3rd ed. of Shon Harris' CISSP book due out in April

JDMurray

The third edition of Shon Harris' CISSP All-in-One Exam Guide is due out in April. Amazon.com has their official ship date as April 29th.

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0072257121/qid=1107711371/sr=8-1/ref=sr_8_xs_ap_i1_xgl14/104-3350327-6339961?v=glance&s=books&n=507846

I mention this because I was signing up for an intro CISSP class at a local community college, and the 2nd edition was the text. Before buying a book, I always check to see is a new edition is due to be released. Now I'll wait to spend the $50 on the 3rd edition and take the class in the Fall.

/usr

How much is a class like that, if you don't mind me asking?

JDMurray

It's $26 per unit and it's a 1.5 unit class that runs for 8 weeks, 4 hours per week. With a $10 parking permit, $4 lab fee, $7 heath fee and $50 for the book, I was going to spend around $110 for the class.

I have no idea how the instructor will cover all CISSP 10 domains in only 7 weeks (there's no lecture on the week of finals). The telecommunication domain alone should take three weeks. Also, the instructor himself doesn't have a CISSP, so I'd rather wait to check with other students on the quality of the instruction and material presented.

JDMurray

Update:

I just checked on amazon.com and the release date for the 3rd edition is now July 31, 2005.

Ten9t6

jdmurray wrote:

It's $26 per unit and it's a 1.5 unit class that runs for 8 weeks, 4 hours per week. With a $10 parking permit, $4 lab fee, $7 heath fee and $50 for the book, I was going to spend around $110 for the class.

I have no idea how the instructor will cover all CISSP 10 domains in only 7 weeks (there's no lecture on the week of finals). The telecommunication domain alone should take three weeks. Also, the instructor himself doesn't have a CISSP, so I'd rather wait to check with other students on the quality of the instruction and material presented.

hmm....Since he does not have his CISSP, did they at least list his qualifications? If I am taking a certification class, I would want the instructor to at least have the cert. But....I can tell you that if you know Shon Harris' book and you can do all the free questions on cccure.org, you will not have any problems of the exam. Good luck...

JDMurray

Ten9t6 wrote:

hmm....Since he does not have his CISSP, did they at least list his qualifications? If I am taking a certification class, I would want the instructor to at least have the cert.

I think the instructor was ordered to teach the class by the college. Some marketing person for the college probably realized that "CISSP" is a hot buzzword in the IT world and their curriculum didn't offer a class in it. They end up having the most tenured instructor at the college create and teach a class for the CISSP--qualified or not. The school gets more admissions money and the instructor gets paid for one more class. Caveat Emptor.

I agree that anyone teaching a cert class MUST have the cert or they will not be able to fully teach the part of the class dealing with preparing for and taking the exam. In many cases, and at the college level, the instructor doesn't have the cert and that part simply isn't taught. I think the student looses out on the experience the instructor would impart had s/he the cert.

JDMurray

Harris' CISSP All-in-one 3rd edition is finally out. It's $50US at amazon.com, but a couple of discount booksellers have it for around $40US.

If anyone with the 2nd edition buys the 3rd please post a comparison review. The reviews on amazon.com are generally very good.

keatron

JD, I asked Clement about a week ago the same question. He's a technical editor for the 3rd edition. This was his response.

"Good day,

Do not spent money on V3 if you have V2, you will be fine with V2.

V3 has lots of new content, some of the chapter were about 50% rewritten for style, content, and better explanations.

However, I think you are fine with V2 for now.

Take care

Clement "

I'll be buying the 3rd edition this week just for reference sake, so I'll let you know more after I go through it. I doubt ISC2 will be changing the question pool anytime soon (The question pool is about 8,000 questions!!!!!!). But it sounds like the 3rd edition might be an easier and more precise read.

JDMurray

That's a very odd thing for a book's editor to say. Publicizing that opinion does not help the sale of the book. Maybe he's not getting any royalties on it and therefore doesn't care how well it sells. Very odd indeed.

keatron

Check out cccure.org, you'll find him there and he's very open about stuff like this. Basically I was starting to get butterfiles wondering if I should go out and buy the 3rd edition to use for preparing for the exam which I took yesterday (saturday). He was basically telling me I should be fine with the 2nd edition.

You find it odd that there are still people in the world that are more concerned with helping than colllecting royalties? Actually I find it odd that you think that way JD.

In reality I'm not sure exactly what you are insinuating, but here's the post from cccure.org; read it for yourself. While you're at it, you can even ask him why he said it. My point was to try in part to fulfil the request you made, not to question motives of authors or technical editors.

http://www.cccure.org/modules.php?name=Forums&file=viewtopic&t=52

Jack Koziol also told me that he didn't think I needed to take a CISSP boot camp that he was teaching for the Infosec institute. I guess using your logic, that's odd too right?

JDMurray

What he was saying was that you do not need the 3rd edition to study for the current CISSP exam. I was only curious why he didn't promote the sale of the 3rd edition more despite the 2nd edition being sufficient. I would be furious with my editor if she went around telling people that they don't need the new edition of my book, and that the older edition was all they really needed. It's easy to be both truthful with what the student needs and also promote the new edition.