Not a fan of the Syngress book.

aordal

I'm in the middle of Chapter 6 and so far I've found some bad info and it lightly touches on so many topics. I realize there's alot of topics on this test but this book is like "Yeah theres alot of stuff you can do, you should try doing some cool stuff, but we won't tell you how to do it or how it works."

Just a little rant, but I'm not impressed. Should I just skip all these beginning chapters and just read on NLB/Clustering and PKI chapters? Maybe I'm just annoyed that I feel like I'm reading a very watered down version of a 291 book.

NetAdmin2436

Really?

I'm only chapter 2 of the Snygress book, but I find it's much more in depth than the MS Press book so far and covers more stuff. I'm liking it much better.

aordal

Hmm. I never read the MS Press books. I read the Sybex books and I liked them. Also the lady on the dvd who moves her hands back and forth constantly is pretty annoying

dynamik

I suggest you read the MS Press book. Then the Syngress book will seem like the most in-depth book you've ever read in comparison

293 is the planning/design side of 291. It's not going to be as technical. They did throw in a few technical items such as PKI, NLB/Clustering, etc. It's going to be a lot of theory. My only complaint about the Syngress book is that I thought it could have been written in more of a concise manner. i.e. three pages could have conveyed the same amount of information as two paragraphs. Lack of depth was certainly not a problem.

Technowiz

Have to agree with dynamik. How many pages is that Syngress book? Most college textbooks aren't as thick. Was way too wordy for me to read front to back. Technet write ups seem to be top notch if you want to learn what you need to know without having to read a big thick book.

aordal

Book is 918 pages to the end of the last chapter. If you count the Appendix (study questions) then it's 1023. Thing is like 6" think I swear.

I'm still going to read it, and it may entirely be that it's not the books fault that it's all on theory. I'm a technical guy and theory crafting is more annoying to me. If this book is much better than MS Press it's my only study option anyways .

NetAdmin2436

Technowiz wrote:

Have to agree with dynamik. How many pages is that Syngress book? Most college textbooks aren't as thick. Was way too wordy for me to read front to back. Technet write ups seem to be top notch if you want to learn what you need to know without having to read a big thick book.

Syngress is 1023 pages.

MS Press book is about 700 or so (they don't have page numbers).

It just so happens I have them both in front of me and I'm on my lunch break, so here's a side by side comparison (literally! )

snadam

NetAdmin2436 wrote:

Technowiz wrote:

Have to agree with dynamik. How many pages is that Syngress book? Most college textbooks aren't as thick. Was way too wordy for me to read front to back. Technet write ups seem to be top notch if you want to learn what you need to know without having to read a big thick book.

Syngress is 1023 pages.

MS Press book is about 700 or so (they don't have page numbers).

It just so happens I have them both in front of me and I'm on my lunch break, so here's a side by side comparison (literally! )

lol yea. Check out the other threads. I have both MS press and Syngress. What I did was read the MS Press through and through, then went to the Syngress to focus on my weaker subjects. While I would probably just skip the MS Press book altogether and just read technotes and whitepapers on certain subject matter, the Syngress book covers all the objectives; albeit some are really in depth.

aordal

*Groan* at white papers. Reading white papers reminds me of my old monotone pastor in church. Maybe an even more monotone version of Ben Stein, but on subjects like clustering or hardening your server. Oh gawd.