Slashdot Mirror
MCSE Revolt Over NT4-W2K Plans
Bloob writes, "It seems that Microsoft, in an apparent attempt at leveraging MCSEs to encourage organizations to upgrade to W2K, is expiring the NT4 certificate very quickly, and offering a dubious upgrade route. Here is an open letter from Keith Weiskamp, CEO of Coriolis, a supporter of MSCEs, with over 2000 comments from MCSEs et. al, and a response from Microsoft. Looks like quite a revolt."
Wow, when did /. start selling Linux?
Cluecheck: Slashdot is owned by VALinux.
Microsoft is espoused by the people who sell it (and the folks they brainwash with high quality repetitive advertising).
That's a pretty bold claim -- especially the part about brainwashing. Are you suggesting that everyone who offers a Microsoft solution has been brainwashed? How are they different from Linux advocates who push Linux as the answer to everything?
Maybe the Microsoft advocates are desktop users who like having a wide variety of software targeted at more than system administration, SETI, and playing kewl MP3s. Maybe they like the look of antialiased fonts in their office suite. Maybe they like an operating system that includes a web browser which actually works without disabling every option.
No-one expired the certificates of pilots qualified on the 737 when the 757 came out.
:-)
Just because a new product has come out, which the manufacturer would like you to use instead of their existing product, is not a reason that their previous skills are expired.
A similar situation would be if you were required to do a check exam each year to remain qualified as a MSCE.
All these vendor certifications should require mandatory annual or bi-annual "check exams". Similar philosophy certainly helps keep the riff-raff out from behind the controls of general aviation aircraft in the USA. It would definitely do the same for the I.T. biz.
-- a student pilot about to take his checkride
-XOXO, Monica
Windows 2000 is MUCH more reliable than NT.
I know, because Microsoft told me!
And yes, I know they said that NT 4 was stable, and that Windows 95 was stable, and that Windows 98 was stable, but I KNOW that they're not lying this time!
And, if so, could you blow the guy in the comment below yours, too? Thanks!
Am I brainwashed for thinking it's not normal for a web browser to require kill -9 twice a day?
Netscape is not Linux? Ok, then where is the Linux web browser that comes reasonably close to rendering 90% of web sites the way the author intended?
I agree completely that, as a server, WinNT sucks. I also assert that, for 90% of users, Linux sucks as a desktop. But with Linux, the 10% who can actually use it as a desktop think that everyone else is just stupid. That's not much different than NT advocates with a snide attitude towards Linux.
This is a no-fooling post. This is not a joke or a troll, I am deadly serious.
I work for a MAJOR manufacturing company. I'm not going to say who, but we make cars. Lots of cars.
If somebody applies for a job here in anything other than LAN support - ie, all the interesting jobs, including all application development - if your resume says "MSCE" then straight into the trashcan it goes.
We don't care what else you may have done. If Vint Cerf Himself applied for a job here with "MSCE" on his resume, we wouldn't hire him.
We've just had Too Many Problems with MSCEs on staff. And it's my understanding that this policy is not unique to us; many other Big Industries function the same way.
Posting anonymously for good reason...
Well, IBM stopped pushing their own hardware/software solutions exclusively and now pushes NT support services. Presumably IBM is smart enough to know what's more profitable. (Note that they think Linux support will be a big market too. Harhar)
I'm an MCSE and MCT, and I interviewed a guy who actually wore the MCP pin/tie-tack.
ALERT: All MCP's! Do NOT wear the pins. You look ridiculous, and we will not hire you. Place the pins in a desk drawer or somewhere out of reach of small children who might choke on them. Use them to hang up your certification on a bulletin board. Do anything you wish with the pins, but do not affix them to your person.
Once again: do NOT wear the pins.
Even after the anti-trust suit they're still at it.
btw, First Post!
Unexpected error
A trappable error (C0000005) occurred in an external object. The script cannot continue running.
Sys admin or computer operator would be a blue collar job if software engineers or developers didn't keep trying to screw up the system.
the cert is not expiring until dec 31, 2001. that is a reasonable amount of time. i don't think it should expire. it should just be MCSE4. they could allow an update to MCSE2k, but no need to actually expire.
Yup. Amazing, isn't it?
