Welcome to Krazzy Town

Trying to read through text books that are technical documents like the CCENT/CCNA ICND1 100-105 Official Cert Guide by Wendell Odom, can be hard to retain information, especially when you don’t have any experience with it. One resource that was pointed out to me by my Course Mentor is a webinar series by Dr. Stephanie Burns.

Even though the series is aimed at the preparing for the Cisco Exams, the material can be carried over to any course of study.

The video series can be found on The Cisco Learning Network, which is a free signup to gain access to them. Here is a link to the series: https://learningnetwork.cisco.com/community/learning_center/cisco_exam_preparation. The video series is about 3.5 hours, but is broken down into small segments ranging from a 5-15 minutes.

Microsoft recently released a reference guide called “Windows Command Reference”. It is a huge 948 page PDF file that contains documentation for over 200 commands. Within the document, there are examples of each command along with the different parameters and the syntax of each command.

You can find the PDF on Microsoft’s site here.

With one term completed at WGU, I have accomplished getting the CompTIA A+ and CompTIA Network + certificates. A new term has started and I plan to have the LPI Linux Essentials, CompTIA Security+ and the Cisco CCENT certificates by November.

It’s been a lot of hard work getting there, but it will be worth it once I complete the Bachelor’s Degree for it.

So, I’ve signed up for my Bachelor’s Degree through an online school that allows me to work at my pace. After receiving my student email through the school, I try to add the account in Microsoft Outlook 2016 for ease of use since it is a gmail based account. After making sure the settings are updated in GMail so I can add the account, I still can not get it to connect.

Not wanting to spend a lot of time troubleshooting the issue, I call the IT Support line to get help.

The conversation went as follows after explaining what I was wanting to do, “I’m sorry, we only use Gmail. You can’t use Outlook to do that.”

Huh, What? I was able to use Outlook on my phone and the default mail program on Windows 10, but I can’t use Outlook on my desktop? Looks like they have first year students working the Help Desk.

After spending several hours researching why I wasn’t able to get the account setup in Outlook, I discover that the email account itself is part of the Google Apps Suite that the school is using. Then I was able to narrow my search down to see that there is a small program that you can download from Google to sync the account and information into Outlook.

After downloading and running the program, I now have my school email through Outlook just like I wanted. So much for not being able to do that!

Guess I should call back and tell them how to do it since they don’t have a clue.

Awhile ago I received an email from Comcast Xfinity saying that my internet speed was increased from 150 Mbps to up to 200 Mbps free of charge. All I needed to do was reboot my modem to enjoy the speeds.

So before I do that, I go to Speedtest.net to get my current speed so I could compare. Well, after running the speed test, my download speed is ~80ish Mbps, which is well below the 150 Mbps that I’m suppose to be getting.

I check the Ethernet cable hooked up to my computer to see that it’s a Cat 5e cable, which would easily support up to 1 Gbps. The next thing I check is the switch that I have my PC hooked up to. It is only rated for 10/100 network speeds. Okay, so I can’t go through the switch because it doesn’t support the speed I’m suppose to be getting, no problem, just hook straight up to the router and I should be good to go.

So after moving the Ethernet cable from the switch to the router, I reboot the modem for the speed increase to take affect. I load up Speedtest.net to test the speeds, and still have the same results. Well crap, so I check the Ethernet cable between the modem and the router. It’s only a Cat 5 cable which maxes out at 100 Mbps, that’s no problem, just replace the cable with a Cat 5e or Cat 6 that I might have laying around the house.

Before I get into that, I want to make sure that I am getting the speeds that I’m suppose to be getting anyways, so I hook my PC straight up the the modem and run the speedtest again. I get great results, it maxed out at 233 Mbps, which is more than I’m suppose to be getting. But before I go looking for the Ethernet cable to replace, let me look at the speeds that the router can handle. Looking at the documentation, it only supports 10/100 also, so it wouldn’t be able to pass along the increased speed.

So in order for me to benefit from the increase in speed or even the speed I’ve been paying for, I need to upgrade my router and Ethernet cables. Granted the whole setup is around 11 years old, so it’s due for an upgrade.

So the whole point of this, is to point out how important it is to know what your hardware can handle and to know what your internet speed is, so you can get the benefits of what you are paying for.

-Hesgone Krazzy