Kristian Kristensen’s Blog

Last Friday (4th of April) I took the MCPD Web Developer exam. It went well with a very small margin. I scored 700 points, which is the exact required number of points needed to pass a Microsoft certification. This means I’m now an MCPD in Enterprise Application Development and Web Development. Very cool!

I also think it marks the need to ponder about my current certification status. Since I started at Microsoft in December I’ve taken 6 developer certifications. With respect to the multi-exam certifications this is probably as high as one can reasonably get. The MCPD is the largest or most inclusive developer certification in the MS Certification program if you disregard the Microsoft Certified Architect (MCA) program. The later requires a lot of things including meeting before a board and discussing a case. Suffice to say you’re not going to nail that one after 4 months on the job!

I think my next certification steps will be to take the Microsoft Solutions Framework (MSF) exam. After that it’s the infrastructure and server certifications I’ll focus on as part of the NG program.

In two weeks I’m going to Redmond, WA to attend Microsoft Services University (MSSU); a 2,5 weeks course that all new employees in Microsoft Services is attending. After that I’ll have a short 5 day break/vacation where I’ll visit family, and before I go home I have a Biztalk course in Irvine, CA. So a lot of traveling! I’ll be in the US for a month shy of a couple of days.

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It’s been pretty quiet around here, but now I have something to write about. In my last post I wrote about passing the MCTS Distributed exam, and that this meant I was on track for the MCPD Enterprise Application Development exam. Well, this Friday I took the exam and passed with 860 points. So I’m now officially an MCPD. This page with statistics of the number of MCP’s worldwide states that there are 3424 persons that holds this certification. The numbers are from January 2008. Somehow that doesn’t seem like a lot of people.

Anyway, I followed the recipe that seems to work for me. Read the Self-Paced Training Kit book and do practice exams. I read MCPD Self-Paced Training Kit (Exam 70-549): Designing and Developing Enterprise Applications Using the Microsoft .NET Framework cover to cover, and did practice tests like MeasureUp.
For some strange reason I didn’t get a score report after my exam, so I can’t comment on how well I performed on different areas of the exam. However, I can comment a bit on the types of questions I was asked. Most of the questions involves a fair bit of text, stating requirements for a specific solution. The solution is then proposed and you need to answer if the solution fulfills the requirements and if not why not. It’s still multiple choice, but a tad more difficult than your standard techie questions. Mainly because they’re looking for a specific solution. And the answer is not always how you would go about doing it.
In summary after taking this exam I don’t find it particularly difficult if you’ve studied some kind of computer science or software engineering. A lot of this stuff is pretty basic, and easily approachable.

With the MCPD out of the way I don’t know what my next certification goals should be. Maybe I should focus on SQL Server or some Biztalk stuff. Maybe focus a bit on the Infrastructure and Server exams, which I’ll have to go for later this year anyway. I’ll keep the blog posted.

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Shortly after my last post (on January 24th, yikes) I left with the 3 other NG’s for Prague. We were going to particpiate in MACH Intro School for EMEA. I wrote about about the connection between NG and MACH in a previous post. The Intro School is the first chance to meet your peers in your closest region. Denmark belogs to Western Europe (WE) which is part of Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA). This meant that there were a lot of different cultures and languages convening in Prague. The purpose of Intro School is to give you guidance and skills to tackle your work life at Microsoft, and networking. Actually the latter should probably be written as NETWORKING! And so we did I had a blast talking and just goofing around with the other MACH hires. Plus 2 weeks in Prague doesn’t kill you either. They’ve got good beer and good food. Awesome!

After Prague I started prepping for the exam Microsoft .NET Framework 2.0 – Distributed Application Development (70-529), and deals with Web Services, Remoting, WSE 3.0, Enterprise Services, and MSMQ. My strategy was the same as for the other exams, read the book, do practice tests, iterate on my weak points. And sure thing it worked! I passed on the 15th with a score of 965. Pretty cool.
This means that I’m now a Microsoft Certified Technology Specialist (MCTS) in Web Apps, Windows Apps and Distributed Apps. But more importantly I’m on track to become a Microsoft Certificed Proffesional Developer in Enterprise Applications Developer. I need one more exam – the PRO: Designing and Developing Enterprise Applications by Using the Microsoft .NET Framework (70-549) - to achieve the title. So that’s definitely my goal to accomplish that within the coming couple of months.

Followers of my Delicious feed will notice that I do a bit of work on Forefront, which is Microsoft’s Anti Malware software suite.

Last week I attended internal training on Microsoft Solutions Framework (MSF), which is Microsoft’s model for delivering solutions be it software development or infrastructure setup. It was good because it conveyed the language used internally when talking about which phase a project is in, or what milestone has been reached. I’ll definitely benefit from it.

