Rating: 
Summary: CCNA for Dummies
Review: A book for CCNA hopefuls written by CCNA's. I would have hoped for someone with a little more Cisco ceritifcation experience. Need I say more?
Rating: 
Summary: Don't expect to pass the exam with this.
Review: Bottom line: Don't think you will pass the test with this book. If you only want to buy one book, look elsewhere.If you know very little about the CCNA subject matter and need a solid easy-reading introduction, the Dummies book is great. It is just not enough on it's own to actually pass the test. The book is well edited, and you can trust the information it does present (that is a serious issue with other books). It just doesn't have enough detail, and starts to trail off towards the end. The last few chapters especially seemed as though they were hacked up in order to save space. In all, it a good reference with strength in areas where other books are lacking. However, alone, it isn't enough.
Rating: 
Summary: The best!
Review: By far one of the best study materials for the exam. I bought several books, Cisco: A beginners Guide. CCNA From the Cisco Press CCNA By Todd Lammle (sybex) and This one. Ron Gilster has once again demonstrated the ability to make we want to read his book, I never felt imtimidated or like I was being flooded, yet it has half the pages of the other books! I read the top listed ones, bought some practice tests, and realized I was missing some stuff, I then purchased the dummies book, and found all the information I had been missing. I passed the test shortly afterwards.
Rating:
Summary: Great, funny and easy to read.
Review: By far the most helpful resource in getting my CCNA. This book covers everything on the CCNA, a little more condensed than Wendell's book, (by the Cisco Press) but I believe Wendell's book hit every imaginable topic while Mr. Glister's hit only the relevent topics for the test.
For [the priceyou will not make a mistake using this as a resource.
Rating: 
Summary: Questions useful, technical review missing
Review: CCNA for Dummies / Gilster et al / IDG Books / 0-7645-0690-0
Chapter Page Comment
0 n/a General impression: this book can be useful for the quiz questions. You must check for yourself whether the given answers are correct. The number of issues below makes me reluctant to recommend it. I'd say it was OK to start out with,
but I already had quite a bit of background, and I would be concerned that someone with less experience might not know where
the problems were. I think it might have been a much better book if there had been a thorough internal technical review
before it was published.
0 n/a "Too many pages without page numbers for my taste. (Between chapters, as many as five.)"
3 41 "Table 3-1: I'd like to see Network layer here use ""Packet or Datagram"", for consistency with table 14-7 and Chapter 14, Prep test question 9."
3 45 "Figure 3-5 repeats the upper half of figure 3-4. Instead, it should show an RJ45 connector."
3 48 "1st paragraph, last sentence: should this be "" ... no more than one intermediatecross connect""?"
5 80 "Table 5-3 is incorrectly printed. See Table 11-2, which is correct, instead. (The entries Ethernet_802.3, Ethernet_II, and Ethernet_SNAP in the first column should be in the second column instead. All of those frame types are for Ethernet interfaces.)"
5 81 "The ""IPX network"" command is not given in global configuration mode; it is an interface command."
7 102-103 Simplex / half-duplex / full-duplex discussion is misplaced in a section about the Session Layer. Most aspects of this discussion pertain to the Data Link Layer!
7 109-110 "Question 7 of prep test -- I think this one is on the ragged edge; pg.104-105 shows data encryption and data conversion 1st as parallel categories, later encryption as subset of conversion."
8 125 "Question 6: for this to be a double negative, option E should be 'None of the above'."
9 140 "In the CLI example at the bottom of the page, one character is missing from the first CLI prompt."
10 158 "Table 10-1: This description of 'reload' fails to distinguish the results of 'reload' (reboot the router now) with the results of 'copy startup running', which over-writes the running config with the startup config. Scheduled reboot entirely omitted."
10 161 "Question 9: typographical error: option C should be ""int e1"", with a space between the ""t"" and the ""e""."
13 209 "Answers are not actually given for questions 2,3, and 4 -- just pointers to text."
13 219 "Lab 13-2 ""... IP address of 5 ..."" Huh? ""5"" is not an IP address"
13 219 "Lab 13-2, part 1. Here ""5"" has become 192.168.1.5/255.255.255.192. Under the classical subnet rules, the subnet part of the address must be non-zero. The first available subnet is 192.168.1.64/26, not 192.168.1.4/30! "
13 219 "Lab 13-2, part 3. The sentence beginning ""Since these two addresses..."" is nonsensical."
13 219 "Lab 13-2, part 3. ""Which is the reason why 192.168.1.128"" was an invalid mask value in table 13-7"". Sentence fragment. Also, ""192.168.1.128"" is not a value that appears in table 13-7."
