Category Community

Free, discounted, and reduced Certifications and Training!

by Christopher Kusek (PKGuild) Certification, Community, Education, Free

So I came across this gem not too long ago (I’ll be duplicating their content here in the event that it ever ‘disappears’ from the source)  Also I’ll be introducing some additional training resources and such which they did not cover or reflect, to make sure you have access to as much Free as possible!

That covers one bulk of entries which I’ve been meaning to share for awhile, and here are the rest from that other site! by j23evan <3

Free/Reduced Certifications – Free/Reduced Training 2014 Edition

Free Certifications 2014 For Everyone:

For IT Professionals:

  • VMware VSP & VTSP – Secure Customer Login – VMware offers fantastic training and certifications for partners with their VMware Sales Professional and VMware Technical Sales Professional Certifications.
  • F5 University for Partners – https://university.f5.com/ – F5 offers several sales and technical accreditations for partner company employees.
  • Citrix Partner Central – https://www.citrix.com/partnercentral/home.html – Citrix offers free training on their products as well as the CCSP 2013 for partner company employees.

Inexpensive Certifications

  • Brocade Accreditations – $20 – Accreditation Exam Information – Brocade has 11 web based Accreditation’s that are only $20. They also offer Free training PDF’s for each course.
  • HP Specialty Certifications – $10-45 – https://www.myexpertone.com – HP has a series of web based Certifications (HP2-HP5 Prefix) of inexpensive exams.
  • Apple Associate Exams – $65 – Training and Certification – Thankfully Apple is moving away from their Authorized Training Centers (aka Robber Barons) to Pearson, and are offering their Associate level Exams online from the comfort of your home for $65 and free training PDF’s/iBookstore books.
  • Google Apps Education Qualification / YouTube Digital Citizen Certification – $15 – Google Apps Education Training Center – Google has 5 Exams that are $15 a piece that once all are completed earn you the Google Apps Education Qualification. The exams are web based and all training material is provided for free.
  • M.I.T. XSeries Certification in Computer Science – https://www.edx.org/xseries – Massachusetts Institute of Technology is offering an inexpensive certificate to those who attend and pass their courses. Absolutely brilliant, they follow a traditional semester mold and would look fantastic on a resume. They have a supply chain certificate as well. (thanks Stryder144)
  • OSHA 10-Hour General Industry Certification – $25 –http://campus.careersafeonline.com/p…chString&#x3d; – Yes I know it’s not an IT Certification. Proving that you have attended and passed the 10 Hour OSHA training course will give you a leg up over other applicants in certain industries. They also have a Cyber Safety Awareness program.

Reduced Certifications

  • Microsoft Exams through Prometric (070, 071, MTA) – Retake Microsoft Certification Exam for Free | Microsoft – Microsoft’s Second Shot is back! Now through May 31st, 2014 you can obtain a voucher to have a free retake on almost all of their technical exams. Dynamics is sadly excluded.
  • Microsoft Exam Pack Discount – http://www.microsoft.com/learning/en…xam-packs.aspx – Microsoft is offering a 15% off discount for purchasing all 3 exams towards an MCSA, MCSD, and MCSE. Now through May 31st, 2014 you will also receive a free second shot with the discount.
  • Microsoft Virtualization Certification – Microsoft Virtual Academy – Microsoft is offering a 50% discount for anyone who signs up and attends their free online jump start training. The exam is 74-409: Virtualization with Hyper-V and System Center. They are also introducing a free MVA course for it as well and you can watch it on demand on Expires June 30th, 2014.(Thanks SweenMachine)
  • Check Point – Training and Certifications – Check Point is offering 50% off all examination retakes and provides free training.
  • Juniper Fast Track – https://learningportal.juniper.net/j…rack_home.aspx – Juniper is offering a 50% discount on 4 of their exams by taking and passing a free pre-assessment. Best of all they offer free elearning as well! (Thanks Zartanasaurus)
  • Stanley Community College – VCP-DCV VMware Course – VMware vSphere: Install, Configure, Manage – Definately the best education deal for VMware, though unfortunately you need to go on a waiting list. For $200 you get the full online VMware Academy course as well as a 70% off Exam voucher. The labs are great and the instructors are great.
  • Oracle Beta Exams – Beta Info – Oracle offers beta exams for $50 instead of $150-$245. You can see what the release date is for each and when to expect a score report. As far as training goes… Oracle isnt the most benevolent of companies to starving IT professionals.
  • Get Certified 4 Less – http://www.getcertified4less.com/Sea…ts.asp?Cat=129 – Get Certified 4 Less runs short sale specials discounting specific exam vouchers that must be taken rather soon. In addition to that they tend to sell exam vouchers $10-20 less than directly from the vendor. (Thanks Kriscamaro68 and shyguyIT)

