Our CompTIA A + training videos were designed with your future in mind. Not only will this training lead to A + certification, but it will improve your overall information technology skills, and ultimately lead to a more fiscally rewarding career. If you’re serious about becoming CompTIA A+ certified, you need to rely on our outstanding training videos.

Unlike classes, our CompTIA A+ training videos can be watched again and again. Having the ability to watch these videos at your convenience means you set your own study schedule. This is important, because no one knows how you learn best, better than you. Not to mention, the ability to fit study time around your busy schedule. Whenever you get some spare time, just pop in our CompTIA A+ training videos and get one step closer to certification.

We guarantee the success of our training; because we have the experience it takes to understand what you need to better your career. As business professionals ourselves, we understand what works and what doesn’t. When you watch our CompTIA A+ training videos, you are getting information from some of the brightest minds in the industry. Some trainers believe that nothing can compare to the lessons learned through academic training. Others claim that experience out in the workforce will lead to the best possible training. We combine both, so our customers can get the best CompTIA A+ training possible.

We’re very excited to release our CompTIA Network+ training series, which gives you all the skills and training necessary to pass the Network+ certification exam (N10-004) as well as become a solid network professional.  Our CompTIA Network+ training is the perfect compliment to our very popular CompTIA A+ series.

In fact, we offer both our CompTIA A+ and Network+ training as a combo package with big savings.  As always, we include MeasureUp’s award winning exam prep software with each of our training titles.

If you need training to comply with the DoD 8570.1 directives, our A+, Network+, Security+ and CISSP training covers the material you need to pass each of those exams.

Check out the content covered in our Network+ training series, which has 20 videos and over 10 hours of expert instruction! Read the rest of this entry »

Palaestra Training just released their new CISSP Certification series, with over 17 hours of expert instruction.

Chris Penick is an expert CISSP instructor who has trained every branch of the US Military, written cyber-warfare training and deployment protocols, as well as training hundreds of corporate IT professionals from some of the biggest Fortune 150 companies.

The CISSP Certification is the premier IT Security certification for people looking to move into management or existing managers looking at executive management positions.

Palaestra Training’s President, Christopher Rees said, “I’m extremely proud of the CISSP certification training series, as it’s a step up in production values, content quality and ease of use.  Chris did an excellent job covering the 10 domains in depth, as well as adding some additional content on hacking and social engineering.”

As always, Palaestra’s training comes with high-resolution AVI videos, and also includes iPod versions of the training along with audio-only .mp3 versions as well.  MeasureUp’s award-winning exam prep software is also included as a perfect addition to help the student test their knowledge before sitting to take the real exam.

To view a full-length video on cryptography from the series or for more information visit Palaestra Training’s CISSP Certification Training product page.

Read the rest of this entry »

Palaestra Training just released their Windows 7 Administration training videos series which prepares people to become expert Windows 7 Administrators, as well a prepare for the MCTS 70-680 exam.

The training, consisting of 22 videos and over 13 hours of instruction covers all the exam objectives, as well as offering testing tips and techniques to help the student not only prepare for the exam, but become a technical expert as well.

Windows 7 is Microsoft’s flagship operating system and while many companies may have skipped over Vista, they are deploying Windows 7 in large numbers.  Most companies are either currently engaged in deploying Windows 7 in their environments, or planning deployments in the near future.

By utilizing Palaestra’s Windows 7 training, the student will gain the expertise needed to assist companies of any size in their Win7 upgrades, migrations and deployments, along with being able to maintain, administer and troubleshoot as well.

The training series comes with several additional bonuses, including award-winning exam-prep software from MeasureUp, as well as multiple file formats (AVI, iPod and mp3) so the student can study and learn on a wide-range of devices, anytime, anywhere.

The topics covered in the training are:

1. Windows 7 Features
2. Sharing Resources – Part 1
3. Sharing Resources – Part 2
4. Sharing Resources – Part 3
5. Hardware – Part 1
6. Hardware – Part 2
7. Networks – Part 1
8. Networks – Part 2
9. Networks – Part 3
10. Mobile Computing
11. Maintaining – Part 1
12. Maintaining – Part 2
13. Maintaining – Part 3
14. Backups
15. Installing, Upgrading and Migrating to Windows 7 – Part 1
16. Installing, Upgrading and Migrating to Windows 7 – Part 2
17. Installing, Upgrading and Migrating to Windows 7 – Part 3
18. Deploying Windows 7 – Part 1
19. Deploying Windows 7 – Part 2
20. TCP/IP – Part 1 (Optional Training)
21. TCP/IP – Part 2 (Optional Training)
22. Testing Hints and Techniques (Optional Training)

For a full length free demo of the training, visit our Windows 7 Administration Training page.

The other day I picked up a new iPhone 4 since my Blackberry Bold 9000 was finally hanging often enough that I was pulling out the last few hairs out of my head.  So I have to say so far I really like it.  I like a LOT more than I thought I would.

One issue I ran into when setting up my email accounts, was that I couldn’t get one of my personal email accounts to connect.  It was a Google Gmail account (Google Apps account actually).  For some reason, it kept telling me the username/password was incorrect, even though I knew for sure I had the credentials correct.

