CompTIA® A+® Certification All-in-One For Dummies®, 3rd Edition

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About the Authors

Glen E. Clarke (MCSE/MCSD/MCT/MCTS/CEH/CHFI/CCENT/Security+/Network+/A+) is an independent trainer and consultant, focusing on network security and security auditing services. Glen spends most of his time delivering certified courses on A+, Network+, Windows Server, SQL Server, Exchange Server, Visual Basic .NET, and ASP.NET. Glen also teaches a number of security-related courses covering topics such as ethical hacking and countermeasures, vulnerability testing, firewall design, and packet analysis.

Glen is an experienced author and technical editor who has worked on over twenty certification books. Glen designed and coauthored the award-nominated A+ Certification Bible and has worked on certification titles involving topics such as Windows certification, CIW certification, Network+ certification, and Security+ certification. Glen is author of the CCENT Certification All-In-One For Dummies, CompTIA Security+ Certification Study Guide, and CompTIA Network+ Certification Study Guide, 5th Edition.

When he’s not working, Glen loves to spend quality time with his wife, Tanya, and their four children, Sara, Brendon, Ashlyn, and Rebecca. You can visit Glen online at www.gleneclarke.com, or contact him at [email protected].

Edward Tetz graduated in 1990 from Saint Lawrence College in Cornwall, Ontario with a degree in Business Administration. He spent a short time in computer sales, which eventually led to a computer support position. After several years of providing system and network support to small and large organizations, in 1994 he added training to his repertoire.

Some of the certifications that he holds include A+, Cisco Certified Network Associate (CCNA), ITIL Foundations Certificate in IT Service Management (IT Infrastructure Library), Microsoft Certified Trainer (MCT), Microsoft Certified Systems Engineer (MCSE), Microsoft Certified Database Administrator (MCDBA), and Chauncey Group’s Certified Technical Trainer (CTT). Since 2002, he has been a full-time consultant for a value-added reseller in Halifax, Nova Scotia. Over his years of work experience, he has supported Apple Macintosh, IBM OS/2, Linux, Novell NetWare, and all Microsoft operating systems from MS-DOS to Windows Server 2008, as well as hardware from most of the major manufactures.

When writing is not filling up his non-working hours, he enjoys spending time with his wife Sharon, and his two girls, Emily and Mackenzie.

He welcomes comments from his readers and can be contacted at [email protected], or if you are not trapped by the junk mail filters [email protected].

Dedication

To my beautiful wife, Tanya, who has made all my dreams come true!

— Glen E. Clarke

I would like to dedicate this book to the love of my life, my wife, Sharon.

— Edward Tetz

Authors’ Acknowledgments

I want to thank the people at Wiley for their hard work and continued support. A special thank you to acquisitions editor, Katie Feltman, for asking Ed and me to do the third edition of this book and for her patience as I worked through the chapters of this book. I also want to thank project editor Pat O’Brien for his patience and hard work keeping Ed and me on track! Much appreciation goes to copy editor John Edwards for an outstanding job on the editing of the chapters. I also want to thank Dan Lachance for his feedback as the technical editor and a job well done!

Over the years I have developed friendships through my work, and one of my favorite people to work with is the coauthor of this book — Ed Tetz. I want to thank him for the long hours he has dedicated to this book and for once again doing an amazing job! I also want to thank the folks at Tim Horton’s for not kicking me out when I occupy a table for hours at a time and for keeping the coffee always fresh!

A special thank you goes to my four children, Sara, Brendon, Ashlyn, and Rebecca, for giving me the time to sit down and participate in kids play with them — it makes me realize what is important in life. A needed thank you goes to my wife, Tanya, for all her support — you are amazing! Thank you for all that you do!

— Glen E. Clarke

I would like to thank Katie Feltman, our acquisitions editor, for inviting Glen and me to take on this project, and to both Katie and Pat O’Brien, our project editor, for keeping this book on track, which I am sure was an effort for them, and thanks for that. I cannot forget John Edwards and Heidi Unger, our copy editors, for their work of ensuring that what I wrote made sense, and in many cases, making my words sound better than when I originally wrote them. And a special thanks to Dan Lachance, who I first worked with as a technical trainer; Dan did a great job as technical editor on this title, making sure that everything was accurate.

In addition to them, I would like to thank the rest of the staff at John Wiley & Sons, Inc., who worked behind the scenes taking care of many of the details that are required to get this book into print, and I am sure that due to their hard work, this will be a successful book.

— Edward Tetz

Publisher’s Acknowledgments

We’re proud of this book; please send us your comments at http://dummies.custhelp.com. For other comments, please contact our Customer Care Department within the U.S. at 877-762-2974, outside the U.S. at 317-572-3993, or fax 317-572-4002.