13 224 "Prep test question 8: The identified correct answer (C) is wrong. Accepting the question as correct as written, then in order to be correct, (C) would need to be something like: ""192.168.1.64, 192.168.1.160, 192.168.1.192""."
14 235 "I'd prefer that the discussion of windowing (flow control) and reliability (acknowledgements and retransmissions) were distinct, not intertwined."
14 235 I'd like to see a mention of TCP retransmissions in the discussion of reliability.
14 241 "Table 14-6: Field ""Flag offset"" should be ""Fragment offset""."
14 232-236 "As a protocol guy, I'd like to see explicit mention of the fact that TCP provides ordered delivery of the data. You can design reliable protocols that are not ordered."
16 268 "I have difficulty with much of this page. The 1st sentence says ""Layer 2 ...device"". Later in the same paragraph, ""... virtually the same as a router"" (which is a layer 3 device, of course). I give up completely on paragraph 4."
16 268 "Note that after describing Cisco switches as Level 3 devices on this page, the section ""Segmenting a LAN with a switch"" on pg 272 clearly describes a level 2 device. Were these different sections written by the same person?"
16 276 "The second sentence of the second paragraph is problematic. How can the VLAN be based on the MAC address, yet ""...enable a user to belong to the same VLAN at all times, even when connecting to the network with a different MAC address..."" (emphasis mine)."
16 278 "Prep test question 4: I think B) should be ""MAC Address""."
16 268-269 "These 2 pages mention circuit, packet, LAN, IP, and port switching. I'd like these terms to be more clearly distinguished, and used more like Cisco docs.
18 308 URL for BeachFront Quizzer misspelled.
Rating: 
Summary: For Beginners
Review: Containing information that will not provide you with significant knowledge in the real-world in addition to the various errors I've found, this book is only fine if you have nothing else to turn to for reference.
Rating:
Summary: Only a start
Review: First of all, I would tell anyone studying for their CCNA exams to read this book first. Most of the other books on the subject are written by nerds for nerds. This book (as is true of most of the "for Dummies" series) demystifies a lot of the technology by describing it in clear language. But don't use it as your only study guide. It is NOT the only reference you're going to need to pass the exam. I also used Wendell Odom's books (published by Cisco Press). I recommend them for content but I found some of the explanations a little difficult and had to reread passages several times to get what he was saying. Also, the CCNA flash cards book (also published by Cisco Press) is a good resource. I used CCNA for Dummies, Wendell Odom's CCNA Intro and CCNA ICND, and the flash cards books to study for a recertification and did very well. If you are studying for a first time certification, I would add one more source (publsihed by Sybex or McGraw Hill--take your pick) because each author is going to emphasize different things and this is the only way to get the big picture. Regarding the quality of the practice testing software supplied with CCNA for Dummies, I ran into this with Boson (who supplied the practice tests for CCNA for Dummies and the practice tests and NetSim software to Cisco Press)--yes, some of the practice questions do have wrong answers. The QC, though, is the responsibility of the authors of the tests, not IDG, Cisco Press or Boson. The tests are buggy but the publisher is standing between you and the author. You'll beat up the publisher for selling you an inferior product but the actual responsibility lies with the author of the practice test. The only thing you can do here is know your subject so well that you know when the answers to the practice tests are wrong. As far as the practice simulators are concerned, go to Cisco's website to see what the test simulator is REALLY like. So, the bottom line on CCNA for Dummies is that this should definitely be in your arsenal but should not be the only book you use to study for the test(s). You're definitely going to need several books to do well on the exam.
Rating:
Summary: Good basic info on the CCNA exam.
Review: Good basic info on Cisco networking in general and the CCNA exam in particular. "Cisco IOS for IP Routing" by Andrew Colton (ISBN 0972286209) would take you much further in understanding the IP routing protocols. Check out books by Jeff Doyle and Radia Perlman as well. Though not if you are a complete beginner to Cisco.
Rating:
Summary: AM I READY FOR THE CCNA??
Review: hello. i have just recently purchased this book "CCNA for Dummies" and have read it cover to cover. i found it tolerable to read and to study from but is it supplying me with all the necessary information i need to pass the exam? oh..another thing is, i'm also studying from the Exam Essentials CCNA 2.0 practice exam (registered version = 294 "word-for-word" questions). so...am i ready to tackle this CCNA beast?? or will i be just throwing away 100 george washingtons?? CCNA's out there. your input will be greatly appreciated.
Rating:
Summary: BEST STUDY GUIDE I FOUND
Review: I already knew a lot about routers and this book was the best book I found to refresh my memory and bring me up-to-date on the newer IOS commands. It starts out not from a beginning stand-point but rather diving in to the material. I read the book front page to last and passed the exam the day after I finished the book. I do not recommend this book for someone that does not know what a router is to start off...they need to buy ICND or attend the course.
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