Re: Time saving tips for during LAB [Time Management]

I some opinions on this, considering I spent so much time trying to
get fast that I eventually had to force myself to slow down to gain
accuracy. A few of them:

-I enjoyed just getting efficient at typing. I wasn't a slow typist
by any means before I started studying, but mentally focusing on
accuracy and speed for the lab definitely made me a better typist (IOS
and beyond). By memorizing the shortcuts and efficiently using the
keyboard-shortcuts, you would be amazed at how fast you can type
things without aliases. I am also on about 10-20 unique devices a
day, and will not have the luxury of having aliases (or being able to
put them in), so I decided against it and appreciate it now. FWIW, I
started with aliases and moved away. I stayed away from any tricks
that I couldn't depend on any given router or telnet client.

Some tips that I found really helpful and probably do hundreds of
times a day now:
*Forget to put 'do' on the command? ctrl-a then 'do '
*Type something like "shoy ip int br | e un" and realize you mispell
show at the end of the line? It's faster to type ctrl-u, clear the
line, and type it again than it is to correct it. This is the case
for so many commands.
*The section command is the greatest thing since the do command.
"show run | s router" and "show run | s router r" (rip), things like
that. (BTW, you don't need to escape a space). I do a plain-jane
'show run' maybe once a lab. Know what you're looking for instead of
spacing through the show run. It will also keep you from chasing red
herrings.

-Notepad, notepad, notepad. I found that I was able to skip the L2
diagram altogether because I could build the configuration in notepad,
and then use that as a skeleton for figuring out which vlans were on
which switches, and mentally visualize it from the (reduced) config.
It also teaches you to memorize the commands, and I was able to put
70-85% of my commands in notepad by the end. Not using ? will save
you more time than you can imagine. Certain things this worked really
well for - L2, Routing protocols, QoS, long ACLs, IPv6, multicast.
Certain things do not - security, features (not going to memorize
those), filtering (typing one command into notepad and copying it
doesn't work for efficiency), and most importantly - BGP. BGP is
simply way too easy to copy and paste, but I found by the end the
copying and pasting created more problems than it saved time. Too
many things to change and keep track of for me personally. I learned
that one the hard way.

But if you want to get faster, use notepad. It was nice because of the
memorization, time saving on copying, a pseudo-L2 diagram, and it
served as a reference point for all my previous configuration. I
didn't have to go poking through show run to see what I configured -
it was right above.

-Checking my config after each section. Nothing is worse than getting
two sections ahead, and having no idea if this worked before you made
X change, or if it ever worked on Y change. I'd spend 20 minutes on Y
trying to find out why X isn't working anymore, and it's because it
didn't work in the first place.

-Becoming a DocCD pro won't get you to pass the lab. You may look at
a total of 6-10 documents. Saving one or two minutes on finding the
document probably isn't going to be the difference. The difference
will be knowing you need to commit the time to look at a feature you
may already have confidence in to get that last 'tweak'.

-Last but not least, knowing your shit cold. No substitutes for this.

-nick

On Thu, Sep 10, 2009 at 2:51 PM, Mohamed El Henawy<m.henawy_at_link.net> wrote:
> I would like to add as well
>
> check all the vlans on all switches before you apply VTP...I heard that
> sometimes they are nice enough to add these vlans on other switch that wont
> be server..so you can take it from there
> 2nd one but I'm not sure how if it bad or not is that if you change the vtp
> to transparent you can copy and paste the vlans from the config directly
> then put back the right mode.
>
>
>
> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Mark Matters" <markccie_at_gmail.com>
> To: "Ramcharan, Vijay A" <vijay.ramcharan_at_verizonbusiness.com>
> Cc: "Cisco certification" <ccielab_at_groupstudy.com>
> Sent: Thursday, September 10, 2009 10:17 PM
> Subject: Re: Time saving tips for during LAB [Time Management]
>
>
>> I like to use notepad also. It helps save me time. I like to cut and paste
>> and make all my changes then I paste into the router/switch and verify.
>>
>> I tpye out my alias in notepad and at the end of the lab I just add a no
>> and
>> copy and paste into my routers/switches. I do the same for the switch ping
>> macro's. Once I create a tcl script I save it to the desktop. You can save
>> to the desktop but if you reboot you will lose it. I also run my scripts
>> when I am done with security because I screwed up something really bad
>> once
>> and I didn't realize it until I got my score report.
>>
>> I use tabs at work and at home. But for the lab I like to spread the
>> windows
>> on the screen so I can see what's going on everywhere else when I make a
>> change.
>>
>> I have not used securecrt 4 in a while. Does it allow logging? If so you
>> can
>> set it to log to the desktop. You will have a copy of everything. What do
>> you think?
>>
>>
>> *As I learn more I remember less. I guess my token bucket is rather small.
>> *
>>
>>
>>
>> On Thu, Sep 10, 2009 at 2:31 PM, Ramcharan, Vijay A <
>> vijay.ramcharan_at_verizonbusiness.com> wrote:
>>
>>> I'd reiterate that the discussion of what is or isn't productive is
>>> rather subjective.
>>>
>>> For example, some folks find that using large terminal windows works
>>> better for them.
>>> Personally, I took full advantage of the fact that the LCD monitors
>>> currently in RTP have much better resolution than the screen I looked at
>>> 4 years ago when I was there.
>>>
>>> I used a tabbed version of SecureCRT for practice labs at home but the
>>> version of SCRT in RTP is old enough that there are no tabs.
>>> Well, I didn't let that stop me from creating a full desktop of 6 SCRT
>>> windows, properly sized with small fonts, adequate scrollback buffer,
>>> and a number of other overlapping windows, one to each device. For me,
>>> seeing when changes to one device result in messages appearing at the
>>> same time on another device console, is good feedback. I even went as
>>> far as customizing the background color of each window because staring
>>> at black on white for long periods doesn't work for me.
>>>
>>> ;-0 I don't mean to sound conceited but I think I may know a thing or
>>> two about taking labs having done a 2 for 2. No, I've never rebooted
>>> (actually once because the task required it) and no I don't use ping
>>> scripts, nor do I use aliases. That doesn't mean that they're useless,
>>> just that I didn't think they'd provide me any additional benefit.
>>>
>>> Like I said, it's rather subjective but all the suggestions I've seen
>>> thus far are good nevertheless.
>>> Bottom line is, figure what puts you most at ease when doing labs, try
>>> and recreate that environment as best as you can on lab day and worry
>>> about more important things. Of course, it helps to have a sound plan of
>>> attack for the actual lab questions as well.
>>>
>>> As a time-saving tip, how about something as simple as keeping the DOC
>>> cd page always open?
>>> When trying to find a topic, open a new window or tab from the
>>> appropriate link in the "home" screen. It can shave precious seconds off
>>> navigating back and forth from the home page. But that's something I
>>> picked up along the way while doing practice labs...
>>>
>>> I should also mention that both times I used up just about the entire 8
>>> hrs as well, so take the bits above about no aliases and such with a
>>> grain or two of salt.
>>>
>>> At the risk of sounding rather dated:
>>> Beauty is in the eyes of the beholder.
>>> One man's meat is another man's poison.
>>> etc.
>>>
>>> Vijay Ramcharan
>>>
>>>
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>>>
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>>
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>>
>>
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Received on Thu Sep 10 2009 - 21:20:18 ART