Helmers Blog

Last monday I blogged about the upcoming pilot of the MCP Learning Rewards Program! The Registration started an hour earlier! So if you want to join, be quick since there are only 10.000 spaces available!

Step 1 : Visit http://www.mylearningrewards.net and click the Register now button. Step 2: Select MCP from the list and click Submit Step 3: Fill out the form (except for the Partner location ID) and click Submit.

You will now receive an e-mail with your password. Use this info to logon to the MyLearningRewards.com website.

Back in the 90-ties you received a one-year TechNet Plus Single User subscription when you achieved the MCSE ‘status’. I think I was one of the last ones who received this reward back in 1999. From 2000 you didn’t receive any reward (besides the MCP Wallet card and a certificate) at all…..until now!

A few years ago I already attended a Live Meeting Session about the MCP Award idea’s Trika and Georgeo had back in 2007! I’m not sure why it had to take until 2010 before the ideas finally grew into something now is known as the Learning Rewards Program. Too bad the program isn’t available to MCP’s (yet), but I received an e-mail earlier today which invited me to register for a pilot (if I’m fast enough on April 21st because there are only 10.000 spots available).

So if I’m right (and the pilot end successfully) we all (besides the 10k pilot MCP’s) can collect (?) our rewards!

If you did not receive the e-mail, please don’t e-mail me for the instructions to register for the pilot program because I won’t give you the how-to

Registration starts at April 21, 2010 at 8:00AM (PDT) (What time is this in my region?) so you have to be quick!

Robbert Verbeek pointed me to the latest Microsoft Credential : Microsoft Certified Non-Professional. To achieve this credential you have to pass both the 70-401 (SCCM,Configuring) and the 70-656 (MDOP, Configuring). I’m not sure why Microsoft should name it Non-Professional, but as you can see below…it does exist!  

I already forwarded this screenshot to the guys over at @MSLearning, when I receive a respsonse I’ll let you know

ps. Back in September 2009 Eric Denekamp also received the ‘Non-Professional’ Certification

It took them a while over at Prometric…but the beta code is working right now in the Netherlands, Switzerland, Belgium, Poland, Hungary and Germany…so be quick and register for the 71-693 before it’s all filled up!

Whole day long we were waiting for Prometric to fix their error, and finally they did! Check out my previous post for all the discussions about this exam.

NOTE : If you are unable to register for the exam, please also leave a comment at this MS Learning Blog Post so they will know who as unable to register

Update (11:00am CET) : Unable to register for this exam in the following countries : Netherlands, Poland, Belgium, Hungary, Switzerland and Germany. Probably some other European countries you’re unable to register for this exam right now.

UPDATE 2 (13:06 CET) : (thanks to Bas Steeloper) Prometric can’t take any action before 14:00 CET (that’s when the Prometric HQ will be available), but it will probably take until 20:00 CET before registration can take place for the European countries named above.

UPDATE 3 : The Beta code is working!!! Be quick and register for the 71-693 before it’s too late!

At 12:00am (EST) the 71-693 became available for registration. And also this time there will be a limited number of seats. With the last exam (71-659) it took about 8 hours before all the seats were filled. What do you think, will this exam be filled quicker?

Too bad this time the exam code for the exam isn’t working in Europe, or at least in the Netherlands! Last few times there have been some issues that had something to do with some dudes leaking the promotional codes on the internet. I asked some friends over at MS Learning, but the told me there is only one beta code available, so it should work. The strange thing is…over at Canada there was at least somebody who was able to register for the exam, with the appropriate beta code, but in Europe nobody succeeded!