Kay Sellenrode's Blog

Windows Internals beta exam 70-660

Kay Sellenrode — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 19:47:18 GMT

Today I found the following announcement at the ntdebug blog.
Microsoft has released a windows internal exam, targeted for the IT Pro and Developers that need to know the internals.
seems to me it is definatly a developer exam, and also good to know for the IT Pro that do a lot of troubleshooting/debugging. For myself I'm considering it, but it seems a tough one and am not sure if I'm already prepared enough to take it.

At least for everyone that would like to take the exam here is the beta code and the info:
ps. I marked the beta code RED

Windows Internals Beta Exam 70-660

Hello Windows Debugging Community, We are super excited to announce a new certification. With the help of industry partners, including some of our very talented community members, we have developed a new Windows Internals Certification. This Certification targets developers and IT professionals that require knowledge of Windows Internals as part of their profession. Chance are if you are reading this blog post you are part of the target audience. I encourage you to register and please take the Beta exam. Please help us to improve the exam by providing feedback during the beta exam.

Register for Beta Exam 70-660: TS: Windows® Internals

You are invited to take beta exam 70-660: TS: Windows® Internals. 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.

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.

Please remember that participation in the beta process is completely voluntary and Microsoft makes no promises or guarantees regarding the beta exam process. You can expect to receive your score on the beta exam within 12 weeks of taking the exam, although in some instances, beta exams may take longer to score and your results may be delayed.

70-660: TS: Windows® Internals counts as credit towards the following certification.

· Microsoft Certified Technology Specialist (MCTS): Windows® Internals

Availability

Registration begins: July 17, 2008

Beta exam period runs: July 21, 2008– August 5, 2008

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: WINT
Receiving this invitation does not guarantee you a seat in the beta; we recommend that you register immediately.

Exchange connectivity test site

Kay Sellenrode — Mon, 16 Jun 2008 14:07:13 GMT

How often hasn't it occured that you are at a customer location and you want to test the Exchange connectivity.
The Microsoft Exchange Team has launched a test site now so you can test the connectivity without the hasle of having a remote pc to test it.

https://www.testexchangeconnectivity.com/

Currently the following Tests are available.

Autodiscover test for Outlook 2007
Outlook 2003 RPC/HTTP test
Exchange Activesync test
SMTP Inbound Test

I think these guys are doing great work.
And ofcourse like you're also told on the website, use a test account and not your domain admin account to do the tests.

Microsoft Certified Master

Kay Sellenrode — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 08:57:13 GMT

So to make the Microsoft Certification program more complete they now added a new title MCM Microsoft Certified Master.
Though there isn't a lot of information about it yet i see there will be 5 specialisations

MCM Exchange Server 2007
MCM SQL Server 2008
MCM Windows 2008
MCM OCS 2007 ?? (just guessing on the info i found)
MCM Sharepoint ?? (also just guessing)

For the people that already know the MCA program, this seems to become (the technically) part of it.
In the next weeks there will be more info to find on the Microsoft site.

Whatch the following site http://www.microsoft.com/learning/mcp/master/default.mspx

How to Prepare for the 652 Hyper-V Exam

Kay Sellenrode — Fri, 06 Jun 2008 14:39:56 GMT

Lukas Beeler posted a great report about his exam experience today and well as a lot of people are searching for resources how to prepare for this exam, i though this would be quite helpful.

See Lukas his blog

Hyper-V Beta exam 071-652

Kay Sellenrode — Mon, 02 Jun 2008 19:49:43 GMT

I received an invitation for this beta exam and have scheduled it for next week.

But now i also saw the invitation on the website of Trika i though just let's put a link here so everyone that would like to take the exam is able to.

http://blogs.msdn.com/trika/archive/2008/06/02/register-for-beta-exam-71-652-ts-windows-server-virtualization-configuring.aspx

TECH-ED 2008 Party calendar (updated)

Kay Sellenrode — Mon, 02 Jun 2008 18:59:22 GMT

So this year unfortunately i'm not allowed to attend the Teched IT Pro in Orlando.

Previous years i kept a list of where all the party's are, this year i will keep a list here, even though i'm not able to attend these party's myself i know it will be a lot of fun.

If you have any updates please post them and i will add them to the calendar.
Also take a look at the EXPTA blog for a nice calendar with Extracurricular Activities

And anyone that would like to sponser me a Conference pass is just send me a message i will be happy to still go there.

Date	Party/Location	Link
Monday 2 June 7-10 PM	Party With Palermo - Glo Lounge	http://teched2008.partywithpalermo.com/
Monday 2 June 7-?? PM	Sharepint	http://www.andrewconnell.com/blog/archive/2008/05/19/SharePoint-by-Day-SharePint-by-Night-vTechEd-North-America-2008.aspx
Tuesday 3 June 7-10 PM	Geekfest 2008	http://geekfest.thenextseven.com/
Thursday 5 June 7:30- midnight	Attendee Party
Monday 9 June 7-11 PM	Party with the pro's - Glo Lounge	http://partywiththepros.org/going-to-teched-in-orlando/
Monday 9 June 9-?? PM	Sharepint	http://www.andrewconnell.com/blog/archive/2008/05/19/SharePoint-by-Day-SharePint-by-Night-vTechEd-North-America-2008.aspx
Tuesday 10 June 6 - 8 PM	Spiceworks Happy Hour - Margaritaville	http://community.spiceworks.com/topic/16289
Tuesday 10 June 8 - ??	MCP Party - The Microsoft All-Star Community Pit Stop	https://stage.crgevents.com/communitypitstop/Content/Home.aspx
Wednesday 11 June 8 - midnight	Double Take Party - Margarittaville	http://www.doubletake.com/misc/margaritaville08.aspx
Wednesday 11 June ?? -??	Technet After Party	http://blogs.technet.com/technetplussubscriptions/archive/2008/05/27/going-to-teched-us-get-the-hook-up-with-the-technet-plus-team.aspx
Thursday 12 June 7-30 - midnight	Attendee Party

ISA 2006 SP1 - It's Coming

Kay Sellenrode — Fri, 23 May 2008 23:40:44 GMT

Just released on the ISA Blog is the info about what's new in the SP1 of ISA 2006 coming this summer.
Some nice features that i can see are coming:

Traffic simulation
This function will let you see what will happen with traffic that wants to go through the ISA server and lets you better troubleshoot what is going wrong
Support for UCC/SAN certificates.
well at last it is comming. this caused quite some frustration to a lot of people that were experiencing the new SAN certificates. So now it will be fully supported.
Configuration Change Tracking
This will be a loved feature that a lot of large companies like to have, now you can track who made which change and why (if correctly used)

For the full feature set and a more thorough explanation visit the post Jim Harrisson made on the ISA blog.