I'll never forget: several years ago, M$ all of a sudden decided to cut the big guys like Dell, Gateway, Compaq, IBM, etc. special deals on (IIRC) M$-Orfice. Cutting the small VARS out entirely. The VAR industry was pissed, to say the least. "We helped Microsoft get where they are today!" cried the VAR industry. (This was all over the trade rags--particularly in Reseller News and the like.) I swear, I laughed my ass loose!
Microsoft ultimately backed down, IIRC.
Do you think the VAR market learned anything from this? I'm betting they didn't. Next time M$ decides to put it to 'em, they'll act all surprised and hurt again. Just watch.
Idiots. I wonder if they know what the word "fodder" means?
Good comic relief for those of us who know better, tho :-).
Give the people credit. They know the MSCE's they currently have out there need to be retrained, why?
1. They have to get them to igonore the 65k bugs in the software. How else better to do it than get them all in a room and brainwash them again.
2. They need to speed up the sales cycle. When you are a monopoly in this business, the only way to make money is to charge hugh somes for upgrades and then get their most loyal users to pay hugh sums to be a recertified sales force. These MSCE people need commission pay.
3. Standards ? Sure NT4.0 used standards. Oops !! W2k now uses the better standards, thus our minions need to be retrained.
> ("Looks like you need to reinstall Windows." Way to ascertain the root cause, dude!)
... then I have 40,000 issues on my desk, and my fix never gets applied because often it pertains to using a piece of software that's proven to work rather than the crap we have now, which doesn't fly well with the PHB's.
I do this now with a lot of unix client machines (not servers of course) where the user has root and they can't figure what went wrong. Saves time, money, and headache, so I can get on with the 20,000 other issues that are piled on my desk. You'd be shocked how often I just reboot machines to clear Yet Another Hung Daemon. When you can install a machine with a standard image over the network to fix a problem that would otherwise require grovelling around configs for hours, you do it. I've come up with permanent fixes to problems
A large part of a tech's work is sweeping the same dust under the same rug over and over, because they honestly don't and can't care about in-depth troubleshooting when the shotgun approach does work. Welcome to the ugly world of IT.
Amongst PHBs, maybe.
Nobody, and I do mean nobody with a clue ever assigned much value to the MCSE.
Pot. Kettle. Black.
Swap "MS" and "Linux", and you've just described slashdot.
The test we were discussing was the Networking Essentials test, not the MSCE as a whole. Two very different things. NOS questions would more likely be addressed on tests that were targeted at the Operating System. Also, not everyone who takes the Networking Essentials exam will be working for your company, and therefore, don't assume that since you know one way to do it, that everything else is wrong.
You're not seriously comparing the MCSE to the CCIE? Completely different framework.. Completely different criteria.. There are some similarities between the MCSE and the CCNA regarding basic networking, but again, Microsoft and Cisco have different agendas.
Well put! Slashdot seems to be more of a MS-bashing forum than "news for nerds" or "stuff that matters"
This is the second sign of cluelessness; the first is being certified.
To these folks, I have but one thing to say. You don't understand what's going on. You DON'T want to work in a place that puts certification above experience. Granted, it might get you a low-paying job. But it's guaranteed that there will be so many headaches that it's just not worth it. Having this attitude is a sure sign that either the management or the employess are clueless; and if you have any talent at all, you'll end up doing most of the work. And there will be little chance of getting the infrastructure set up right, as no one knows how, or there will never be any time to do it.
I know from first hand experience, as I get called in to help these clueless companies out. Heh - I make more in a week than most of these folks do in a month or so. And I don't have any certifications. Zero. Zip. Nada.
I have been doing system and net admin, and kernel hacking since the dawn of time, however.
So quite your whining, and see it for what it is. A sure sign that you really don't want to work there. There really ARE better places to work. And you should try to find a place where intelligence counts. It's always a better environment.
... 5 years ago, that is...
Everybody's got to eat something. It's who you work with not what salary you get, right? Like we can all build our own pyramid. Some people just got to hold the whip. But people are just plug and play in this economy. Take your B.S.E.E., make a million and give it all to charity. Arrogant nerds are as useless as their spoutings.
'nuff said.
The MSCE is necessary if you want to be a computer operator. Computer Operators like the more hyped job title of "System Administrator" but really all a computer operator is is the updated version of a tape-mounting-monkey from old tymes.
You need considerably more than a certificate to get into software development or engineering. "Computer Operator" is a blue collar job.
I worked for an MCSE once, and it quickly became apparent that she know virtually nothing about TCP/IP.
