Professor Creates His Own Cisco Manual 318
yootje writes "ZDnet is running a story about a professor who made his own Cisco networking textbook, with 800 pages: "Computing instructor Matt Basham's suggestions for improving Cisco Systems' official training manuals fell on deaf ears for years. But he appears to have the networking giant's attention now." The professor made his book available for free on his website."
This should happen more often (Score:5, Interesting)
Eeeeek... (Score:5, Interesting)
Oh the horror... The horror...
Please, Mr Matt Basham, release this as a PDF, RTF or HTML file... Anything but Word. I ma willing to help if needed.
Still Wondering (Score:5, Interesting)
If just one state would sit down and even purchase some good works and make them freely available for modification and distribution, then the cost of education would be greatly reduced. Profs would be free to make changes at it fits their style so long as those changes are re-posted to the public. Students could read the texts online and/or print them.
What am I not seeing here?
Re:This should happen more often (Score:4, Interesting)
curriculum (Score:1, Interesting)
I've known several people who have been convinced that getting these Cisco certs will lead to untold riches - they have all been disappointed. It's definitely no substitute for a 4 year degree.
Near monopolies considered harmful (Score:2, Interesting)
finally (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:This should happen more often (Score:1, Interesting)
And in a day when configuration files are written in scripting languages for everything from video games to "./configure", I don't see a problem with that.
Useful Contribution (Score:3, Interesting)
I think that this is a very useful contribution to anyone who is looking for information on Cisco networking. It's definately a "middle finger" to big companies who are so set in their ways, they are unwilling to take advice from people in the field who have the qualifications and experience to make a genuine contribution to their documentation.
In many ways, it also reflects the spirit of the Free Software movement, in many respects. It reflects the frustration of a constant refusal to fix issues with something released in what is, in certain respects, a proprietary format, and the result of writing a version, which is then distributed for free. It's good to see :)
Speaking of which, I wonder if Mr Basham could be convinced to release the text under a free license, like the GNU FDL... possibly not, if he has already made arrangements with publishers, but it might be worth looking into...
Bad Self Publishing (Score:4, Interesting)
Self-published textbooks will only work when some sort of feedback mechanism is in place to offer an indication of the quality of the book.
For years, at the University of South Florida in Tampa, the engineering college subjected undergraduates to an extremely poor thermodynamics text self-published by an influential department chair until the thermo scores started to slide on the state EIT exams.
Those publishers really funny (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:finally (Score:3, Interesting)
The presentation and session layers are lumped into TCP/IP's application layer where they belong. How then, does teaching the OSI model, where these two layers are explicit, help in the student's understanding of network protocols? What useful purpose does teaching the concepts of presentation and sessions have when they are almost orthoganol to the topic at hand? (I'm struggling to come up with examples of applications where the concepts of these two layers are so important that they need to be distinct from the application protocol itself.)
Using layered protocols to teach networking is good, but the OSI model is a classic example of design by committee and is more confusing than helpful; at least when compared to the TCP/IP model.
All it takes is time (Score:4, Interesting)
If I recall correctly, not too long ago some folks had the bright idea of ordering their books from Canada/UK. Seems that the same exact textbooks there cost up to 50% less than in the states.
Re:Still Wondering (Score:3, Interesting)
And later that same thread . .
You're exactly right about getting kick-backs . . .
Oh, yeah! I'm a professor, and you should see the stuff we get from the textbook people: hot and cold running Porsches, massages from scantily-clad young women (or men, if you prefer), big envelopes stuffed with cash . .
No, wait, that was all a dream. I must be teaching at the wrong place, because the very most I've ever gotten is the occasional free book and an even more occasional phone call asking if I've considered using book X.
But you're right that textbooks are hideoulsy overpriced, and it's maddening that the publishers keep changing editions in an effort to force students to buy new rather than used. But it's an awfully big brush you're painting with, when you say that we're all getting kickbacks -- and you're getting paint all over me!
Re:This should happen more often (Score:5, Interesting)
Me (Score:3, Interesting)
Hah! This is a research project (Score:4, Interesting)
This isn't a new thing....is it? (Score:4, Interesting)
Several years ago, when I was studying for my certs, I decided to compile all my material into a book.
It has since grown into two separate books, one for the CCNA and one for the CCIE.
While they used to be free, I decided to begin charging a small fee (10 bux), but only enough to cover the costs of my website -- incidentally, I've never really been able to recoup that.
If anyone is interested, the books, along with loads of free material are available (both online and downloadable) at gdd.net [gdd.net].
Please note that I do like for folks to register, but it is free and rather painless
Wikipedia is very close.. (Score:3, Interesting)
Yes, this won't work for everything. But things like calculus, fourier transforms, electromagnetics, classical signal processing, statics, dynamics, statistics - this is cookie cutter stuff. Should apply right through the grade schools, too. I suppose I should be thankful those things are even allowed to be taught anymore, because you can do naughty things with them.