For IT Professionals:

  • Brocade CNE – Education – Promo Code: CNE250BCNEPromo – Brocade is offering a Free BCNE exam voucher for current CCNA holders with purchase of the $100 CNE 250 training.
  • Microsoft Partner Network/Prometric 40% Discount – https://www.prometric.com/en-us/clie…age/index.html – Prometric is running a special where Microsoft Partners can purchase 5 Exam vouchers for 35% off, or 20 vouchers for 40% off. With a free second shot. Offer Valid through May 31st, 2014 and exams must be taken by December 31st, 2014.

For Students:

  • CA Technology 60% off – http://www.ca.com/us/education/accre…ation-faq.aspx – If you are a full-time college student in good academic standing, please contact certification@ca.com and attach a JPEG image of your current student id card. They will email you a voucher which will enable you to receive a 60% discount. Limited to one voucher per 12-month period.

Free Training

  • CNWP –CWNP | My Account Home – CWNP is giving away a voucher for a free lifelong practice exam engine for the certification of your choice by signing up.
  • LPI – Practice Questions and Self-Study Materials | Linux Professional Institute (LPI) – LPI Provides free training material for all of their Exams.
  • VMware Hands On Labs– VMware – NEE – VMware has a large collection of hands on labs that have tasks associated with them running the gamut of all of their offerings. A great resource to test new technologies, or brush up on material. Oh and it’s free.
  • Google Digital Analytics Fundamentals – https://analyticsacademy.withgoogle.com/preview – Google is offering free training with hands on labs for their analytics platform.
  • Scrum Training – Scrum Training Series: Free Scrum Master Training – To Quote: "Free Online Scrum Master Training: The fun way to learn about Agile/Scrum, prepare for Scrum Master certification / Agile certification, and debunk popular misconceptions. (Thanks N2IT)
  • Microsoft Virtual Academy – http://www.microsoftvirtualacademy.com/ – Microsoft has a very in-depth training website covering almost all of their products and offerings.
  • IT Masters CISSP Short Course – Free Short Course: CISSP Security Certification | IT Masters – IT Masters in conjunction with Charles Sturt University is offering a free short course training in CISSP. (thanks Stryder144)
  • Degreed – Degreed – The Digital Lifelong Diploma – Degreed is an interesting site that is all about free online classes, aggregating them, and tracking credit for what you have done in them, tradition school, and other training sources to provide a new millennium "degree" program highlighting your knowledge and skills. Microsoft Virtual Academy classes transfer over.

For IT Professionals

  • Microsoft Partner Network – https://mspartner.microsoft.com/en/us/Pages/index.asp – A fantastic training site that explores in most Microsoft products and has assessments. Most assessments can be linked to specific partner competencies, and the best part is the completed courses are tied to you. If you change companies and associate your Microsoft Professional account with them they will get all the benefits of what you have accomplished.
  • EMC Powerlink – http://powerlink.emc.com/ – EMC Powerlink is for employees of Partner Organizations to learn and take assessments validating Sales and Engineering for both EMC Solutions and RSA Security.
  • Meraki – Cisco Meraki Webinars – Free Meraki 802.11n cloud managed AP for attending a webinar. IT professionals only, you must register with your company email.

Reduced Training

  • Western Governors University – Online University | Online Degree Programs | The University of You – As many of you are aware, WGU is one of the best deals in post-secondary education. Think of it as the public version of Phoenix University. It’s Online, Accredited, Accelerated, and Inexpensive. For my broke IT professionals you can get student loans via fafsa (Yes its debt, but think of it as a down payment for a better future). The majority of their IT classes revolve around obtaining a certification, and they give you all the training you need. You can actually structure and accelerate your classes to where your term is cheaper than it would be to get the certs separately, and you earn college credit.
  • University of the people – http://www.uopeople.org/ – Is a non-profit, US accredited, tuition free online university that targets itself to everyone in the world. It offers both 2 and 4 year degrees in Business Administration and Computer Science. The caveat is while they do not charge tuition, you must pay $100 for each final exam. Wikipedia has some interesting info on them http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UoPeople(thanks cknapp78)

