Podcast "Wificando" - vamos falar sobre wireless

Apesar de 2020 estar a ser um ano atípico, com todas estas condicionantes que se sabem, também tem sido um ano cheio de trabalho. De tal maneira que tem sido muito complicado arranjar tempo para conjugar vida profissional, vida familiar, desenvolvimento pessoal, e ainda introduzir temas no blog, apesar de ter meia dúzia de posts que vão a meio e prestes a serem publicados.

No entanto, eu e um colega da irmandade de profissionais de wireless decidimos avançar com um podcast falado em português sobre tecnologias wireless. 

São conversas descontraídas sobre soluções de fabricantes, boas práticas, experiências e as nossas opiniões sobre certificações técnicas que já tirámos ou quais os nossos próximos objectivos.

Basicamente estamos a registar e a publicar as conversas que costumamos ter à hora de almoço.

Se quiserem nos ouvir, o podcast é WIFICANDO e está disponível no spotify, youtube e apple podcasts.

Wificando no Youtube

Já gravámos 9 episódios e temos tido bom feedback.

Meraki ECMS2 - My personnal view on the course

Made recently the Meraki's ECMS2 course:

https://community.meraki.com/t5/ECMS2/ct-p/ecms2

The course took three days which covered almost every feature of Meraki solutions.

First day we were presented with planning requirements, designing methods and an overall, close to reality, view of networking.

Second day, was more technical and hands-on. We were presented with Building VPN, WAN topologies, Security features, Switching, Wireless and Endpoint management.

Third day, we worked with cameras, insight and network automation. Ending the day with a troubleshooting lab.

As usual in Meraki events, the instructors were top notch. Rafa and Guido are truly Meraki evangelists. Very knowledgeable in all Meraki portfolio and very eager to interact with students.

And as always in Meraki events, there is so much information in such limited time that the coffee and lunch breaks are usually shorter that all other technical events.

My only negative remark was the troubleshooting lab. I think it should have been longer and similar to the one I did in the CMNO exam. In ECMS2 were are given with the problems and the solutions are in the manuals. In CMNO, after we ended the lab configurations, we were told to wait for a few minutes, long enough for the "little goblins due their mischievousness" on our pristine lab pod, and then we were told to solve all problems.
It would have been great for a extra day just for troubleshooting all topics that were presented without a script and solution guide.

Now it's just waiting for ECMS2 exam to be release on Pearson Vue and schedule the exam.

Some free online training and certifications programs

At the end of these programs don't expect to be able to deploy a equipment from scratch but I think they are a good solution either as an introduction to technologies and solutions that you are not very familiar, or to keep up with the latest updates or even to dust off something you have already studied.

Most of them you just need to be a registered user, or your company is a registered partner.
Cisco Black Belt
Cool intro for some technologies. A lot of study material are presentations from CiscoLive.


link: SalesConnect for Partners


Meraki FIT
I confess that I have a soft spot for Meraki since 2015. I love how they keep developing their solutions and keeping to be such a user friendly system. Reached Meraki Fit Level 2 in a flash.

link: Meraki FIT

Cisco Platinum Library
Massive technical library. 1097 topics, ranging from webinars to e-courses. More techical than the BlackBelt program


link: Cisco Platinum Library

Nokia Learning & Development Hub
Not all the training it's free but there are a few gems in there.

link: Nokia Learning Portal

Ekahau University
Loads of totally free info.

link: Ekahau University


CWNP CWS
It's CWNP training and it's free; do I need to explain more?! The training is free but you will have to pay the exam.

CWS - Certified Wireless Specialist
go to cwnp.link/cwsel and enter the code CWS2020.


As we say in Portugal: "O saber não toma lugar"

Ekahau Survey and Analyzer for iphone - Ekahow indeed

I realized that I've been using Ekahau tools for more than ten years. Used since version 2.2 and yet I'm still amazed with their inovative solutions.

Their latests solutions; Ekahau Survey and Ekahau Analyzer, both for iphone are both a dream come true to everyone that have walked dozens of kilometers, carring a 2kg laptop.

I'm sure this picture brought back a lot of painfull memories...



Already used to survey a customer facility and it's amazing the speed of a walked-in site survey. I love the WLANPros survey tray but the overall agility of that surveying with an smartphone takes the experience to a new level.

Ekahau Analyzer showing two APs (ch1 and ch11 in the 2,4Ghz; ch52 and ch60 in the 5Ghz) and bluetooth traffic in 2,4Ghz.

Ekahau Analyzer showing an AP (ch1 in 2,4Ghz) and a microwave oven.

To connect the iphone to the sidekick you need either a micro-sd to lightning cable (which is hard to find) or a apple adaptor MK0W2ZM/A; I prefer the adaptor because it allows to charge the iphone without disconnecting from the sidekick.