Post Views: 1,653 I previously posted an article on teaching kids electricity with Squishy Circuits, as well as teaching kids about networks/networking, and someone asked what about programming. Great question. Back in the day (2005) there was a special computer (the XO) you could buy that was tuned to kids learning programming. It was called […]
Teaching Kids Programming Skills Read More »
Post Views: 8,508 Capturing network traffic with VLAN tags on a Windows computer can be tricky due to how network adapters and capture software handle VLAN-tagged frames. By default, Windows often strips VLAN tags before passing packets to capture applications like Wireshark. However, there are ways to configure your setup to properly capture VLAN information.
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Post Views: 3,659 As a follow on to my article on whether AI can be used in Networking, this post dives in deeper to a question of will humans still be involved? And if so, how do we upskill that human expertise? To successfully integrate AI into network automation while ensuring human expertise is maintained,
Implementing AI in Network Automation While Maintaining Human Expertise Read More »
Post Views: 3,328 I often bring up the following point in classes I teach on Internet Fundamentals: did anyone see the application TikTok before it arrived on the scene? Ofcourse the answer is no. I then usually follow up with: did anyone adjust traffic capacity planning for the arrival of an application like TikTok? Again,
How Much of the Internet Traffic is TikTok? Read More »
Post Views: 13,337 Back in 2018 (I think) I was becoming increasingly aware of the QUIC protocol in my and other’s packet captures and I immediately dug in and wrote about it. As of recent data (now Feb 2025), QUIC (Quick UDP Internet Connections) is experiencing significant adoption across the internet. Websites have implemented QUIC,
An update on QUIC Adoption and traffic levels Read More »
Post Views: 2,188 Cisco had a free self paced, online learning course – until March 24th, 2025! I don’t know if it is still available – I think they are charging now. The course is called: AI Solutions on Cisco Infrastructure Essentials | DCAIE. Learn about the essentials of deploying, migrating, and operating AI solutions on Cisco
Want to Learn AI Networking Free? Read More »
Post Views: 1,912 Before I provide the example, let’s be straight up about AI. Relying on AI for everything is problematic because it diminishes human critical thinking, introduces biases, and creates dependency on automation that may not always be reliable. While AI excels at processing vast amounts of data and automating tasks, it lacks intuition,
An Example of AI being used in Network Certification Training Read More »
Post Views: 1,919 As a hands-on technical author and instructor, I have been wondering if AI could possibly replace me. OK, perhaps not replace me, but instead enhance the training I have been providing for decades. I have discussed this with a number of others both on the instructional side and on the student side.
Can AI be used in Technical Network Training? Read More »
Post Views: 1,745 A recent discussion with several colleagues led to a discussion on how AI can be leveraged in the world of internetworking. With all the hype around AI, some pretty crazy things are being claimed by vendors, but looking under the surface requires specific solutions and, frankly, things become very vendor specific very
How can AI be used in Networking? Read More »
Post Views: 2,244 What is btop? btop (aka btop++) is a modern and visually appealing resource monitoring tool for Linux and other operating systems. It is part of the bpytop family, created by the same developer, and is written in C++ for performance and efficiency. Like htop, btop provides detailed information about system resources, including
A Better Linux Resource Monitor Read More »
Post Views: 8,588 I get asked for this list all the time, so I thought I would just post it. There are others of course, so see the bottom of this post for some others, but if I had to just pick 10, these would be the ones. Links below will send you to Amazon,
The Top Ten Networking Books for Reference Read More »
Post Views: 12,795 Here is a list of interesting/useful network/IP commands for Windows. Most of these commands must be run from the CMD app. To do this Open Command Prompt: In the search bar, type cmd and press Enter, or press Win + R to open the Run dialog. Administrative Privileges: In some cases you
Network/IP Commands for Windows Users Read More »
Post Views: 2,390 Whether you are performing preventive maintenance or repairing routers or switches or any other network equipment, you need a solid toolkit to easily perform the task. First, let me list for you what I have in my service/repair toolkit. These items are mostly available at Amazon, of course, and if you click
Servicing or Repairing Network Equipment Read More »
Post Views: 5,737 The nslookup command is a built-in network administration tool available on Windows, macOS, and many Linux distributions. It is used to query DNS servers to retrieve information about domain names, IP addresses, and DNS records. Basic Syntax: nslookup [hostname] [DNS server] Components: Common Use Cases: Example Output: Query a Domain: nslookup example.com
What is the ‘nslookup’ command, and how can I use it? Read More »
Post Views: 10,985 The dig command, short for “Domain Information Groper,” in Linux or MacOS is a command-line tool used to query Domain Name System (DNS) servers. The command is a lot like nslookup, but at the same time it is different. If you are a Windows user, you have to use nslookup. For a
What is the ‘dig’ command, and how can I use it? Read More »