Associations & Membership Perks For Everyone

  • Computer Science Teachers Association (CSTA) – FREE – CSTA – Individual Membership – The CSTA is focused on IT Education, and unlike the title says is not just for educators, but anyone interested. From time to time Microsoft offers free MTA exam vouchers to member, and other vendors provide perks, as well as being given a full ACM Membership.
  • Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) – $19/$99 – Membership &mdash; Association for Computing Machinery – ACM is an incredible value for students at $19 a year, or IT professionals at $99 a year. (That is if you aren’t interested in education and opt for the CSTA membership). Member perks include Free access to Safari, books24x7, and skillsoft. Email forwarding and filtering through postini with an @acm.org email, access to their digital library and tri-weekly news emails keeping you up to date. Additional perks as a Student member include Microsoft Dreamspark/Dreamspark Premium (Yay free software! And typically a free MS Voucher yearly) , and CA Academic Initiative.
  • Microsoft DreamSpark/DreamSpark Premium – Free, Students only –https://www.dreamspark.com/Student/Default.aspx – Microsoft has a decent program for students that give them access to free software in the Programming/Server fields. If your school is awesome they will have access to DreamSpark Premium which gives you a plethora of keycodes and software that rivals the midrange MSDN account. WGU and Stanly CC are both Premium members. Both offer VMware software and keycodes, as well as VMware voucher and training discounts.
  • Information Systems Audit and Control Association (ISACA) – $25+/$165+ – Join ISACA – IT Professional – IT Student – IT Educator – Memberships | ISACA – ISACA is for the big boys and cool kids. Those that are certified are typically more tenured higher level IT professionals. You are required to pay your local chapter dues in additional to the association dues, but $25 is fantastic for students. You get access to networking events, continuing education, COBiT access and data, and discounts on their certifications. Even the professional level at $165 pays for itself after 1 exam.
  • Information Systems Security Association (ISSA) – $30/$95 – https://www.issa.org/?page=MembershipTypes – ISSA is a great resource for people looking to network or break into the InfoSec world. While not as many tangible benefits as ISACA, at $30 for students and $95 for professionals it is a great way to keep your finger on the pulse of chief information security officer challenges.
  • Project Management Institute (PMI) – $32/$129 – Types of PMI Memberships | Project Management Institute – PMI is still the gold standard in project management, and the benefits of membership enable you to discounts on their certifications, a free digital edition of the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK), discounts on training and resources, and great networking opportunities. If you are pursuing the PMP or Associate of PMP $32 for students and $129 for professionals is a great deal.
  • The Computing Technology Industry Association (CompTIA) – $250 – Become a CompTIA Member – CompTIA membership is different from being CompTIA certified. Membership is primarily aimed at companies, but what IT professional isn’t a consultant on the side? This year they had a $100 discount on membership for people who signed up to go to their free conference. Not if you actually went, just signed up. At $250 for an individual I am not sure it is as good of a deal, but the perks are Free CompTIA Executive Certifications and training, 80% discount on your first voucher purchase, 15% off every following voucher purchase. (80% off casp+ for $150 and 15% off every other voucher sold me)
  • Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) – $32/$187 – IEEE – Join IEEE – The IEEE is probably the most important association in the IT industry. Student members get another DreamSpark Premium Account. All members get access to publications, standards, networking, googleapps@IEEE (An IEEE.org email, advertisement free gmail, 30GB of shared storage Google Drive/Gmail), and a tremendous amount of other benefits.
  • VMware User Group (VMUG) – Free/$200 – http://www.vmug.com/l/pw/rs – VMUG is a great resource for VMware enthusiasts. Membership is free, and includes free access to local conferences, meetups with local chapters, and discounts on elearning books. For $200 you can become an Advantage member which will give you 35% off VMware Lab Connect, 20% off VMware-Delivered Classes, 20% off VMware Certifications, $100 Discount to VMworld, and 50% off VMware Fusion and Workstation Licenses. In the spring and summer to generate memberships they like to include a free VMware voucher (Which makes it a no brainer).
  • Help Desk Institute (HDI) – $35/$165 – http://www.thinkhdi.com/membership.aspx – HDI membership offers discounts on their certifications and training, as well as access to white papers and networking events. At $35 for students you will immediately recoup the membership on the first exam you take.
  • ASIS International – $25/$215 – https://www.asisonline.org/Membershi…s/default.aspx – ASIS International is another specialized higher end security education and certification firm. Membership benefits include discounts on exams and education materials.
  • Microsoft Partner Network – https://mspartner.microsoft.com/en/us/Pages/index.aspx – For seasoned IT professionals, or those who do side consulting/run a SOHO, one great perk is joining the Microsoft Partner Network. It is free to sign up for, even if you are already associated as a Microsoft Professional to your Primary Employer you can create one for your side business. After taking a short assessment you can purchase an Action Pack subscription for $475 which entitles you to internal use licenses to run your business. Office, Windows, Windows Server, Exchange, RDS CALS, SharePoint and System Center are all included.

