Certification Prep – The 20 Minute Workout

Early April, Corp-Corp conducted a survey among Indian IT professionals. More than 1000 professionals responded to this survey. The results show m ore than half of the Indian IT professionals are planning to return to India . Survey Highlights Here are a few quick insights from the survey: 50.1% of the people said that they will be returning to India soon. 6.4% of them have already returned to India and 43% do not have plan to return. The survey participants includes permanent residents, citizens and Visa holders. The survey results shows 69% of visa holders and 57% permanent residents or citizens are intend to return. To read the entire story please see Over half of Indian IT professionals may return to India – Survey

VMware has acquired social communications platform Socialcast. Terms of the acquisition were not disclosed. VMware has been on a bit of an acquisition spree of late, recently buying Shavlik Technologies, and SlideRocket. Please see Leena Rao’s complete story at TechCrunch - VMware Acquires Enterprise Microblogging Platform Socialcast

This year I have two main goals for myself and one stretch goal. I decided for 2011 that I was going to obtain my Microsoft Virtualization Certification and my Cisco CCNA. My stretch goal for 2011 was to also work towards a certification on WMWare. I am a little farther behind the curve than I wanted to be for the year (I was hoping to have a couple of the Microsoft Virtualization Certification exams out of the way already) but I have been busy with several projects at work and saving the 4th of July celebration in my hometown for the second year in a row. With that work completed, both the project at work and the one in Wallingford, I am going to get back on track over the summer. (Admittedly, I may have to drop my certification on WMWare stretch goal for 2011 and defer it to 2012 but we’ll see how it goes). In the meantime I am going to be looking at the Microsoft Server Virtualization certification track as well as the Desktop Virtualization certification track.  Thes...

Hi Gang, Really quickly this AM - I saw a posting over on LinkedIn from Shon Harris - Owner and President of Logical Security where she indicated that she is providing 25 hours of free CEH on-line training. I am presently studying for this certification myself so I am certain it will be quite helpful for me to review this from the master herself and I wanted to pass along the information. Directly from her posting: Free On-Line CEH Course – Over 25 Hours Long I am providing 25 hours of free CEH on-line training. The video modules are outlined below and can be found at www.logicalsecurity.com/resources/resources_videos.html Hope you find them useful! 1. Ethical Hacking and Penetration Testing 2. Footprinting and Reconnaissance 3. TCP/IP Basics and Scanning 4. Enumeration and Verification 5. Hacking and Defending Wireless/Modems 6. Hacking and Defending Web Servers 7. Hacking and Defending Web Applications 8. Sniffers and Session Hijacking 9. Hacking and Defending Windows Systems 10. Hac...

Andy's Tech Experiments Blog has an excellent video presentation covering an experiment he performed where he which upgraded through every major version of Windows using a virtual machine install. Along with the video installation he has his blog post that offers additional information and details that he did not include within the presentation. Below is the video and his blog post can be found at Andy's Tech Experiments Blog under Chain of fools : Upgrading through every version of Windows

Companies are offering their IT pros more flexible hours and more money in the hopes of getting them to stay. Read the full post on the InfoWorld website. Regular readers of my blog know I have been saying this for the past six months and it’s only going to escalate from here – this is good news for IT workers, as they may have more leverage for raises / bonuses / flexible and /or additional benefits with their current employer. If not, the one up the street might offer what you’re looking for. Just remember all the loyalty (or lack thereof) that you’re current employer provides and make the decisions that are best for you and your career.

Support for Windows Vista Service Pack 1 (SP1) will come to an end on July 12, 2011. The transition of support on this date corresponds with the regular Microsoft Support Lifecycle policy. The date was originally set when Windows Vista Service Pack 2 released back in April 29, 2009. Windows Vista users can continue to use the product at this service pack level but to be eligible for Mainstream Support and to have access to security and high priority updates, users must be on the supported service pack. The most important part of this is that customers still on Windows Vista SP1 after this date will not have access to new security updates, high priority updates and non-security hotfixes. As part of the normal support lifecycle, support is provided for 12 months for the previous service pack when a new service pack is formally released according to the Microsoft Support Lifecycle Service Pack policy for servers as outlined on the Microsoft Support Lifecycle page. Both Mainstream and Exte...