Cisco Ccna Ccnp Home Lab Why You Need An Isdn Simulator

Writen by Chris Bryant

ISDN is a vital topic for today's CCNA and CCNP candidates, especially for the ICND and Intro exams - you've got to know ISDN inside and out to pass those exams. Naturally you want to include it in your home lab. What many candidates don't realize is that you can't connect two Cisco routers directly via their Basic Rate Interface (BRI) interfaces you've got to have another device between them called an ISDN simulator.

An ISDN simulator is not one of those software programs pretending to be routers ("router simulators") this is a piece of hardware that acts as the telephone company in your home lab. Older simulators come with preprogrammed phone numbers and SPIDs, where newer ones let you program the phone numbers you want to use. Either way, an ISDN simulator is great for your CCNA/CCNP home lab, because you can practice dial scenarios that actually work. And you get to troubleshoot the ones that don't, which is also important to learn! )

You don't need any special cables or connectors you just connect both of your routers' BRI interfaces to the ISDN simulator with a straight-through cable and you're ready to go.

In years past, this was a major problem for 640-801, 811, and 821 studies, because the simulators used to be so expensive. New ones can still be pricey ($600 and up), but with the sudden influx of used ISDN simulators on ebay and Cisco resellers, you can get a used one that will do the job for you.

Why are there suddenly so many ISDN simulators on the market? Cisco recently removed ISDN from the CCIE R&S exam, so a lot of CCIE rack resellers as well as private individuals are selling their simulators. There's never been a better time to add ISDN to your home lab. If taken care of (kept out of extreme heat), they can last for quite a few years. The one I purchased for my IE home lab is still working well.

If you choose to purchase a new simulator, you can run a Google search to find vendors. I've made two purchases from www.vconsole.com over the last few years and both of those simulators have worked beautifully.

As I said earlier, there's never been a better time to add ISDN to your home lab. Don't just settle for trying to memorize theory - get your hands on the real deal, practice and fix your configurations, and you'll be amazed at what you learn and how well you do on your CCNA and CCNP exams!

Chris Bryant, CCIE #12933, is the owner of The Bryant Advantage, home of free CCNA and CCNP tutorials, The Ultimate CCNA Study Package, and Ultimate CCNP Study Packages. For a FREE copy of his latest e-books, "How To Pass The CCNA" and "How To Pass The CCNP", visit the website and download your free copies. You can also get FREE CCNA and CCNP exam questions every day! Pass the CCNA exam with The Bryant Advantage!

Mobitv And Visual Stimulation Imput For Personal Cognitive Performance

Writen by Lance Winslow

Stimulus thru Caffiene or Visual Input?

It appears that the Mobi TV feature for Cell Phones may in fact have some positive Bio-advantages in that it exercises the brain thru visual stimulation. We know that visual input stimulates the brain. We know that there are significant peaks in brain wave activity in the first 15-30 minutes of watching TV or playing video games and then the activity slowly declines after that.

http://scholar.lib.vt.edu/theses/available...ted/jscetd2.pdf

http://education.umn.edu/kls/ecee/pdfs/iea2003horie.pdf

http://journalofvision.org/2/1/2/Ringach-2002-jov-2-1-2.pdf

Watching comedy or movies with a twist or ironic situations happening during the film such a detective stories with multiple twists and the "Who Done It" type detective movies provide additional peak brain waves thru out the show. This is due to the activation of the N400 Brain Wave.

The Mobi TV feature on the new Nokia phone can be watched for up to 2 hours without running out of batteries and it also has a digital phone built in as well as being a regular cell phone. RIMM – Research In Motion will be coming out with a 3G-unit combination Blackberry with all these features plus email and PDA. The Nokia turns off the TV in five minutes after watching unless you push a button to tell it to continue. The feature is only $10 per month. Such things are not to be unexpected with he latest in algorithm compression technologies at all. And it wasn't long ago when the 1.5-way and 2-way Pagers allowed for news updates, stock quote, weather advisories and sports scores. Even those interested in Homeland Security can get their update news alerts on a pager or cell phone now.

We are also seeing trends in instant messaging although some plans get pretty expensive, one parent was in shock to find their daughter in Junior High School ran up a $600 bill when they went over their 1000 instant messaging limit with 7000 instant messages in one month, at only $ .10 each, well I guess it adds up? Such reliance on personal communications devices and the trend to put more information, video projection, TV, cameras and video feed into these devices will have an effect on the brain. It will affect the way we learn and the speed at which we learn it. Some might say this is bad, although when looking at the other side of the argument there seems to be a big advantage to faster thinking minds and visual stimulus because 45% of our brains RAM capacity (so to speak) appears to be used up in the visual processing area of the brain. In the future as machine and man become one and rely on each other to accomplish tasks thru computer-human interfaces such crude devices as we are discussing here are a precept to the devices which will allow us to do more assisted and higher cognitive level thinking. These current devices now in the works will play a big part in the future of things to come and assist a more mobile society adapt, work and remain at a higher cognitive level.

Do you have thoughts either pro or con on this issue? How does new technology and mobile devices change they way you live, think and reason? Do you think we are moving too fast and losing our innate human social structure or do you feel such devices enhance our closeness as a culture? The future will tell us soon enough.

Lance Winslow

Animated Wallpaper

Writen by Elizabeth Morgan

Animated wallpapers are applications that place special animations, screen savers and media files directly on the desktop. This makes them different from a typical desktop wallpaper, which is just an image in the background. These applications allow full-fledged 3 dimensional animations, screen savers and media files to be displayed directly in the background. So, if a user is looking for something a little more interesting than animated gif images, this is the perfect application to install. The application includes a standard wallpaper changer which can be configured to cycle through the images. This is just a slideshow that is computer operated and changes the image as per the configuration.

Animated desktop wallpapers is a high quality replacement for the common desktop wallpapers. A distinctive feature is that along with simple beautiful images, it offers the user a real living world, full of sounds and movement. For instance, some animated desk tops can convey the time of the day through audio-visual effects representing the periodic cycle of the dawn, dusk and night on the desktop. Watching an animated wallpaper on a desktop is a great way to relax after a long and exhausting work day.

Amimated wallpapers can be customized adding images, movies, sound clips and other media resources to it. It is a decorator's dream as it allows him to effortlessly add animated themes to a computer's desktop. Animated wallpapers are very convenient to use as they are not a strain on the computer's memory or a drag on it's performance. They work quietly in the background without taking up too many system resources, unless specialized applications are required to run the animation. The program controlling an animated wallpaper is enabled with six themes. An user can set flash files as animated wallpaper as well. This is easy to use and most commands and functions are immediately accessible. The above functionalities and features have contributed to animated wall papers becoming extremely popular with computer users.

Wallpaper provides detailed information on Wallpaper, Desktop Wallpaper, Wallpaper Borders, Animated Wallpaper and more. Wallpaper is affiliated with Discount Wallpaper Borders.