Life and Goal Update
I have been studying more for the CCNP ENCOR lately. Doing more thought process on what I am studying and when. The CCNP ENCOR exam will be something that I do to re-certify for both my A+ and CCNA exams. It will also help me out with my goals. Working on more studying than original content lately and will be doing more reading.
There are some things that I am studying which includes the five-year goal of getting the CCIE Enterprise Infrastructure. This is mainly the CCNP ENCOR certification which is the most common one after the CCNA. I am doing my study plan, in which I have completed more of the Udemy Courses and YouTube lessons. This has been somewhat easier than I expected as I completed the CCNP program of the Cisco Networking Academy back in 2009 with my B.S. in Computer Network Management.
Still want to do the Juniper JNCIA-Junos study, which I have the Migrating from the CCNA to the JNCIA-Junos training materials until February 2027. In addition, I am doing the Fortinet NSE 2 training and will complete it in a few weeks or so. Another training material that I am doing is the Cisco AIBIZ learning path on Cisco U. The JNCIA-Junos is the second computer networking stop on the way to my CCIE five-year goal.
AI Studies
I’ve been studying the AB-731 training on Udemy and think that I will go ahead and take the AI Transformation Leader certification from Microsoft. This and the AIBIZ from Cisco are the main focus of my studies in Artificial Intelligence so that I can build my skills on both the business and technology sides. For my AI studies, I was going to do the AB-900 however the training was easier, so I don’t want to get it for the $99 fee. It is also a foundational exam in which I have three foundational exams from Microsoft already.
Udemy and TryHackMe
Currently, on Udemy, I am on a 229-week streak and am also doing well on TryHackMe being currently ranked at 477 in the U.S. all-time, in addition I am ranked at 4071 all-country, all-time. I am a Titan with a score of 51328 points, completed 412 rooms, and have 60 badges. With HacktheBox, I am doing about the same, I haven’t done much because I am only doing the free modules. I am not as motivated with HacktheBox and will do more with TryHackMe because I am paying for a yearly subscription.
Follower Counts
I am doing somewhat better on the followers. I have 535 friends on Facebook, 79 followers on Instagram, with 105 followers on Threads. On X, I have 27 followers and on LinkedIn I am growing and now have 1,404 followers and 1,353 connections. There are some things that I can improve, and I will devote more time to X and other social media platforms other than just doing mainly the LinkedIn and Facebook social media platforms.
On TryHackMe, I have 88 followers along with my company page on LinkedIn having 24 followers. On my Facebook company page, I have 31 followers along with a Facebook community page having 7 members. I am including these counts at the beginning of each month and will be looking forward to adding any new followers.
Reading
I am reading a new book which is a Science Fiction book in the Forgotten Empire series which is Book 11 and is called Resistance. I will be doing a new post on LinkedIn that will show which books I have been reading. Doing this when I have read 30 books in total. I am behind my goal, however, I am studying at a good clip, so I am not worried about it.
The books that I have been reading are somewhat larger especially the ENCOR books. This means that I might come under my goal this year of 40 to 45 books. The way that I want to study is by using training materials like books in addition to courses on Udemy and YouTube. By reading these larger books I am getting the same or a similar amount of knowledge on IT systems and other things like Science Fiction and Coaching Wrestling books.
Conclusion
I will be doing more original content on this blog and will still post on Medium for my articles which I plan to do two per month. I am also doing a newsletter on the Medium site which will be at the end of the month. I am not worried about doing this anymore and think that I will allow you guys to sign up for the newsletter on the Medium site again. Working on setting up a content calendar for this to be better managed.
More focus on the Computer Networking side of my business will help me out in the long run. I am wanting to solely do Cisco, Juniper and Fortinet certifications until I hit 2028 or so. This will help with both Network Security and Computer Networking. Thinking about doing the AWS SAA exam to re-certify my AWS CCP in 2028 and should be doing the NSE 2 in some time as well. This will be before the NSE 1 expires in 2028.