CertTutor.net UPDATE, July 11, 2003

1. Commentary: When To Reschedule an Exam

2. News & Views
- Cisco Reorganizes CCNA Certification
- Safari Bookshelf Adds More Certification Titles

3. Announcements
- Active Directory eBook Chapter 2 Published!
- Take Our Brief Active Directory Survey!

4. What's New from CertTutor.net Live!

- Featured Threads:
- Getting Started on the Road to MCSE
- Recovery Console
- Layer 2 Tunneling Protocol over Dialup?

- Hot Threads:
- Win2K SP4
- Study Material
- Has Dell's Customer Support Completely Lost Touch?

5. Resources
- Tip of the Month: Turn Off the Preview Pane
- Question of the Month: Exam 70-217 6. Instant Poll
- Results of Previous Poll: How Fast Do You Read?
- New Instant Poll: How Far in Advance Do You Schedule Your Exams?

7. Event
- New--Mobile & Wireless Road Show!

8. New and Improved
- Achieve Your MCSD or MCAD Certification

9. Contact Us
- See this section for a list of ways to contact us.

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==== 1. Commentary: When To Reschedule an Exam ====
by Orin Thomas, [email protected]

A piece of advice we often give in the forums at CertTutor.net is that when you're studying for a certification, you should book your exam as soon as possible. Scheduling an exam ahead of time gives you a deadline to concentrate on and helps prevent you from procrastinating away weeks of study time. When you book an exam, you're committed to taking the next step in your certification studies. Consider the difference between someone who plans to finish an exam in 2 months time and someone who has scheduled an exam in 2 months time: One has made a commitment, and the other only plans to make a commitment.

The act of scheduling an exam doesn't mean you're committed to taking the exam on that date. As any exam provider should mention when you schedule an exam, a candidate can reschedule an exam as long as that person gives sufficient notice to the exam provider. But before you decide to commit or not commit, let's examine the pros and cons of rescheduling a certification exam.

Generally, a candidate can reschedule an exam up to 24 hours before the scheduled exam time without incurring any financial penalty. This time frame might vary, depending on the exam provider; however, the exam provider should inform you about the details of the rescheduling policy when you book the exam. Make a note of the rescheduling policy, and keep this information in your diary or day planner. Keep in mind that after the rescheduling deadline passes, you're committed to taking the exam or forfeiting the money you spent on the exam.

As the rescheduling deadline approaches, most people know whether they're ready for an exam. Some students, however, can successfully cram at the last minute. Those students will probably reschedule the exam only if they feel that they have absolutely no chance of getting up to speed in the next 24 hours. If you're in this position, do your best to wean yourself from this habit--the best thing to be doing at 2 A.M. the morning of an exam is sleeping, not trying to cram some abstract networking theory into your mind.

So when should you reschedule an exam? Simply not feeling ready is a good reason. Candidates who have a reasonable amount of experience taking exams can usually judge whether they're ready to take an exam. Conversely, candidates who have little experience taking certification exams can be poor judges of whether they're ready. Inexperienced test takers might feel that they're not ready, not realizing that the uneasy feeling comes more from nervousness about possible failure than a valid assessment of their progress. If you haven't taken a lot of certification exams and you aren't a good judge of whether you're ready, be cautious about rescheduling your exams.

Other reasons to reschedule involve life intervening in study plans. Sometimes you become ill a week or so before your exam; sometimes extra pressures turn up at home or work that eat into your study time. If your study plans are seriously disrupted, you should consider rescheduling rather than entering an exam ill-prepared.

When rescheduling, try to reschedule your exam 1 week after the original exam date. This short deadline keeps the pressure up but gives you more time to get ready. If you're not feeling quite ready and just need this extra bit of time, promise yourself not to reschedule again.

Sometimes 1 week isn't realistic, but try not to reschedule your exam several months after you were originally going to take it. Never reschedule an exam more than twice. If you find yourself rescheduling for a third time, perhaps you should admit to yourself that you're not ready to take the next step on your certification journey and cancel the exam. Take a break, and book the exam anew when you're confident that you can devote time to your studies.

