CCNA Virtual Lab e-trainer

Rating:
Summary: CCNA Virtual Lab e-trainer
Review: While the e-trainer is fairly useful for studying, I would have to say that it's pretty buggy. To be quite honest, it's a poorly-coded, 16-bit Visual Basic application that's dressed up to look like a 32-bit app. It crashes when you attempt to telnet in user EXEC mode, and on numerous other occasions. Plus, *many* of the commands you need to know to set up a router do not work. I also wish it would let me install the whole thing on the hard drive and run it. Finally, I feel that the author's paranoia about someone pirating this mediocore app are ludicrous. Not allowing me to archive a copy of the program for backup is BS, and if a vendor were to give me that sort of EULA at my job, I would show them the door. Sybex evidently does not feel that these terms require them to replace damaged media at its expense, and to be quite frank, if I would have known that this was a term of the license, I would not have purchased the product.

Rating:
Summary: Great idea, poor execution
Review: While the idea of a virtual router is a good one, this bit of software has been very disappointing. My first issue is with the number of commands available - there aren't enough. And there should be a different response for unsupported ones, so the user knows if he/she has made an error or simply exceeded the scope of the trainer. More importantly, though, is the "bugginess" of the software. Commands don't "take", or they show as configured but then don't perform as they should. I have done a "ping", had it fail, and then immediately repeat it and had it succeed. The basic commands are better, but access lists and WAN configurations are very poorly done. Needs work. The companion book, on the other hand, is very good.

Rating:
Summary: Cheap, but that is no excuse
Review: Yes, it lists for under $100, but that does not excuse sloppy programming. No support of the product (patches, fixes) to at least clean up the more obvious issues. Cheap does not have to mean poor quality. Too bad in this case, it does.