Third Party Transferable Certifications

  • CIW Security Specialist & Professional – http://www.ciwcertified.com/_resourc…ity_series.pdf – CIW gives credit to MCTS, CCNA, MCSA, MCSE, MCITP, Security+ certification holders who have passed the entry level CIW Security exam the second and third level designation.
  • Linux+ Certification 5-in-1 Piñata – CompTIA Partnership | Linux Professional Institute (LPI) – Originally called 3in1, then 4in1, now 5in1: If you pass Linux+ 101 and 102 from CompTIA to earn the Linux+ designation, you are eligible to receive LPIC-1, Novell CLA, Novell Suse 11 Technical Specialist, and Novell Data Center Technical Specialist.
  • Cloud Certification Council – Grandfather Program for Cloud Experts – The CCC is a newly created vendor agnostic certification council made up by a conglomerate of several vendors to offer a higher level credential. Now until June 2014 you can submit your resume and certifications (along with a fee) to be grandfathered in to the program.
  • Alcatel-Lucent – http://www3.alcatel-lucent.com/wps/p…h2VAQAKBjLlw!! – Alcatel-Lucent accepts current Cisco & Juniper certification holders to satisfy their entry level Network Routing Specialist I and II exams.
  • HP Fast Track Program – Fast track program | HP ExpertOne – HP Officers fast track certifications and recognition of Cisco, NetApp, and EMC credentials in lieu of their courses/exams. (Also includes ATA with Certiport)

As you can see this is a metric training ton of information and training! Use it. Be better for it. Share it. Visit the source and thank j23evan for producing this awesomeness! Enjoy!

A Must-Read before taking your next #VMware VCP or VCAP Exam!!!

by Christopher Kusek (PKGuild) Certification, Community, Virtualization, vmware

YOU DID IT! You are all set to take your VMware Exam which will mean the difference of you having the certification and NOT having the certification! Who knows, this could be the change that your life has been asking for, Excited Excited Excited!!!   But wait, It’s not that simple!

What?!?!?!

This past September our good friends at VMware have instituted an “Authorization” process, whereby you need to take some steps BEFORE you can schedule!    Or semi-specifically and verbatim…

   All VMware exams require prior VMware authorization before candidates can schedule an appointment with Pearson VUE.

Candidates can get authorized by going to vmware.com/certification.  This process can take up to 15 minutes. Once authorized, candidates can schedule their exam.

Awesome, right?! I mean, or not. I know what you’re chanting NANNY STATE. NANNY STATE. Yea. That’s what I said when I was FIRST going to publish this back when it happened several many weeks ago… But time to cut through the chaff to get down to what matters!

Now when you’re ready to take an exam, you can visit the listed http://vmware.com/certification or respectively visit http://www.pearsonvue.com/vmware both of which will provide you relevant links like the following;

Request Authorization for VMware Certification Exams Request Authorization for VMware Certification Exams

It wasn’t until the past week or two where VMware actually FIXED their links to make finding the registration portion ‘possible’, so now both links take you to the appropriate place instead of only one.  Awesome!

This VMware Exam has Pre-Requisites!

When you finally find what you’re looking for, you’ll be prompted to login using your myLearn account, and then you get a list of ‘Pre-Requisite” sections to fill out.    Interesting thing to note here; while running this through in my tests I was never able to get the “Continue” button to function correctly using Chrome, but it worked in Internet Explorer… Hey, whatever it takes, right? (If you experience a similar problem of the button not working, try another browser).

However, you may also notice that SOME of the tests you want to Authorize for may not be available, receiving only a “Back” button.   We’ve historically found this due to some of the following reasons;

  • Your VCP not being recognized on your account
  • Your class not being recognized on your account
  • You took the VCP Exam and THEN took the Class, and they’re not granting you credit for it since it was done ‘after the fact’.

