February 10, 2012

Number 1 Reason to avoid using the Cisco Learning Network

  1. Frustration with being treated like a child.

What in the world am I talking about?  Well, I like to cruise the forums for good info, either to help others or enhance my understanding of topics.  I like the IEOC.com forums, the CCIEBlog.com directory of CCIE bloggers, and a handful of other blogs that relate to Cisco technologies.  At Cisco Live in Orlando they really pushed the use of the Cisco Learning Network.  I thought it would be a good resource.  Instead I noticed that you cant blog there, good thing that CCIEblog lets you create your own blog, and so does IEOC now.

But the forums is where I find the most content, aside from the stuff that was already on Cisco.com and has just been ported over in the form of a PDF or a “Highlight!”

Anyhow, today when I was looking at the CCIE Security forum I saw a post that simply asked if it would be necessary to configure certain parameters in the CCIE Lab.  Seemed to me that this was a simple, and valid question.  Do I have to practice these types of configurations for any topic of the Blueprint?  Well, someone didn’t think so.  In fact, someone pulled out a ruler and smacked the hand of the person asking the question by “reminding” them not to break the terms of the NDA.  In fact, this moderator felt the need to tell EVERYONE that they better watch it.

* names have been removed to protect the innocent and the moderator.

Now I don’t condone cheating, releasing actual lab information, using test king, using pass4sure, or any other means of passing the exam in an fraudulent way, but come on.  Big Brother is definitely watching.  I say no thanks to the Learning Network.  Moderator comments like that make me feel like I’m reading something dirty on the overhead projector and I better just close my browser window.