Following is the text of an email to Cisco, Lasalle, and Todd Lammle:



Todd, I'd like to let you know I've been studying your CCNA book for about ten weeks, and I have some problems with it.

The greatest problem is that you give the impression that there will lab practice on the enclosed CDs, but this is just not true. Without practice, I'm lost on commands, and you should know this!

Several of the tests have wrong answers or missing exhibits, which make it impossible to know a real score. When I took the actual CCNA exam last week, I failed, mainly because some of the questions I missed were not covered in your book. Among them were ..'how do you find the mac address of a host?'.. Some important router commands are not mentioned.

I also have a big problem with Lasalle Training, which took my $2000 for 7 Saturday sessions, and then left me without any kind of support for questions. They have 'Transcender' sample exams, which have more errors and irrelevent (ISDN) questions than your book does, so naturally I feel they aren't too concerned about their success rate.

So I have spent and wasted a lot of time and money on this, without much assistance from Cisco, Lasalle, or you.

I tried the Cisco website, as I was directed, and found that it is inaccessible without a password. I have asked four times, but got nowhere. Each time they sent a stock email explaining that someone will contact me. No one has yet.

So I read the glowing accounts of success here, and I can't help but feel that you only allow positive feedback to be shown, while there are many problems with your book and a lack of support by vendors.

Lasalle is well aware of my dissatisfaction; I will also let others know how disappointed I am with Todd Lammle, too.


Angelo Anello

Awesome book for anyone that actually wants to pass the CCNA. Its a hard test and this book gives you exactly what you need to pass. Labs are great and prepare you well for the exam. Practice tests are right on as well! Don't make the mistake of another book, get this one!

I've had the pleasure of meeting Lammle. He has an easygoing yet clearly competent style. That comes across in his books.

Over several years and editions, he has created a book that will be useful to anyone studying for the CCNA cert. Topics are presented in a logical order with clear explanations. This, however, is both good and bad. The good part is that the author can focus his efforts on things that are new or changed. The bad part is that some of the supplemental material isn't always updated. For example, the index points to an excellently written description of MPLS which ends with the words "most providers are converting their Frame Relay networks to MPLS". However, that term is not in the glossary. Failures to update like this one (and others mentioned in other reviews) made me think about taking away a star. On balance, though, the surplus of good, clear, informative writing makes this a 5-star effort.

good and afortable book, BUT with missing simulator is incomplete... I had to get a bosson book which at least has the LAB simulator. The author makes you think it has a simulator BUT is only the exam simulator.

As a CCIE and full time instructor of Cisco courses, I'm periodically asked by my students for recommendations of study resources beyond what's received in the classroom. My hope is that my review of this title will provide you with some insight into the pros and cons of Todd Lammle's "Cisco Certified Network Associate Study Guide, Sixth Edition." As stated on the book cover, this study guide is intended to prepare the reader for exam 640-802.

Positive Aspects:
- The book presents Cisco's published 640-802 exam objectives and identifies the chapter(s) in the book that address(es) each objective.
- Todd Lammle's writing style keeps the reading lively. Specifically, his writing is very conversational, is often written in the first person, and includes more exclamation points than I've ever seen in a technical book :-)
- Some of the tips given by Mr. Lammle certainly reflect his experience. He points out tips and tricks which prove to me that he was not merely rewording content from other sources.
- Mr. Lammle gives clear, but concise, descriptions of the myriad of technologies covered by the CCNA exam.

Negative Aspects:
- The book appears not to have received a sufficient technical edit. As an example, Page 116 discusses CIDR. However, CIDR (the supernetting of contiguous classful address spaces) is incorrectly defined, where it sounds more like VLSM.
- The book contains multiple typographical and topological errors and/or inconsistencies. As one example, Page 408 shows a WAN link icon connecting into a FastEthernet interface.
- The audio and video content on the CD seem to have been created for the previous exam, 640-801, even though the cover of the book states the book is targeted towards exam 640-802. Specifically, the copyright date of 2006 on the video predates the 640-802 exam, and the audio content repeatedly states that it is for exam 640-801. While the audio and video still contain relevant information, it was disappointing that no attempt was made to update it to address the current exam.

To summarize, Todd Lammle's Cisco Certified Network Associate Study Guide can serve as a valuable study aid for readers pursuing CCNA certification. While it's not without its blemishes, the good outweighs the bad, and therefore is deserving of five stars.

Just wish the quality of the paper wasn't so fragile; it must be recycled, and the print was larger, along with the diagrams. Otherwise Todd covers all the material for the new 640-802 CCNA in one book. Also, it would be nice if the answers were accompanied by the questions, in the answer section. I think a great format would be Magazine size, with a whiter better textured paper, and darker font print and diagrams, but still keep it in a paperback. The larger size would be easier to thumb through.

in general nice book for beginner, it is easy to read and this make 1000 page book valuable as other sources are 1000 page long and dull explanation.todd lamle is not perfect cisco expert but he is perfect in training ccna candidates.he has a fresh style for encouraging people for reading book.