Irrespective of what problems you may experience, I’ve found the folks at Education to be *great* at helping out, and I have opened numerous cases (on this, and over the years for account mergers)   Just shoot a mail over to “eduoperations@vmware.com” explaining your problem and they have a 48hr SLA for response to get it resolved.   This can be a major challenge if you’re all excited to test TOMORROW and you cannot get your authorization in, so something to consider while thinking ahead!

That in essence covers the bulk of it, Pearson VUE changes due to VMware Policy LIKELY will impact you if you do not plan ahead.   So, plan ahead, get authorized and Pass Pass Pass!

Keep up the virtually good work. OMG WORST TAGLINE EVER! ;)

Win a Free Copy of VMware Workstation 9?! (and/or Fusion) Contests! (Ends Jan31)

by Christopher Kusek (PKGuild) Apple, Cloud, Community, Contest, Free, Geek, NetApp, Virtualization, vmware, VMware Fusion

Well hey everybody! WTF IS THIS? A CONTEST?! WHERE WERE YOU DURING XMAS!  Yea, yea I know.. well, The gift giving season has extended into 2013!

The other day after a re-install of my MacBook due to a memory failure which resulted in a drive corruption (Don’t even get me started!) I had to find my  handy dandy License Key card for VMware Fusion… Well, let’s just say that took a bit of time and hours before I was able to find my key, I came across this little gem!

IMG_2735 IMG_2736

Whoa, whoa, whoa… Wait a minute, WHERE DID YOU GET THAT!? Yea, I know, right?! But here’s the thing. I don’t like to hoard stuff when those of you in the community can benefit from it and rock out your life in an epic way, I mean … It’s certainly not THIS…. But it’ll do donkey, it’ll do…

IMG_2737

But seriously… I said something about CONTEST didn’t I? Okay, well here in pretty large and bold lettering….

CONTEST!

So you want to win yourself a copy of VMware Workstation 9 and you’re all like “WTF DO i HAS TO DO?!?”  It’s actually pretty simple. I provide you two paths to contestdom!

Path #1

In the comments, write an example/story/whatever of something you are unable to virtualize and the reasons why.   Seems pretty straight forward.  

This is actually two-fold.  On the one hand, us in the community get a sense of what other challenges our peers are suffering through of things unable to virtualize and all of the pains associated.  But on the other hand, if we as the community have SOLUTIONS to your unvirtualizable scenario, then we ALL win.  Sounds excellent, right?   I particularly love finding solutions where there are apparently none, so I’m hoping you’ll all participate in this!

Path #2

In this path, I want you to tell me how you might go about actually using this license you will win.   Maybe it’ll change your life, maybe it will transform your career, maybe you’ve been too lazy to upgrade your previous version and this fills that niche, you know… Whatever.

Optional

Optionally, it’d be pretty awesome if you followed us on Twitter so as to stay up to date on whatever ridiculous banter we share, I suggest following a few twitter handles, which everyone prospers by this effort anyway, you can gain an extra ‘entry’ by doing it, but only do it if you really want to :)

  • @cxi (me) – Christopher Kusek on Twitter!
  • @nerdblurt – Luigi Danakos who you’ll find out a bit more about in a moment! Blogger at nerdblurt.com
  • @sixfootdad – Damian Karlson, dear friend and virtualization rockstar, and #vBrownbagger
  • @vDestination – Rockstar of a friend and blogger Greg Stuart, the movement behind vDestination.com
  • @davemhenry – Dave Henry – He’s the kind of guy in the virtualization community you should just know, and madman behind geekfluent.com
  • @that1guynick – Nick Howell, rockstar, Datacenter Dude, NetAppian, all that jazz! datacenterdude.com
  • @h0bbel – Christian Mohn, Another rockstar who shows off his mad skills at vNinja.net 
    • THIS JUST IN! The rockstar Christian Mohn just mentioned seconds ago… is tossing ANOTHER Workstation license into the pile! +1

 

HOW DO i WIN A COPY OF VMWARE FUSION?!?!

I know what you’re saying, “I don’t have a PC and don’t need Workstation! I have a MAC because I’m a MAC USER OMG MAC MAC MAC MAC MAC!. Yea I hear you, I’m writing this on LiveWriter (best blog writing tool in the world!) in my Win7 VM under Fusion… Hell, if I weren’t using the key for THIS instance, I’d be giving this away too.   But no. My dear friend Luigi, Nerdblurt mentioned above actually had his OWN CONTEST running, and when he saw I was going to give away a copy of Workstation, well, it was like a match made in heaven.  You know. But not in a creepy way. :)

So introducing the Blog post by Luigi:

VMware Fusion 5 Contest!

