Latest activity

jasoneckert · 2025-12-09T16:37:15-0600

Congrats+

Stephen Schneiter · 2025-12-09T14:33:09-0600

Hi Everyone!

If you joined us live or viewed session 3, yesterday on-demand you heard that we will wrap this series up tomorrow with session 4! We will NOT meet on Monday, December 15th for session 5. Everything will be concluded tomorrow, December 10th.

Thanks for joining us with this series!

Stephen Schneiter · 2025-12-09T14:28:35-0600

Yanjanani said:
that applies to me as well

Should be in your inbox now.

Stephen Schneiter · 2025-12-09T14:25:21-0600

Gregory Childers said:
Same problem here.

Should be in your inbox now.

Stephen Schneiter · 2025-12-09T14:24:52-0600

baylis said:
Same problem here !

Should be in your inbox now.

baylis · 2025-12-09T14:17:25-0600

dwightwatt said:
I watched all of session 1 of AI essentials TTT and it was 69 minutes but certificate of attendance requires 110 minutes. Wont give certificate. How do I get it.

Same problem here !

Stephen Schneiter · 2025-12-09T13:52:13-0600

dwightwatt said:
I watched all of session 1 of AI essentials TTT and it was 69 minutes but certificate of attendance requires 110 minutes. Wont give certificate. How do I get it.

If you need to for your employer, please let me know and I can get one sent out to you. @dwightwatt, yours should be in your inbox. Thanks.

Stephen Schneiter · 2025-12-09T12:51:15-0600

Join us as CIN kicks off 2026 with a webinar discussing Post-Quantum Cryptography! As quantum computing progresses into reality, traditional, trusted, and time-honored algorithms and methods have kept our daily activities safe are increasingly under pressure. This includes the RSA public-key cryptography algorithm, the Digital Signature Algorithm, the Diffie-Hellman Key Exchange, and Elliptic Curve Cryptography. In other words, the things that protect your very identity are at risk of being compromised, prompting the need for new, quantum-resistant solutions. Join CompTIA's Chief Technology Evangelist, Dr. James Stanger, as he talks with NIST's Bill Newhouse to hear more about his activities in helping organizations around the world prepare your attack surface for Post-Quantum Cryptography (PQC). They will discuss how organizations are taking a more mature approach to their operations. This includes truly embracing automation, improving processes, as well as using a generation of cryptographic protocols that can better safeguard the sensitive information we handle.

Topics will include:

A quick overview of Post-Quantum Cryptography (PQC)
The impact of PQC on how we do things today
A practical overview of post-quantum issues and readiness: What we've learned from past rollouts
Migrating to post-quantum encryption
Determining if your problem surface is ready post-quantum cryptography

What: CIN The Pulse: Preparing for Post-Quantum Cryptography
When: Thursday, January 15, 12:00 - 1:00 pm CST
Who: James Stanger, Chief Technology Evangelist, CompTIA and Bill Newhouse, Cybersecurity Project Lead, NIST
Where: ON24
Register Here

Mitch Garvis · 2025-12-09T11:37:14-0600

dlross said:
He provided! I have a meeting with the bootcamp next week, so this will help greatly. Then, I'll get them in touch with the rep, and we can plan the 2026 schedule with CertMaster Perform. Thanks!

Woohoo! That is great news. Thanks for letting us know

dlross · 2025-12-09T11:24:35-0600

Mitch Garvis said:
Here is hoping and praying to whoever you pray to that you don't die over Net+/Sec+ Please let us know if your rep does provide

He provided! I have a meeting with the bootcamp next week, so this will help greatly. Then, I'll get them in touch with the rep, and we can plan the 2026 schedule with CertMaster Perform. Thanks!

BrianFord · 2025-12-09T10:56:31-0600

Regarding a 'Certificate of Completion for these CompCert TTT sessions. Is this really an issue? The CompCert courses have an assessment contained within the course materials. No 'exam voucher' is available for a CompCert course as there is no external exam.

My suggestion regarding claiming CPE credit would be to claim 60 minutes and submit a screen cap of the title slide from the downloaded presentation.

I hope that helps.

Mitch Garvis · 2025-12-09T09:15:00-0600

Amelia A. said:
Thank you, CIN! I could not have passed it without the CIN sessions.

Congratulations!!

Mitch Garvis · 2025-12-09T08:52:18-0600

BrianFord said:
Sorry. I interpreted 'They can't afford to fail.' as the students couldn't afford to fail. I've participated in a good number of workplace training programs and find that sometimes the sponsors have unrealistic expectations of the participants. Who knew?

