BlueWolf's Howl

« Trick or Treat! | Bluewolf's Howl | Charcoal »

November 01, 2003

Security+

Well...I finished the Study Guide today (note the updated sidebar). I'm doing in the 80%-90% range on the chapter tests. It's now down to the wire for this exam.

I have to figure out which details I need to memorize. I'll go through my study notes and make a few 3X5 cards. I've found it easier to memorize things on 3X5 cards. I should have a small little set of them for this exam. Most of the material deals with concepts and definitions.

I'll probably have to put the symmetric and asymmetric algorithm types on the cards. Things like that are easy to confuse and need to be memorized. Most of the other stuff is already a part of my knowledge base. The book covered a lot of networking concepts and practices that I've been doing for years. That stuff is easy for me. I've also had the opportunity to write a few security policies and disaster recovery policies. This makes those items a piece of cake too. I guess I'm getting to the point where my experience is very helpful. Once you work out a few backup schemes and implement them IRL, you never forget the concepts of a backup policy.

I'm scheduling this test for next Monday (10 Nov). That will give me a week of reinforcement and practice tests. Since this exam is not expiring, there's no pressure to take it by a certain date. But, still...the sooner I take it, the sooner I can move on to the next test. At least it's not stressful and the pace is leisurely...

I've already ordered the book for the next exam (70-214 -- Network Security Administration). It should arrive just before I take the exam. In the meantime...I'm hoping to start back into the Ethics material. I should have had that test done by now, but I've put it off in favor of vendor certs. From the jobs listed on Monster.com, it's looking like the degree is really going to be the "ticket" to a better job. The vendor certs will help also, but I think the degree is going to be the toggle switch.

I'm finding it strange to have "down time"... The bottleneck for the next batch of tests is financial, so the pace has slowed for a while. I'm looking around at the "other" books I've been wanting to read -- computer forensics, cryptography, linux... and now I finally have a few leisure moments to read them. It seems so odd. I feel guilty for pleasure reading.

Still, I also know that I don't know everything that I want to know about all this stuff. There's always so much to learn. There's always another level of depth to find on any topic in networking. I guess that's what I like so much about it. There's always something new to learn...

Posted by BlueWolf on November 1, 2003 06:40 PM