Professor Messer’s Free CompTIA A+ Certification Training Course – Networking

Chapter 18: Networking

The network has become an important part of any personal computer system, and the CompTIA A+ exam requires an understanding of the administration and use of networked devices and resources.

In today’s computing environments, it’s almost assumed that your computer will connect to a network of some kind. In this video, we’ll give you an overview of networking technologies and introduce you to the concepts of topologies, cabling, bandwidth, duplex, addressing and protocols.

The cable is the important component that links all of our networked devices together, but it’s a critical link that’s often overlooked. In this video, we’ll learn the importance of plenum-rated cable, explore the differences between copper and fiber, and examine network cabling types such as RS-232, USB, and FireWire. We’ll also examine the most common network connector types and discuss some troubleshooting methods you can use to keep your network cabling working perfectly.

Networks come in many different shapes and sizes. In this video, we’ll discuss the differences in Ethernet, WAN, and Token Ring topologies, and learn about the differences in client/server, peer to peer, and Windows Domain-based technologies. We’ll also take a tour through the myriad wired and wireless technologies, including ISDN, DSL, infrared, Bluetooth, and mobile wireless networks.

Before you can use a network, you first need to install and configure the network adapter’s hardware settings, protocols, and client options. In this video, we’ll demonstrate how to setup a wired and wireless adapter in Windows XP and how the protocols and network clients are configured.

To make the most of a network connection, you’ll need to know how to share files, configure network printers, and setup browser configurations. In this video, we’ll show you how to take advantage of these network resources and how to use Windows services to help manage your network resources.

When the network isn’t working, the organization isn’t working. In this video, we’ll show you some command line utilities that can help you find any problems that might be lurking in your network. We’ll demonstrate IPCONFIG, NSLOOKUP, PING, TRACERT, PATHPING, NBTSTAT, and NETSTAT. We’ll also give you some best practices for troubleshooting network interfaces, protocols, and firewalls.