but if you’d like to read a little bit more. I have a well organized PDF of my own notes that were taken during class

Organized notes PDF- Day 3

Day 1 and 2 Introduction to Data Networking & Introduction to Network Protocols.

So I started day 1 in my CCNA intro class, thinking I wouldn’t know anything and everything the teacher is going to tell me is going to be absolute gibberish. I embarked on my journey by pressing play. From this time to about an hour later, I was so excited about how simple the class started off. 90% of the things I was being told, I either knew or had a really good general idea of. Just by having some sort of experience with using at-home standard wireless internet! This was so awesome to me because it gave me a good idea how this class is going to go, as well as how the learning curve isn’t as insane as I’d feared, and read about on forums prior to taking this class.

Day 2, after completing the task of creating this blog, I decided it was time to do some class. Today we jumped into Network models. I was surprised again that the 10% of information that was COMPLETELY new yesterday, We are now using today! Including many different acronyms… Some of which I still don’t think I’ll ever remember, such as: TCP IP, POP3, IMAP, SFTP, TFTP, FTP, etc. I do suppose if I remembered that many so far, I may be in good shape. If this course continues upon taking the 10% that is new to me, and broadening it into 90% of the next lesson, I feel this is going to be really fun!

TIL: A lot about the 7 OSI model. As I said before, using the majority of protocols I learned in the last lesson, and putting them into the 7 layers that are the OSI model. Also learning that we no longer use layers 5 & 6, so we won’t be learning too much about them in the future to come! I’m really catching on to these things quite well, and I’m excited to continue to the next lesson tomorrow!

A quick list of things I learned.

All of your basic at home network. What goes where and why? (Device, Router, Modem, and host)

What are all of the most used network protocols?

What is an Ip address? What is a MAC address? (The difference between the two, as well as their purposes.)

Remote Connectivity (Such as using a VPN to access another workstation)

DNS, FTP, Email (Domain Name System, File Transfer Protocol, POP3, IMAP, MAPI)

Osi: App layer, Transport later, Network layer, Data link layer, Physical layer

A few of these layers I already knew everything about from the previous lesson.

Thanks for taking a look at this post, and I look forward to writing future entries about my adventure to CCNA!

     Did you know that the first web browser we use today was called “Mosaic” which was later changed to Mozilla, as we know now as Mozilla Firefox? I personally think it’s awesome that the first browser ever made, is still a huge competitor between the big 3! (Firefox, Chrome, and Internet Slowsplorer)

Introducing myself

Hi, my name is Trevor Sovetsky, I’ve wanted to start my adventure into some sort of IT, networking career for some time now. I officially started my ride to CCENT yesterday. Knowing where to get started was a huge battle, everything I see on google seems to have no start or end, and the majority of people who give any sort of advice on the forums use terms that no one understands.

I decided to create this blog to help others by providing learning sources, where I got started, and to tell everyone of my Journey into the networking field.

This blog will both be used to help motivate myself to keep on pushing, and hopefully to help you get motivated, interested, and keep you pushing for whatever Cisco Certification you aspire to acquire in the future. Whether you simply want to get your CCENT (Cisco Certified Entry Networking Technician), or if you hope to one day acquire your CCIE (Cisco Certified Internetwork Expert)!