By Amy Haigh
If you are planning to take a Microsoft certification exam in the near future, you may want to book your exam, or at least purchase an exam voucher, before the end of June. On July 1, 2011, the prices for many of Microsoft’s most popular certification exams will increase for the first time in nine years. Certifications to be affected include MCTS, MCITP, MCSA, MCSE, and MCDBA, and Boson offers ExSim-Max Practice Exams for each of these certifications. In the United States, the price for most exams will increase from $125 to $150 for regular examinees. For high school and college students, the price for most exams will increase from $60 to $83. Microsoft Certified Trainers (MCTs) will receive a 50% discount on all exams. For Microsoft’s announcement and a FAQ about the new pricing structure, see the New Prices for Microsoft Certifications Exams Web page.
By Val Bakh
2.3.1 Deployment images
Compared to installing earlier versions of Windows, installing Windows 7 on your home computer is almost a breeze, especially if the computer is new and you don’t need to worry about preserving your data or the applications that you’ve been using with an older operating system. Just insert the Windows 7 installation DVD that you have purchased, click Install Now, answer a few simple prompts, and less than half an hour later, it’s ready to go. But if you are an IT pro and you need to deploy Windows 7 to dozens or, perhaps, even hundreds of computers, it becomes a bit more complicated. Even if all the installations were the same and all target computers were identical, their sheer number would make at-home-style, individual installations impractical. Wouldn’t it be nice if you could install and configure everything on just one computer and then clone the installation to the rest?
Press Release: Boson introduces a new ExSim-Max™ practice exam for the Cisco® 640-461 (ICOMM) v8.0 certification exam. The 640-461 (ICOMM) exam is the core requirement for the CCNA® Voice certification. ExSim-Max practice exams are available at www.boson.com.
By Brian Scheibe
I recently discussed why it’s helpful to be able to create your own lab packs using the Lab Compiler included in Boson's NetSim network simulator software. Lab packs include topology files (*.top), lab documents (*.xps), loading configuration files (*.nwc), and grading configuration files (*.nwc). If you’ve created your own lab pack and want to import the files into NetSim, simply select the Custom Lab Packs tab and then click Lab > Import Lab Pack from the Menu Bar. Sometimes, however, you won’t need to include the individual topology and loading configuration files as a part of a lab pack. The good news is that you can still use them in NetSim.
By Val Bakh
2.2.2 A product key in an answer file
Suppose you have a custom WIM image of Windows 7 Enterprise, and you have a Multiple Activation Key (MAK). How can you assign the MAK to all target computers? Going around and personally typing in the MAK on each computer would be so-o-o uncool! You can specify the MAK in an answer file and use the answer file for the deployment.
By James Hanback
You've spent endless nights poring over CCNA Voice IT certification training guides, answering CCNA Voice practice questions, and searching—perhaps in vain—for a CCNA Voice lab simulation environment where you can get your hands on a shiny used Cisco Unified Communications 500 (UC500) that you can use to practice everything that you memorized from study guide screen shots and CCNA practice exam hearsay. Thinking you're all primed to obtain your latest Cisco certification, you sit for the CCNA Voice exam and, to your horror, discover that what you studied for is yesterday's news, cold bath water, stale bread, or pick your own metaphor. The rumors of the death of the UC500 topic in the CCNA Voice exam have not been exaggerated at all.
2.2 Activation
2.2.1 Volume Activation
Each installation of Windows 7 must be activated. It is a legal requirement for ensuring that an instance of the operating system is legitimate. There is a 30-day initial grace period, during which you can make up your mind. If you are using Windows 7 for evaluation, testing, or software development and you need to frequently reinstall it and start afresh, you can extend the grace period up to three times by running the following command:
By Michael Aldridge
I am often asked by people who are studying for the Cisco CCNA certification exam about what kinds of questions they can expect to see. Cisco exams can include the following question types:
By Josh E.
Being able to implement first hop router redundancy protocols is one of the objectives listed for Cisco’s 642-813 SWITCH exam. Cisco supports three first hop redundancy protocols: Gateway Load Balancing Protocol (GLBP), Hot Standby Router Protocol (HSRP), and Virtual Router Redundancy Protocol (VRRP). This article provides an overview of each of these protocols.
By Brian Scheibe
I had a chance to talk to a customer on the telephone this week who was planning to teach a CCNA 640-802 class to students located around the country. His plan was to use laptops configured with NetSim for CCNA in the classroom so that he did not have to transport bulky Cisco equipment.