Cisco CCNP Certification / BCMSN Exam Tutorial: Writing QoS Policy

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QoS – Quality of Service – is a huge topic on both the BCMSN exam and real-world networks. QoS is so big today that Cisco’s created separate specialist certifications that cover nothing but QoS! It can be an overwhelming topic at first, but master the fundamentals and you’re on your way to exam and job success.

If you work with QoS at any level – and sooner or later, you will – you’ve got to know how to write and apply QoS policies.

Creating and applying such a policy is a three-step process.

1. Create a QoS class to identify the traffic that will be affected by the policy.

2. Create a QoS policy containing the actions to be taken by traffic identified by the class.

3. Apply the policy to the appropriate interfaces.

If the phrase “identify the traffic” sounds like it’s time to write an access-list, you’re right! Writing an ACL is one of two ways to classify traffic, and is the more common of the two. Before we get to the less-common method, let’s take a look at how to use an ACL to classify traffic.

You can use either a standard or extended ACL with QoS policies. The ACL will be written separately, and then called from the class map.

SW1(config)#access-list 105 permit tcp any any eq 80

SW1(config)#class-map WEBTRAFFIC

SW1(config-cmap)#match access-group 105

Now that we’ve identified the traffic to be affected by the policy, we better get around to writing the policy! QoS policies are configured with the policy-map command, and each clause of the policy will contain an action to be taken to traffic matching that clause.

SW1(config)#policy-map LIMIT_WEBTRAFFIC_BANDWIDTH

SW1(config-pmap)#class WEBTRAFFIC

SW1(config-pmap-c)#police 5000000 exceed-action drop

SW1(config-pmap-c)#exit

This is a simple policy, but it illustrates the logic of QoS policies. The policy map LIMIT_WEBTRAFFIC_BANDWIDTH calls the map-class WEBTRAFFIC. We already know that all WWW traffic will match that map class, so any WWW traffic that exceeds the stated bandwidth limitation will be dropped.

Finally, apply the policy to the appropriate interface.

SW1(config-if)#service-policy LIMIT_WEBTRAFFIC_BANDWIDTH in

Getting your CCNP is a great way to boost your career, and learning QoS is a tremendous addition to your skill set. Like I said, learn the fundamentals, don’t get overwhelmed by looking at QoS as a whole, and you’re on your way to success!

4 Tips For Buying Affordable Custom School Gear

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Even though it’s the kids that are going back to school, it’s mom and dad who are actually doing a lot of the work. If you’ve ever glanced at a student’s school supply list, you know what I’m talking about. Is it crazy to suggest that you get custom school gear Is getting custom school gear a crazy idea to suggest? No, it’s not crazy. Smart shoppers for school supplies know they can get great custom stuff at great prices. Personalized pencils? Check. Pencil cases with child’s name? Check.

However, there’s always the expense factor. Isn’t getting ready for the school year expensive? Not necessarily. Here are four tips for getting great gear at the best price.

Buy in bulk.

There’s a reason why Costco and Sam’s Club are so popular. You can get a lot of great stuff at prices you can’t get anywhere else. When you buy something in bulk, you get it for less. When it comes to school supplies, the same principle holds true. You don’t have to purchase a pallet of paper, but you can buy a set of 24 pencils instead of purchasing them one at time. You know the pencils are going to get used so go ahead and get them. While you’re at it, get personalized pencils and save your mazuma.

Buy online.

No offense to the brick-and-mortar stores of this world, but buying online is the way to go when it comes to purchasing custom school gear. To customize a pack of pencils, for example, all you need to do is type in a few letters as you’re completing your purchase. It’s fast, easy, convenient, and — best of all — a lot cheaper when you do it online.

Buy from the right sources.

Not just any online retailer is going to give you the best prices. Those in the know will spend a little time shopping around for the best price and the same idea applies when shopping online. Amazon.com may be the biggest online retailer, but they don’t have a corner on the market when it comes to personalized school supplies. Pick out boutique retailers to purchase custom school supplies. Niche companies have industry cachet, specificity, loads of experience, and a lineup of school products that are perfectly priced.

Buy personalized pencils.

If you’re in some serious penny-pinching conditions, don’t worry. Getting custom school gear doesn’t have to be a pain at all. Personalized pencils are cheap, cheap, cheap. If you’re looking to buy a Gucci backpack that’s been monogrammed, that’ll cost more than a few bucks but the most practical purchase will be the personalized pencils.

Going back to school may be a parental headache, but it’s a really exciting time for your kids. Boost that excitement by picking up personalized school gear for them. It doesn’t have to break the bank, but it sure does help the back-to-school transition!