You need to check out his blog post for details on this, which I definitely encourage you to my fellow friendly fusionistas out there!  This is an amazing opportunity for a freeeeee license to kickstart your… well, whatever you’ll be kickstarting! I know my life changed when I got my first copy of VMware back in 97 or so, and what better way to take things to the next level today!

So good luck to all, I hope to see some awesome submissions, but most importantly… I wish you all good luck as I want all of you to walk away from this experience better for it.   Good Luck and stay virtual! (or some other lame tagline ;))

Kick off 2013 with @CWUG at Hamburger University In Oak Brook Jan 17 @5PM

by Christopher Kusek (PKGuild) Community, CWUG, Microsoft

Are you a member of the Tech Community in Chicago? Are you a long time CWUG’er or even a first timer?  Then come on down to the CWUG Event being held this month (and to kick off 2013) here at the Hamburger University in Oak Brook!   For those of you who have never been to Hamburger University it’s a pretty cool place, I’ve presented and attended a number of events there in the past.    Definitely map how to get there because I find it is more accessible off of 31st than it is off of say.. 22nd/Butterfield!    This is going to be some awesome good times and it really falls on you the community to help make this a great event – so let’s start off 2013 strong and come on down! See you there!

CWUG at Hamburger University!

CWUG @ HU

The Chicago Windows User Group will be meeting at McDonald’s Hamburger University in Oakbrook

January 17th @ 5:00PM

2715 Jorie Blvd Oak Brook, IL 60523

(630) 623 – 7845

Register today!

We will have updates on Windows Intune, Windows 8 hardware (including demo equipment), The New Office and have a Windows 8 technical book giveaway for every attendee!

The Chicago Windows User Group (CWUG), founded in May 2003 and now over 2,400 members strong, aims to help everyone draw the fullest benefit from computers using Windows and software that runs on the Windows operating system. Meetings are held on the 3rd Thursday of the month and alternate between the suburbs (Jan, Mar, May, etc.) at either the Microsoft Store in Oak Brook, IL (or the Microsoft office in Downers Grove) and Chicago (Feb, Apr, Jun, etc.) at the Microsoft office in the Aon Center.

Fixing “Comments are closed” problems on WordPress Blogs with Social

by Christopher Kusek (PKGuild) Blog, Community, Social Media, Twitter, WTF

There you are, sitting there posting an absolutely awesome blog post which is getting a LOT of attention. OMG THE HITS JUST KEEP COMING IN! EVERYONE KEEPS SAYING HOW AWESOME IT IS. Yet no one is commenting on it on the blog. WTF is going on here!   So you take a moment to browse over to your blog post everyone is so enamored with only to find in the comments section.

Comments are closed.

And you start freaking out. WTF IS GOING ON HERE!?!? I DIDN’T CLOSE COMMENTS.   It’s strongly possible, that you didn’t.  But you can fix this.

When this happened to me just the other day I immediately started doing searches for “Wordpress Comments are closed” “Wordpress comments disabled” “disabled comments” and every other iteration of it, only to find… a whole REAM of absolutely useless and piece of crap posts and forum conversations which did NOT help.   A lot of them refer to checking the “Discussions” area in the control panel of wordpress… Yea, that doesn’t change over night.

But I also recall some time ago having made a change from using Twitter Tools to “Social” because they claimed the tools I PREFERRED were no longer supported or would function, so upgrades will need to be done.

Here is the kicker, if you are using Social by MailChimp that could be the cause of your problem, so next steps involve visiting your WordPress Control Panel

And you may come across this little gem:

Social by MailChimp may be disabling your comments with it's "Social's Comment Display" - Check the box to re-enable your comments!

Turns out that Social has integrated it’s own Comment Display system… which I’ve never seen and could give a damn for since it essentially BROKE my comments.   So by taking the next step and by checking the box….

By checking "Disable Social's comment display" your old Disqus or other comments should be re-enabled!

All of a sudden my blog went from “Comments are closed.” to enabled and allowing people to COMMENT again! Hooray, right!

If you find this benefits or is useful to you, feel free to COMMENT and let me and everyone else know :)  Also if you do come across other solutions you wish to share in the comments, don’t hesitate to make it known!  Good luck and good commenting!