Venting about size of books

I'm potentially going to go for the CISSP next year. I've had a flick through some of the well known books and one thing about them is they are gigantic. Like 700-1000 pages.

This is a bit ridiculous for a few reasons:

1) taking the book anywhere is not going to work. When studying I try to carry the study book with me. Like to work, on the train etc... just so I can read or have a look at something. Helps the learning process

2) even sitting at a desk would get annoying id imagine. 1000 pages stacked up and awkwardly in the way

3) its also a very daunting task I'd guess to have such a thick, seemingly never ending book to work through

maybe im over thinking this.

Id pay a bit more for cissp books which were domain focussed.

Eg one book just for domain one. A nice 100 page compact book which you can read anytime and sit with it anywhere.

Not sure if this as occurred to others or just me!

Find more posts tagged with

Free for TechExams community: Cybersecurity salary guide

Compare cert salaries and plan your next career move

Button

Comments

shoey

cybercop123 wrote: »

wow, what a great and well thought out comment.

LMAO, great.

shoey

McxRisley wrote: »

It seemed like you were complaining about both things to me, but if you weren't then carry on lol

LMAO, great too.

shoey

Most of the books I've purchased are eBooks... BUT as I write this I'm starring at six different oversized and super thick EC-Counsel C|EH and C|HFI books. Utter garbage.

beads

cshkuru wrote: »

Actually he didn't complain about the amount of reading at all. He complained about lugging a refrigerator sized book around with him. I completely agree. I would far prefer smaller more focused volumes. It might actually end up being more pages but the convenience of carry around a smaller domain concentrated book would make up for it, I think. I know there is the e-reader option and I do use that quite a bit but when I am in something for the long haul I like the physical book with pages and page numbers I can flip back and forth too and dog ear etc. In other words OP and I are right and the rest of you are wrong.

I am sure you think the CISSP is or was some tough to pass test. I see or am contacted monthly by people who think passing a fairly easy exam will replace both experience and education in one fell swoop. Yes, there was a day when you had to actually know what your talking about. Yes, Shon started the entire CISSP training gold rush. Yes, it really felt different from the first time I passed, eventually allowing the cert to retire and retaking it. The only real similarity was taking it by hand versus later exams taken at the testing center.

As far as the AiO was concerned the publisher had recently ditched the baked clay tablets for printed pages so it was indeed much lighter and you could carry one around in what we referred to as "book bags". Amazing inventions but probably too heavy for today's student.

I make NO apologies for being hard on people who fake their way through any certification and there have been many, many examples to deal.

Fraud is fraud.

- b/eads

SteveLavoie

I make NO apologies for being hard on people who fake their way through any certification and there have been many, many examples to deal.

Also, certification is far from a Super Power

It is only a measure of knowledge in a specific point of time. Also if the certification is not hands-on it does not translate automatically to solving real problem.

I like this comic strip from Dilbert. I saw it first when being an MCSE was considered a wizard on Windows

Dilbert Comic Strip on 2000-08-31 | Dilbert by Scott Adams

NetworkNewb

I might need to put that Dilbert comic strip up in my cube, print off all my certs, and surround the comic strip with them.

moyondizvo

SteveLavoie wrote: »

I like this comic strip from Dilbert. I saw it first when being an MCSE was considered a wizard on Windows

Dilbert Comic Strip on 2000-08-31 | Dilbert by Scott Adams

I just love this forum

tedjames

So why doesn't some enterprising and aspiring author/trainer take it upon him/herself to write a series of CISSP study guides that focus on all of the specific domains based on the exam objectives?

When I was prepping for SSCP, I used multiple sources. I based my study plan on the official exam objectives, researched several sources, and then studied by domain. I found that I learned faster and retained more that way.

Moral of the story: make your own study guide. Someone in another thread did just that for OSCP and posted it. Seeing the value of it, I downloaded it so I can use it one day when I'm ready.

cbkihong

CyberCop123 wrote: »

The suggestion of using an e-reader is a good one, and I'll probably look at that AND also the book itself. Then I can study quite flexibly then. The only downside to an e-reader is you lose the ability to quickly turn back to something 50 pages back to check something. But that's just a small thing.

Well, ease of navigation is exactly why you should get yourself an e-reader. With many ebooks software you can just open the TOC and click to jump to individual sections. If not sufficient you can even add bookmarks for your custom needs. You might not be able to do it on Kindle hardware since I don't own one and not sure, but for computer/smartphone ebook readers you can definitely do that.

shoey

beads wrote: »

cshkuru wrote: »

In other words OP and I are right and the rest of you are wrong.

- b/eads

Hilarious

cshkuru

I am sure you think the CISSP is or was some tough to pass test. I see or am contacted monthly by people who think passing a fairly easy exam will replace both experience and education in one fell swoop. Yes, there was a day when you had to actually know what your talking about. Yes, Shon started the entire CISSP training gold rush. Yes, it really felt different from the first time I passed, eventually allowing the cert to retire and retaking it. The only real similarity was taking it by hand versus later exams taken at the testing center.

The only people I have ever seen get this worked up over and exam are people who have failed it a couple times when their "inferiors" passed it the first time. Is that what happened to you? No, that can't be it because you went to a top tier school (you told us so in a series of posts a while back) so you can't be outdone by any of us gibbering idiots.

laurieH

As others have said - yes the books are big but they need to be fairly big as there's a lot in them. You do get the benefit when buying the Sybex Official Study Guide in that you also get the PDF version included which is helpful when you want to search for something. The only thing I would say about that particular guide is that it is a bit repetitive so could probably be cut down a bit and not lose any real content.