How Sales Training Courses Can Improve Your Net Profit!

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Individuals and businesses have the opportunity of selecting from a range sales training courses available through the internet, or can be held at their location.

With such a choice of training methods, companies and sales professionals can commonly get top quality class product sales education solutions, particularly designed towards the specifications and needs of the organization or workers. Several of these programs come with product sales qualifications and certificates that are recognised nationally and in other countries.

Some on-line training firms provides their course materials utilizing sources and coaching tools that consist of seminars, voice conferencing, and video clip tutorial conferencing.

On line sales management companies have an outstanding remedy for corporations to decrease their own sales training that can result in a reduction in overall training costs.

By allowing a qualified sales training agency to work with their sales training needs, corporations can leave the demands of sales training to specialist providers achieving better results.

With the easy availability of the internet, finding a competent product sales administration organization with appropriate sales training is not difficult any more… You’ll be able to simply search for such sales organizations using any web search engine and make your choice after comparing the reviews acquired from those that have provided testimonies.

You have to be extremely selective, having said that, as quite a few sales men and women, sales managers and corporate executives who’ve invested in training have been terribly disappointed with the results. This can take place because of the purchaser not identifying the objectives to be obtaining form he training in the first place.

So it truly is vital that clear goals and objectives are made the decision in the outset, and the training provider is properly briefed.

This can only be done after a comprehensive examination has taken place of the entire product sales procedure and staff sales performances.

Sales training is beneficial for all these involved in dealing with prospects and potential clients. When any employee speaks to some customer they are representing their business so they ought to know how to treat the customer.

This approach allows staff to take the opportunity to offer other products or services to the customer, thereby increasing overall sales.

Quite a few people won’t take unsolicited calls and may possibly feel unhappy by being approached by somebody on the telephone. So for those making the telephone call it is vital that they undergo telephone sales instruction that equips them to not only manage the potential rejection, but can turn the attitude of the possible client into a positive one.

When the sales team have acquired training in sales, they are more able to help the person relax that they are talking to, and then it is possible to ascertain their demands, and ask about them to reply to a question to help continue to the conversation. In doing this, it increases the possibility of achieving a sale. But even if the phone call is brief, very good training with help the individual to maintain a great perspective of the company leaving them with a positive impression rather than an adverse one.

After you have reviewed the many sales training organizations that meet your needs, it is essential to acquire information regarding the satisfaction of their previous clients so make the request and obtain the telephone numbers of at least 3 companies that the have recently delivered training courses to. Following your follow up with them you are in a stronger position to choose your sales training provider

Choosing an Executive Coach – Pick For Feedback Loops

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Choosing an Executive Coach

Are you working in a company or law firm where leaders have an executive coach and are enrolled in a leadership development program?  Does your organization have a well developed plan to hire the right executive coaches that are a good fit with the company culture?

One of the most powerful questions you can ask is “What executive coaching qualities should we look for when hiring the best executive coaches for our company leaders?” Emotionally intelligent and socially intelligent leaders have a well designed plan for selecting the right coaches for their executive coaching and leadership development programs.

Pick for Feedback Loops

An executive coach must serve as the conduit for colleagues’ feedback. Your peers will rarely share authentic feedback with you, and a skilled coach can solicit important information in a way that satisfies confidentiality requirements. Clear agreements, established boundaries and skilled diplomacy are critical.

Your  executive coach should help you develop the skills needed to create relationships in which you can ask for honest feedback on an ongoing basis. Regular feedback from valued colleagues is the “Breakfast of Champions”!  An executive coach certified in the Bar-On EQ-i 360 can interview critical people at work and gather data to help you improve your effectiveness at work.

Instead of encouraging dependence, your executive coach should teach you how to manage your development in the future. After an initial assessment, a good coach shows you how to form links with colleagues and teaches them how to frame useful, specific feedback instead of vague judgments. Your 360  feedback team can support you when they observe you leveraging your strengths and making a significant contribution to achieving team and organizational goals. Alternatively, the members of your 360 feedback team can challenge you when they perceive you are still exhibiting behaviors you had agreed to change. The goal is for you and the organization to get better and be more effective.

Your executive coach will teach you to ask for feedback and manage the conversation without being defensive. This includes learning how to determine which feedback is relevant and valid, prioritize the issues you need to address and figure out how to handle them.

Working with a seasoned executive coach trained in emotional intelligence and incorporating leadership assessments such as the Bar-On EQ-i and CPI 260 can help company leaders have a successful executive coaching and leadership development experience by choosing the right executive coaches. You can become a leader who models emotional intelligence and social intelligence, and who inspires people to become happily engaged and aligned with the vision and mission of your company or law firm.

