Certification Prep – The 20 Minute Workout

By Arielle Levin Becker © The Connecticut Mirror This story originally appeared at CTMirror.org , the website of The Connecticut Mirror, an independent, nonprofit news organization covering government, politics and public policy. HARTFORD — Julie Michaelson has spent five years working on her hospital’s information technology system, but she says it would be a misconception to think she’s computer- savvy. Mary McAward worked for years in data processing before being laid off, and is hoping the coming wave of health information technology will mean a new career path for her. Both are taking federally funded courses at Capital Community College, part of a national effort to educate more than 10,500 people in the electronic systems that, after years of discussion, are poised to become commonplace in medicine. That means jobs, to build, install and maintain the systems. The federal Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology has estimated that ...

I plan to get a couple of posts up here regarding my current efforts to complete all of my Hyper-V certifications (I recently passed 70-669 and I’ll blog about that at some point) but I am hoping to get to VMWare shortly after as that is what is in use at my current employer, Bloomberg LP. I wanted to finish up Hyper-V as I have more experience with it before I moved over to make an attempt at the VCP certification (if you are a VCP4 you only have until February 29, 2012 to upgrade to VCP5 without having to take a VMware Education course all over again; if you pass that date you’re effectively starting from scratch. I’ll get to all of that in a moment.) I’ve always had great success LEARNING ABOUT THE PRODUCT by getting hands on exposure and filling in the gaps with good training and Train Signal is always my first stop. If they don’t have what I am looking for I may go elsewhere if I feel I am going to need it but I always lean on them first and I have done so since my first purc...

Mike Rodriguez over on the TrainSignal Training website has released a great write up focusing on a number of important updates for many of the major certification tracks. He has a write up regarding the New 2011 CompTIA Security+ Exam and the new Security+ SY0-301 Exam Objectives TrainSignal's current Security+ Training offering has received CompTIA Authorized Quality Curriculum (CAQC) approval and I am sure as they upgrade their training for the new SY0-301 Exam Objectives they will be able to get the same certification. There is also a section regarding the upcoming Microsoft Exams that are retiring as of this September. You can review the list of exams that Mike has listed and you can take a look at the full list of retired exams on Microsoft's website   Mike's article also has some updates regarding the CCDE Practical Exam, VMware Certified Professional 4 Desktop Exam as well as a couple of others.   I would definitely suggest reviewing his entire post ...

Live Webinar Date: 8/31/2011 Time: 12:00 PM ET Duration: 1 hour Global Knowledge senior instructor Tim Euler will introduce you to security for Windows 7 and examine the features that make Windows 7 a truly secure operating system. He will provide a high-level overview of key Windows 7 security components, including: UAC (User Account Control) Windows Firewall with Advanced Security Windows Data Execution Prevention Windows BitLocker and Windows BitLocker To Go Encrypting File System (EFS) in NTFS Direct Access IPv6 Tim will help you understand which security features you can use to protect your organization and its data, and he will discuss the hands-on Windows security training available to help you master the concepts presented in the webinar. You can register for this free webinar here .

CompTIA is looking for IT professionals who have extensive experience in the field of PC troubleshooting, repair and support to be involved in the next update for the CompTIA A+ certification exam. The full details are below, as taken from their website. If you would like to be considered as a Subject Matter Expert, their application form is available on their website. Here is the body of the call for SMEs: PC Repair/Troubleshooting Experts needed for New A+ Exam Workshop CompTIA is looking for IT professionals who have extensive experience in the field of PC troubleshooting, repair and support to be involved in updating our CompTIA A+ certification exam. During this "Job Task Analysis" exam development workshop, the first of three workshops, subject matter experts (SMEs) will help determine the exam's target audience, outline main competencies and objectives to be covered in the test, and weight different topics. SMEs will validate the skills and knowledge r...

I subscribe to many different email lists as I find that when I can target the email I get to something that is topical for me I can tolerate all that spam I get a little better (at least the stuff I’ve signed up for I am asking to have sent to me). Virtualization Review sent along an email regarding a half day seminar that is being sponsored by Virtacore Systems /PHD Virtual, Zerto and Veeam with David Davis giving the keynote. David Davis is THE go to guy for Virtualization topics and vSphere Training. He is an author at Train Signal for a number of their VMWare / vSphere training suites. The forum will focus on Disaster Recovery in VMware Environments on July 20, 2011 Time: 9 am PDT / 12 noon EDT David’s segment will cover: The top five DR challenges VMware oriented IT organizations face today What you can do to minimize disaster potential as information and data proliferates Typical DR scenarios faced in a virtual infrastructure DR best practices in virtualized environments Tips ...

As some of you are aware, I am presently studying for Exam 70-669: TS: Windows Server 2008 R2, Desktop Virtualization During the course of this and having a day job I've had to reschedule this exam once already, pushing it out to July 25. I hope I am ready for it now because much to my surprise there is a new rescheduling and cancellation policy in effect: "Please note that effective July 15th 2011 our rescheduling and cancellation policy has changed. In order to provide all Microsoft candidates with a broad selection of convenient times and locations in order to test, fees will now be applied for examinations that are rescheduled / cancelled with less than 15 days' notice. We therefore encourage you to keep your original appointment, or if necessary reschedule or cancel more than 15 days out from your appointment date. Please visit www.prometric.com/microsoft/reschedulecancellationpolicy for more information and www.prometric.com/microsoft/reschedulecancellation/faqs for ...