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Today I took the exams for 70-526 in Winforms and 70-528 in ASP.NET. Originally I had booked time for tomorrow afternoon, but a slot opened and I could try today. The new slot was at 2PM, and I found out at 11. So it was pretty tight. Anyway, I took the Winforms exam first, and lo and behold I passed with 860 points. From the result sheet I see that I was strongest in Creating UI’s for Winform apps, Integrating data, implementing printing and reporting, and usability. This means my low topics were Developing Winforms controls, and Configuring and deploying apps. I do think there were a lot of questions on printing and the Background Worker.
After a short break I took the ASP.NET exam. I wasn’t so sure of the material, and quite frankly didn’t exepct to pass. Was of course hoping for it. I did pass it too with 788 points. I was strongest in Creating custom web controls, tracing, configuring and deploying apps, and customizing and personalizing web apps.
With these two exams and the Core I passed in December I’m now a Microsoft Certified Technology Specialist in ASP.NET and WinForms.

My means of preparation for these exams were similar to the Core exam. I read the books and did lesson reviews from the CD as well as several practice tests. Afterwards I’d read up on the topics I scored low on.

So what’s next? I don’t quite know yet. I’m currently pondering to take the Distributed Applications exam 70-529 and then go for an MCPD in Enterprise Applications. Nothing is however settled yet. I think I’m going to skim some of the chapters in the 529 and see it makes sense to go for this exam, or if I should rather aim for the WCF exam due out late February early March. Either way I’ll post about it later.

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On Wednesday the 2nd I started at Microsoft again after a nice Christmas holiday. This also marked the day of the remaining three 3 NG’s. Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday consisted mainly of introductions to all things Microsoft, and playing catch up. The reason: on Sunday we had to leave for two weeks of training in Utrecht, the Netherlands. Training began this Monday, and the first 5 days are on C# and .NET. Since I know this stuff already I’m prepping for my next exam 70-526 on WinForms. Currently I have one remaining chapter, and then going to do practice tests, and read up on my weak topics.

Today I took a walk around Utrecht and realized how homogenous Europe is becoming. Most of the shops you find in Utrecht are the same as those in most Danish cities. The brand and signature shops are all here. Furthermore JCDecaux are also here for sign and busstop advertisement management. I suspect they were probably here before Denmark because of the name and the Netherlands vicinity to France. But anyway.
And although the streets seem a replica of a Danish one, there are big differences. One example is the wreckless driving attitude of both cardrivers and bicyclists.

Tomorrow we’ll be driving up to Amsterdam for the weekend. Should be fun, I’ve never been there.

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I passed the exam 70-536 yesterday. After the exam you get a print-out stating were you did well and not so well. From the printout I see that I was best in the topic "Embedding Configuration, Diagnostics, Management, and Installation features into a .NET Framework application" and  "Implementing globalization, drawing, and text manipulation functionality in a .NET Framework application". My worst topic was "Developing applications that use system types and applications".
However, all in all I’m pretty satisfied with my performance on the exam. It has been quite beneficial to actually go take an exam and get a feel for the format and types of questions asked. Furthermore, I think I have a better idea on how to prep for the coming exams.

Expect to hear more about this as I prepare, take, and hopefully pass more exams and achieve certification status.

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As part of the Next Generation program I’m getting certified on Microsoft technology. This includes a number of MCTS (Microsoft Certified Technology Specialist) exams with development and IT Pro content. For the development track you need to pass exam 70-536: Microsoft .NET Framework 2.0—Application Development Foundation to get an MCTS in WinForms Development or ASP.NET. Since I have go through the material anyway, I thought I might as well get an early start. So I borrowed a self-paced training kit from Henrik WH, and started reading the book for 536 last week.
At Microsoft we have an internal test center, which means that to take an exam you just go downstairs. So easy, and so convenient. The local administrator is in my department, so signing up for an exam is pretty easy. I had arranged to take the exam this morning at 9, which meant I more or less had a deadline for finishing the book. My plan was to read the book, and take the exam. I didn’t really expect to pass, but wanted to give it a try. Mainly to see what it was all about.  I finished the last couple of chapters last night on the way home in a plane from Aalborg, so i guess my plan stood up.

I took the test this morning. It consists of 45 questions of varying format, most of which are multiple choice. I spend about 45 minutes on the exam. I worked through the questions in one pass, marking the ones I had doubts about. After answering all the questions I worked through the marked questions once again, and ended the test. I was pretty surpriced when I got the score back: 876 out of 1000 possible, and you need 700 to pass. Very nice indeed

My strategy for this exam and the following is going to be something like written at Henrik’s blog. Read the book, and do some of the lesson reviews and practice tests on the accompanying CD in the training kit. When erroring in the practice tests, read up on the material and try again. When sufficiently confident that I can pass the test I’ll take a live one. If I pass it’s great, otherwise I’ll get a feel for what the exam consists of and use this for further cramming.

In summary I must say that the format of these exams is pretty much what I expected. There is a lot of memorizing involved, and a lot of "you just need to know it to pass". On the other hand I think you that you can deduce some of the questions by logic and experience.
Anyway, with the foundation exam out of the way I can start on the Winforms and ASP.NET exam so I can achieve MCTS status on both technologies.

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