A+ Advice Needed!

Discussion in 'A+' started by Professor-Falken, Aug 18, 2005.

  1. Professor-Falken

    Professor-Falken Kilobyte Poster

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    I need some advice. I will be begin studying for my A+ exams full time very soon. Everyday and night to complete my certification. I am using Mike Meyers "All In One A+ Certification"
    book, but I need some advice it is recommended to have some computers to build and rebuild while reading the book. I have the money to buy the computers but I am not sure what computers I should be buying to get a thorough understanding of the material in the book. Also are there any schools that i can go to that can teach me all that I need to know to pass the A+ certification exams.

    Please all advice would be appreciated.

    Thanks
    Professor Falken
     
    Certifications: Comptia A+
    WIP: Comptia Network +
  2. simongrahamuk
    Honorary Member

    simongrahamuk Hmmmmmmm?

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    whilst I have never taken the A+, any computers that you can play with will help you learn the materials. You could build your own PC (my recommendation) by just buying the parts from your local computer shop, or via the internet as this will helpyou to know exactly what you are doing. Another option would to be to try and pick up some old computers from somewhere like a charity shop, or see if your work has any that they no longer want and buy them for a minimal fee.

    There are many tech schools out there who will train you, but as you have already started reading a book which will cover the same concepts as any course why not stay on the self study route and do it in you time and at your own pace.

    No school can teach to pass an exam,it is you who must laern all that there is to know, a good step would be to complete reading your book and see where you feel weak, then try and improve on those areas. You will find that the book will teach yourself just as much as a course, but at the fraction of the cost.

    Good luck on your studies.

    8)
     
  3. tripwire45
    Honorary Member

    tripwire45 Zettabyte Poster

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    I agree with Simon. You don't need top of the line PCs...just some older model you don't mind working and reworking.
     
    Certifications: A+ and Network+
  4. ffreeloader

    ffreeloader Terabyte Poster

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    Good advice from Simon.

    Pick up as many old PC's as you can. The older the better in some cases. The more you are forced to learn to use things like DOS to work with the computer and configure it the better off you will be in the long run. You will learn much more about how a computer actually works. That will give you a very solid foundation when starting to learn administration tasks.

    Windows really dumbed down the requirements for what it takes to work on a computer. It was done to the detriment of the average user to if you ask me. Everything is so wizard driven that people are just completely intimidated by any mention of DOS, command prompt, or bash shell, and it really didn't need to be that way.
     
    Certifications: MCSE, MCDBA, CCNA, A+
    WIP: LPIC 1
  5. tripwire45
    Honorary Member

    tripwire45 Zettabyte Poster

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    I had a really interesting experience last night. A few years back, I finally retired our old Windows 98 machine that was the "family machine" and replaced it with a new Dell loaded with XP Pro. My wife needed something off of the old machine which sits in a cabinet in our garage.

    I set the thing up and even after a few years inactivity, it fired up quite nicely. I needed to connect it to my LAN and tried:
    Code:
    ipconfig/release
    and
    Code:
    ipconfig/renew
    Instead of the desired result, I got the help print out for those commands. I'd forgotten that in Windows 98, the commands are
    Code:
    ipconfig/release_all
    and
    Code:
    ipconfig/renew_all
    :oops:
     
    Certifications: A+ and Network+
  6. ffreeloader

    ffreeloader Terabyte Poster

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    And here I'd always used winipcfg. :blink :cry:

    I know so little. You da man, trip.
     
    Certifications: MCSE, MCDBA, CCNA, A+
    WIP: LPIC 1
  7. tripwire45
    Honorary Member

    tripwire45 Zettabyte Poster

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    Oh brother. :rolleyes: Actually, ipconfig will work on Windows 98 and produce a display similar to when you run the command on 2000 and XP. As you rightly said though, wnipcnfg tends to be the command of choice to access that data on a Windows 9x system.
     
    Certifications: A+ and Network+
  8. ffreeloader

    ffreeloader Terabyte Poster

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    LOL. Actually, I'd absent mindedly tried to run ipconfig on 9x machines and it failed every time. Didn't even bring up a help screen so I didn't even know it would work. Shows what I know.
     
    Certifications: MCSE, MCDBA, CCNA, A+
    WIP: LPIC 1
  9. tripwire45
    Honorary Member

    tripwire45 Zettabyte Poster

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    Check again. Maybe you adsent mindedly tried to run "ifconfig" which would certainly fail. :tongue
     
    Certifications: A+ and Network+
  10. ffreeloader

    ffreeloader Terabyte Poster

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    Well, actually I haven't worked on a 9x box for a while. I do, however, try it occasionally on 2000 and XP boxes.... I even let it slip answering an interview question and made the interviewer laugh. I'd gotten quite a bit further into my answer before I realized I'd said ifconfig instead of ipconfig and had to stop in the middle and correct my slip of the tongue.
     
    Certifications: MCSE, MCDBA, CCNA, A+
    WIP: LPIC 1
  11. tripwire45
    Honorary Member

    tripwire45 Zettabyte Poster

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    And when you are on a Windows machine on the command line, do you forget and run "ls" instead of "dir"? :biggrin Interestingly enough, I just tried "dir | more" on my XP laptop and it works. :blink You learn something new everyday. :wink:
     
    Certifications: A+ and Network+
  12. ffreeloader

    ffreeloader Terabyte Poster

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    Been there and done that. :biggrin
     
    Certifications: MCSE, MCDBA, CCNA, A+
    WIP: LPIC 1

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