Back to Basic, Part 3

Unfortunately I did not stay long enough to take the 70-291 test. The fact they scheduled a 3 1/2 hour test at 6PM, and then you can't stay the night there was enough to change my plans. Worse than that I had a family emergency at home. My wife was (and still is) very sick. So I stayed until the last lecture was finish, and when they broke for lunch, I got on the road back to Maryland.

I did manage to get more pictures. This is the main building. When you enter the resort it's hidden off to the right.

This was taken earlier that day, May 14th.That haze on the vehicle is FROST. I definitely would not want to live there, nor could I imagine attending a class there in the winter time. Not my idea of fun.

I am scheduling the 70-291 test for next week, and I hope to have some good news then. As I mentioned earlier, my wife is still sick, in allot of pain. So much so she cannot drive because of the pain medication. She's at Walter Reed Army Medical Center this morning in fact to see if they can figure out what's causing it.

Regards
John Crawford
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Back to Basic, Part 2

Greetings from Bushkill, PA. I'm on day 7 of the 9 day MCSA bootcamp. I passed the 70-290 test last evening. As you can guess, these tests get progressively harder. I wasn't as confident when I went in to this test, but it wasn't that bad. The course prepares you quite well for it.

It rained last night, which was kinda a downer coming out of the test. We went in it was nice and sunny, as it has been all week. It's a good thing I passed. If I hadn't and come out side after 3 hours and it's ugly and raining that could really depress a person, at least it would depress me.

Again, no cheats here, no test give aways. I want to keep my MCP and hopefully after Tuesday my MCSA. So if you really wanna pass the test, take the courses. There's one thing that hurts all of us in the business is to work with a paper-MCSE/MCSA/CCNA, whatever, you fill in the certification. They know nothing but have a credential. Worse than that, our employers hire them and put them in charge cause they lots of cool stuff on their resume.

Since we didn't have class after the test, we got the evening off. Of course, I got out of testing at 7:40PM, so there wasn't much difference. Although we didn't have anything to study, I had to get some laundry done. I did study some of the material for 70-291 that was in our existing curriculum, but I took the opportunity to get some extra sleep.

I promised more about the facility. The accommodations are excellent, overkill even. Since this is a resort, these are not standard hotel rooms maybe used at other bootcamps. These are vacation villas, an efficiency apartment. I have a full kitchen, a large living room/dining room combined that has a couch, recliner, fireplace, TV/VCR/DVD player, and 6 person dining room table. And a 1/2 bath. The kitchen is bigger than the one in my house, and is separate by a bar (w/stools) to the dining room.

And then there's an upstairs with a bedroom with TV, and full bathroom and a hall closet. It's very nice. The upstairs bathroom is definitely bigger than both bathrooms in my house.

The buildings are setup like condos or apartments, 6-8 villas together, and the buildings are situated like a housing complex. Unfortunately I can't tell you much about the recreational facilities since I have no time to use them or to even go see them. I know they have a huge tennis courts compound, an indoor and an outdoor pool, and a golf course. And there is a hill/slope that look like it might be for snowboarding (but this is late spring so I'm not sure).

Tuesday is the 70-291 test, then I head home. It's about 4 1/2 hours there, but could be more with rush hour traffic. As much as I like the accommodations, I wanna get home to my family. I'll have more later this week after the coarse is over.


Regards
John Crawford
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Back to Basic

Greetings from Bushkill, PA. I'm on day 5 of a 9 day MCSA bootcamp. Right up front, I'll tell you that you won't find any braindumps or test answers on this blog. So far I've passed the Comptia Security+ and the Windows XP (70-270 exam). Saturday we test on 70-290, and 70-291 on Tuesday. After that I head home, but most of the class will stay for the rest of the MCSE portion.

I was pleasantly surprised at the older ages of the attendees. I sincerely expected to see mostly young kids, 20's or so. However, most are a bit older, and quite a few in their 40's and 50's. I just couldn't pictures too many people my age being able to endure the bootcamp regime to learning, but it's the norm and not the exception.

