Tony,
I saw you as one of the authors of the Microsoft Self-Paced Training for MCITP Enterprise Administrator series from Microsoft Press. I visited your personal website and really liked your photography as well… Very impressive.
Anyhow, I digress… I’m not really writing to talk about photography, though I could. My question is about MCITP training and certification. You have a substantial history and experience in training/writing about Microsoft certifications. I’m moving up in my employer’s organization and I’m tasked with getting my certification. I had my MCSE 2000, but it’s time to upgrade my skills.
As someone new to Win2008 (specifically R2) do you have any hints, tips, suggestions for getting GOOD training, but also receiving certification. I’m purchasing the Microsoft Press self-paced series that you’re one of the authors of, but I’m looking for more as well… By no means am I suggesting your books aren’t great… they are! But I’m one who looks for help from many angles (even emailing the author, as you can see). Any guidance you may have is much appreciated.
Regards,
Best online Microsoft MCTS Training, Microsoft MCITP Training at certkingdom.com
And my answer:
Of course, real-world experience is the best teacher. Sounds like you have quite a bit of that already. If there’s some area where you don’t have enough real-world experience, setup different scenarios with virtual machines, and make it actually work (without following step-by-step instructions like those in the Training Kits).
I like to read the TechNet blogs. They’re written by the guys writing the software, so you tend to get a deeper understanding of how the technologies work. I also like to check out different IT forums to see where people are running into problems in the real-world.
The #1 resource for MCITP certifications, though, is TechNet. Not only is it one of the best technical resources, but it seems to be the place where the people writing the questions get their inspiration. Note that I don’t have any inside knowledge on how they write the questions–I’m saying this based on my own experiences taking the certification tests.
Hope that helps! And thanks for the compliment on my other passion. 😀
Tony