CompTIA books?

capy_12090

I notice CompTIA sells books associated with each of their certs. Are these books any good? I never hear anyone mention them. They are a bit pricey....

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TheShadow

They are a fairly new item basically this year. Not many or any review of them yet. Seem I remember hearing Thompson or prometic fame was involved but I could be wrong.

capy_12090

Okay, I will be the guinea pig. I just ordered one.

Plantwiz

capy_12090 wrote:

Okay, I will be the guinea pig. I just ordered one.

Looking forward to your review. The Thompson books in the past have been a little short of good information. I too have read that CompTIA has partnered/assoicated with Thompson on the books, so I'm curious if they have made improvements somehow.

capy_12090

First impressions:

The book (i-Net+ Certification) was unexpectedly spiral bound… this is both a good thing and a bad thing… bad for the long term durability of the book but at least the pages stay where you put them. Also, my bookmark just fell out.

The book comes with a CD with a free practice test, but the CD stupidly doesn’t include all of the supplementary materials mentioned in the book… you actually have to go to CompTIA’s website to download them.

The book is black and white and not much to look at considering it cost $60. At least the free shipping was prompt.

The book contains over 500 pages of material on large pages, but the pages aren’t numbered in the standard fashion so I don’t know the exact page number without doing a bit of addition.

The book is written as if intended for use in a classroom setting, and has a sort of breezy textbook feel to it, rather than the do-or-die exam prep style one would generally expect to see. Importantly, and unfortunately, it does not contain lines like “focus on this for the exam.”

Finally, the book contains some unintentional humor. The book starts by telling us that “CompTIA has not reviewed or approved the accuracy of the contents of this training manual.” Curious for a book from “CompTIA Press.” Later, there is a two page description of how to send an email. This comes after a description of the difference between a T1 line and a T3 line. Um, if I don’t even know how to send an email, is the difference between a T1 line and a T3 line going to be meaningful in the slightest? The book also has a tendency to end hands-on descriptions with lines like “Now close Internet Explorer,” for the readers who wouldn’t have figured that part out on their own. Yet after learning to surf the web (!!!) and use Outlook Express in chapter 1, by chapter 2 we are setting up an Apache server.

Of course, the real test is how I do on the eventual exam.

TheShadow

Sounds like typical Thompson style. Also CompTIA is really getting behind classroom education with their career compass spinoff programs so that may be why you smelled a textbook feel. They have been mailing everyone a technical instructor newsletter lately. Oh well I hope that it helps you at $60

rbowman

After being subject to way to many thompson books at college I would have to say that they are like studying for a commercial rather then a test. Heres the rirst paragraph intro to the Win2k Active Directory text:

"The release of Microsoft Windows 2000 gives us a lot to be excited about. Along with an operating system that is more stable, more scalable. and easier to maintain then previous operatingy systems, we have new features and possibilities that we have not seen before. Some of these new features are fairly minor (although none is insignificant). Others requre you to change the way you think about your networks and the way you work with them in an enterprise."

Thats the BS I had to put up with in the classroom everyday. I was very much relieved when I got to my Cisco router class and we had a sybex book and I wonder why? Maybe because In my opinion Sybex would rather teach you then to subject you to a big pamplet about the stuff your trying to learn about.

I will never read another course/thompson book again...even if its a stratigy guide for a video game which sybex also offers by the way.

Sybex would have to be one of the best study/teaching material out there