The biggest problem in rescheduling an exam is losing your momentum. After you reschedule an exam, the immediate pressure is off, which means your attention can move away from exam preparation. Although you might have to deal with being sick, taking on extra work, or addressing family matters, remind yourself of your commitment to take the exam and try to complete even a small amount of studying each day. If you haven't approached your exam materials in several days, you might start to forget some of the things from your prior exam preparation. When you reschedule, you're keeping your commitment to take the exam in the future. If you let your studies slide, you should cancel the exam and come back to it when you have more time.

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==== 2. News & Views ====
by Orin Thomas, [email protected]

Cisco Reorganizes CCNA Certification
Cisco Systems has changed the way the Cisco Certified Network Associate (CCNA) certification operates by introducing a second way for candidates to approach the certification. Candidates can still opt for one exam, now with updated objectives (CCNA 640-801). Alternatively, less-experienced candidates can now take two exams (ICND 640-811 and INTRO 640-821) to attain the CCNA certification. For more information, visit Cisco's certification pages at http://www.cisco.com/en/US/learning/le3/le2/le0/le9/learning_certification_type_home.html

Safari Bookshelf Adds More Certification Titles
Safari Bookshelf, O'Reilly & Associates' online library in which you can read five books for $10 per month, has just added a slew of new certification titles. These titles are from the Exam Cram 2 series and include many of the Windows 2000 core MCSE titles. This offer represents a good, inexpensive means for students to access certification publications. You can check out Safari Bookshelf and sign up for a free trial at http://safari.oreilly.com

==== 3. Announcements ====
(from Windows & .NET Magazine and its partners)

Active Directory eBook Chapter 2 Published!
The second chapter of Windows & .NET Magazine's popular eBook "Windows 2003: Active Directory Administration Essentials" is now available at no charge! Chapter 2 looks at what's new and improved with Active Directory. Download it now! http://www.windowsitlibrary.com/ebooks/administeringad/index.cfm?pc=adupd

Take Our Brief Active Directory Survey!
Windows & .NET Magazine would like to know how your organization uses Active Directory. Your feedback will be kept absolutely confidential, so take our brief survey today! http://www.zoomerang.com/survey.zgi?SR9V871GEDPDXA8232G9XG8S

==== 4. What's New from CertTutor.net Live! ====
by Bob Muir, [email protected]

CertTutor.net Live! is the Internet's number-one training and certification discussion board. Each week, CertTutor.net Live! receives thousands of posts about Windows XP, Windows 2000, Cisco Systems, and more. We've selected a few of these posts to feature here in CertTutor.net UPDATE. To join in the conversation at CertTutor.net Live!, register at the following URL: http://www.certtutor.net/registration/index.cfm

Featured Threads

Getting Started on the Road to MCSE
Forum member qpeabody has some hands-on experience under his belt and is ready to begin the road to MCSE certification. If you're in this situation or you're thinking of starting Microsoft Certified Professional (MCP) studies, you'll want to check out this thread:
http://certtutor.net/forums/messageview.cfm?catid=14&threadid=39827

Recovery Console
Are you up on your Windows Recovery Console (RC) knowledge? If you support Windows Server 2003, Windows XP, or Windows 2000 systems, RC expertise can come in very handy. Test yourself with this Question of the Day, and see how others responded. Don't look at any of the answers until you've tried your hand at it.
http://certtutor.net/forums/messageview.cfm?catid=15&threadid=39927

Layer 2 Tunneling Protocol over Dialup?
Layer 2 Tunneling Protocol (L2TP) is still fairly new territory for some of us, and more companies are using it all the time. If you want to begin digging into it, start with this thread:
http://certtutor.net/forums/messageview.cfm?catid=16&threadid=39831

Hot Threads

Win2K SP4
http://certtutor.net/forums/messageview.cfm?catid=10&threadid=39892

Study Material
http://certtutor.net/forums/messageview.cfm?catid=37&threadid=39140

Has Dell's Customer Support Completely Lost Touch?
http://certtutor.net/forums/messageview.cfm?catid=7&threadid=39807