Writing For Your Target Audience

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Unless your blog has visitors (that hopefully come back regularly), you are doing nothing more than writing a personal journal. This isn’t an issue if your aim is to practice your writing skills or create a body of work, but it’s a problem if your intent is to market yourself or build a reputation.

Whenever you plan, write or edit a blog post or article, always keep your target audience in mind. The following points will help to achieve this:

Write Content That Is Easy To Read

No matter who your target audience is, you need to make your content easy for them to read. That means you need a clear structure, simple language, and formatting that breaks the blog post up into blocks of text. You also need to carefully edit your work and ensure it flows.

Your articles or blog posts should be more than just a jumbled compilation of your ideas. It should be structured with a clear beginning, mid section and ending. If nothing else it should be broken into short paragraphs and have sub-headings to create further definition.

Spelling and grammatical errors are distracting and reduce your credibility in the eyes of your target audience. They take away form your authority on a subject even if the content is of high quality. At the very least, use a spell-checker and read your content over a few times to make sure you catch any mistakes.

Adding some graphic formatting such as images, bold text or bullet points will help make your articles easier to read. Once you have a draft of your text, go back over the work to see where you can add in some additional formatting to make the piece more appealing and emphasise key points to your target audience.

Consider Who Your Target Audience Is

It’s essential to have a grasp of who your target audience is. Are they new to your niche? Have they years of experience in the particular subject? Answering these questions will affect everything from the topic of discussion to the way in which you deliver the content. The style in which you write will be completely different when delivered to a novice than it would be for an expert.

It’s fair to assume that in most cases your target audience will be beginners. This doesn’t mean that your articles need to be aimed solely at someone who is just starting out, just consider that some readers will have limited knowledge.

In the past I have looked at comments on subject matter and assessed the questions being asked to get a handle on what level of expertise the target audience has. This can help when deciding which particular segment of your target audience you will direct your writing to.

Use The Right Language

You wont always write in the same style, it will depend very much on your target audience. You will write in a very specific style if you article is meant for the local patchwork club. Consider how different your approach would be if you were writing for the local motorcycle club.

If your content requires technical jargon to fully explain a particular point, consider your target audience and what you may need to explain to them. If you’re writing about blogging for example, not every reader will know the term “widget” and you may need to make some explanation of just what a widget is.

Take into account that your target audience may be worldwide and the use of Australian idioms or catchphrases may not make any sense to someone in the UK or the USA. The Internet provides you with an international audience so always consider this when choosing your content language.

The more you consider whom you are writing for, the more successful your efforts will be. Your target audience is often smarter than you may give them credit for and they will catch on quickly. Write to inform and never be condescending. Your readers will always appreciate a conversational style in preference to a lecture. Write as if you were explaining something to a friend and you will engage with your target audience and have them coming back for more.

Writing For Your Target Audience

Posted on by

Unless your blog has visitors (that hopefully come back regularly), you are doing nothing more than writing a personal journal. This isn’t an issue if your aim is to practice your writing skills or create a body of work, but it’s a problem if your intent is to market yourself or build a reputation.

Whenever you plan, write or edit a blog post or article, always keep your target audience in mind. The following points will help to achieve this:

Write Content That Is Easy To Read

No matter who your target audience is, you need to make your content easy for them to read. That means you need a clear structure, simple language, and formatting that breaks the blog post up into blocks of text. You also need to carefully edit your work and ensure it flows.

Your articles or blog posts should be more than just a jumbled compilation of your ideas. It should be structured with a clear beginning, mid section and ending. If nothing else it should be broken into short paragraphs and have sub-headings to create further definition.

Spelling and grammatical errors are distracting and reduce your credibility in the eyes of your target audience. They take away form your authority on a subject even if the content is of high quality. At the very least, use a spell-checker and read your content over a few times to make sure you catch any mistakes.

Adding some graphic formatting such as images, bold text or bullet points will help make your articles easier to read. Once you have a draft of your text, go back over the work to see where you can add in some additional formatting to make the piece more appealing and emphasise key points to your target audience.

Consider Who Your Target Audience Is

It’s essential to have a grasp of who your target audience is. Are they new to your niche? Have they years of experience in the particular subject? Answering these questions will affect everything from the topic of discussion to the way in which you deliver the content. The style in which you write will be completely different when delivered to a novice than it would be for an expert.

It’s fair to assume that in most cases your target audience will be beginners. This doesn’t mean that your articles need to be aimed solely at someone who is just starting out, just consider that some readers will have limited knowledge.

