labs...

i've been working on the ccnp switch manual that i got in the mail yesterday, the network academy official cisco blue and white, softcover, ad infinitum... about 50 bucks after shipping... the reason i got it is the switch ocg is very light on labs, in fact, it basically only has examples, not full blown labs... labs are important... labs force repetition, and we know for testing repetition is vital... you get to a point where some things you start doing automatically, without thinking, if you do them enough, and that is a good thing...

i promised i'd do every step of every lab, and it is often painful...  before you get to the next chapter, the manual insists that you delete vlan.dat and erase start and reload... yuck...  i tore my layer 3 tshoot topology completely apart, am using almost all my xover cables, and recabled the whole thing exactly as it is in the book... pain in the asssssssss...

but it's crucial that i do this...  it is easy to fall into the trap that you race through the whole smash and in doing so, you might miss something...

and of course there is the section on isl (very brief, a passing nod) vtp and dtp, and the dynamic states of trunks, dynamic desirable, etc. things that should be avoided completely... and i'm gritting my teeth now as i go through pagp (arrgh)... but in the end and as i've said before...

you have no business avoiding a technology in this journey (especially an historical one) until you understand completely how to use it first...

                                                                 HULK SMASH