Coping with Change on the Web Sooner or later, all the specifics we've shared with you about the Cisco certification pages, and all the other Web-based resources we mention throughout the rest of this book, will go stale or be replaced by newer information. In some cases, the URLs you find here might lead you to their replacements; in other cases, the URLs will go nowhere, leaving you with the dreaded "404 file not found" error message. When that happens, please don't give up. There's always a way to find what you want on the Web if you're willing to invest some time and energy. To begin with, most large or complex Web sites and the Cisco site qualifies on both counts offer a search engine. As long as you can get to the Cisco home page (and we're sure it will stay at http://www.cisco.com for a long while yet), you can use this tool to help you find what you need. The more focused you can make a search request, the more likely it is that the results will include information you can use. For example, you can search for the string "training and certification" to produce a lot of data about the subject in general, but if you're looking for the details on the Cisco Certified System Administrator tests, you'll be more likely to get there quickly if you use a search string such as this: "Administrator" AND "certification" Likewise, if you want to find the training and certification downloads, try a search string such as this: "training and certification" AND "download page" Finally, don't be afraid to use general search tools such as http://www.search.com, http://www.altavista.com, or http://www.excite.com to search for related information. Even though Cisco offers information about its certification exams online, there are plenty of third-party sources of information, training, and assistance in this area that do not have to follow a party line, as Cisco does. The bottom line is this: If you can't find something where the book says it lives, start looking around. |