Passed the Network + exam after a month of intense study. It was probably the easiest time of all the exams I’ve passed, but did require some focus and attention. One thing that it helped me gain are more clear ways to work around problems that arise in managing my network.
Which reminds me of a funny story. The other day I was re-setting up my public IP on a new router Verizon gave me. I called their support to help set it up. I had all the IP’s on hand and was told it was a quick process. So when it came to setting it up their support people walked me through setting a static IP on the internal network *facepalm*. They were so confused as to what I was requesting help for and at some point insisted that the public IP address Verizon gave me was just flatly incorrect. I was then directed to another support person and they wanted to walk me through the same steps as the first support person. I tried protesting, stating that there was some confusion as to what is trying to be setup, but they wouldn’t listen.
So I started poking around while on the line with them and found the “Broadband Connection (Ethernet/Coax) Properties” settings and was able to input the public IP, subnet mask, default gateway and dns server addresses on there and voila! everything worked. I told them that I no longer needed their help. I was then asked to walk them through the fix and explain each step I took. So there ya go, this stuff came in handy irl ;p