Granted, this is a strain on my family, and there's the cost and time away from work. But this forum works so well. I feared I would be so overwhelmed with information that nothing would make sense. All of us in the industry know there is "theory" according to Mr. Gates, and there's reality, our day jobs in the IT profession. Seldom do they cross paths. And I was overwhelmed the first day. We went through the entire Security+ curriculum in 11 hours, and then told to go back to our villas to study.

I was doomed for sure. But Tuesday morning we crammed a review, every possible fact that might come up on a test was mentioned. We had lunch, then headed to the testing center. I stood in line with my ID in hand, nervous, joking and laughing to fight off the stress. It was a grooling test, but it was not near as hard as the labs and practice we did in class. To my surprise it said "You passed". I was beside myself. I went back to the check-in desk, where a nice sweet gal gave me a verbal congratulations and the printed copy of the test score. I walked away in shock.

It was an accomplishment for a guy with Adult ADHD and a history of academic underachievement. But the break in the action soon ended. At 5:00PM we started the next block, Windows XP 70-270, and off we went. All day Wednesday we covered every conceivable item on Windows XP, and then some. Wednesday night was a big study night, but I was really tired. Having a big family at home, I am too used to having people around. And I'm having trouble sleeping here in this strange place. So Wednesday night I went to sleep just after 10:00PM, but I was up again at 4:30AM. My regular schedule is to be up by 4:30AM, and be at or close to work by 5:30AM. On Thursday morning I was ready and at the classroom at 6:15AM (it's available 24/7), and getting some quality study time in.

It paid off cause I passed the 70-270 test Thursday afternoon. Again, I was beside myself. The process is so stressing, and again, I was expecting it to give me bad news. It was my first experience with Microsoft tests, so I guess it takes a little getting used to. Again, the break was short lived. As soon as the last person came back from testing, we were deep into Server 2003 (70-290). Class broke at 7:00PM and I spent the remainder of the evening studying (till midnight). I kept the TV on in the background, but I haven't a clue what was on. I just can't stand the silence.

I'll have more Saturday evening after the 70-290 test, and I'll talk more about the school and the great accommodations.

Regards
John Crawford

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To Vista Or Not To Vista?

I don't know about you, but I don't know too many people that have rushed out to buy Vista. I know of two, and they bought new systems. I got a look at a beta version some months back. It looks pretty, but to me it's just another version of windows. And all that security? Guess that's why they're already developing service pack 1.

I've heard people in the industry compare Vista to Linux. (I'm laughing). I cut my teeth as a systems administrator on Solaris, so they're gonna have to do better than that.

Maybe I'm not like Microsoft's target customer. I was always 2-3 years behind moving to the next version. I mean, after they introduced Windows 95, everyone rushed out to buy it. Three years later they introduced Windows 98. In 2000, they introduced Windows ME. All bad copies of the original Windows 95, built on the same code just more of it. What's interesting is of all the versions Windows 9x developed, they still couldn't get it right (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/158238/uk-ua). Five Versions of Windows 95, two versions of Windows 98, and Windows ME. And if that didn't confuse people, they also introduced Windows 2000 the same year as Windows ME, and everyone thought they were the same. They may have looked the same but they were very different underneath.

And there were four Windows 2000 versions, three server version and luckily only one workstation version. It was fundamentally different because it could use the NTFS file system, and was the replacement for Windows NT 4.0. Developed for the corporate or work environment, Windows 2000 had increased file security, compression, and encryption. A major improvement from the Windows 9x platforms.

Then Microsoft came out with Windows XP, Home and Professional Editions, along with Windows Server 2003 of which there are 5 versions.

UGH!!! Enough already with all these different versions. Microsoft OBVIOUSLY did NOT learn anything from their previous flops, among them Windows ME and Windows XP Home. Mr. Gates, if the world actually needed another crappy operating system, they surely would only need ONE. Cut the crap, make ONE version of VISTA. Servers version, yes, they apply to specific uses. But there's no difference between home and office use. If they don't want all the security, they can stick with XP. But OH I forgot, support for that will drop off in 2 years or so. Microsoft, please stop baffling us with BS and just give us a product that is reliable and secure.

OK, off my soapbox. I don't see the mad rush to get Vista.... When Microsoft comes out with their own version of Linux the game is over. As long as they continue to make stuff that is flawed out of the box I'll always have a job.


Regards
John Crawford

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