Lammle Vs. Odom and Sybex Virtual Router

human151

I have the ICND1 & ICND2 Book by Odom and they are very well written imo.

My reason for this question is I recently bought the sybex virtual router program and I love it. The only problem is that is supposedly works best is conjunction with Lammles book. If anyone has read this book, is it good?


Or if anyone has used the Sybex/Lammle virtual router, would the book really help when used in conjunction with the program?

Thanks in advance.

Victorious

The Lammle's book is good (to me I think the Lammles book has better labs). It gives you just what you need for to pass the exam. Odem's is the single greatest book and goes into much depth. I actually used both books for my CCENT. Use more then one source for your studies.

Good luck! Let me know if you need anything.

nicklauscombs

If you can afford it definitely pick up the lammle book it is a great supplement to Odom's book

iworms

I've read only the Lammle book so I don't have comparison, but to me the Lammle book needs improvement.

First it is not very in depth. Some may like this but not me. Often he mentions something that gets me curious and I have to search google or read relevant chapters in cisco's Internetworking Technology Handbook.

Second, sometimes he gets the little facts or terms wrong or self-contradictory. For example, he uses checksum and CRC interchangeably, which is wrong. It's not likely to affect your CCNA exam, but can be confusing.

Last, Lammle is not the best writer. Sometimes his expression is too informal and lacks the clarity of written language. For instance he likes to add "right?" after a fact, like this:
Figure 2.9 shows an internetwork (it has a router, so it's an internetwork, right?).
That annoys me because in a traditional classroom, when a teacher asks "right?", the answer is usually "no."

All in all, the Lammle book won't hurt you and can only help. But that is true for every other CCNA book.

tiersten

You'd better get used to the Cisco Press style because after CCNA, its all Cisco Press pretty much. Sybex don't do all the courses for CCNP.

jbaello

Use all of them, I'm using Chris Bryant so far, and I love how he teach, he doesn't hypnotize me till I fall asleep :P

netwayne

human151 wrote:

I have the ICND1 & ICND2 Book by Odom and they are very well written imo.

My reason for this question is I recently bought the sybex virtual router program and I love it. The only problem is that is supposedly works best is conjunction with Lammles book. If anyone has read this book, is it good?


Or if anyone has used the Sybex/Lammle virtual router, would the book really help when used in conjunction with the program?

Thanks in advance.

I guess it makes sense that the Sybex virtual router program would be better suited for use with their CCNA author, Todd Lammle and if you happened to buy the virtual router program without buying the Lammle book, that's one way for them to persuade you to do so.

While I can't comment on the Sybex virtual router program not having used it, I can say that I thought the Lammle book was pretty good but if you do decide to use it, I would strongly suggest that you check out the errata page for the book listed on the lammle.com forum (the link actually takes you to a Sybex webpage). There were a number of errors in the book. (mostly typos)