Helmers Blog

Last monday I visited the GetOnTheBus evening session over at InfoSupport in Veenendaal. Of course I took my camera with me. Below you can see the pictures. Not all of the pictures were taken by me. Some were made by Maarten Goet, but he didn’t have time to upload them….so that’s why he e-mailed me the pictures. Maarten also took a picture at the Zwolle event from earlier on Monday, I also added that picture!

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  If I’m correct the GetOnTheBus Bus is parked at some highway parking spot in the UK (see the image below), near Rotherham to be more precise!

Tomorrow the bus will be back on the European mainland to be at some Belgian locations. If you want to track the bus just click the image above. If I’m correct you can see the bus live at the Live Bus Tracker. The Bus tracker is powered by Glympse.

Next week the bus will be in the Netherlands (Nov 2nd). I’ll be attending the ‘evening-session’ at InfoSupport Veenendaal. Any of you guys coming to Veenendaal on November 2nd?

UPDATE (16-09) : All the seats for both the exams are taken so for know you can’t register anymore for the exams below!

UPDATE #2 (16-09) : I just spoke to somebody from Microsoft and she told me that the product planner opened new slots earlier today. So IF you want to sign up for the exam….be QUICK!

UPDATE #3 (17-09) : And all slots are filled up again…

Earlier today Microsoft announced via the Beta Exams blog that the registration for the 71-686 and the 71-685 are available! To register for one (or both) of the exams, please read the information below.

71-686 : PRO : Windows 7, Enterprise Desktop

You are invited to take beta exam 71-686: PRO: Windows 7, Enterprise Desktop Administrator. If you pass the beta exam, the exam credit will be added to your transcript and you will not need to take the exam in its released form. The 71-xxx identifier is used for registering for beta versions of MCP exams, when the exam is released in its final form the 70-xxx identifier is used for registration. By participating in beta exams, you have the opportunity to provide the Microsoft Certification program with feedback about exam content, which is integral to development of exams in their released version. We depend on the contributions of experienced IT professionals and developers as we continually improve exam content and maintain the value of Microsoft certifications.

71-686: PRO: Windows 7, Enterprise Desktop Support Technician counts as credit towards the following certification(s).

· MCITP: Enterprise Desktop Administrator, Windows 7

Availability

Public Registration begins: September 14, 2009

Beta exam period runs: September 21, 2009– October 16, 2009

Receiving this invitation does not guarantee you a seat in the beta; we recommend that you register immediately. Beta exams have limited availability and are operated under a first-come-first-served basis. Once all beta slots are filled, no additional seats will be offered.

Testing is held at Prometric testing centers worldwide, although this exam may not be available in all countries (see Regional Restrictions). All testing centers will have the capability to offer this exam in its live version.

Regional Restrictions: India, Pakistan, China

Registration Information

You must register at least 24 hours prior to taking the exam. Please use the following promotional code when registering for the exam: EDA7 Receiving this invitation does not guarantee you a seat in the beta; we recommend that you register immediately.

 

71-685 : PRO : Windows 7, Enterprise Desktop Support

You are invited to take beta exam 71-685: PRO: Windows 7, Enterprise Desktop Support Technician. If you pass the beta exam, the exam credit will be added to your transcript and you will not need to take the exam in its released form. The 71-xxx identifier is used for registering for beta versions of MCP exams, when the exam is released in its final form the 70-xxx identifier is used for registration. By participating in beta exams, you have the opportunity to provide the Microsoft Certification program with feedback about exam content, which is integral to development of exams in their released version. We depend on the contributions of experienced IT professionals and developers as we continually improve exam content and maintain the value of Microsoft certifications.

71-685: PRO: Windows 7, Enterprise Desktop Support Technician counts as credit towards the following certification(s).

· MCITP: Enterprise Desktop Support Technician, WIndows 7

Availability

Public Registration begins: September 14, 2009

Beta exam period runs: September 14, 2009– October 16, 2009

Receiving this invitation does not guarantee you a seat in the beta; we recommend that you register immediately. Beta exams have limited availability and are operated under a first-come-first-served basis. Once all beta slots are filled, no additional seats will be offered.

Testing is held at Prometric testing centers worldwide, although this exam may not be available in all countries (see Regional Restrictions). All testing centers will have the capability to offer this exam in its live version.

Regional Restrictions: India, Pakistan, China

Registration Information

You must register at least 24 hours prior to taking the exam. Please use the following promotional code when registering for the exam: EDST7 Receiving this invitation does not guarantee you a seat in the beta; we recommend that you register immediately.

 

Too bad (the exams are probably very populair!) the registration pages at Prometric are overloaded. You are able to select the exam.

But as soon as you’ve selected the exam location you receive a page with the error you can see below.

UPDATE : After a lot of retries I was able to register for both the exams!

The environment is a hot issue nowadays and everybody is doing what they can (are they?) to reduce their carbon footprint. Microsoft Learning is doing the same. Because of that the MCP Certification Welcome Kits will only be available the digital way from June 30, 2009.

It is still possible to order a paper certificate (available again from July 7th) trough the MCP Member web site, but you have pay a shipping and handling fee to receive them.

To download your MCP Digital certificates (even the ‘oldies’ are digitally available from June 30th) just visit the MCP Digital Cert homepage.

Source: MCP Flash (June 2009) / BornToLearn Blog

The credits go to Koen Wijnstok for blogging about this game in Dutch at the Dutch Microsoft IT Pro Community blog.

At http://www.areyoucertifiable.com you can find a nice game with 400 questions about Windows Server 2003, 2008, Exchange 2007, Window Vista, etc. You can even ask your colleagues to join you. You can add your friends to a Friends Score-list so you can easily see who is the brightest!