It is always fun for me to read McGraw Hill's series of study guides. Like the 2-minute drill and exercises. I bought this book on Friday and try to quickly review and grasp something new to me for IT/Network security. I almost complete the reading within 2 days and really love this book: concise, getting to the point, and brief/clear explanations of certain concepts and/or features.
An excellent book to read.
Great writing style. The book doesn't waste time on 'conversation' yet it is easy to read. It gets straight to the subject matter with very clear explanations and many examples to help you understand the meaning behind the information. Lots of test questions, key points to remember are highlighted, and the Flash Trainer is great. The CertCam Video Clips are great as well.
I passed the first time out. This is one technical book that I actually enjoyed reading. Of all the other books I looked at, this one was the best.
I spent time evaluating several titles on this subject, I found this author to provide the most up to date material along with extremely useful hands on exercises to further solidify the learning experience. In addition this book is much cheaper purchased via Amazon verses local bookstores.
I would ignore any negative reviews about this book. Anyone who uses this book and doesn't feel like it prepared them for the test.......well they clearly belong in another field; sorry. This book is a lot bigger than it needs to be. Terms are constantly redefined. All pages are continually devoted to repeating the same things over and over and over and over again. If you're new the field and have absolutely no experience, this might help you to reinforce new concepts I suppose. If you've been doing this any amount of time, you'll just be annoyed. That said, I won't remove any stars. I read the book once, didn't bother with any practice tests, didn't bother trying to memorize tables of info. 857. Kudos to the book. Use your own judgement on how much you study but these CompTIA tests are all ridiculously easy and it still surprises me that they mean anything to anyone.
And now you have found that the computer security needs of your network need attention and YOU need the proper skills and the certification to handle the unknown tasks ahead..... Do not look at another book until you read this!!!!!! A lot of books offered here on Amazon help you with getting your certifications for multiple areas of the IT world.... that is all good.... However? Too find a set of books in one package that not only assist you on understanding the CompTia Security + certification requirements and provide a level of education that sets the stage for your ability to pass the exam, You can also use the HUGE assortment of training videos, plus the author (Glen E. Clarke) has placed all the click by click instructions in all the chapters that pertain to the security challenge you have at hand. I used this set of books (the box set with this book, practice exam book and cd's) and videos as a pure classroom environment and was NEVER disappointed with the results. I am network tech/administrator/go to geek at the body shop I work at for 12 years now. I need to be updated on handling the computer security needs that our organization is facing. I saw this book set and only wanted it for the CD's, the entire package upgraded my education. I chose to take 2 months, 7 days a week (after work and full weekend studies) to focus on this education to help with me with our computer security challenges at work and prepare for the Security + certification exam. I took the Exam yesterday and passed with an 800. Not bad for a 41 year old geek who did not respect these certifications. The other side of this book is that you can use it as a guide for daily operations AND!!!!! The author himself answers his emails!!!!!! You will make a HUGE mistake if you do not put this book set on your shelf as reference and in your path to obtain the CompTia Securiy + certification.
Just took the exam Monday (02July2012) after not touching this book for a few months. I went back to it, took the master exam provided a handful of times, brushed up on a few things I didn't hold in my head (which algorithms are symmetric or asymmetric, what hashing algorithms create a xNumberOfBitsHash, and a couple other things). All in all did about a 3 day "brush up" study. Passed the exam (825 on a scale of 900).
This is the only study material I used. Great book, easy read, highly recommend.
On the downside - the exam engine that is used kinda sucks. When you complete the exam, you can view a report of how you did. The report is simply a list of the questions you got wrong with what the right answers are. There's no mention of what answer you marked, so you can't see what you picked or why it was wrong. That's kind of annoying.
So, outside of the functionality of the exam engine (the flashcards are pretty cool though), great book.
Glen asked me to review the Network+ and Security+ books as for the past 5 years I have taught these courses along with many other advanced network and security courses for the Federal government.
I have read this book and really like the layout. Where I felt the book required more explanation there was always supplemental information, and I would often catch myself watching the videos ahead of where I was reading. I have these books at my desk and like to reference them when needed as the information in these books (Net+ and Security+) is very useful in my work but not used regularly enough to not need a reference manual. The author provides a very clear description of the topic, then gives an example and for the most part finishes off with an exercise to reinforce understanding. As a quick refresher I would normally just run through an exercise. I like the "on the job" comments.
I use the certification books as reference guides in my work environment as this is what I am familiar with. The layout is clean, direct and CompTIA is such a recognised name never hurts to have that on the wall in your office. Currently I am a Migration Engineer that migrates networks from IBM and Novell to Windows and cloud environments.
I read this book end-to-end while preparing for my SY0-301 Security+ exam, which I recently passed at first try (fyi, I'm not a sys admin so I don't exactly have the on the job experience so I relied heavily on the book).
Glen Clarke's book is well written and I found it to be easy to follow and not a dry read at all! However, I really don't think just reading this book alone will get you a passing score on the test.
The review questions at the end of each chapter were very helpful and allowed me to test my grasp of the topics covered. By the way, one reason the book has so many pages compared to others is that the answer page for the end of chapter questions also contains the questions! I found this to be a real convenience as I didn't have to flip back to the questions pages but it isn't the best use of paper.
During my prep, I also went through the review questions on Wm. Arthur Conklin's book (isbn# 9780071771474) and realized that I scored poorly in the following chapters of Conklin's book:
1. Regulatory laws, privacy and ethics (There was no coverage of these topics in Glen's book!)
2. Types of attacks/Malicious software
3. Email and IM security
So I read those 3 chapters in Conklin's book to buff up. However, in the version of the exam I took, I don't believe I faced many questions related to #1 other than HIPAA.
I also went through Glen Clarke's Security+ Practice Exams book (isbn#0071771204)while preparing for the test and found the questions to be very helpful.
Product Details :
Paperback: 864 pages
Publisher: McGraw-Hill Osborne Media; 1 edition (August 17, 2011)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0071771409
ISBN-13: 978-0071771405
Product Dimensions: 7.3 x 1.6 x 9.3 inches
More Details about CompTIA Security+ Certification Study Guide Exam SY0-301 Official CompTIA Guide 1st edition
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