WOOHOO!

Finally! I. Have. Finished. As of tonight, I am an MCSD!

I am so glad this is finished. I really hated the last material:
planning, envisioning, interviews and stuff, with all the tricksy
questions - it took my very intense focus just to stay awake.

Or maybe it means:
Microsoft Certified Strange Dude
Microsoft Certified Somnolent Developer
Many Cats Suggest Dinner
My Credential Search Done (yeah, right)

eh... or something (big grin).


Mark Edwards, DONE (for now)
--
Proof of Sanity Forged Upon Request

Mark Edwards

Good job, and congratulations.

"Mark Edwards" <Mark-> wrote in message
news:...
>
> Finally! I. Have. Finished. As of tonight, I am an MCSD!
>
> I am so glad this is finished. I really hated the last material:
> planning, envisioning, interviews and stuff, with all the tricksy
> questions - it took my very intense focus just to stay awake.
>
> Or maybe it means:
> Microsoft Certified Strange Dude
> Microsoft Certified Somnolent Developer
> Many Cats Suggest Dinner
> My Credential Search Done (yeah, right)
>
> eh... or something (big grin).
>
>
> Mark Edwards, DONE (for now)
> --
> Proof of Sanity Forged Upon Request

Mostly Gizzards

Nice work.


Death from Above
MCPD: EAD, Web, Win
MCITP: DBD, DBA
MCSD.NET
MCDBA


"Mark Edwards" <Mark-> wrote in message
news:...
>
> Finally! I. Have. Finished. As of tonight, I am an MCSD!
>
> I am so glad this is finished. I really hated the last material:
> planning, envisioning, interviews and stuff, with all the tricksy
> questions - it took my very intense focus just to stay awake.
>
> Or maybe it means:
> Microsoft Certified Strange Dude
> Microsoft Certified Somnolent Developer
> Many Cats Suggest Dinner
> My Credential Search Done (yeah, right)
>
> eh... or something (big grin).
>
>
> Mark Edwards, DONE (for now)
> --
> Proof of Sanity Forged Upon Request

Death from Above

Mark,

Congratulations! I just finished the MCSD on 12/23. Start to finish, this
took me nearly two years. I too used Techskills and found the 70-300 exam
to be the worst of the bunch - very boring, dull and not applicable to the
real world.

I'm now interested in the MCPD - WEB certification but Techskills dosen't
have any courses for it. I posted a question awhile back on what the best
route would be for this, but the only reply I got was someone asking for a
braindump.

I recently bought the .NET Framework Web Developer Training kit for around
$100.00 and am about half way through the 70-536 book. From my studies at
Techskills, I wasn't very happy with the Microsoft Press books, but so far
the 70-536 book seems pretty good. I liked the Que/Preplogic books by Amit
Kalani, but couldn't find any VS 2005 material by them either.

Eric


"Mark Edwards" <Mark-> wrote in message
news:...
>
> Finally! I. Have. Finished. As of tonight, I am an MCSD!
>
> I am so glad this is finished. I really hated the last material:
> planning, envisioning, interviews and stuff, with all the tricksy
> questions - it took my very intense focus just to stay awake.
>
> Or maybe it means:
> Microsoft Certified Strange Dude
> Microsoft Certified Somnolent Developer
> Many Cats Suggest Dinner
> My Credential Search Done (yeah, right)
>
> eh... or something (big grin).
>
>
> Mark Edwards, DONE (for now)
> --
> Proof of Sanity Forged Upon Request

Eric de Jong

No cluons were harmed when Eric de Jong wrote:
>Congratulations!

Thank you.

>I just finished the MCSD on 12/23. Start to finish, this
>took me nearly two years.

I managed in 10 months, so I don't feel so bad now (evil grin). I pretty
much lost a month when my dad was dying.


> I too used Techskills and found the 70-300 exam
>to be the worst of the bunch

I thought the 70-320 was worse - no prep tests, examples that were wrong
and/or expired and "labs" that were only "read and understand".

Although the 70-300 was indeed VERY boring, I thought the book was very
well written. I didn't care much for the "seven testlets" format of the
cert test, but I made it through somehow...


>I'm now interested in the MCPD - WEB certification but Techskills
>dosen't have any courses for it.

I need to start looking as well. Maybe New Horizons has something? I'll
probably work through the books without a class this time, saving untold
thousands of dollars (grin) and just take the test when I'm done.

I would love to find the upgrade material/tests/classes (553,554,etc) and
go straight to that instead of taking three more tests. Does anyone here
have sources for this?


> I liked the Que/Preplogic books by Amit Kalani

Likewise. Kahlani is a pretty decent writer, and I loved the large number
of exercises.

..Good luck to you,
Mark Edwards
--
Proof of Sanity Forged Upon Request

Mark Edwards

Mark,

> I managed in 10 months, so I don't feel so bad now (evil grin). I pretty
> much lost a month when my dad was dying.

Sorry about your father. My studies pretty much stopped for about 9 months
during the period of time leading up to and after my wife gave birth to
triplets in January 07. Nights with three hours of sleep while working full
time isn't very conductive to studying.

> I thought the 70-320 was worse - no prep tests, examples that were wrong
> and/or expired and "labs" that were only "read and understand".

I liked the 70-320 course. I had the same issue with the test preps so I
had Techskills send me the test preps for the 70-310 test for VB.NET
instead. I also found many examples where the test prep materials were
outright wrong. Whenever I reported them, I'd get "extra points" for
participation. Whoopee! Another anoying thing was when a question would
require more than one answer, but you'd only be able to select one because
the choices were presented with radio buttons instead of checkboxes.

