Sunday, June 29, 2008

Sharepoint developer

What i really liked about microsoft technologies is the availability of learning material, forum help, technical support, including videos, how-to's etc which is relatively less for other technologies.

Microsoft should really be appreciated in the extent of materials they provide for developers to learn their technologies.

What if you do not have the required infrastructure or software or licenses to install their stuff to learn - dont worry they have online hands on labs, all you need is a internet connection, and you can join a lab and login to a virtual server and you can configure and learn their stuff (only thing is you need a big monitor like i have at home, as once you are in a test lab, there are test instructions to read as well as to see the server desktop so it is kind of tough to do on a normal monitor).

I recently came across this excellent site which provides all the necessary material for a share point developer.

http://www.microsoft.com/click/SharePointDeveloper/

It has quick start papers, hands on labs and web casts to learn developing using sharepoint.

Review of the uCertify training material for 70-300 Exam

  • 70-300 exam is the Microsoft exam for Analyzing Requirements and Defining Solution Architectures.
  • Recently i was requested to review uCertify training material and here i am presenting my feedback.
  • This exam unlike other microsoft exams deals with the entire lifecycle of a project, the key exam objectives include right from the feasibility of the project, through design, requirements specification and elaboration and continues with the process definition and maintenance.
  • If a person had already passed a microsoft exam one can easily understand that nowadays we need practical experience to pass the exam as microsoft has introduced lot of simulation and practical scenario based questions which cannot be cleared if one tries to
    memorize or to study question banks. So one needs a proper blend of practical as well as theoretical knowledge to clear these exams.
  • At the same time practical experience alone is not enough and we do need to brush up some basics through study material, where kits like
    ucertify come to help.
  • I am presenting here what i liked about this product.

Learn Exam Objectives along with Study Notes

  • Main thing one needs to understand to pass MCP exams is we need to clearly understand the skills measured by the exam or the key objectives which are generally presented as topics and sub-topics in the preparation guides.
  • Example:-
  • Envisioning the Solution >> Develop a solution concept>> Analyze the feasibility of the solution. Most training material i had seen do not link material to key objectivies, ucertify did a pretty good job in this, as soon as you launch their tool, from their menu we can access the Exam Objectives via Notes >> Exam Objectives.
  • What is still better is we can read study notes linked to exam objectives, by clicking on the objectives with notes menu. So now we have all the study notes per topic or sub-topic linked to the exam objectives which is very helpful when you want to revise the topics before appearing.
  • Also the kit has a very good printing option, so that we can print and read the material.


Study Tips:

  • The study tips are really useful, which list the pre-requisities for the exam, skills needed, what to practice and how to face the test, which are all inside the kit under the articles section. The articles section had very less articles and I felt for an exam of this nature the kit should have given more articles.


Flash Cards:

  • Flash cards is a very good way of remembering key points while learning. I really like the flash card concept in the kit. 135 Flash card questions were present.


Test questions:

  • The kit had diagnostic tests as well as practice tests. We can also create our own type of tests by selecting X questions from a pool of Y questions.
  • Also the kit has option to test to see if there is a new version of material available on their site and if so we can download the update from their site.


Overall the kit from uCertify is really helpful to jump start ones preparation for the 70-300 exam and i would recommend it to any one planning to clear the exam.

Here is their website if you are looking for obtaining training material.

http://www.ucertify.com/