In the past I have looked at comments on subject matter and assessed the questions being asked to get a handle on what level of expertise the target audience has. This can help when deciding which particular segment of your target audience you will direct your writing to.

Use The Right Language

You wont always write in the same style, it will depend very much on your target audience. You will write in a very specific style if you article is meant for the local patchwork club. Consider how different your approach would be if you were writing for the local motorcycle club.

If your content requires technical jargon to fully explain a particular point, consider your target audience and what you may need to explain to them. If you’re writing about blogging for example, not every reader will know the term “widget” and you may need to make some explanation of just what a widget is.

Take into account that your target audience may be worldwide and the use of Australian idioms or catchphrases may not make any sense to someone in the UK or the USA. The Internet provides you with an international audience so always consider this when choosing your content language.

The more you consider whom you are writing for, the more successful your efforts will be. Your target audience is often smarter than you may give them credit for and they will catch on quickly. Write to inform and never be condescending. Your readers will always appreciate a conversational style in preference to a lecture. Write as if you were explaining something to a friend and you will engage with your target audience and have them coming back for more.

Top Five Tips on Managing a Successful Career Change

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1. Know yourself and what you want
One of the most important steps is to spend time working out what you really want and what you have to offer. Completing a ‘career assessment’ is your foundation so it needs to be thorough to avoid spending time and money moving into something that doesn’t suit you. An assessment should cover your skills, values and other areas that are unique to you (income expectations, location, etc).

2. Research options against your criteria
With the information from step one you can draw up an ‘evaluation matrix’ to brainstorm and then consider your options. Armed with specific questions you can start your research online, and then progress to finding people working in the fields you are considering.

3. You never know who can help you
If networking conjures up images of cheap white wine and insincere smiles you need to think again. Networking is the life blood of new careers, business and….well, pretty much everything! People help people they know, like and trust – so your immediate friends and family are the best people to let know how they can help you. You never know who your best friend’s sister might sit next to on a train. People generally love to help people they care about.

4. Consider past careers
Sometimes changing the environment you work in or the boss you work for is enough to satisfy you with out embarking on a drastic career change. For this reason it’s crucial you run your old jobs through the ‘evaluation matrix’. This will also help you brainstorm options which are in the same ‘job family’.

5. Prepare as much as you can
Accept that career change takes time and you may need to take several steps to get where you want to go. Ideally don’t wait until you are at breaking point so you can avoid a knee jerk reaction. Often career change can mean a reduction in pay, so remember you may need to plan for this.

With the disappearance of the job for life and an uncertain job market, career change is now a regular part of modern working life. Knowing how to chart your career course is more crucial than ever, and it’s something you may need to do several times, for example your values may change or you may want use cross transferable skills. With the right guide this can be a satisfying and rewarding journey.

Students With Learning Disabilities – College Academics Through Hands-On Learning

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Some students with learning disabilities experience greater success through hands-on, or active, learning. Finding a way to balance that need with the academic requirements of college can be a challenge.

Some parents of students with LD seek a college with little or no “academics”. If college didn’t have academics, what would be the value of a diploma? If everyone were able to earn a degree, the degree would be worthless. As it stands today, standards in college have been watered down from years past with grade inflation. There was a time when a Bachelor’s degree signified entree into a different “class”. However, because BAs are so common today, their worth has declined. I think it is important for us to uphold the standards of a college degree, and that means maintaining rigorous “academics”. That said, there are “hands-on” learners who absorb academics more easily when there is “active” involvement. It doesn’t mean they aren’t intelligent. It just signifies that the information needs to be targeted to their strongest channel.

There are several choices for students like this. They can choose to go to a college that offers a co-op program, where they attend classes one semester and get work experience the next. If your teen is great with his hands, he can make an excellent living at certain trades – perhaps even a better living than a college grad. Just remember, you can’t fit a square peg into a round hole. You teen should be in a stimulating, challenging environment that teaches to her strengths. Only then will she thrive.

I think of my father, whose own father, an immigrant and master cabinet maker, wanted more for my dad and his sister. He enrolled my aunt in “elocution” courses, so she would sound “upper class,” and she willingly participated. My father, however, was cut from a different cloth. In fact, he was similar to his dad in that he excelled at doing things with his hands. The idea of sitting behind a desk all day was abhorrent to my dad. While my aunt attended college and excelled, my father dropped out of Pratt Institute after one semester. He had always had a fascination with flying, and more than anything else, he wanted to go to aviation school. Aviation school was not college however, and my grandfather made it clear that that was not an option. At the age of nineteen, my dad’s interest in flying led him to defy his father and follow his heart. He drove to California and enrolled in aviation school. As a result of his decision, my dad was told never to come home asking for money. Indeed, upon my grandparents’ death, my grandparents made their disappointment clear – evidenced by leaving all of their considerable assets to my father’s sister. Aside from physical abuse, I can’t think of a more dramatic way to indicate disapproval and make one’s offspring feel like a failure.

