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Microsoft Exam 70-528 : Passed!

Today I finished my last exam – 70-528 Microsoft .NET Framework 2.0 – Web-based Client Development, and passed with a score of 985. That means I am a Microsoft Certified Professional Developer : Web Applications and Microsoft Certified Technology Specialist in ASP.NET.
The exam I took today was pretty easy to be honest and would not present much of a challenge to developers who make a living coding in ASP.NET. I didn’t revise much at all for this one…maybe about 10 hours total brushing up on a few minor points, and finished the test in about 25 minutes.
If you want a decent measure of your coverage of the framework you could do worse than go for the MCPD and MCTS. I enjoyed the journey very much.

Developer Highway Code – Microsoft Security Best Practice eBook

  Microsoft have put together a nice little manual that sets out best practice for developer driven security. It’s choc full of techniques you can integrate into your development pursuits to build better, more secure applications.

From the official Microsoft blurb: To build software that meets your security objectives, you must integrate security activities into your software development lifecycle. This handbook captures and summarises the key security engineering activities that should be an integral part of your software development processes.
Download full book as a .pdf by clicking here

Liverpool ASP.Net Bloggers – A Reading List

This is a list of Liverpool based blogs that write about ASP.Net every now and then that I read. Nothing more than that!

Steve Clayton: Geek In Disguise
Jonswain’s Weblog
paulpierce.co.uk
ts0
MJJames – Web Developer
Reflective Perspective
Paul Kinlan

If you want to be added or removed from this list for any reason, just drop me a line and I’ll attend to it.

Microsoft Exam 70-536 : Passed!

I took my second Microsoft cert today, the 70-536 Microsoft .NET Framework 2.0 – Application Development Foundation, and passed with a score of 1000. I’m pretty chuffed again. This exam was much more difficult and more  than the 70-547 I passed before Christmas. There were lots of questions that you either knew the answer to, or you didn’t. I had spent a lot of time revising constructors and overloaded constructors to common .Net classes and it certainly paid off. I revised quite a bit of the holiday period using the Microsoft training kit mentioned in my previous exam post.

So only one exam to go until I am MCPD and it seems to be the easiest exam of the set, so I am not going to revise at all and just take my chances on the day. I am planning to take it this time next week and will update here on my progress.

How to Build Your Very Own VOIP Telecommunication Platform

I thought Christmas was over, but it obviously isn’t. Some hardware arrived in the office this week – but not just any old hardware. For the price of a decent size family car, my employers ( the mighty Qire ) have bought me and the team everything we need to build our very own VOIP/ SIP/ IVR / VXML / CCXML telco!!!!

The kit is a development environment to enable us to build the worlds biggest and best Voice 2.0 telecommunication platform. It’s a reference architecture for us to get to grips with the finer points of SIP call initiation and interaction.

If you want to do the same, all you need is a handful of top flight super fast servers, some expensive text to speech, speech recognition licenses, a friendly SIP provider and some high spec military grade DSP boards.

It’s all powered by a custom build high performance C# management and delivery system that we have put together.

Once it is all working together, we will have a system that will give our clients access to the planets most advanced unified communications platform!

Exciting stuff I’m sure you will agree! Stay posted and I’ll keep the blog updated with our progress.