Additional Resources

A good source of information about Microsoft certification exams comes from Microsoft itself. Because its products and technologies ”and the exams that go with them ”change frequently, the best place to go for exam- related information is online.

If you haven't already visited the Microsoft Training and Certification Web site, you should do so right now. Microsoft's Training and Certification home page resides at http://www.microsoft.com/traincert (see Figure 1.12).

Figure 1.12. The Microsoft Training and Certification home page.

Coping with Change on the Web

Sooner or later, all the information in this book about the Microsoft Certified Professional pages and the other Web-based resources mentioned throughout the rest of this book will go stale or be replaced by newer information. In some cases, the URLs you find here might lead you to their replacements ; in other cases, the URLs will go nowhere, leaving you with the dreaded "404 File not found" error message. When that happens, don't give up.

There's always a way to find what you want on the Web if you're willing to invest some time and energy. Most large or complex Web sites ”and Microsoft's sites qualify on both counts ”offer search engines. All of Microsoft's Web pages have a Search field at the top edge of the page. As long as you can get to Microsoft's site (it should stay at http://www.microsoft.com for a long time), you can use the Search field to find what you need.

The more focused you can make a search request, the more likely the results will include information you can use. For example, you can search for the string

 "training and certification" 

to produce a lot of data about the subject in general, but if you're looking for the preparation guide for Exam 70-293: Planning and Maintaining a Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Network Infrastructure, you'll be more likely to get there quickly if you use a search string similar to the following:

 "Exam 70-293" AND "preparation guide" 

Likewise, if you want to find the Training and Certification downloads, you should try a search string such as this:

 "training and certification" AND "download page" 

Finally, you should also use general search tools ”such as http://www.google.com , http://www. altavista .com, and http://www.excite.com ” to look for related information. Although Microsoft offers great information about its certification exams online, there are plenty of third-party sources of information and assistance that need not follow Microsoft's party line. Therefore, if you can't find something where the book says it lives, you should intensify your search.