<< 1 >>
Rating: 
Summary: Junk
Review: A waste of resources and completely inadequate for the Server+ exam; it does not cover all of the exam objectives. I am surprised and disappointed that Mike Meyers would have anything to do with this prime recycle bin material.
Rating:
Summary: Junk
Review: A waste of resources and completely inadequate for the Server+ exam; it does not cover all of the exam objectives. I am surprised and disappointed that Mike Meyers would have anything to do with this prime recycle bin material.
Rating: 
Summary: Good Study Reference, So-So Study Guide
Review: Fresh from the Server + Exam, used this book as my primary reference/study guide. The book DOES cover all the subjects touched upon by the exam and provides a wealth of informative details. But, the book DOES NOT cover the exam topics in a way that correlates to the exam. This means that what you study and the practice tests you take do not correspond directly to what is on the exam. Do not study this book and think that if you take the practice tests and do well, you are all set. I will tell you this, the book does not give enough coverage to server shutdown, disaster recovery and hard disk configuration scenarios. Use other reference materials to study these subjects and to be fully prepared for the exam. The content in the book is useful and well laid out. It's just that the practice tests and questions do not do a good job of preparing you for the types of questions presented on the exam.
Rating:
Summary: mr Bigelow's Server + Book: Pros and Cons
Review: Pro: gives in depth information about subjects. I loved reading about the latency time of UPSses, motherboard and baseboard code details!
Pro: Good for newbies to get a started on server components.
Con: Biased towards Compaq Raid controllers. The exam is neutral.
Con: Mentions and refers to Windows 95 Device manager regularly which is NOT a Server OS!I'm an HP Hardware 2nd line support qualifier for HP Netservers. With over 2 years of experience troubleshooting all sorts of issues 8 hours a day, Cluster Certified, HP Star Certified, HP Star Troubleshooting Certified. I wanted to get myself vendor neutral certified as well, and I figured I'd buy this book.
In my opinion, I passed the test mostly on work experience. I believe the book is lacking some in the administering side of Back Ups etc, policies and procedures like disaster recovery. It does not cover enough Non-MS OS troubleshooting. The scope and feel of Comptia exams (Server+ and Network +) is that they are BROAD (also Netware and Unix questions), mostly not too in depth, but requiring a firm understanding of basics.
Comptia is aiming at work experience, which is the way the test feels. Dont be so hard on this book, other books arent much better! Just dont depend on this book as your one resource, and books are not a substitute for experience. To have everything possibly covered on the exam in a book, you'd need 350 more pages! Although another reviewer wrote that this book goes too much in depth, this is not my experience. Even if you may not need everything about IDE or SCSI in the depth covered, REAL LIFE regularly goes way deeper than mentioned in this book, and there are even errors for nitpickers like me. The coverage of High availablity and clusters was under par. My main issue with this book is that it was too much oriented towards hardware technology, whereas the exam is also oriented towards real life OS administration, troubleshooting, and running Back ups, policies etc. The exam is trying to make sure you have your act together as a Server proffesional. The CD was better than the book, but had some small errors in it.
Rating:
Summary: Author should read a book on "How to Teach"
Review: The Server+ certification is supposed to be an advanced designation for techs whose expertise extends beyond a simple PC to the complex systems used to share resources where availability and reliability are not luxuries, but absolute neccessities. A candidate should have a solid foundation in basic PC technology. The author of a study guide for this certification should recognize this fact. Moreover, he should convey new information in a coherent, understandable format. This work fails on both these counts. Page 501, second paragraph, reads as follows...."Now is a good time to explain bytes and megabytes. Very simply, a byte is 8 bits." Mr. Bigelow, are you kidding?
Rating:
Summary: This book is really worthless
Review: This book is very poor for the content, the exam is based on hardware theory but this book spends more time on the instructions on how to install individual hardware devices which is good if you lost the manual for the device but is not needed for the exam. I suggest going for the Server+ Bible which is very well written and aimed towards the test not away like this one is.
Rating:
Summary: This Book Doesn't Cut It
Review: This text fails to prepare readers for the Server + exam. It contains some misspellings and inconsistencies here and there, but I really began to worry when answers to some of the practice test questions directly contradicted the text, such as the maximum throughput of a ATAPI-4 device. The text says 33MB/sec, but the practice test answer is 66MB/sec. The text also contains pages and pages of codes particular to individual brands of controllers and operating systems. Also, the term ?Windows 98? is mentioned countess times throughout the text, although it is (obviously) not a NOS. Much of the information in this text appears dated but with just a few words amended here and there to update it. For example, although this book was published in 2001, one sentence reads in part that ?by late 2000, the PC industry will likely move to the Ultra-ATA/100 drives.? This book was poorly edited. Unlike this book, the actual certification exam made no mention of Windows 98 and rarely focused on specific operating systems. The exam also contained questions about topic mentioned absolutely nowhere in the text. Two examples are Grandfather-Father-Son backup routines and terminology involving server rack measurements, just to name a few. I could locate no addendums or software updates on the Osborne website prior to and during my study, indicating that neither the publisher nor the author intends to correct these critical discrepancies. I have successfully self-studied for both Novell and Microsoft certification exams and know the amount of effort required to succeed. But even if I had had this book at my side during the exam, it would not have helped because it simply does not contain vital topics. I hope both the author and the publisher remove this bound snake oil from the market so others don?t make the same expensive mistake as I.
Rating: 
Summary: Inadequate
Review: This was the worst of the Server+ study guides I read. The book in itself is just a bunch of instruction manuals for various devices. The book itself barely covers even half the test, if that, and spends its time going over pointless stuff. The practice questions on the CD are even more worthless than the book itself. Save your money for one of the other guides.
<< 1 >>
| 