When making a college selection, it is critical to understand how your teen learns best. Having that information affords you the opportunity of seeking the college that best suits his/her style. Considering the financial magnitude of the college investment, it is wise to take the time to make the best match possible.

Education – Public Vs. Private

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Another continuing battle in the world of education and politics is public versus private education. The arguments for and against each are compelling. This is another one of those debates where there is no winner or loser, right or wrong, though there are those who disagree. We’ll present each side of the argument without taking one side or the other.

The obvious arguments for a private education is the quality of that education itself, or at least so the supporters say. Supposedly, a child who goes to a private school gets better teachers, newer books, individualized attention, smaller classes and the so called better class of person to share his pencil case with. The person who goes to a private school doesn’t have to worry about being picked on by bullies. Private schools are simply the ideal utopia for your young child.

The arguments for public education are not as obvious, especially with all the bad press that most public schools get. But one thing that most people don’t realize about public schools that is not true about private schools is that a teacher must be certified by the local educational association. This is not true about private schools. So while the general theory is that you will get a better quality of teacher in a private school simply because of the nature of the school itself, this is not necessarily true.

But the biggest argument for public education really comes down to money and the community. Unfortunately, the money that is allocated to a public school is based on the attendance of that school. If that majority of students in the area go to private schools then the attendance at public schools drops which causes a drop in their funding. This doesn’t just affect the school system itself but the community as well. The less money the schools get, the less money the community gets. What then happens is that the children who go to the public schools don’t get the education that they are entitled to because they don’t have enough money.

This leaves the parents of the child about to attend school with a difficult decision to make and that’s only if they are even aware of this problem. And that is where the problem itself begins. Parents are not informed. They think that sending their children to private schools doesn’t affect them any more than just the money they have to pay for their education itself. In the process of doing this they are taking money away from their community and ultimately lowering the standard of living in the community.

For everything in life there is always a trade off. The debate between public and private education will continue, with both sides fighting hard to get their share of the pie; public schools fighting for more funding and private schools fighting for vouchers so that more kids can afford to go to private schools. The truth is, until these two institutions can find a way to coexist with each other, there will be no winner in this war.

5 Ways You Can Learn To Play Guitar

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Really worthwhile projects like learning to play guitar normally requires several steps for successful completion. Things with any complexity require several steps that will take some time to complete. It is just inherent within the nature of things that substantial projects are not accomplished overnight. You need to prepare yourself, learn how to complete the work, then stay with it and persevere. Regardless of what task or project you decide on, don’t expect to find exceptions to those principles.

Nearly every challenge could be undertaken successfully, if you just divide it up into easy steps.

Here’s how to learn to play guitar simply by adhering to five easy steps:

Step 1. Guitar learning books. Why this will be relevant is the fact that some books are very good and provide you with all the information you will need to get started.. It’s really important that you seriously consider this because books are a cheap investment and a convenient way to learn how to play the guitar. If you are patient, guitar learning books may work for you.

Step 2. Video training lessons. You really need to concentrate on this step and give it full attention. Here’s how to do it correctly. taking lesson with a DVD can be dynamic and can keep you focused on the lesson. The reason this is very important is that using a DVD will allow you to practice at home and at any time you want.

Step 3. Taking Private Lessons. The reason why is to a good instructor can put together a personalized instruction course to fit your learning style. Another reason for this is just to provide you with hands on attention and positive feedback, the only negative thing with this method is it is expensive and takes a lot of time.

Step 4. Learn by sound. To flesh that out a tad, that this can be fun and challenging at the same time if you pick up sounds you hear and translate on your guitar, this could be a way for you learn to play guitar.

Step 5. Online Courses. In addition to that, Learning guitar online is probably the most popular way to learn the guitar, just like a DVD you can take lessons where and whenever you want and there are a lot of choices out as far as instructors and styles of music. This method is a favorite of mine and has worked well for me and it may do the same for you.

In the end, if you happen to stick to the above mentioned steps diligently, you are likely to succeed and revel in that success and the fruits it brings! You can then congratulate yourself, stand tall, hold your head high and become satisfied with your accomplishment. It is your project and thus your accomplishment. Now grin and relish the rewards you will have gained!

In the event you chose not to keep to the steps above, ah well, “C’est la vie”. Not everyone succeeds, only those that plan for it.