This a brief update to last year’s post on good deals for our continuing quest to Always Be Learning.
The following are simply in alphabetical order, and I’m sure only represent the tip of the iceberg of good deals. Please share any others you hear about in the comments.
Books and Videos
Apress are offering a Cyber Monday sale of $10 each for any of their ebooks ($20 each for any of the Spring ebooks) until 11:59pm tonight, November 30th. The site normally offers an Apress ebook Deal of the Day as well as a Springer Daily Deal.
Cisco Press are having a Cyber Monday Sale with 55% off eligible items using code CM2015. This includes books, ebooks, video training, practice exams, and more. They also consistently offer eBook and Video Deals of the Week (from their home page).
This year they’re again having a “Green Tuesday” sale until the end of November where all eBook purchases under $50 are 40% off (codegt112415acc) and purchases over $50 are 50% off (code gt112415bcc). They’re also having a “Countdown to 2016” sale during December with a different discount deal each day, a chance to win a free ebook each day, and a chance to win an Apple iPad Pro.
And of course they have a Deal of the Day selected from across their entire catalog (eBooks, physical/printed books, or “MEAPs” – Manning Early Access Program books similar to O’Reilly’s Rough Cuts where books are made available as chapters are completed).
O’Reilly have been one of the premier publishers of IT books for decades, and in recent years have of course added ebooks, videos, and other media to their output. While O’Reilly have Ebook Deals of the Day (usually two) and Video Deal of the Week, their biggest sales are at this time of year.
Their Cyber Monday Sale is running again this year (till December 1st 5am PST) and you can score 50% off any ebook or video, or 60% off when ordering $100 or more. And remember – O’Reilly sell/distribute books by other publishers as well including No Starch Press, Wrox, Wiley, Sybex, and many others.
Even better, O’Reilly are the force behind SafariOnline, the premier tech ebook/video subscription service which is having its own Cyber Monday sale today: 50% off the normal annual subscription price of $399! So for $199 you can get an all-you-can eat tech buffet – this is one of the best deals out there if you consume (or want to consume) a large amount of tech content. And yes – it includes offline (tablet/laptop/etc.) access!
Pearson are having the same Cyber Monday Sale as Cisco Press with 55% off any digital items. On their site you’ll find not only tech books from Cisco Press but also VMware Press, and others, and of course video training, practice exams, and more. If you miss this sale, they also consistently offer eBook and Video Deals of the Week (different from the ones on the Cisco Press site).
Training
You may know GNS3 as the best vendor-neutral networking simulator around, but did you realize they also offer training? This year they’re offering a Black Friday sale where all of their courses (normally priced between $19 – $49) are only $15 using coupon code BLACKFRIDAY. They also have several free courses to check out at any time.
If you’re ready to take the leap for your CCIE, check out INE‘s Cyber Monday Sale. They’re offering 3 deals: 33% off their Routing & Switching Everything Bundle, 50% off rack rental tokens, and 20% off INE apparel.
The company offering the best catalog of tech video training – by some of the best, most knowledgeable instructors – are going to be offering a Cyber Monday sale, too. What is it? They still haven’t announced it, but given that a Pluralsight subscription (as low as $299/year) is tied with SafariOnline for the best tech learning value per dollar, you’re going to want to check back to see what deals they’re offering!
Yes, this is a double listing, but only because Safari does include a number of video training classes in their inventory – and because at $199 a Safari subscription is an incredible deal!
Unrelated Good Deal
My favorite backup/synch service is offering their unlimited plan for only $149/year as a Cyber Monday deal (until December 1st). SpiderOak combines the granual backup of products like CrashPlan with the synch capabilities of Dropbox, but with a core focus on zero-knowledge security and privacy. If you value your data – and the privacy of that data – you should seriously think about using them.
Take advantage of everything that’s out there, and get prepared for annother year of learning and growth!
Data Center Digressions 
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