So if you are new to networking , you can use this book as start milestone,after assimilating material inside the book you can switch to cisco press or other material that you want to concentrate for deep understanding if you need.
as a result it is not a book for reference in professional tasks , but good point in starting network..

El libro cuenta con toda la informacion necesaria para creditar la certificacion CCNA, ademas que lo explica en una forma muy clara y simple, ademas que cuenta con bastantes practicas.

El tiempo de entrega fue el acordado.

I used this book for two weeks along with the router simulator offered by routersim and passed my CCNA today. I have gained knowledge above the objectives of the certification. You hit the mark with this one Mr. Lammle.

This is a great book. I'm barely through the first couple of chapters but his explanations and lab work are excellent. He is right, if you don't do the labs you most likely won't retain. Its tough to remember everything and the labs reinforce what you read.

My company offers all the Cisco cert's through our training company and this book easily bests the classes they offered. I could probably pass the test taking the class but the class is taught to accomplish one thing and that is passing the test versus the book teaching you the indepth ins and outs of what you are learning and why.

The book does read a bit out of order but I prefer the style. For every item he glosses over, that sticks in your head, and when you find the answer later on in the book it helps to remember it.

Highly recommended.

I found the book to be a bit disorganized and confusing. Many key concepts are not explained well, or are merely glossed over. I found the enthusiastic writing style annoying, and would have preferred a more logical and methodical presentation. Terms and definitions are often presented out of order, with one term being used in another term's definition before the first term is defined itself. The video content is kind of useless as the video is mostly of Lammle sitting in a chair talking. I would have preferred some sort of graphical presentation.

One positive thing about the book is the attention it gives to CCNA objectives. It does a good job of making sure that you are aware of the objectives that will be covered, and what you need to know to pass the test.

If you are studying for the CCNA exam this book will serve that purpose, but if you really want to better understand what you are doing I suggest Gary Donahue's "Network Warrior" book. This book really fleshes out the areas where Lammle's book is lacking.

I bought this book because it was supposed to be the best book for CCNA study. However, I really find the overwhelming number of positive reviews for this book to be a bit baffling. The book is poorly written, period. Terms and acronyms are used before they are defined, if they are ever defined. Much of the writing is ambiguous or just incomprehensible, and some of the content seems to be out of order. Some of the statements made in the book also appear to be contradictory or illogical. The videos on the companion CD are pretty useless, and I didn't bother with the audio content. On a more positive note, I found the material that I already understood from reading other books to be fairly comprehensible. All of that being said, it's not a terrible book, and it may serve you well in conjunction with other more thorough study materials.



On a side note: I also downloaded a copy of Lammle's Fast Pass edition of this book and it is clear that he simply cut and pasted content from this book to create the Fast Pass book. In reading the Fast Pass book you will often find paragraphs where he references something that he talked about before, except he didn't talk about it before, because that part of the book wasn't cut and pasted into the Fast Pass edition. Lame.

I was really optimistic before I started reading the book because of the positive reviews in here and expected a lot.But just at the end of the 2nd chapter I was dissapointed and confused.Now,I lost sometime,effort and money by buying and reading this horrible written style book.The worst part is that the writer uses some terms even before he explains them and in the following sentences he explains whatever the term is but it makes me confused even more.I do not recommend this book at all,do not buy it!

The audio and video were a big joke, the audio which seemed to be an advertisement for a different product was on binary and decimal conversion (which you can't really get without seeing the numbers) and that's about it. The video was mainly a talking head and a really bad chart that never changed. It would have been a better audio/power point presentation.

The book it's self has several typos in it from facts that are 100% wrong to charts from old books that don't match up to what is written in the book

The book also is poorly organized often referencing material / terms that has not yet been covered leaving you scratching your head and running to the back of the book to try and figure out where you missed that important tidbit of information only to discover that it's not covered for another 200 pages.

If you do the work I am sure you'll pass the test... but it does have some annoying parts to it.

Also if there is a copy of the book that's cheaper without the audio/video get that as they are completely useless.

Wish I would have bought this semester 1 insted of halfway through semester 4. Great stuff on every page. Written very well, better style than Cisco Press. Im on Chapter 2, and before I got this book, I was nervous about the test. Now I feel like reading this book front to back and doing "all" of the labs will allow me to pass the test with ease!

My only regret is that the book isn't hardcover. Its not bad quality, but bent covers annoy me.

This book is very cool, and cover all cisco exams. My exam will occur in this week.