;)
Ok, but you can actually earn an MCSE, with very little knowledge of TCP/IP (It's not a required test).
The point remains that there are too many MCSE's out there who know next to nothing for the rest of us to be able to put any credibility into that certification
Exactly. But IMHO this is just what Microsoft is doing something about. They're making the credentials harder to earn, which is a good thing. Now what happens when you make it harder? The people who just don't cut it in the real world will start whining...
Just for the record, I am an MCSE, and I haven't yet met a problem with a Microsoft product, that I couldnt at least give a reasonable explanation of. Call it luck or lack of experience, but I'm making a living of this, and I enjoy what I do. (And that's good enough for me
Got my MCSE in 95, having it on my resume recently killed a couple of deals... I nixed it off my resume and emphisized my Cisco Experince. Things worked out. I don't admit to having one unless specifily asked. It automaticly disqualifies your from high end engineering jobs. Is a decent move for a beginer with no formal education to get your foot in the door.
Can you imagine this happening in University? eg. Wow, I have been out of university for a couple of years now, but if I don't go back and retake all of the courses that have been changed, I will lose my degree. Oh yes, I forgot that I would probably have to pay for these again. For any of the computer science related studies, if you are not continualy leaarning, you end up falling behind in just about everythin. eg. What do you mean there are no more jobs for programming in SNOBOL? I've been doing this for years.
My reply in bad english sorry:
1) If you use the .asp extention : the file will be parsed to check if some code exist... They are a CPU COST anyway (If someone can tell me howmuch...)
2) If you take the choice to cpu/parse ALL files... why not just configure the server parsing extension ? :o)
Sorry dude. You can tell him to fsck off as much as you like, the fact is - you ARE acting like a Microserf.
if you really believe that "the next version will be problemless" you'll probably also believe:
"Touch a Frog - and you'll get warts."
"Break a mirror, and it's 7 years back luck".
"Walk under a ladder, and you'll have bad luck".
Fact is, when anything new comes out from MS, Serfs jump all over it and proclaim its stability and performance. I remember back in '94..."Don't bother with UNIX anymore, wait for the NT version....NT is rock solid, the most stable OS Microsoft ever produced. It can't possibly fail." And such rubbish.
And my personal favourite.
"Windows 95 will put an end to the instability of DOS, due to its superior archietecture and rock solid engineering. The days of Win 3.11 instability are long over, and you probably won't have a crash for weeks or months under Win 95."
Get a grip, Serf. Stop being such a Serf and try to think for yourself for a change, instead of listening to MicroSerf HypeServer 2000.
Have someone not from your company check independently with M$ to see whether you still have a valid MCSE. Confirm in writing. If there's a problem, publicize (that's why you get the written confirmation first) and further worsen the value of an MCSE. Good Luck. BTW, IAAL.
All you linux people who compain about Microsoft daily need to grow up.
So I don't have to retype everything, this is what I posted on a bleem! message board:
----------
What do you people have against Microsoft? Think about it... without Microsoft there would not be an easy way to make bleem! therefore bleem! would be non-existant! DirectX standards are key! I'm annoyed that people keep putting M$, Micro$oft, Microsquash and the rest. Frankly, Microsoft is a good business because they make money - key to any coperation. My key point: Grow up already and stop making fun of Microsoft and constantly complaining. If you are not mature enough to not be jealous over Microsoft's wealth, then the rest of us don't want to hear about it! If you want to make a difference and change things... ACT.
Stop using Microsoft as a scape goat!
----------
Now, I thought SlashDot was "up-to-date". They haven't even posted that Microsoft has submited an offer to the gov't about settlement and a reliable gov't insider has said that breakup is exteremly unlikely.
1) How do you set up SMB network browsing in a multi-domain environment?
You're right. I've not seen that one.
You probably haven't actually seen it set up correctly, because it usually isn't (g).
"So, daddy, nobody came to help the little boy who cried 'Wolf'?"
"That's right honey. Because he lied to the people too many times and they
didn't believe him any more."
"But, daddy, didn't you say that those Windows people lied about Windows over
and over again? But you've got the new one now."
"Well, that's different honey. Microsoft is really going to do things right
this time."
"I don't understand, daddy."
you seem to be very high, where did you get that stuff ?
A better way to do that is use a server (eg Apache) that doesn't need the file extension in the URL. Then the type can be changed without having to change the exposed name. Of course M$ fucked this mechanism up by making some of its software require the extension in the URL...
