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Home > Archive > Certified Internet Webmaster - CIW > March 2002 > Starting out to get my CIW pleeeease help...
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Starting out to get my CIW pleeeease help...
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| andrewshim 2002-03-06, 9:48 am |
| The fondations course materials are too expensive for me at the moment. I've heard that the authorized CIW foundations book published by Sybex will be out soon. I wonder if this book will help me for starters. Should I get used course materials?
Where would I go to get them? Any help would be appreciated! | |
| Webmaster 2002-03-06, 10:45 am |
| There is a CIW foundation study guide from Sybex and Exam Cram book. They cost under $70 both. | |
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| the Examcram book - piles and piles of errors (particularly regarding DNS, HTML coding, and a number of practice questions), and it leaves out some topics entirely (particularly related to security - which was covered rather heavily in the Foundations exam I took) and then covers other topics in excruciating and unnecessary details.
Probably best to wait until the Sybex book comes out (they are authorised to produce materials), or get the official materials for Foundations.
In my opinion, some of the other exams may be easier to pass with general knowledge or commercial materials - just not the Foundations exam. | |
| Psydefx 2002-03-19, 2:32 am |
| Here are some places to start:
www.macromedia.com
download the 30 day trial and go through the tutorial at least twice, and then play with it. -> very important that you post one of the sites you build, use the ftp, and get used to it.
download the 30 day trial of Flash and read about it.
further research at www.virtual-fx.net
next, play and post with FrontPage. Most people have Office, and it's part of the parcel, so I am assuming you can play a little either at home or at a friends.
While playing with both of them, you should be going to the HTML sections and looking at the code. Don't worry, it's English with some tags, that's all. Start entering code and seeing the results (hint: don't believe what you see on the preview pages, it might not reflect the real result)
Next you want to go and read some columns on javascript and dhtml at www.dhtmllabs.com
Start to implement a few of them and get to recognizing the code.
Next, setup a Linux box (Red Hat 7.2 is a long dl, but available online) don't be intimidated, it's really not that hard, and lots of Linux geeks will be more than happy to help you. Make sure Apache is loaded by you, and you play with it.
When you have done this (which should've cost you little more than time), you will not only have a great foundation, but also a heads up on almost any direction in Admin or Site Design you want to go...
No guarantees on the Developer, I am personally allergic.
Now take your iNet+ test, fax the passing score report to CIW and get two certificates for the price of 1 + like $35.00.
http://www.ciwcertified.com/exams/e...?comm=CND&llm=2
Easy as cake!
Hope this helps.
Cheers! | |
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| Psydefx - are you joking? ;-)
Apologies if this should be obvious and isn't - newbie, etc. ;-) But just in case you're serious: these recommendations aren't exactly targeted for someone studying for the I-Net or Foundations exams... ;-) | |
| Psydefx 2002-03-20, 5:43 am |
| Who are they targeted for then?
I hope you will agree that having a well rounded knowledge of what is entailed toward your end result should be the first step in outlining an action plan toward an objective. In order to do this, I suspect the 80 or so hours outlined above should prove more than adequate.
I would think that you would also agree that it will teach a little more than the course objectives.
I was trying to outline a cost effective (80-120 hours vs. $1500.00) way to get a good grasp on the topic and a solid "Foundation" for future goals in any of the directions. Please let me know if this is not the result of the suggestion.
(It is also the way I know best, as it is the path that I took.)
PS:
all of the RFC's on the protocols (search) http://www.faqs.org/rfcs/
port #s http://www.iana.org/assignments/port-numbers | |
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| that Foundations covers both more and less than what would be dealt with by those materials. Since not everyone who takes the Foundations exam will go on to do the Designer sequence, for example, it can be helpful to know that Foundations understandably tests web design skills in a fairly limited way - and tests fairly basic skills. The web design tools you listed would be more appropriate at the stage where someone is preparing for the Site Design exam.
Same with the Linux install: if someone doesn't plan to go on to the Administrator sequence - it can be overkill, and more intimidating than need be for what is essentially a "gateway" exam that will enable someone to choose a specialisation.
And on another level, if someone is completely new to web design, administration, or whatever chances are good that reading online articles and downloading html and wysiwyg editors won't give them a systematic enough introduction to html. There are a number of comprehensive tutorials available (online and otherwise) that will cover the material step-by-step - they would need to find one of these, and then use them in conjunction with the editor of their choice, to have a good chance of developing a command of html.
Once again, if someone is totally new to server administration, something more systematic is probably required than a server install.
