EH-Net

Is it really necessary to have a laptop to learn the materials for the CEH exam or will a desktop work?

Maybe I am missing something but what difference would it make?  Anyone?

The only thing I can think of is the need to use wireless tools. Not saying that a desktop can't have a wireless card, but it's more common for laptops. I guess I could also make the argument for convenience. You can take it al with you and keep studying.

Another guess is if you need to take it with you for use in a boot camp. Then some places require it. Most these days, like the InfoSec Academy (http://www.trainingcamp.com/us/flashed.asp), provide you with systems to run and break.

mitchmcse - maybe you can expand a bit.

Don

There should't be any difference, other than that with a laptop, you can get some hands-on exp. trying to crack the WEP at the local Starbuck's.  ;D  Harder to do that using a desktop.

Starbuck's in my area use T-mobile, which wants something like $0.10 a minute or something. So I just go to the local Phoenix coffee shop, which is closer to me than Starbucks, where they have FREE Wifi.

Thanks for the replies. I will probably go ahead and get a Thinkpad T60.  My boss is going to send me to the IBM ethical hacker class next year which requires a Thinkpad T series with both xp or 2000 loaded and gentoo.  I was just looking to see if I could do it all without getting a laptop.  Not much of a big deal since the wife has already said ok to me buying a laptop.

Sounds like a plan. I had a customer of mine GIVE me her old Thinkpad I series. It's an I1200/I1300, came with external USB floppy and all manuals. She was having trouble with it booting. I went and bought her a new Sony Vaio notebook with XP Home, and showed her how to use it. Most amazingly, it went through on MY credit card. She reimbursed me for the cost of it, PLUS $400.00 for myself on it. Turns out the only problem with it [the Sthinkpad] was the power supply. I wnet and bought a replacement power supply, and it works great. Until recently, it didn't make any noise, and I couldn't figure out why. In Device manager, all audio hardware was running fine. I went through the manual, and discovered the FN key and page down, which turns sound on/off. Now it makes sound like it's supposed to! Yay!  ;D

I had ANOTHER customer of mine GIVE me her old Dell Inspiron 1000 notebook; it had a problem with the keyboard. The keyboard kept inserting random characters into online text boxes, and the keyboard made noise. Took it out, and shot some air in it. Nothing. I went and bought a replacement keyboard on eBay. They guy I bought it from shipped it to me in a big bubble envelope, so it arrived all bent out of shape, and in worse condition than the original one. I emailed the guy about it, he told me he would try to find me another one. He couldn't. He refunded my money and told me to keep it.
So I kept playing with the oroginal keyboard that came installed. Took it out again, and shot some more air into it. It works Great! I now use it as my main machine. It's only a Celeron, but it's faster than my Dell desktop which is 8 years old and only a Pentium II at 333Mhz. I now do 99% of my online time on this Inspiron, from my bed. I run a Cat5e from my Netgear Firewall connected to the PII, in the spare bedroom, and do all my internet from my bed. It's easier, too; I had abdominal surgery last Nov. I get around fine, now.   ;D

 

Yeah, the thinkpads are built like tanks.  The old ones had some problems but the newer ones do run great.  Figured I would get one of the T60's since they have the core duo in them which will make linux really fast.  Will also make sure I order one with the atheros card in it for the linux support.  I was watching and checking on notebookreviews.com and they all seem to really like to recommend dells and compaqs.  They aren't necessarily bad but I can get a thinkpad for the same price or cheaper.  Which is a bonus.

Yeah, I hear ya. I've been drooling over the F.R.E.D., which is a complete forensic desktop optimised for forensics, natcherly. It inlcudes dual core CPUs, about 2GB of RAM, an option for a RAID, and comes with a flat-screen monitor. Only 6 grand. Ouch! They also have a version in a laptop, only 4 grand. cool stuff.
 

It depends what you do with it. Only because a laptop has a dual core CPU linux will not run faster on it, it depends what apps you intend to use. If you use multi threading capable apps or want to run multiple apps at the same time you will benefit from a dual core cpu.
Otherwise you may even be disappointed because such a laptop may even perform worse then one with a recent Pentium M CPU because the latter ones usually run at 2+ GHZ at a reasonable price as opposed to the Core Duo at 1.66 GHZ (there are Core Duo CPUs running at 2+ GHZ but the price is a bit different though...)

Actually, the models I am looking at run anywhere from 1.83 to 2.13 which should be quick enough.  Since I work for IBM they are fairly cheap.

I didn't realize this until I dropped my T30 on a tiled floor. It hit on one of the front corners (it wasn't turned on) and the latch on one side that holds the lid shut popped completely out of the casing and the spring attached to it was hanging out.

I took it to my tech guys and they put it back together in minutes with no issues. That was a year ago.

The only problem I had was a key that broke off while closed, in my briefcase. I think one of my kids got to it. Since it was under warrantly, they ordered me a new keyboard.

I still miss my big fat dell that had a DVD bay and a floppy bay. I still miss my floppies. I have two thumbdrives, but my flops are hard to give up. Don't know why. Oh, the other reason I miss the Dell was because you only needed one hand to open the lid (only one latch). I hate the two latches on my IBM.

Yeah, that IS nice. Never realized it or appreciated it until you mentioned it. My Inspiron 1000 has the one latch in the middle, and my Stinkpad has the two latches on the side.

I had to do an "emergency servicre call' through a friend for a Dr. that mostly lives in Hawaii. This is maybe, May of 05. Whenever it was, it's been a long time, now. This Dr. that lives in Hawaii was visiting his mom here in University Hts. He had an IBM Stinkpad T40 (I think) with the blue one-touch recovery button. He was afraid he had lost all his data, cause the machine wouldn't boot up. What it was, was he had just kicked it into hibernation, and didn't realize it. I recovered it from hibernation, told him what it was, and how to do it in the future, if he wanted it to. No data lost, he was fine. haven't heard anything out of him since.

Well, got an interview today back in Akron. Better hop in the shower, I guess. Seeya later.....