Or perhaps a control mechanism that could also be implimented (to ward off the slashdot effect).
I'd think that's what HTTP's 503 code is for.
I'm not the writer of the post you are replying to, but nevertheless...
I have 12 years experience working with networking hardware, software, mainframes, personal computers/workstations. I have been hired by companies like Shell, Texaco, IBM, The European Patent Office, many large banks and others. They take my experience over any networking hardware certification.
Also, the original poster was simply stating that the questions in the networking essentials are nonsense and was giving some examples of questions that would make sense. SMB, WINS etc. are part of the networking facilities of windows and much more relevant to using windows.
Comparing a bunch of networking questions with a bunch of OS relate questions doesn't quite gel.
Nor does calling network related questions OS related.
This note suggests all 2000 people who wrote in were in support of the open letter. Quite frankly, that isn't true. I'd say that at LEAST 1 in 3 were in support of Microsoft's efforts to make certification more difficult.
The frantic FUD being spread on Usenet about W2K by anti-MS forces does make sense, because that's all it is... FUD.
What about the frantic FUD being spread on Television bout W2K by M$ forces, does it make sense as FUD too?
Go spread your FUD someplace else, serf.
Hint 1. Use tripwire or any alternative that is able to tell you exactly which files have changed. This is important for several reasons, of which being able to restore just the mangled file is just one, being able to spot potential security problems (you will have those if all those people can install software themselves).
Hint 2. Not looking after the root of such problems simply results in having more problems.. sorry, but you are part of the cause of that huge pile of stuff on your desk.
In short, you don't have to do it like you do, it does not have to cost more time to just restore the correct files, and it is very likely to point you to the real problems so you can solve those and actually save time.
"They are the best trained group of networking professionals on the planet; the world listens to them, and follows their advice and insight."
hehe, whatever
ignorance must be bliss...
and most of the people I train don't have clue number one about computers, but somehow they are able to meet Micro$ofts "rigorous" requirements. The fact that some of these dopes have an MCSE makes me ashamed to admit that I'm an MCSE! But at close to $2000 a head multiplied by 12-16 students to a class it is easy to understand the economic motivation one would have to redistribute Micro$oft propaganda :) Having worked with MCSEs that couldn't even drag and drop, I'm glad to hear that Microsoft has finally realized that their certification is a joke and has achieved the rating of "worthless" amongst seasoned IT professionals. Yet another case where the marketing department at Microsoft (aka, the "Promise Makers") has out done the "Promise Keepers" (the Training Dept.)
...Almost as fast with hardly any more overhead...just install some more memory and if you have problems just reboot, that usually fixes most M$ problems.... I saw a 18 year old girl ALMOST pregnant, I alomst dodged that incoming grenade...
Now that is funny!
( ) They should all just get Linux Certified
( ) M$ certified people suck
( ) M$ Sucks
( ) I am so 3733T!!
I think that to generalize the tests is bad. You get out of it what you put into it. I am A certified Solaris Admin (whoooppppeeeee) but my boss is shallow and likes certifications plus it is a good way out of work. The MS certification contains some very good info, sadly most of the class is completely out of their depth and it is going to waste...Bored at the BIG company
Oh sure, post stories like this. DON'T post stories about Microsoft selling 1 million copies of Windows 2000 in the first month! Slashdot is to the point now where it can't even be viewed with any seriousness.
An industry certification is valuable and meaningful if the company that endorses the certification will hire you based on that certification. Cisco, for example, has been known to hire CCIEs.
I'm not interested in the W2K track. Currently enrolled in an MBA program, it's more fun. Anyone want my MCSE pins? (I've actually seen people wear those. Wow...)
ever tried to read the full letter at coriolis? this is what you get: "Gary - 3/8/2000 Active Server Pages error 'ASP 0113' Script timed out /tellmicrosoft/entire_list.asp The maximum amount of time for a script to execute was exceeded. You can change this limit by specifying a new value for the property Server.ScriptTimeout or by changing the value in the IIS administration tools. " hunsolo
This is all so pathetic. These exams - especially MS ones - are increasingly worthless. People are taken right off the street. They have no prior experience in the business. They get to take the same exam over and over until they pass. Passing is what the training company wants - they want a record of succeeding for their customers. Where we are, these exams are an indication that prospective employees have no clue. We ignore it. We look at track records. Anyone can pass one of these Mickey Mouse exams. Few can measure up to a job.
