General

This post is for you regular users of Certskills.com. We just completed a fairly major update of the site! But most of the changes are hidden from you. In this post, I’ll let you know what [...]

Over the years, I’ve created a bundle of about 75 lab exercises here at the blog, called Config Labs. The idea is to read the web page for the lab, then do the lab, and then check your [...]

Cisco plans to release start testing based on the CCNA 200-301 Version 1.1 blueprint starting August 20, 2024, replacing the former V1.0 blueprint. Yes, we have new books out mid-year 2024 that [...]

Hi all you regular blog users, I’m sure you know we released new CCNA Official Cert Guides in mid-year 2024. Those books impact this blog because the blog organizes its content to match the [...]

The Cisco Press eBook products have a long formal title – so the title gets abbreviated a lot. The abbreviations leave out the end: “and Practice Test,” so people sometimes miss that [...]

Can you guess – approximately – how many more unique practice questions you’ll see in the CCNA OCG Library, Second Edition, vs. the First edition? Or how many more timed CCNA practice exam banks [...]

Drumroll, please… yes, the CCNA Official Cert Guides have practice exams! Most of you are not surprised. What surprises me is that our surveys show that some people who buy the books do not even [...]

This post is short, sweet, and straightforward. It answers the most common questions about the CCNA Official Cert Guide products. It details the new 2nd Edition books, out in calendar year 2024. [...]

Cisco announced Version 1.1 of the CCNA 200-301 blueprint on April 22, 2024. They also announced an exam cutover date of August 20, 2024. If you happen to be studying for CCNA in those months, [...]

Cisco just announced (April 2024) a new version of the CCNA 200-301 blueprint. It’s a minor change. But with almost five years of time since the last blueprint announcement, there’s much more to [...]

For the first time in almost five years, Cisco today announced a new CCNA exam blueprint: The CCNA 200-301 Version 1.1 blueprint. Dramatic, right? Let’s look at the changes together in this post [...]

I’ve written and taught a lot during my career, but I’ve never made a concerted effort to use YouTube. Well, it’s time. The channel name is Network Upskill, and the URL is [...]

We’ve updated the blog site! Driven by a need to change to a new WordPress theme, I invested more time updating some of the styling, content, and features to make the site more usable for [...]

I like to use what I call terminology heat maps when studying, so much so that I also recommend them to students when teaching classes at O’Reilly (learning.oreilly.com). I describe what a [...]

Back in 2023, Cisco announced an annual cycle during which they consider making changes in each certification track. Cisco just announced their plans for this year’s cycle for the CCNA [...]

Cisco just released web pages and has begun discussing a new initiative called Cisco Certification Roadmaps. The short version: Cisco tells us the timing of potential updates to their exams. Yep. [...]

The most recent CCNA and CCNP exam release (February 2022) had a minor side effect that left many wondering: Was Cisco continuing to use the Sim and Simlet question types? A Cisco blog post in [...]

Some of you, particularly those that subscribe to the blog, will have noticed a lot of posts here at the blog in mid-October 2021. I thought I’d give you a quick update on what I’m [...]

You studied hard for CCNA 200-125, but you know you won’t finish it before the Feb 23rd deadline. Now you’ve moved on to CCNA 200-301. Did you use my CCNA 200-125 books? Are you now [...]

Anyone who has been pursuing CCNA Routing and Switching (R&S) over the last several months has asked themselves a simple question: Should I move on to study for the new CCNA based on the [...]

We – Cisco Press and I – decided to produce two volumes for the new CCNA 200-301 exam. We can explain the what and the why in a sentence each, but the two-volume approach presents [...]

Between Cisco’s June 10, 2019 announcement and migration day – Feb. 24, 2020 – everyone on the road to Cisco certification has some choices to make. You might make those choices [...]

Cisco made some huge certification announcements last month. As soon as I heard (beforehand a bit, as usual), I started a tickler list of random blog ideas, just because there are so many [...]

You can choose to pursue the existing CCNA Routing and Switching certification or pursue the new CCNA certification come Feb 2020. However, this post does not talk about the choice, but instead [...]

Wow. Nine named CCNA certifications, plus CCDA – all being replaced by one CCNA certification come February 2020. Basically, Cisco morphed CCNA Routing and Switching (R&S) into the new CCNA. [...]