> I would love to find the upgrade material/tests/classes (553,554,etc) and
> go straight to that instead of taking three more tests. Does anyone here
> have sources for this?

I thought about taking the 553, 554 route but couldn't find a single
resource for these exams. From what I can tell on the Microsoft website,
I'd need to study the materials for the 536, 528, 547 and a bunch of other
exams to be able to take these. Since we mostly do web stuff at my shop, I
decided it would be best to break my studies into smaller chuncks and just
go for the MCPD Web certification for now. We really don't do desktop
stuff, but if I change my mind, at least I'll have the Web and .NET 2.0
Foundation stuff out of the way.

Like I said before, I bought the training kit for the 70-536, 70-528 and
70-547 for around $100 at amazon.com. I'm working through each chapter and
example and will use the test preps that came with the materials. Since
Techskills provided all the SelfTest Software MCSD test preps, I'll probably
add the SelfTest MCPD exams to my collection too.

By the way, where is your Techskills center located? Mine was in NJ.

"Mark Edwards" <Mark-> wrote in message
news:...
> No cluons were harmed when Eric de Jong wrote:
>>Congratulations!
>
> Thank you.
>
> >I just finished the MCSD on 12/23. Start to finish, this
>>took me nearly two years.
>
> I managed in 10 months, so I don't feel so bad now (evil grin). I pretty
> much lost a month when my dad was dying.
>
>
>> I too used Techskills and found the 70-300 exam
>>to be the worst of the bunch
>
> I thought the 70-320 was worse - no prep tests, examples that were wrong
> and/or expired and "labs" that were only "read and understand".
>
> Although the 70-300 was indeed VERY boring, I thought the book was very
> well written. I didn't care much for the "seven testlets" format of the
> cert test, but I made it through somehow...
>
>
>>I'm now interested in the MCPD - WEB certification but Techskills
>>dosen't have any courses for it.
>
> I need to start looking as well. Maybe New Horizons has something? I'll
> probably work through the books without a class this time, saving untold
> thousands of dollars (grin) and just take the test when I'm done.
>
> I would love to find the upgrade material/tests/classes (553,554,etc) and
> go straight to that instead of taking three more tests. Does anyone here
> have sources for this?
>
>
>> I liked the Que/Preplogic books by Amit Kalani
>
> Likewise. Kahlani is a pretty decent writer, and I loved the large number
> of exercises.
>
> .Good luck to you,
> Mark Edwards
> --
> Proof of Sanity Forged Upon Request
>

Eric de Jong

No cluons were harmed when Eric de Jong wrote:

> My studies pretty much stopped for about 9 months during the period
> of time leading up to and after my wife gave birth to triplets

YIKES! Mine are all grown, but I had just one when I was in school, so I
understand how ONE child can destroy your focus. I can't imagine THREE at
once. Good luck!



>I liked the 70-320 course. I had the same issue with the test preps so I
>
>had Techskills send me the test preps for the 70-310

Yep, I did that. The week after, they had a real TestPrep for 320, though.
I complained thoroughly through the feedback system, and I believe I ****ed
off quite a few people, as my mentor mentioned that I might want to be a
little more circumspect in the future...


>Another anoying thing was when a question would require more than
> one answer, but you'd only be able to select one because the choices
> were presented with radio buttons instead of checkboxes.

Yep. 70-300 was full of those, asked for two choices when five were
required, only offered one final when there were three to take and, really
funny, scored my weeklies at 160 percent! I was really dissatisfied with
the TestPreps for the 300. Heh - sounds like a movie - "Tonight, we test
in... HELL!"


>Since we mostly do web stuff at my shop, I decided it would be best to
>break my studies into smaller chuncks and just go for the MCPD
>Web certification for now.

Sounds like a plan. We do a lot of mixed stuff - php, VB, convert files to
databases, ASP.NET and soon a portal or two. I'm having a lot of fun at
this place.


>I bought the training kit for the 70-536, 70-528 and 70-547 for
>around $100 at amazon.com.

I just picked mine up at Barnes & Noble. I don't want to think about what
I paid (grin). I may end up doing the 70-340 (security) and/or the 70-431
(SQL Server 2005) before the 70-536, 70-528 and 70-547.


>By the way, where is your Techskills center located? Mine was in NJ.

I'm in the Dallas, Texas area.


Mark Edwards
--
Proof of Sanity Forged Upon Request

Mark Edwards

Congratulations Mark.

The thing I found most frustrasting about the planning, envisioning (MSF)
material is that I spent a ton of time studying it and there were not any
questions on it on my exam.
--
Jim Anderson, MCSD
Consultant
Columbus, Ohio


"Mark Edwards" wrote:

>
> Finally! I. Have. Finished. As of tonight, I am an MCSD!
>
> I am so glad this is finished. I really hated the last material:
> planning, envisioning, interviews and stuff, with all the tricksy
> questions - it took my very intense focus just to stay awake.
>
> Or maybe it means:
> Microsoft Certified Strange Dude
> Microsoft Certified Somnolent Developer
> Many Cats Suggest Dinner
> My Credential Search Done (yeah, right)
>
> eh... or something (big grin).
>
>
> Mark Edwards, DONE (for now)
> --
> Proof of Sanity Forged Upon Request
>

Jim Anderson