Capt. of the Guard: Your majesty, the peasants
are revolting...
King: Idiot! I suppose you just noticed?
Anyone with culture knows they
are not only revolting -
they are disgusting...
Many people who hold certification fail to realize that it's a marketing tool. The only reason Microsoft pursues certification is that it's good marketing. It's not to get people better jobs, it's not to make life for hiring managers easier, it's to put money in Microsoft's pocket. They want to sell Win2K and get people off of NT4, so they pull a stunt like this solely to push sales.
Granted, certification has its upside. At last count, I was an MCP, MCP+Internet, MCP+Site Building, MCSE, and MCDBA. It's in my performance plan at work to have MCSD soon. None of that makes me feel like an expert, nor do I think it's my ticket to job heaven. But, it makes my employer happy, and since they use Microsoft products almost exclusively, it's a reasonable career move. Tests are $100 each and you can often get your employer to reimburse you for the test and sometimes the training. Cheap resume padding.
That being said, this is typical Microsoft behavior, and if it's startling to anyone it just shows how deeply they've bought into the hype.
Fuck off.
What's wrong with simply saving html files as html? Or is this the Microsoft Way?
Agreed. In my experience, there's two kinds of techs -- (1) Runs around like a headless chicken putting out fires, never fixes anything. (2) Stays late for a couple weeks getting everything set up, then comes in late and leaves early until they find a new job.
>Crap or not, the MCSE is the only way to get a
>job interview in most cases.
Just get that first job, start in tech support if you have to. As soon as you demonstrate an ability to work with machines, it'll become an IT job (for the same pay as tech support, because you'll be an abused temp or such.)
By this time, the email from the recruiters will so deluge you that you'll be turning down interviews.
>Think about a college degree. Nowadays it
>doesn't really get you much other than a foot
>in the door at a company for an interview.
Come here with a BS comp.sci. from ucsd or asu, and there won't need to be an interview... (But if you had that, you'd be too busy deleting mail from recruiters to read slashdot).
What, you thought that MSCE was about skill and ability, instead of being a marketing arm of MS? All I can think of is the Emperor in ROTJ: "Poor fool. Only now, at the end, do you understand."
you don't upgrade, you add to you network. add win2k machines or add linux machines or add *bsd. try thinking freely. hardware is cheap as dirt.
I see a steady trend developing here. Microsoft's urgent need to stop the move a way from monopoly code. Is there anyone out there who can tell us if UCITA gives a software company the right to stop companies from using their product?
Surely you read carefully any forms you *signed* (== far stronger than mere EULA). You all agreed to this stuff! Tuff tooties!
Hear hear. I dont know about "majority," but a good number of MCSE's are paper MCSE's who read a friggin book and passed a test. I get a number of tech supp calls a week from self avowed MCSEs who cant even figure out where to put DNS numbers in DUN on their win98 machines, let alone MANAGE DNS. I had one MCSE who didnt even know what "ping" was. Ping fer cripes sake!!
Derek Long
To all the people who voluntarily let Microsoft put its ring into their noses: I hope you enjoy the feeling of being jerked around like cattle.
Not only do I think anyone who would pay to learn any M$ product, let alone become certifiable, the way I see it, MS should be paying us to take their certification class. Figure that is the only way they will get a large enough following
Since I can't sleep, I may as well memorize a bunch a crap and get certified. Sounds a little more interesting than staring at the TV all night. The only problem is that I'd rather slit my wrists than let M$ control my life. Maybe it would be merciful if the clown did eat me before I decide to get certified by M$ or anyone else.
Anyone with knowledge setting up a high-volume business web site is going to use Apache. It's. Just. Better. That's why Amazon switched. That's why apache owns most of the web. And most of the big sites too not just the little sites. That's why many sites within *.microsoft.com run apache. Hook! Line! Sinker! Whoosh!
At least they also try to teach a small amount of professionalism along the way in MCSE training. Which is more than I can say for 90% of the Linux fanatics around here that have a more than dogmatic belief in Linux. Do you think a CEO of a large corporation would be more impressed with a well presented argument for MS products or the foaming at the mouth rantings of some Linux maniac? More than once I have come close to dropping my support for Linux because of the arrogant flaming I have been subjected to by Linux users when I ask a simple question.