I know what you mean. A few months ago I had a group from the military learning SecurityX and I was told they expected a 100% pass rate. I told the coordinator at the end of the first day that I would gladly point out which students would (or should) pass the exam, and the 50% who did not have nearly the required prerequisites, background, or work ethic to pass the exam at the end of the week. They were taken aback... but they passed my comments up the chain of command and it was accepted. By the way... I was 100% right on who would and who would not pass

BrianFord · 2025-12-09T08:37:00-0600

dlross said:
Thanks. I know what the clients have for time, and based on what CompTIA recommends for the amount of time available, then that's what we'll go with. The pacing is just an excel document where you plug in how much time you want to take, and then the excel document will give you an idea of what the materials will be, etc. They are concerned about the timing and want to make sure they have the correct timing with what they want to allot for time.

It's perfectly reasonable to say a company cannot fail. This is a company with a positive track record of working with providing training for many companies. They are also a vendor that has a lot of competition. For them, and for me, it is imperative that we do not fail. We want to put our best foot foward, provide the best training, ensure we have the best outcomes, and ensure that people are employable. They understand all about measuring and metrics. This is a pretty simple ask and doesn't need to have a lot of extra complications in. We need that excel document to eusure we aren't asking for too much or too little, considering the amount of material provided by CertMaster. Or- maybe we will just build out our own materials. I've worked under both situations. Personally, I'd prefer to use CertMaster. I'll do whatever they want.

The other stuff you're asking are already taken under advisement and is included in their contract.

Thanks!

Sorry. I interpreted 'They can't afford to fail.' as the students couldn't afford to fail. I've participated in a good number of workplace training programs and find that sometimes the sponsors have unrealistic expectations of the participants. Who knew?

Curtis Whipple · 2025-12-09T07:35:14-0600

Those who had one from the TTT are now expired.

Simon Gathai · 2025-12-09T06:17:47-0600

Congratulations

Ibrahim Mohamed · 2025-12-09T04:06:02-0600

dwightwatt said:
I watched all of session 1 of AI essentials TTT and it was 69 minutes but certificate of attendance requires 110 minutes. Wont give certificate. How do I get it.

I remember @Stephen Schneiter promised to take care of this issue

Ibrahim Mohamed · 2025-12-09T03:35:50-0600

Mitch Garvis said:
While I spend most of my time teaching cybersecurity, most people know me as a Microsoft guy. I was a Microsoft MVP, a Technology Evangelist with Microsoft Canada, and a Fast Track Engineer with Microsoft (both as a contractor). I have probably delivered a thousand lectures on Microsoft technologies... to over ten thousand students and event attendees.

A month ago I received an email from a company I train for asking if I would deliver Linux+. I was surprised, but if I am going to follow my own advice (you only grow when you are outside of your comfort zone) then I have to try new things. I spent a couple of weeks studying and preparing for the exam, and the Saturday before the class was scheduled I passed.

I was surprised by the class. Firstly I was surprised by how comfortable I was in Linux. But also, I was surprised by how much fun I had teaching it! I had a small class (4 students) who were all mostly new to Linux, and I realized early that by showing them 'This is what we do in Linux... compare it to X in Windows' they were able to better understand a lot of concepts that they thought were foreign.

This morning I received my Evals, and while there were a few things the students didn't love (they were unimpressed with a lot of lab glitches), the Instructor scores were through the roof. I was thrilled!

There are some topics I will likely never teach. I was told when I first got my MCT that I could probably 'fake my way' through a lot of courses, but if I was not really a SQL Server expert that I should never try to teach SQL Server because they will know. I'll never forget that. I was worried a month ago that if I was going to make it through a week of Linux+ I would likely be faking it. It turns out that I know it a lot better than I thought I did, and I was not at all faking it. I had fun because I could go off the slides and just talk through demos... a lot more interesting than Death By PowerPoint.

I am not walking away from the Microsoft ecosystem. I have worked hard to learn it as well as I do, and frankly I think I teach it better than most of my peers. However I will definitely be spending more time in the Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL) that is a convenient feature of Windows 11, and will also be building a few more Linux servers in my lab environment (still built on Hyper-V). It will help not only for my Linux+, but also for my cybersecurity deliveries.

Congratulations.

Totally agree about the point that you have to be out of your comfort zone sometimes to grow, to explore other possibilities.

Matthew Jennings · 2025-12-08T23:46:30-0600

Very much looking forward to diving into the recordings, as soon as I can get finished with CloudNetX! Thanks for doing this!