I tried connecting for a day two, changing passwords, deleting and adding the account into the iPhone, etc., with no luck.  I then came across a post on one of the forums, that stated occasionally the authentication mechanism locks (the captcha system) to prevent spamming, etc.  So the article said to go a special link that allows you to do a “Captcha Unlock”.

The link is https://www.google.com/accounts/DisplayUnlockCaptcha which I thought, awesome I found the fix!  But, for those of us who use Google Apps and have Gmail managing our own domain emails, you need to go to the Google Apps version (the above link is for regular Gmail accounts).  The Google Apps Captcha Unlock link is: https://www.google.com/a/yourdomain.com/UnlockCaptcha, where you replace yourdomain.com with your valid domain name.

I unlocked the account, added the account in the iPhone and life is good.

Hope this helps if you run into a similar issue!

Certified for Life?  Not so Fast…

CompTIA (www.comptia.org) recently changed their longstanding policy of certification for life.  Up until recently, if you passed any of CompTIA’s certification exams you were certified for life and didn’t need to recertify after a period of time.

That all changed last year, when CompTIA decided to announce that all certification holders would need to recertify every three (3) years.  Much to the dismay of the thousands of existing CompTIA certification holders, many of whom felt that the terms of their original “agreement” with CompTIA was now being changed without their input or consent.

CompTIA decided to change their initial ruling, and now have announced that existing certification holders will remain certified for life.  It’s very important to note however, anyone obtaining a CompTIA certification after January 01, 2011 will have to recertify every three years!

What Does this Mean for You?

If you are an IT professional who is thinking about certification, or a career changer looking for training to become certified, you will want to hurry!  If you are looking for CompTIA A+ Certification Training, you still have time to study and get certified before next year.  Doing so will certify you for life, and save you quite a bit of money over the long term because you won’t need to recertify or obtain Continuing Education Units (CEU) every few years.

Palaestra Training offers CompTIA A+ Certification training videos that are extremely affordable, come with AVI, iPod and mp3 formats and truly allow you to study anytime, anywhere. 

Get your training now, so you have time to study and get certified before next year!

Visit us at www.PalaestraTraining.com for more information about our training videos for CompTIA, as well as Microsoft, Cisco (CCNA and CCNA Security) and our newest addition – Project Management Professional (PMP) Certification Training.

Palaestra Training just released a new series that prepares students for the Project Management Professional (PMP) exam.

This training covers the material in the PMBOK 4th edition, and is packed full of information that will help project managers, IT professionals or anyone looking to manage projects the right way.

The training also includes over 3 hours of Microsoft Project 2010 training and includes MeasureUp exam prep software for the PMP certification exam as well.

As always, Palaestra Training offers a 30-day money back guarantee on all their training products, as well as FREE worldwide shipping.  Visit the PMP Certification Training product page for more details and free full length sample videos from this awesome series.

I recently did an upgrade of a server which involved upgrading the existing HP Smart Array controller card and hard drives.  We have an HP ML350G5 server that was using an E200i integrated smart array controller and 4 5.4k SATA drives in a RAID 5 array (I know, 5.4k drives…   it was actually a misconfigured order from HP).  At any rate, I upgrade to an P400 controller with 512MB of Battery Backed Write Cache (BBWC) and 7 15k SAS drives.

We did a full backup of the system using Acronis True Image server, upgrade the hardware, rebuilt the array and restored the backup (again using Acronis).  One option I noticed during the restore was the option to create a new disk signature or extract the existing signature from the backup file.  The default is to create a new disk signature, so we went with that a performed the restore.  An hour and a half later, the restore finished and everything looked good.  Everything except the Microsoft Office applications.  They for some reason wanted to reinstall and activate.  I let it run for about 10 minutes while it looked like it was trying to install, but it was hanging so we killed the process and looked around for some articles on what the issue might be. Read the rest of this entry »

As of January 1, 2010 CompTIA has instituted some changes to their certification policy.  In the past, if you were A+, Network+ or Security+ certified you would remain certified for life – no need to renew or update the certification unless you wanted to just keep up with new technology.  In keeping up with the times however, and in making CompTIA certifications more relevant, they are now requiring certain certifications be renewed every three years.

The new certification renewal policy is applicable to all individuals who hold CompTIA A+, CompTIA Network+ or CompTIA Security+ certifications, regardless of the date they were certified. Does this apply to ALL CompTIA certifications?  The short answer is no, only to the three listed above for now (Other CompTIA certifications are not affected at this time).

CompTIA advised on their website that there will be multiple ways to renew your certification, including take “bridge” exams that bridge the gap between an older exam and the newest version, by taking Computer Based Training, teaching, presenting, and so on.  For the complete details on this update to their certification policy visit their website.

Many thanks to everyone that followed us on Twitter and commented to enter our 8GB iPod giveaway.  We’re very happy with the response, and hopefully everyone will find value in the tweets we publish.  We tweet exclusive deals and discounts, so keep an eye out!

Congratulations to Tanya Wilson (@twincere) for being the winner of our iPod giveaway.  Tanya was kind enough to send us a photo and let us know how we were able to play a small part in adding to her family’s Christmas cheer!  We hope Tanya that you and your family will enjoy your new iPod for years to come!

Keep an eye out for future contests and giveaways, and most of all make 2010 the best year ever.