This blog article is an announcement of the unveiling of the new Virtualization technology discussion forum here at TechExams.net. This new forum is for all discussions about virtualization products, information, training, and certification. Also welcome are questions about setting up a virtualization lab, configuring, using and troubleshooting virtualization software, and generally discovering what virtualization is.

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People using the MCTS Self-Paced Training Kit books from Microsoft Press should also get a copy of the errata available online for each book. You should be aware of that there are numerous errors in both the text and code examples for several of the MCTS Self-Paced Training Kit books that were not fixed prior to publication.

The following erratas are available at support.microsoft.com and are found by either searching the Support Knowledge Base using the term “Self-Paced Training Kit” or by searching for the specific book’s ISBN number.

MCTS Self-Paced Training Kit (Exam 70-526): Microsoft .NET Framework 2.0 Windows-Based Client Development Comments and Corrections

MCTS Self-Paced Training Kit (Exam 70-528): Microsoft .NET Framework 2.0 Web-Based Client Development Comments and Corrections

MCTS Self-Paced Training Kit (Exam 70-529): Microsoft .NET Framework 2.0 Distributed Application Development Comments and Corrections

MCTS Self-Paced Training Kit (Exam 70-536): Microsoft® .NET Framework 2.0—Application Development Foundation Comments and Corrections Part 1

MCTS Self-Paced Training Kit (Exam 70-431): Microsoft® SQL Server™ 2005—Implementation and Maintenance comments and corrections

Microsoft offers several developer certifications and exams covering various Microsoft technologies including the .NET framework. There are several good reasons for pursuing Microsoft Developer Certifications and for choosing .NET as a framework for your Web and Windows applications:

1. The free Visual Studio Express editions – These are limited but still very functional editions of Visual Studio, which allow you to create applications using many of the topics in the exam objectives.
2. Suitability for beginners – Both the Visual Studio Express editions and several of the exams mentioned in this overview do not require you to be a seasoned developer/programmer. You don’t need to be a mathematician either, although both will obviously be an advantage.
3. Microsoft supports the multiple different languages (and corresponding Visual Studio Express editions) for developing in the .NET 2.0 Framework: Visual Basic, C#, C++, and J#. Depending on the exam, you must choose a language when you start the exam that will be used for the code segments in exam questions. You can usually choose between Visual Basic 2005 and Visual C# 2005, and sometimes Visual C++ 2005.
4. Although the majority is not created for the certification exams covered in this overview, the .NET framework, Visual Studio, and especially Visual Basic and C# are widely supported on the Internet.

The main downside is that the applications you create require the .NET framework, which typically runs on Windows only.

Before we go over the ‘current’ Microsoft Developer certifications let’s have a look at the older ones. The following two certifications are still available for version 1 and 1.1 of the .NET framework:

MCSD (Microsoft Certified Solution Developer)

This certification covered several topics over a total of 4 core exams: .NET solution architecture, Web development, Windows development, and XML Web services and server components, and one elective exam. For three of the core exams, candidates can choose between VB and C#.

MCAD (Microsoft Certified Application Developer)

The MCSD was overkill for many developers so Microsoft created the MCAD, which focuses on building, deploying, and maintain Microsoft Windows and Web applications, while the MCSD also includes analyzing and designing enterprise solutions. The MCAD requires two core exams and one elective.

For those who have a lot of experience with the .NET framework 1.0 and/or 1.1 could still go for the above and possible later upgrade to the following certifications. But in general, it’s better to pursue one of the following newer certifications:

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Mozilla has released Mozilla Thunderbird 2, the newest version of its free and open source email, RSS, and NNTP client. Thunderbird 2 supports both POP and IMAP email servers and Google Gmail, and is an RSS News and Blog feed reader and a USENET Newsgroup reader. The new features of Thunderbird 2 include advanced folder viewing options, faster email folder searching and browsing, saving email searches for later use, creating customizable email templates, and the organization of email using text-based tags, the same tagging feature found on blogs, photo, and link-sharing Web sites. And like the Mozilla Web browser FireFox, Thunderbird supports hundreds of add-ons (plug-ins) to add many useful features.

Thunderbird is a very popular email program commonly used in place of Microsoft Outlook and Outlook Express. Thunderbird installs and starts up quickly and has a well-organized and intuitive user interface. It includes an excellent junkmail (spam) filter and a spelling checker, both features which are sorely lacking in the aging Microsoft Outlook Express. Thunderbird also supports the ability to access Web-based email services, such as Google Gmail, without using a Web browser.

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I have a lot of inactive PCs in my house. They include several Pentium and Pentium III workstations, a dual-180MHz CPU Pentium Pro server, and even a Winbook 486 laptop (fondly known as “the brick that ate my data”). The oldest in my collection is an 80386 motherboard with 4MB of RAM that I bought “at cost” for $800US back in 1989 (retail was $1200US) from a place called Beaver Computers somewhere in Oregon. My oldest machines, a Heath/Zenith Z-89A (1983), a Radio Shack (Tandy) TRS-80 Model 1 (1984), and a Polo System I (MS-DOS) from Polo Microsystems (my first PC clone, 1985), have sadly long been scraped.

So what does this high-tech nostalgia have to do with Ubuntu? And just what is Ubuntu? Well, you know how each new release on Windows is less likely to work well on older computers? And how you actually have to pay for each copy of Windows that you install? (Wipe that smirk off your face.) Well, unlike Windows XP and Vista, Ubuntu an operating system that happily runs very well on older PC computers–and is completely free.

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