Matthew Jennings · 2025-12-08T23:45:03-0600

Congrats!! I'm watching the recordings now (almost done) and they're fantastic!

baylis · 2025-12-08T15:25:23-0600

baylis said:
I'm curious if anyone on this site has a Data-X voucher that has no intention to use ? Please let me know

I'll be happy to swap Security-X voucher

dlross · 2025-12-08T13:41:53-0600

Thanks. I know what the clients have for time, and based on what CompTIA recommends for the amount of time available, then that's what we'll go with. The pacing is just an excel document where you plug in how much time you want to take, and then the excel document will give you an idea of what the materials will be, etc. They are concerned about the timing and want to make sure they have the correct timing with what they want to allot for time.

It's perfectly reasonable to say a company cannot fail. This is a company with a positive track record of working with providing training for many companies. They are also a vendor that has a lot of competition. For them, and for me, it is imperative that we do not fail. We want to put our best foot foward, provide the best training, ensure we have the best outcomes, and ensure that people are employable. They understand all about measuring and metrics. This is a pretty simple ask and doesn't need to have a lot of extra complications in. We need that excel document to eusure we aren't asking for too much or too little, considering the amount of material provided by CertMaster. Or- maybe we will just build out our own materials. I've worked under both situations. Personally, I'd prefer to use CertMaster. I'll do whatever they want.

The other stuff you're asking are already taken under advisement and is included in their contract.

Thanks!

BrianFord · 2025-12-08T13:13:46-0600

Luckily, that TT has not yet completed so if you tune in today (12/8/25) at 2 PM CST I'm confident Stephen and Nick will provide an update oin that.

BrianFord · 2025-12-08T13:12:01-0600

dlross said:
That is odd.

I am being hired by a bootcamp company that I convinced to purchase CertMaster.... except that they want to know realistically, what should be the timeline for teaching A+/Net+/Sec+. Without having that pacing plan, I can't convince them that the timeline they want to use would be realistic with CertMaster.

The pacing plans is (are or were) just a recommendation from the course developers at CompTIA. I don't recall that they published a bootcamp version of the course when last I saw a pacing guide.

dlross said:
They also are thinking about just building out the materials to match their pacing.

Problem solved? What's the client companies pacing?

dlross said:
I'd love to give them some realistic timelines, but it's just impossible to do for CertMaster Perform when there's no realistic schedules that I can show to match what they want. But I can certainly take their timeline and just build out the materials myself from scratch to match what they have.

I lead bootcamps all the time. Some data points to consider are:

Do the students have all the prerequisites?
Are these students just starting their certification studies? How much time is being allocated for students learning? Are these folks attending a week long 9AM-5PM course or are they meeting less than 5 days a week for two to three hours per meeting? Lots of variability there.
Have the students had access to the course materials for self study for several weeks already? This is a pre-exam bootcamp were the students take the exam the following week.

dlross said:
I'll kind of guessimate it out and I guess they'll decide if they want to go with CertMaster, or if they just want me to build it out.

You mentioned CertMaster Perform. You know that there are 30-odd hands on lab exercises in the Perform package. That's adding in the ballpark of 20 hours or more if lab completion is part of the bootcamp.

dlross said:
It's a win-win either way for me, since I'll be teaching it, no matter what they choose. I have the Instructor materials for all these certs. What I don't have is an idea of how to counsel them on if using CertMaster Perform, they'll meet their timelines.

Yeah. I'd suggest that it takes the average instructor 35-38 hours to deliver the CertMaster Learn for Security+ in a bootcamp format with demos but without the labs. That makes the labs self study for the students.

dlross said:
They have state contracts. They can't afford to fail.

As an instructor you need to be careful about that 'They can't afford to fail.' statement. Certifications are an individual skill assessment. As an instructor you can suggest things like:

Making sure that students have the prerequisites. Or require e a pre-course skills assessment. If they don't meet requirements you can add additional training upfront.
Even if they do have the prerequisite it's often helpful to offer short 'refreshers' for Network+ and Security+.
Including your own assessments into the class. Daily quizzes and / or weekly tests. I've seen some orgs tie passing assessments to receiving an exam voucher.

If this is a state funded program one idea is to have required assessments; like before lunch and at afternoon break and use timely completion (no make ups) as assessment and attendance data.

Good luck with that.

dlross · 2025-12-08T13:09:23-0600

Mitch Garvis said:
Here is hoping and praying to whoever you pray to that you don't die over Net+/Sec+ Please let us know if your rep does provide

Lol, thanks. I really would prefer the CertMaster training. It's so good. No need to reinvent the wheel!

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