At the same time, none of the tools you mentioned would address some of the more theoretical issues the exam addresses - OSI, security, even network architecture and topology. And again, someone new to those issues probably can't learn them solely by reading articles or playing with hands-on experiments - it would be too random to gain foundational knowledge.
I'm not arguing that preparing for the exam should be a paper exercise - of course hands on knowledge in the person's intended area of specialisation will be crucial. But if someone is just starting out, they can save a lot of time by going to materials that introduce concepts in a systematic way and are built for introductory learners - and then use the hands-on tools to give them a conceptualisation and visualisation of what they're reading...
This probably won't apply apply to someone who has reasonable IT experience - you get used to learning new things by playing around with them, and generalising from what you've already seen. This technique is not as effective if someone is just starting out in the field, and it can discourage someone from believing that they can learn the material. | |
| Psydefx 2002-03-20, 2:55 pm |
| Thank you for explaining your point. I agree with you. While writing that, I was saying what I do, and what I tell my students to do. What I didn't take into account was that my students are USUALLY already in the IT world with some working experience.
I think that following a directed curriculum would be the way to go definately. Can you provide some links for tutorials that you know of so that when I talk about this in the future, I have more of a reportoire of experience (MCSE/CCNA).
Again thank you, I have not taught the Foundations before, and remember that when I was endeavoring the exam, I did little study (I also had consulting and a healthy number of other certifications).
Andrewshim, please accept my apologies for any information provided that would side track you from your stated objective. It is not hard, it just takes time. I'm sure that if you follow the advise of Vidon, you will expediently accomplish your goal.
Cheers! | |
| andrewshim 2002-03-20, 7:20 pm |
| duhhh...
actually your reply did throw me off the *web* for a second. When I read it, I thought "man... my knowledge seems to be really pitiful... it will take me light years to reach these guys' levels".
Thanks to Vidon though, I've climbed back on to my little web again!!! ; )
I'm a late starter (36 yrs old) and seems like i've got a looooong way to go. But i've gotta take that first step...
Thanks for all your help guys.. | |
| Psydefx 2002-03-20, 7:46 pm |
| I found out about 5 years ago that people would give me money (and good money at that) for "playing" with things that had fascinated me since I was 9 years old (VIC20 by Commodore). I then found out that I could get paid for talking about my experiences "playing". WOW. The bottom line for me is that it's a lot of fun to do things with computers etc. I generally recommend that people play with things that they like... In order to do that, you need to see what's out there. He's definately correct about the course of study, but don't be afraid to PLAY. If you can't play, it's just another job. The way the market is going, we're finally considered professionals, but we're no longer worth 2-6 times the amount of other professionals.
I hope this stream of consciousness has in some way given you an idea of where I came from in my original advise. There's lots of stuff out there to play with... let the gaming begin.
Cheers! | |
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| My sense is that Foundations is more of an entry-level certification than, say, the certifications involved in an MCSE or other vendor-specific certs. And Foundations has been promoted in the general press (not sure if Prosoft is happy about this or not...) as being a certification that is "do-able" for non-techies who want to achieve a general understanding of the internet universe.
I think this has attracted some people who have been interested in IT for some time, but who haven't had a lot of experience in the field. It has also, of course, attracted people who have been in the field for some time now, who like the idea of vendor-neutral certifications, or who have been looking for a web-specific certification.
As you progress up the certification tracks, the CIW requires more breadth that the vendor-specific certs can, but the certification is more... approachable at the lower levels.
I'll try to put together a list of decent free online tutorials that correspond to the test objectives over the weekend. I moved house last week, so all of my reference material is in boxes still... ;-) But I've been meaning to put something systematic together for people new to IT work and interested in the exam sequence... | |
| Psydefx 2002-03-21, 1:42 pm |
| Excellent!!! Thank you very much. I think that it will be invaluable to anyone trying to get started. I hope your move went well, it can get frustrating at times (my wife declared that we will never move again without movers last time).
Thanks again for the reply, look forward to the info when you have the opportunity.
Cheers! | |
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| This move was easier than the last one - from the US to Australia... ;-) Compared to that, I don't think I'll ever find a move difficult again... I *still* have boxes and boxes of stuff in storage overseas that I'm not sure are ever going to make it out here... | |
| Psydefx 2002-03-21, 3:32 pm |
| Hope there isn't anything that you'll miss if it never gets there. I kinda had the same thing going someyears back, doing the Ginsburg era thing wandering about the country finding places to happen. Left a lot of stuff in storage in other states... interesting how much we forget we have over time. My garage could probably host a sale every weekend this year, and still not be "optimized".
Hope the rest of your week fares well.
Cheers! |
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