Some of the people who helped bring this book to market include the following:

Acquisitions, Editorial, and Vertical Websites

Project Editor: Pat O’Brien

(Previous Edition: Blair J. Pottenger)

Sr. Acquisitions Editor: Katie Feltman

Copy Editors: Heidi Unger, John Edwards

Technical Editor: Dan Lachance

Editorial Manager: Kevin Kirschner

Editorial Assistant: Leslie Saxman

Sr. Editorial Assistant: Cherie Case

Special Help: Emilie R. Havard

Cover Photo: © iStockphoto.com / kaili wu

Cartoons: Rich Tennant (www.the5thwave.com)

Composition Services

Project Coordinator: Patrick Redmond

Layout and Graphics: Carrie Cesavice, Jennifer Creasey, Joyce Haughey

Proofreaders: Dwight Ramsey, Evelyn Wellborn

Indexer: BIM Indexing & Proofreading Services

Publishing and Editorial for Technology Dummies

Richard Swadley, Vice President and Executive Group Publisher

Andy Cummings, Vice President and Publisher

Mary Bednarek, Executive Acquisitions Director

Mary C. Corder, Editorial Director

Publishing for Consumer Dummies

Kathleen Nebenhaus, Vice President and Executive Publisher

Composition Services

Debbie Stailey, Director of Composition Services

CompTIA Certification

It Pays to Get Certified

9781118237038-ma001.tif In a digital world, digital literacy is an essential survival skill. Certification proves you have the knowledge and skill to solve business problems in virtually any business environment. Certifications are highly-valued credentials that qualify you for jobs, increased compensation and promotion.

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Certification Advances Your Career

9781118237038-ma002.tif The CompTIA A+ credential provides foundation-level knowledge and skills necessary for a career in PC repair and support.

Starting salary: CompTIA A+ Certified individuals can earn as much as $65,000 per year.

Career pathway: CompTIA A+ is a building block for other CompTIA certifications such as Network+, Security+ and vendor specific technologies.

More than 850,000 individuals worldwide are CompTIA A+ certified.

Mandated/recommended by organizations worldwide such as Cisco and HP and Ricoh, the U.S. State Department, and U.S. government contractors such as EDS, General Dynamics, and Northrop Grumman.

Some of the primary benefits individuals report from becoming A+ certified are:

More efficient troubleshooting

Improved career advancement

More insightful problem solving

CompTIA Career Pathway

CompTIA offers a number of credentials that form a foundation for your career in technology and allow you to pursue specific areas of concentration. Depending on the path you choose to take, CompTIA certifications help you build upon your skills and knowledge, supporting learning throughout your entire career.

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Steps to Certification

Steps to Getting Certified and Staying Certified

Review Exam Objectives

Review the certification objectives to make sure you know what is covered in the exam. http://www.comptia.org/certifications/testprep/examobjectives.aspx

Practice for the Exam

After you have studied for the certification, take a free assessment and sample test to get an idea what type of questions might be on the exam. http://www.comptia.org/certifications/testprep/practicetests.aspx

Purchase an Exam Voucher

Purchase your exam voucher on the CompTIA Marketplace, which is located at http://www.comptiastore.com/

Take the Test!

Select a certification exam provider and schedule a time to take your exam. You can find exam providers at the following link: http://www.comptia.org/certifications/testprep/testingcenters.aspx

Join the Professional Community

Join the IT Pro Community: http://itpro.comptia.org/. The free IT Pro online community provides valuable content to students and professionals.

Career IT job resources

Where to start in IT

Career assessments

Salary trends

U.S. job board

Forums on networking, security, computing and cutting edge technologies

Access to blogs written by industry experts

Current information on cutting edge technologies

Access to various industry resource links and articles related to IT and IT careers

Content Seal of Quality

9781118237038-ma003.tif This courseware bears the seal of CompTIA Approved Quality Content. This seal signifies this content covers 100% of the exam objectives and implements important instructional design principles. CompTIA recommends multiple learning tools to help increase coverage of the learning objectives.

Why CompTIA?

Global Recognition: CompTIA is recognized globally as the leading IT non-profit trade association and has enormous credibility. Plus, CompTIA’s certifications are vendor-neutral and offer proof of foundational knowledge that translates across technologies.

Valued by Hiring Managers: Hiring managers value CompTIA certification because it is vendor and technology independent validation of your technical skills.

Recommended or Required by Government and Businesses: Many government organizations and corporations either recommend or require technical staff to be CompTIA certified (e.g. Dell, Sharp, Ricoh, the U.S. Department of Defense and many more).

Three CompTIA Certifications ranked in the top 10: In a study by DICE of 17,000 technology professionals, certifications helped command higher salaries at all experience levels.

How to Obtain More Information

Visit CompTIA online: www.comptia.org to learn more about getting CompTIA certified.

Contact CompTIA: Call 866-835-8020 ext. 5 or email [email protected]

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