If you study anything like I do you'll love this book. Without it I would not have passed the exam. Obviously it covered all the objectives for the test. Todd Lammle's way of writing is easily understandable, even if the reader has never worked on routers or switches. Very informative and descriptive. I especially liked the numerous examples. They were easy to follow and strategically placed in the text to drive home the point being discussed. Another helpful aspect of this book is that it makes the assumption that the reader knows nothing of the subject, starting with the very basics and building from there. The chapter end summaries and "exam essentials" were extremely helpful and reinforced my understanding. I cannot say enough good things about this text, and I've been through many of them.

I havent passed the exam yet, but I am ready to do it. I should probably wait for the exam but to be honest i dont think I should. This book is supposed to be the one source for people preparing for the CCNA certification. I have studied from several sources and none are more interesting to read or cover the material with the depth Lammle does in this book.

This one is a must to prepare for the CCNA and as a reference for future problems.

I have been studying with a cousin who is a member of the Cisco Academy and even their interactive program cant compare to this book.

The only thing I would change in it is how the information is organized. Maybe in a next edition the editors or the author should consider focusing the book in the two stages cisco now has the CCNA programs: the icnd1 and icnd2. This little remark is not enough to to take a star from this review though.

Great work, Lammle and sybex. I will post about my experience with the CCNA exams (i am taking the two exams route)in a couple weeks.

I read a previous incarnation of the Sybex CCNA book when I first started networking. That was a few years & certs ago but it almost single handedly got me through my CCNA exam. Reading this book again now, already having the knowledge of the concepts still proves useful. The content is well laid out and ordered. The concepts are explained well without getting into unnecessary technical detail.

I'd recommend this book for anyone getting into networking, get this and do some Boson test exams. Make sure you really understand the whole book (seems daunting at first but there isn't that much to learn).

If you are looking for a real in depth explanation of the concepts(beyond the scope of the CCNA), then get a more advanced book. Still - this is a great book for reference about some of the more foundational Cisco concepts, ones that although basic, you might be likely to forget as you don't use them every day.

I hate Cisco's curriculum. It's so hard to understand. Last Quarter I spent $115.00 on the official book and lab book which didn't go along with the online carriculum at all, so I have a $115.00 door stop. Then I picked up Lamley's study guide which is so much easier to understand. He doesn't write like a Cisco drone, I think he actually gets outside and talks to real people. This book was a lifesaver!

Having read the prior edition from a friend in school, I can say that this author, Todd Lammle, really knows his stuff. He's an incredibly knowledgeable and qualified individual, who is able to explain concepts and material as if he's an actual human being. Quite refreshing compared to most of my college textbooks. All in all, if you're new to the topic, I recommend this book, as it covers a great more depth of the theory behind why everything is the way it is. If you are more knowledgeable about computers and some networking, I recommend his Fast Pass book, which you can find my review there. The Fast Pass book is results oriented, for people to know what they need to pass the exam. Either way, you can't go wrong.

Well, the book is good and I recommend it.
Compared to Wendel Odom's from Cisco Press:
* Lamle joins two volumes in one avoiding repeated topics.
* Odom uses terms and language closer to Cisco exam than Lamle's.
* Lamle have better graphical explanation and examples.
* Lamle have better materials on CD.
* Odom's have more technical explanations.

The key issue is the different variations terms that Lamle uses.
But it worth.

reading this book, i felt it very easy to understand the concept of something that the author explained. normally books are written with very formal writing style or too technical and hard to digest, but not for this one.

if you have got hands on experience on cisco devices, you'll find it even easier to understand the materials and you will even fill the gap in which parts you don't know.

combining this book with a simulator from boson is very recommended, this book gives you 4 bonus exams which consist of 70 questions each. it is very good rather than paying for more practice exams because it's not enough simply by studying from the questions from each chapter.

read this book from beginning to end, do the questions and the lab, do the bonus exams, and review the parts that you are weak on, and do the bonus exams again or find other practice exams if you feel not confident enough. then do the test, you'll pass for sure, that's what i did.

hope this helps.

I've bought a few CCNA books, most of them pretty good, but this one, is by far the best one I've read, you can actually read the book and understand it!!

The Author's writing style is very fluid, easy to follow and even has a sense of humour which is rare in books. Diagrams and explanations are clear and concise, beautifully laid out.

I've read the entire book and can finally understand a lot of issues I was struggling with. Material fully covers the new CCNA exam.

BUY THIS BOOK IF YOU WANT TO BE A CCNA!!!

its january and havent recieved this item yet? i have placed this order since december 15th 2007 shipping sucks.

