Microsoft are going to do Exam insurance with a free re-take if you fail and a discount if you pass on the next one. Seeing as though I only need 2 more exams for my MCSA I'm wishing they would hurry up and release the details. I called them up this afternoon and apparently the details will be released at the end of the month which means I get some extra swotting time but also means I have a chance to forget everything I learnt recently by the time the exam comes around.
Recently in Training Category
I'm going to be at the Microsoft Technet - Gear up with Microsoft Windows Vista and Exchange Server at Easton tomorrow morning so if you are reading this and going too then come say "Hello!" I'll be the one with the FriendsInTech button on my shirt and talking with a british accent ;-)
Had a good days training at the Small Business Exam Cram today. Today was mainly focussed on the Sales & Marketing aspect of the system but we also went through the initial install and configuration of the server. Everyone had a laptop with SBS running in a virtual pc and it was soooooo slow. It was comforting to find that it was slow on these laptops though as I was wondering if I had something wrong on my install of sbs on my own laptop which was also incredibly slow (although once the system is up and running it's not too bad).
During lunch, most of the attendees got out their work laptops and surfed to get email, messages from work, did some work or in some cases just watched the IT Crowd from Channel 4 which you can't get in america now :-(
Anyway - the funny thing was that the couple of guys behind me were complaining about how bad the network was after everyone had fired their laptops up - and blaming it on the bandwidth hogs of vpn, remote desktop and other such tools (that I was using). Mind you - you'd be crazy to not use vpn or rdp in a room of techies as there were quite a few copies of ethereal and network sniffers running. What I did find amazing was that the people using outlook2003 all complained that they weren't able to contact their servers back at the office due to the bandwidth requirements, but I had the once in a lifetime opportunity of saying "If you were using Lotus Notes you wouldn't have that problem" and actually meaning it. Normally I'm *blaming* Lotus Notes for causing me problems.
We were given homework to do tonight - to complete the Sales and Marketing assessment which was actually fairly easy - especially as you can keep retaking it (for free) until you achieve a passing score - it took me 2 attempts! The scary thing about this is that you are then halfway to becoming a Small Business Specialist, and so is the company that you work for. Some discussion this morning took place about Best Buy and the Geek Squad going for Small Business Training and how they were trying to get the Small Business Specialist certification - this was a worrying prospect for a lot of the consultants as they can't compete on price (which a lot of small businesses will focus on) and they are nervous about the fact that it is unlikely that the Geek Squad are going to do a very good job. It was even more disconcerning when I pointed out that in theory the GeekSquad only needs *1 person* to get the qualification and then the whole company, countrywide, can claim Small Business Specialist accreditation. To me that is just wrong (although it was pointed out that it is more likely that each branch is going to go for accreditation individually) but it does make you think........
Well not only did I pass the 70-272 test, I got 100% on it too :-) Apparently its the first time the receptionist has ever seen a 100% pass mark.
There were 9 questions that I had to double check my answers to but most of those answers I could make a reasonable guess as to what the Microsoft answer was (as some of the questions are so ambiguous) so I'm pretty chuffed. That now makes me an MCDST - watch this space for the logo to proudly appear on the website. Next stop is MCSA but that will have to wait until I have a job to pay the exam fees!
I've decided to go for the second (and final) exam of the MCDST certification and purchased the online training and exam voucher from Measureup. Unfortunately their stupid system did not include the voucher code with the receipt for the exam so I can't actually register for the exam. Naturally their support lines are now closed and I'm *really* hoping that there will still be exam vacancies at the testing centre for Wednesday when I ring MeasureUp to complain as I will not be a happy bunny if I can't take the exam in August (not that I'm expecting to fail of course).
As an aside on the quality of MeasureUp's practise exams - they are pretty good but way out of date. Most of the questions that I had today were on service pack2 and it's new features including Remote Desktop Support, Popup blocking and ICS. None of this was covered in their online support material (which did cover service pack1).
I've also had a couple of problems using the exams - the problem I had with only 106 questions appearing instead of 150 was unexplicably caused by either Firefox or an invalid cookie - using IE which I hadn't used on the site gave me the full 150 question set.
Although the exam was fairly taxing in the usual Microsoft way where you think "What on earth are they on about" and "How many do I pick when it says select all that may apply", I passed the exam with flying colours. The password was 700 (70% I guess) with 61 questions to be answered in 155 minutes. I got 899 - which works out at about 6 questions wrong - more than I would have liked but I'm sure that at least one of the questions was missing a 't when the question was "What must you do so that Andrew can do ....." and yet all the answers were talking about what he can't do.
Now I have to work out if I can afford to do the second exam to get the MCDST qualification......
I've signed up to take the first of the MCDST exams (70-271) on Monday. It would have been nice to have taken them whilst employed (to get the often practised employers rebate of a successful test) but as that does not seem to be happening I've decided to fork out to get some more certifications on the resume as after all my most recent ones are some time ago. I took advantage of the Measureup tests where you get the practise tests for free if you sign up for the voucher for the exam. I've taken the practise tests and have clarified some of the points that I needed to learn. The hardest bit is remembering which options are on the xp dialog boxes as that is what the test seems to be about - how well can you memorise the menus, screens and dialogs. If you had an xp box in front of you it would be very easy to work out which option in which order you need to use to satisfy the exam question. This is not my favourite kind of test as I'm more of a visual, hands on person as opposed to a remember for the sake of it person.
One of the bad things about the measureup tests is that their sales pitch says it has 150 questions, but there are actually only 106 - seems like false advertising to me - if I had purchased it I would have pursued a 30% rebate (based on the number of questions) but as it comes free, its more difficult to argue. I certainly think that you'd have some case for a rebate if you had paid the (overpriced) $60.
Depending on how this exam goes, I will sit the next exam by Wednesday to get the safety net of the second chance which will then get me the MCDST certification - which is a starter to proving my skill set which is an expensive thing to do when unemployed.
