Hurdle #1.......Subnetting

Have you ever been fascinated by how electronic devices work??What about how they connect to each other? ??Do you want to learn about technology but have no clue where to begin, or maybe you think you are too old to jump into the tech world? ?If so, please believe me when I say that you are not alone.?In fact, those were my exact thoughts not long ago, coupled with a skoch of crippling anxiety of course.?Hello, my name is Danette Keepers, and I am a Noob.

I found myself at 33 years old needing to find a new career that not only ensured job security, but one I would enjoy doing day to day.?So I decided on computers and technology in general, nothing specific, but still had no idea where to begin.?I spent countless hours looking at cybersecurity bootcamps and courses that all claimed to ‘be the best’, for a small fortune of course.?Now I don’t know about you, but I am a single mom of 3 boys so I am already short on time, money, and sanity.?I ended up blindly taking multiple courses not knowing if they were what I needed to take. Many of those hours spent I later found to have been wasted on useless material.

Cue Noob Village.?I was fortunate enough to come across this webpage and that was the start of my new and improved IT career journey.?I was surrounded by like-minded individuals who ranged from noobs like myself, to experts all ranging from teenagers to people well into retirement.?Noob Village is a place that makes it easy to find IT and cybersecurity training.?The first thing I started to learn, and that everyone in IT should at least learn the basics of, is subnetting.

Now we go back to the question of how electronic devices communicate with each other.??Whether it’s two laptops or an entire network of computers, there is a strange method to their madness. And believe it or not, it all starts with an understanding of subnetting. Subnetting is one of the most important concepts in networking. It allows you to break up a large network into smaller, more manageable pieces. Think of it like a giant pizza. By subnetting a network, you can give different departments or groups their own "slice" of the network. This way, each group can have its own range of IP addresses, and you can control the traffic flow between them.

Subnetting is also a great way to improve network performance. By breaking up a large network into smaller pieces, you can reduce the amount of traffic on the network and improve response times.

So how do you actually go about subnetting a network? ?Well to be honest I am still learning myself, and it isn’t something that you can just read about really quick and understand it right away (at least I can’t and if you can, I am jealous!).? You need to first be familiar with subnets, subnet masks, IP addresses, network interface cards (NIC), binary numbers, etc.?It sounds very daunting, but don’t let that scare you off.?I promise it isn’t as bad as it sounds!?I have provided a few links to help you get started on your subnetting journey just as I did.

NetworkChuck has an awesome YouTube channel, and his videos are always entertaining. This one playlist of his has 6 videos all about subnetting:

Udemy has about 19 free subnetting courses from the following link:

When you start to get the hang of it, this page has a game to let you practice those skills.

Lastly these sites I found to be knowledgeable and helped me out quite a bit.

I hope you find these sites as helpful as I did, they and get you started on the path into IT. Thank you for taking the time to read this, and join us at Noob Village for more valuable resources!