Recently I had this issue that ate a big part of my day. Here’s how I fixed it. Firstly, some background info I’m using a Win 10 (Version 10.0.14393) OS with Office 2013 [15.0.4569.1503]. The previous day I’ve been prompted to restart my laptop to complete the new updates. I’ve left in a hurry and just closed the lid. The laptop didn’t close and I had to use the power button to stop it. I knew I was in trouble at this point, but had to attend a meeting and didn’t have time to wait for the updates. ...

I’ve stumbled upon this great list of materials you can use to get started on IT, and Networking in particular. I have to admit that some are new for me, even after being in this field for over 12 years. 2018-01-03 note, I’ve update the list with more resources /r/ITCareerQuestions Wiki /r/CSCareerQuestions Wiki /r/Sysadmin Wiki /r/Networking Wiki /r/NetSec Wiki /r/NetSecStudents Wiki Certifications IT Certification Road Map Cisco Training & certification Info Center Juniper Networks Certification Programs Microsoft Learning Info Center Red Hat Certification Info Center VMware Certification Info Center Microsoft Microsoft Learning Portal - Powered by EdX Microsoft Virtual Academy Microsoft MSDN Product Evaluation Center – Free Downloads Microsoft TechNet Product Evaluation Center – More Free Downloads Microsoft Azure Cloud Services Free Trial Center Microsoft Training Info Center Microsoft Ignite Training Convention Video Center Microsoft MSDN Video Training Portal Cisco / Networking Stanford University Free Intro to Networking Online Course Cisco Learning Center - How to Study for CCNA for Free Professor Messer’s CompTIA Network+ Training Videos Cybrary Free CCNA Training Videos Cisco VIRL - Virtual Router & Firewall Training Tool GNS3 Vault - Free Practice & Training Labs for Cisco Equipment Cisco Live Training Convention Video Portal - Free Registration Required Cisco Design Zone - Best Practices PacketBomb - WireShark Training Center NetCraftsmen - Network Consultants Blog PacketPushers News & Podcasts IOSHints - Ivan Pepelnjak’s Blog/site Cumulus Networks SDN Technical Videos SDX Central - SDN Resources Information/Computer/Network Security SANS Reading Room SANS Certifications BlackHat Conferences @ YouTube DEFCON Conferences @ YouTube RSA Conference @ YouTube Carnegie Mellon SoftEng Institute @ YouTube CMU’s Plaid Parliament of Pwning Competitive Hacking Team Blog Cybrary - Open Source Security Learning Krebs on Security blog Google’s Security Blog US CERT - Computer Emergency Response Team blog ISC^2 - CISSP - Certified Information Systems Security Professional Linux Resources Linux Foundation - Intro to Linux for Free Linux Foundation - Online Course Catalog - some free some paid DigitalOcean Linux Tutorials Docker Self-Paced Training USENIX Site Reliability Enginering Convention 2014 Presentations - Free USENIX Site Reliability Enginering Convention 2015 Presentations - Free USENIX Large Installation System Administration Conference 2014 Presentations - Free USENIX Large Installation System Administration Conference 2015 Presentations - Free PuppetConf Convention Videos 2014 - Free Registration Required PuppetConf Convention Videos 2015 - Free Registration Required ChefConf Convention Videos 2015 Ansible Video Resources - Including AnsibleFest Convention Videos SaltStack Video Resources VMware Resources VMWorld Convention Session Playback VMWare Hands-On-Labs Training Labs The Best of Cisco Live ^(Cisco Live is Cisco’s annual Technology expo & training convention.) ^(All of these presentations are available for free here: http://www.ciscolive.com/online - Many with video presentations of the lectures.) BRKARC-3001 - Cisco Integrated Services Router G2 - Architectural Overview and Use Cases (2013) BRKARC-3001 - Cisco Integrated Services Router - Architectural Overview and Use Cases (2016) BRKARC-2001 - Cisco ASR1000 Series Routers: System & Solution Architectures (2016) BRKCRS-3147 - Advanced Troubleshooting of the ASR1K and ISR (IOS-XE) made easy (2016) BRKARC-1009 - Cisco Catalyst 2960-X Series Switching Architecture (2016) BRKARC-3438 - Cisco Catalyst 3850 and 3650 Series Switching Architecture (2016 BRKCRS-3146 - Troubleshooting Cisco Catalyst 3650 / 3850 Series Switches (2016) BRKARC-3445 - Cisco Catalyst 4500E Switch Architecture (2016) BRKCRS-3142 - Troubleshooting Cisco Catalyst 4500 Series Switches (2015) BRKARC-3465 - Cisco Catalyst 6800 Switch Architectures (2016) BRKCRS-3143 - Troubleshooting Cisco Catalyst 6500 / 6800 Series Switches (2015) BRKARC-2222 - Cisco Nexus 9000 Architecture (2015) BRKDCT-3101 - Nexus 9000 (Standalone) Architecture Brief and Troubleshooting (2016) BRKCRS-1500 - Wired LAN Deployment Using the Cisco Validated Design for Campus (2016) BRKCRS-2031 - Enterprise Campus Design: Multilayer Architectures and Design Principles (2016) BRKCRS-2501 - Campus QoS Design-Simplified (2016) Cisco Design Zone: Cisco Validated Designs for Campus Networks Cisco Design Zone: Cisco Validated Designs for Branch Office Networks BRKDCT-2218 - Data Center Design for the Midsize Enterprise (2016) BRKSAN-2449 - Storage Area Network Extension Design and Operation (2015) BRKSAN-2883 - Advanced Storage Area Network Design (2016) Enjoy it! :) ...

Here’s another cool and helpful thing I just discovered that might help you stranger of the internet. Recently I joined a class on Udemy.com, and because I have other tasks at the moment and can’t dedicate 100% to it, I wanted to download the videos so I started looking for ways how to do it. The official answer is that they don’t have anything against it, but it depends on the instructors. In my case the option to download the video was not present, plus that I wanted to automate the process and not download the videos one by one. ...

After having some interviews where I’ve been asked about routing on linux solutions, I’ve decided to playaround with Quagga. As always, you can find all the info already on the internet. And in my case Brian Kletter had all the necessary info to setup the environment. Here’s the link on how to setup a linux server with quagga software. And here the initial setup for quagga. For this lab I’ve decided to get familiar with the syntax first and capabilities and then to test a quick ospf scenario. ...

In case you will need it, here’s a thing that helped me out once. In case you want to append some config lines that you have stored in a file and if you can’t copy it through SFTP, you can make it locally. To do this you need to start tclsh and create the file puts [open "flash:filename" w+] { now don’t press enter but just paste in your config lines and then } and ENTER. tclquit to exit tclsh. Now you’ll have your config snippet in flash:filename and you can use it to append to your config. Would be a good idea to check it with more flash:filename just to be sure that you have everything in place and no characters were left outside. As always, more info on Cisco’s webpage ...