Cisco has created a new rendition of their Cisco Live website called Cisco Live 365. You can register with the site for free and gain access to some of the conference materials presented at the various Cisco Live conferences around the world throughout the year.

If you are signed up for CiscoLive2012.com (because you are attending Cisco Live in San Diego this June), then your credentials for that website don't apparently work automatically at the new site. To get access to the new site using your current credentials, login to the old site CiscoLive2012.com, then click on Registration, and click on the huge button that says Enter Cisco Live 365. A new tab or window should open and voilà, you're in.

Have you ever wanted to merge a bunch of text files together into one large one? For example, if you use a tool to go grab a bunch of show command results and output it to a text file per device, it's handy if you can have the operating system merge all that together for you. Many of you have likely done this at one point or another, but I figured it was worth capturing here to share the syntax.

So, if you are in a Windows command prompt, you can use the type command to output the contents of a file.

C:\>type text1.txt
This is a test. 

Then you can use the type command plus the double arrows to merge a bunch of files:

C:\>type *.txt >> merge.txt

text1.txt

text2.txt

text3.txt

text4.txt

This leaves you with all the original files plus a new one called merge.txt. Piece of cake.

Hello all!

Over the last week, I put the finishing touches on the Cisco BGP Series over at CBTNuggets - that's definitely a fun one! Now I'm charting out...what's next? The logical answer is MPLS (a sister series to BGP), but the rumors say that the MPLS certification will soon be discontinued and replaced with alternative Service Provider offerings.

So here's my grass-roots poll: What Cisco certification training should come next at CBTNuggets?

I've recently been breaking out of the "certification mold" with offerings like CCNA Labs: Cisco for the Real World (http://www.cbtnuggets.com/it-training-videos/series/cisco-ccna-labs-2011). If there's an idea like this that you might have, I'm all ears!

Jimmy Ray Purser from TechWise TV  provides a pretty good review of how switch performance is measured. Topics reviewed include cut-through switch latency, store and forward switch latency, FIFO, LIFO, and LILO. Check it out if you've always wanted to know how to measure the speed of a switch.

Here's a direct link if the video embed code doesn't load in your browser: http://youtu.be/C8cTrhcbOLc

A new version of wireshark has been released. A full list of features and updates are in the official announcement.

For reference here is the updated protocol support and new file capture support:

Updated Protocol Support

   ANSI A, BSSGP, DIAMETER, DTLS, GOOSE, GSM Management, GTP, HTTP,
   IAX2, IEEE 802.11, IPP, ISAKMP, ISO SSAP, MP2T, MPLS, MySQL, NTP,
   PacketBB, PGM, Radiotap, SSL, TCP, UDP, USB, WSP

  New and Updated Capture File Support

   Endace ERF, Pcap-NG, Tektronix K12

You can download the latest version here: http://www.wireshark.org/download.html

I received an email announcement today regarding Cisco's new CCNA Service Provider certification. This is in addition to the already available CCNA Service Provider Ops certification.

There are two exams that need to be passed in order to achieve this certification, the SPNGN1 and SPNGN2.There are no prerequisites.

You can check out the full list of exam topics on each exam page, but needless to say the list is extensive. By the end of the certification, you should have a good introductory understanding of the following: