Networkers Brisbane, A non-tech perspective.

Hi Guys,

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Reporting to you from sunny Brisbane here, staying at the Rydges hotel (which I cannot recommend enough, its literally right next to the convention center and has pretty decently priced accommodation and Internet access.)

Can I just first say: Brisbane is very pretty, and the convention center is well organised and massive for Australia. I hope I get chance to check out the awesome museum too which has a dinosaur themed section (see below for the cool mock ups outside the front of the museum)

Cool hey?

So about networkers, from the minute you step in the whole effort and the money Cisco must spend to put the event together is obvious. The first thing they give you is a special badge with a scannable device on it, this scannable code is your ticket to all events, you simply scan the badge to register for events or to print your schedule. Everything went silky smooth:


Once you get your badge its time to collect your merchandise! Considering how stingy Cisco normally are with merchandise, the items you get are impressive:

• A very nice Cisco carry bag with padding and all
• A Shirt
• USB Key (2 gig) with all the Cisco content from the ALL the technical breakout sessions.
• Water bottle, cap etc

For those who know Cisco, all this merchandise is quite generous for them!

So on my first day, the Monday which is an optional day I had my techtutorial, I chose CCIE Security as I want another one to go with my CCIE Routing and Switching.

The tutor we had was none of than... Yusuf Bhaiji,
The author of the Cisco press book Network Security Technologies and Solutions and also the lead for the actual CCIE Security exams itself! Can you think of anyone more qualified to talk about the exam topics?

He gave us a great handout and did an amazing job of covering the material that will appear in as much detail as one day would allow (that is to say, not much detail but good bits of hints and tips.)

I will follow this blog post up with all the hints he gave but for now let me just say some of them will be quite useful to those preparing for the exam! He also mentioned his new book is out in a months time which is an updated version of his CCIE Security practice labs (so second edition of that same title.) If I had my copy of his book I would have got him to sign it. Sad I know, but my rock stars are different from your rock stars (for an interesting take on that check out this video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jqLPHrCQr2I )


Well that's it for the non-technical side of my blog kids, I will post the hints and tips from Yusuf next, but so far apart from missing my girlfriend back home in Perth I am enjoying it here in Brisbane.