==== 5. RESOURCES ====

Tip of the Month: Turn Off the Preview Pane
The preview pane feature in Microsoft Outlook and Outlook Express is convenient, but it also introduces additional risk because it opens email messages that you select. Some viruses activate when you view them in the preview pane, and your antivirus application might not recognize the most recent viruses, even if you update the application frequently. By turning off the preview pane, you can not only reduce your vulnerability to viruses but also speed your email processing. You can usually examine a sender's name or a subject line to determine whether an email message is spam or a possible virus, and scanning a subject line and hitting delete is much faster than reading through the message text before making a decision. To turn off the preview pane in Outlook, select View, Preview Pane. In Outlook Express, select View, Layout.

Question of the Month: Exam 70-217
This week's question will help you prepare for Microsoft Exam 70-217: Implementing and Administering a Microsoft Windows 2000 Directory Services Infrastructure

Question

Mohareb has been investigating the concept of tombstones for ADOs. At the moment, Mohareb's company uses a Windows 2000 native mode domain with domain controllers (DCs) in Athens, Cairo, Giza, London, and Rome. Mohareb knows the behavior replication fairly well, and he's found that convergence across all the DCs in the domain generally takes an hour. The Garbage Collection Interval and the Tombstone Lifetime are set to the Win2K defaults. Mohareb decides to delete the ADOs Enrious and Nefarious in Cairo at 9:00 A.M. Greenwich Mean Time (GMT) on Sunday, December 1, 2002. Which of the following answers is closest to the time at which the Garbage Collection routine on the London DC will remove the tombstones of the Enrious and Nefarious ADOs?

A. 10:00 A.M. GMT December 2, 2002 B. 10:00 P.M. GMT December 2, 2002 C. 10:00 P.M. GMT December 30, 2002 D. 10:00 P.M. GMT January 9, 2003 E. 10:00 P.M. GMT January 29, 2003 F. 10:00 P.M. GMT March 27, 2003

Answer

The correct answer is E. The Win2K default Garbage Collection Interval is 12 hours, and the Win2K default Tombstone Lifetime setting is 60 days. Knowing this information, we can assume that if replicating a change across all DCs in the domain takes 1 hour, the London DC should process the deletion of the Enrious and Nefarious ADOs at about 10:00 A.M. GMT on December 1, 2002. These objects will then be tombstoned for the default lifetime of 60 days, which means they'll be available for garbage collection about 60 days later (i.e., 10:00 A.M. GMT on January 29, 2003). Within 12 hours (the default Garbage Collection interval), these tombstones (i.e., 10:00 P.M. GMT on January 29, 2003) will have been removed.

==== 6. Instant Poll ====

Results of Previous Poll: How Fast Do You Read?
The voting has closed in CertTutor.net's nonscientific Instant Poll for the question, "How fast do you read?" Here are the results from the 251 votes: - 17% Very fast - 33% Fast enough - 50% Not fast enough

New Instant Poll: How far in advance do you schedule your exams?
The next Instant Poll question is, "How far in advance do you schedule your exams?" Go to the CertTutor.net home page and submit your vote for a) More than 1 month in advance, b) Less than 1 month but more than 1 week in advance, or c) Less than 1 week in advance.
http://www.certtutor.net

==== 7. Event ====

New--Mobile & Wireless Road Show!
Learn more about the wireless and mobility solutions that are available today! Register now for this free event! http://www.winnetmag.com/roadshows/wireless

==== 8. New and Improved ==== by Carolyn Mader, [email protected]

Achieve Your MCSD or MCAD Certification
Transcender released TransTrainer for C# .Net/Windows, a computer-based training (CBT) video for Microsoft's Visual C# .NET exams, including the MCSD and Microsoft Certified Application Developer (MCAD) certification exams. A single-user license for TransTrainer for C# .Net/Windows, which includes C#-Cert/Windows 7.0 and C#-Flash/Windows 7.0, costs $199. Contact Transcender at [email protected].
http://www.transcender.com

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==== 9. Contact Us ====

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