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The news has been abuzz lately with net neutrality issues and realizations that companies like Verizon and Comcast are secretly, but intentionally throttling services like YouTube and Netflix. So how does the average home user check their Netflix network speeds and potentially speed them up if they are too slow? Here are a few things that I tried. The results were not quite what I expected.
In my last post on the Cisco CCNA, it was mentioned that an order for two used Cisco Catalyst 2950 switches had been placed. Well, the two switches arrived a few days later. So I plugged them in, but that was all I could do because there were no Console cables (aka. Rollover cables) to be found in the box. Granted, I wasn’t really expecting any since the seller had not mentioned any, but to connect to a switch that I knew nothing about, the smart bet was to connect via the RJ-45 jack (which is actually a 9600 bps serial port.)
If you already know how to physically connect to your 2950 switch, click here to jump to the Catalyst 2950 password recovery procedure.
If you don’t have the appropriate tools yet, this means that 3 things will be needed to get started: a Rollover Cable, a USB-to-Serial adapter, and some Terminal software. This is what I picked:
Computer networking is something that I’ve always been involved with for most of my career, but it has only been a part of it. Rather, it has never been the focus of my career. Recently, I’ve decided that I want to move away from pure software development and back into IT with the focus being Networking. In this day and age, one cannot really get a job without the requisite certifications to demonstrate basic competence in said field. In short, I decided to go for my Cisco Certified Network Associates (CCNA) certification in Switching and Routing.