Category Informational

So, for those interested in the Microsoft Hyper-V Virtualization Exam (71-652) which will eventually become (70-652). Here are some answers to some general questions I’ve been seeing.

Q: What do you mean I have to pay $125.00 for this exam?

A: So long as the voucher still has entries open, it is FREE!!! (For a period there, the voucher wasn’t working but it appears to be working again) – And that Promotional Code is 652HV

Q: How do I sign up for this exam?

A: If you do not have a Prometric account, you need to go to www.prometric.com and sign up! Register, etc!

Q: How do I prepare or study for this exam? I don’t know anything about Hyper-V?!

A: This is one of the best questions out there. For those of you who have experience with Microsoft Virtual Server 2005, that part of the exam is taken care of. For those of you with Storage experience, that part is also taken care of. But the key differentiator is actually working with and playing with Hyper-V and the interfaces, building Virtual machines, etc!
There are a number of options available to you.

Online Training (E-Learning for a price $39.99 it looks like)
https://www.microsoftelearning.com/eLearning/courseDetail.aspx?courseId=84700
https://www.microsoftelearning.com/eLearning/courseDetail.aspx?courseId=92459

Read blogs about Hyper-V and Virtualization

Virtual PC guy’s Blog
Microsoft Virtualization Team’s Blog
Virtual Varia
John Howard – Hyper-V Team Lead
Mike’s Virtual Blog!
This blog as I document some of the details and the crazy In’s and Out’s in my spare time

And anywhere else as applicable.

So, I encourage you to sign up, give it a try, get out there and test! You’ll definitely have a better angle on what the future holds if you see what the exam is like, and see if this is something you want to pursue!

So, rumour has it that the Public Beta of Windows Home Server (Power Pack 1) is coming!
Power Packs for what I understand it, are basically renamed Service Packs, for reasons unbeknowest to me.

Nonetheless, it’s on the horizon…. coming soon!
Including a number of enhancements, fixes and general changes to the way things operate to introduce added efficiencies!

So, the future is now (or potentially now) for all you Windows Home Server enthusiasts out there!

Yep, that’s right! The Virt Exam (071-652) has been posted on Trika’s Blog, on a pure First-Come-First-Serve basis… which is the type of action of “Act Fast!”

Trika’s Post on 71-652 Hyper-V Beta Exam

Seriously, run don’t walk on over to Trika’s blog for this opportunity to partake in the Hyper-V beta!

I personally am on hook to take it in a few weeks… Already signed up with Prometric! :)


(Inline are the details copied from Trika’s Blog!)

*** Update!***

Special thanks to Priscila Silva in MCS for links to the E-Learning for Virtualization (Trika Comments!)

https://www.microsoftelearning.com/eLearning/courseDetail.aspx?courseId=84700
https://www.microsoftelearning.com/eLearning/courseDetail.aspx?courseId=92459

Read More

I’ve had this particular site tagged for quite a while, but never got around to letting people who didn’t know about it (yet read this) know about it.

Manybooks has quite an assortment of books, available in a number of formats!

The typical way I would work with this site is, download a bunch of files into a directory, slap in one of my SD cards, and then copy the files down to the SD card – Put it into my Kindle and BAM! I now have all of those books available and ready for me on the Kindle!

Very little work on my part, it’s a win-win situation all around!

This site has an amazing assortment of books, including most if not all of the Project Gutenberg library as well. I highly encourage you to check it out, whether you have a kindle, iphone, pc or any other method in which you’d like to read an assortment of books – You may be surprised at what is available!

Fusion-IO has released the ioDrive rather recently, and apparently is backordered! oh my!

This thing looks cool on the surface!

Although it has tiny sizes of 80, 160 and 320gb, nonetheless the possibilities seem rather cool. This can definitely be a great boundary for high-speed disk for small data-sets.

Certainly I have initial concerns around the raid-ability of the disk and the potential losses, albeit it does predict protection from moving disk components – Nonetheless if you’ve never experienced solid state disk failures (As I have) you’re likely to find them to be a realistic problem to need to address.

I’ll personally be watching this one going forward, as they seem to be breaching a boundary of availability and feasibility in the SSD market, especially with the practicality and the sizes of SSD being even easier to deploy (and cheaper!)

If their product works as well as it is proposing to operate, I don’t imagine they’ll be able to survive on the open market for long without getting snatched up!