I won't tell you how mad it made me lugging close to 100lbs of books around for 5 years when if things were sane, they could be accessed either online, or via pdf files.
If anyone wants to be a patron saint - opening those materials up would potentially help a lot of people. Books are very expensive. Moreso outside of the western world.
Re:Still Wondering (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Still Wondering (Score:3, Interesting)
sPh
Re:Great pricing scheme (Score:2, Interesting)
The Lulu.com business model is based on a 20% commission on sales. Exact production costs vary depending on the number of pages and delivery format (electronic versions obviously have no production cost), but in all cases authors set their own royalty: they receive that royalty amount for every sale regardless of the production cost or Lulu commission.
The cost of a printed book to a customer who buys it is:
$4.53, the base cost for a perfect-bound printed book, + (# of pages x $.02 per page) + author royalty + Lulu commission
For downloads, the cost is simply the author royalty + Lulu commission. If the author royalty is $4, the Lulu commission would be $1, and the cost to the customer for the book would be $5.
By the way, Basham's Lulu.com storefront is here: www.lulu.com/learningbydoing [lulu.com]
This book sucks (Score:4, Interesting)
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Lesson 1: Finding CISCO's web site.
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Lesson 2: Opening a "MS-DOS" window on Windows 95/98. (Not an NT-family OS, even though this is a corporate networking class.)
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Lesson 3: Installing a network card. ("Try to see how a Token Ring NIC differs from an Ethernet NIC.")
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A little further along, there are chapters on binary arithmetic, hex arithmetic, IP addressing, and the symbols Cisco uses in their manuals.
Then, immediately after the chapter on IP addressing, things suddenly get complicated:
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You are the network administrator for an upstart website publishing company. They have
offices in two adjacent buildings on different floors. Lately, they have realized the costs
of their individual Internet accounts far exceeds the costs of installing and maintaining a
T-1 line. As the network guru you are to design a network that will utilize FDDI between
the buildings. The west building uses floors 3, 4, and 5 for the sales and admin staff.
Here you will want to use a CISCO Catalyst 5000 with a FDDI module, a management
module, and a 24-port switch module. From there each floor will distribute access via a
CISCO 1924 switch to each of its 20 nodes (workstations, servers, and printers). The east
building uses floors 1 through 5 for the design and engineering staff. Here you will want
to use a CISCO Catalyst 5500 with a FDDI module, a management module, and a 24-port
switch module. You will also have a CISCO 2610 router with T-1 module, and a
Kentrox CSU/DSU for your full T-1 line. Your ISP, ComBase has sold you two blocks
of 62 IP addresses: 198.74.56.x (1-62) and (65-126). Combase will also provide the DNS
services, unlike most ISP's where more than 24 IP's are ordered. Design your network,
including cabling and grounds, to include all IP's, subnet masks, gateways, and anything
else you need to include.
Some quotes:This is before they've mentioned how to configure, operate or use any of that stuff. Wierd.
"Supercomputer--See Nasa, Berkely, MIT, etc. Kind of like the W.O.P.R. in Wargames."
Re:Bad Self Publishing (Score:3, Interesting)
I would challenge the notion that there is a distinct category of books that are self-published. To some extent the categories of publisher and self-publisher are anachronistic.
I've made the argument that there is no such thing as self-publishing [salutor.com] in more detail elsewhere, but to summarize:
The real difference, insomuch as there is a difference, is in the branding. O'Reilly [oreilly.com], for example, has a brand that information seekers trust. So an O'Reilly book by an author you've never heard of is probably more appealing than a Lulu.com [lulu.com] book by an author you've never heard of. But what if an author develops his own brand?
Along those lines, last week I found myself in the middle of a back-and-forth with a prominent tech journalist [infoworld.com]. His position was in essence that most of what is written is crap and that the editorial control exercised by publishers is essential. Fair enough. Most of what's written is crap [spacebar.org], (although that doesn't seem to stop people from buying it when it's put out by major publishers).
But the dilemma you allude to, as I see it, is comparable to the dilemma presented by the emergence of the World Wide Web itself. "If anyone can put up anything on the Web," railed skeptics, "the whole thing is going to be useless. If you can't find the worthwhile information in the mountains of rotten information, what good will it be?"
Venerable institutions like the New York Times [nytimes.com] (justifiably) shuddered that individual sites--Matt Drudge's [drudgereport.com], for example--could compete with their own as sources for information. And yet, it has come to be. The Internet provides the means by which authors can develop their own brands. Matt Basham [lulu.com] (the CISCO prof), for example, is in the process of developing his.
Re:This should happen more often (Score:3, Interesting)
If he'd called it _The Official cisco Systems New CCNA/CCNP Training Book_ then they'd likely have grounds for complaint.