I just bought and read threw this book in December a week before I took the exam and missed it by only 10 points. I re-took the exam a week later reviewing a few chapters and the material on the CD and was able to passed it. Realistically most people should take longer to help them retain the information better. I had taken a class for the previous version of the test so I had a lot of the knowledge before hand. The only problem I had with this book is that a lot of the information that was in it was not necessary for the exam which will make you study more information then you need to know

This is one of the best tech books you can buy, the casual conversational tone used to present the very technical material is very effective! Read the book, practice the example questions; and start using the CD-Rom right away! It includes an electronic version of the book (indispensible for quick searches), and the Sybex Test engine and flash cards were a real help when I studied and passed my CCNA last week! Subnetting has never been so easy!

One of the best books I've gotten, it is very detailed with tons of information.

I would recommend this book to anyone who is pursuing a career in Real Estate. The greatest thing about this book is the casual style it's written in. You can read it without feeling like you're reading a book, instead of a real estate guru is talking to you face to face personaly and want to see you success. This book is the best; I'm in the real estate business, own too many real estate books. I only wish I had started with this one first, this book has such a great way of presenting the material as it relates to the real life experience. Somebody with no experience or not much experience must read this book, listen to Mr. Lindahl's guidance, implement his ideas, follow his foot step, for sure you will be success and wealthy too. Dave Lindahl is a real estate genius, I always buy new real estate book to enhance my knowledge and expertise from others and searching for ideas, I like many books and learn from them, but this is the second book I took some time in my busy schedule and write this review (one review in last year and this one in this year). It's great, easy to understand and make sense I highly recommend this book. People hate to read, will like to read this book as well, I wish I could praise more, his book, his ideas, his vision and his commitment to share his practical knowledge with others (Not may thinks that way)

I can't agree more with the other reviewers. Their reviews is exactly why I bought the book.

The greatest thing about this book is the casual style it's written in. You can read it without feeling like you're reading a text book. It may not be for the person who is masochistic enough to want to be lectured to in written form, but for someone like me who can fall asleep in a second in a text book, it's fantastic.

If only my other text books were written like this...I'd maybe learn a thing.

This is the only CCNA book you need to pass the test. Period. I went through the Cisco Press books, did all of the labs, and still failed the exam miserably. This book has everything that you need to know and more. One thorough reading of this book and I passed the exam with a 918! Just KNOW YOUR BLOCK SIZES. Todd Lammle is a networking genius, and a cool guy to boot (I had the pleasure of meeting him recently). This is probably the least dry CCNA book I've come across. Todd's got a way of making light of a very dry and complicated subject. This book actually goes above and beyond the CCNA, covering all of the objectives, even ones not likely to be on the test (and that I personally did not encounter on the test). Pair this book with the router and test sims from Mr. Lammle's company, and I guarantee, you WILL have your CCNA!

This book will guide you to things that you need to know to pass the CCNA 640-802 exam. Very good book indeed!

The book didn't ship until September 17. I was on the pre-order list. How can you pass a test with a book that hasn't been published yet?

OK so I hate to read.. No really, I hate reading. but I did read this book and Todd makes it very easy to understand. This is a must have if you are working toward the CCNA. Even if you are not maybe you have one. This is still a great book to help master some of the skills that are a bit rusty..

Jason

I own too many CCNA books. I only wish I had started with this one. As a recertification candidate I was floored by the amount of new material covered by the current CCNA exams. Todd Lammle has such a great way of presenting the material as it relates to the Cisco CCNA exam objectives, but also with respect to what we CCNA's do every day. Read this book, listen to Mr. Lammle's guidance, work the labs with real equipment or a great simulator like RouterSim's Network Visualizer, and pass the exam! This book is the best, and in my opinion the only, CCNA book you need.

If you want to pass, you NEED this book! I just passed my exam today thanks to Todd's book and his class.

Take a look around the web. You will see that everyone recommends this book (or the 5th edition) if you want to pass. It's great, easy to understand and makes this exam a lot easier!

Todd Lammle does it again!! After reading the Sybex CCNA, 5th Edition, I thought to myself, what more information could he possibly give us? Todd makes the world of routing and switching seem a little easier while using his current study guide. Trust me, you'll be subnetting in your head before you know it. I highly recommend this book.

I used this book to pass my CCNA test on August 24th.

This text is much easier to read than the Cisco Press books. The material is easy to understand and Todd had done an excellent job showing the reader his own processes for learning. Two words, Block Size. Who knew calculating subnets could be so easy.

The additional material on the CD (testing questions) are excellent for developing skills as well.

I would recommend this book to anyone who is pursuing a first CCNA or renewing an expired certification.

Have bought the Cisco CCNA study guides and then bought this book - what a difference. Todd shows you how to understand complex items using the easiest methods - for that alone the book is worth it. He manages to show you how to get the correct answers using shortcuts etc. USe this for studying for your CCNA - his experience tells - and enables you to get results.