Archives April 2009

You’ve heard it here first! I’m not entirely sure just how founded that fact I’m proposing is, but take this into account:

Number of active MCTs: 15,251
Number of exams taken (ever) by those MCTs: 513,749
Average number of exams per MCT: 34
MCTs with 50+ exams: 2,682 (18%)
MCTs with 100+ exams: 82
Most exams taken by an MCT: 185 (OMFG!)

If you think about almost any other profession, you may find that you have a few people who are ‘interested’, but a majority of them fulfill the bare minimum in order to be successful in their field.   However in the world of Microsoft? We’re not only “interested” we’re downright passionate perhaps to the point of being almost overly obsessive ;)

Seriously! the bare requirements to be an MCT require you to have at least one MCP (So for any other profession, we’ll call that one certification or degree).  However, these masters of industry on average have 34 certifications under their belt, or in the case of one master –185!-

That’s just a major wow.  I’m not so sure we see this same kind of care taken in the Cisco space or any other industry (Imagine if Educators were this passionate, it would really convey to their students!)

I’d like to thank the Born to Learn blog for sharing this information!

So, you have to ask yourself: If I am not certified, why not?  There is no better time than the present, and no more viable reason if not to join the community of amazing MCT’s!

More information on how to become an MCT is located here.  The MCT is a accomplishment like no other!

Wow! Today was quite a massive release of softwares!   So much so, here is a breakdown of what I saw announced for download today! (Hopefully this is all public downloads and I’m not saying something wrong… grin)

SnapDrive for Windows 6.1
Rapid Cloning Utility 2.0 (VMware) – See a Demo of it here on YouTube
SnapManager for Oracle Unix 3.0.1
SnapManager for Oracle Windows 3.0.1
SnapManager for SAP Unix 3.0.1
SnapManager for SAP Windows 3.0.1

These are all FCS releases, but if you’ve been waiting for some of them (like me – SD6.1, RCU) it is a wait well awaited :)

Wait, what’s this? I thought these tests were only available at the Prometric Testing Center!

Apparently I am wrong! and just by visiting this site, I’m able to take online tests at Prometric!

Infact, there’s even a whole list of other companies for online testing here as well :)

These exams (as far as I can tell) are Free so long as you pass it the first time! If you fail, it sits at $50.00 for the retake, so I suggest not failing :)

This is the contest which is a pre-requisite to compete in the “Get On The Bus” contest!

Here is a basic walk-through of the game!

After using your Live login credentials, login and you’re ready to play!

You’ll be set to play and in my case, welcomed back showing your current achievements!

I’ll breakdown what each of these achievements are, what they mean and how to get them!

	Triple Threat: Correctly answer 3 questions in a row
	Speed Demon: Answer a question right in less than 5 seconds without using a voucher
	Voucher Saver: Finish a whole episode with at least 5 vouchers left
	Socialite: Have at least 10 people in your friends list
	Academic Achievement: Answer a total of 25 questions correctly
	Intellectual Achievement: Answer a total of 50 questions correctly
	Brainy Achievement: Answer a total of 100 questions correctly
	Gifted Achievement: Answer a total of 200 questions correctly
	Rookie Achievement: Complete a full episode
	Newton Achievement: Complete a full season
	Einstein Achievement: Complete the entire IT Professional set of questions
	Turing Achievement: Complete the entire IT Developer set of questions
	Certifiable Achievement: Complete all of “ARE YOU CERTIFIABLE”
	Quick Draw: You are answering questions at lightning speed
	Congratulations: You have earned vouchers in all 3 mini games
	Congratulations: You got 10 questions in a row correct

And you may notice that some of these are Greyed out – Seriously, how on earth you get “5 vouchers” in an episode, let alone having vouchers left is beyond me! The max I’ve gotten is 4 vouchers and that is with getting all answers correctly in 1 or less seconds! So I have NO idea what you do there!

Then you play the game, and you get a score like this! and you’re set for the contest!

Good luck out there, I encourage you to ACT NOW! Before Monday when the contest closes! If you have any questions let me know!

Alright, they’re not hiring for every position! I did notice some ~256 positions being hired for.

But I did notice that my good friend Scott Hanson @DellServerGeek on Twitter is looking for help filling two specific positions!

So, what are these positions you ask?!

Senior Systems Engineer – Data Center Efficiency Evangelist-090002HT
Senior Systems Engineer – Enterprise Storage Evangelist-090002HV

How do you find out more about them?

You go to this link and type in the code: 090002HT – 090002HV

Wow, that’s sounds pretty straightforward and simple! (Yea I’m sorry I cannot provide a direct link to the exact URL… damn indexing systems and non-qualified URL’s ;))