P.S. get your acronyms right, it's MCSE not MSCE, or can I just use emacs and amecs interchangeably?
Is his tail prehensile?
Nope, they aren't up yet.
You can do an FTP install of the 4.0, or even 5.0-CURRENT if you like to be up to date.
I'm sure they'll be available in the next few days.
Sadly XFree86 4.0 is not included as default only as a port.
For all you "degree is a waste of my time Ill just get certified" folks. Basing your career on nothing but trendy certifications is bullshit and doomed to only have short term success. You have to manage a career for 30 years, not for 5.
Metamoderation should be equally fun. ;-).
Y'know, you sure are bitter. And you never state you are an MCSE. Did you, perchance, fail the test, and therefore conclude that it must be hard?
To be fair when K6's were running in the 200 range a company called Kryotech was offering a solution to run them at 500mhz. It basically involved turning your pc case into a refridgerator though. So maybe he did or maybe he didn't. I would think it safe to think he didn't...
No, try this:
Managers Continually Snowed Everytime
"Sir, the MSCEs are revolting!"
King Bill replies, "Yes, MSCEs are revolting!" and turns away to laugh
I haven't taken my two elective exams and I don't intend to either. I took only one network-related exam and it focused mostly on MS technology. I hardly consider myself one of the best-trained network professionals.
I have been using and supporting NT since version 3.1. I wouldn't even consider challenging a similarly experienced Unix professional in a debate of networking knowledge.
I interpreted the statement as an attempt at 'browny' points.
uh, can you blow me?
thank you
Hehe, well, that's one way to look at it. :)
And these are the same people who can't understand how you can have software that isn't "backed" and "supported" by a big company. Where do they actually get support? From friends, co-workers, newsgroups, former MS users like you.
I don't think it's a simple matter of consumer choice, it's more like the mentality that leads people to follow weird religions and nasty dictators.
-----------------------------------------
"You must reinstall Windows[OK]" -W98 alert box.
The operating system you use is of little importance for this dscussion anyway ;-) The mistake you and some other posters seem to make is that you only look at the server side of things. Well, the server side caching of asp may make 'serving' asps just as fast as html... but this does in no way whatsoever help the client side. Also, because it does not help the client side, it does not result in reduction of bandwidth usage and number of requests. .asp pages work reliably is by telling my proxy server to not cache them at all. Your nice IIS and other MS studd may know how to deal with this, but anything that cares about the http standards does not. Conclusion: static .asp pages are a good way to confuse everything non Microsoft, which is exactly what we know MS for. B using .asp for static content you are just helping them trying to eliminate everything non microsoft.
Why does it not work for clients (and proxies)? Well, probably it is not even asp that should get the blame, but the stupid people who make pages with wrong caching directives.
The ONLY way I have found so far to make
Using them for active content is no problem since that is non cachable anyway.
Wow, when did /. start selling Linux? Linux is espoused by the people who use it. Microsoft is espoused by the people who sell it (and the folks they brainwash with high quality repetitive advertising).
I imagine some would like us to believe that a cert is some sort of rite of passage. A logical neccesity that evolved to address some sort of need. But is it really that? Perhaps at one time and maybe in some fields it is but the concept has been bastardized in the computer field. The purpose of computer certs have been more of a revenue stream than anything else for a long time now. You wanna be a guru? Learn on your own and be prepared to work hard. I've been playing with Linux for the past 5 years and I hesitate to call myself one...Maybe in a year or two. All I need is Linux to be a little more widely adopted and I'll be set for life. My last Linux job, I was hired on the first phone call and got to telecommute for the duration of the project. Not a bad gig. It will only get better and better. I get to write my own ticket every time. You MSCE's don't know what you're missing. Life is good, life is easy.
"They are the best trained group of networking professionals on the planet; the world listens to them, and follows their advice and insight."
That statement is quite a pile of sh*t. Marketroids and PHB's may hang on their every word, but I have met quite a few morons that, through rote memorization, have scored their MCSE. I respect someone who has 10 years field experience much more than someone with 1 year and a MickeySoft cert.
--
Four-digit slashdot ID. Recognize.
Now that Slashdot is owned by VA Linux (LNUX), they're not going to be too enthusiastic about posting positive articles about the competition, like Dell, Microsoft, or the *BSDs. This is a particularly sensitive time, since the stock is practically in free fall now, dropping another 5% of its value today. Three months ago, the stock was at 320. Now that it's below 97 (seeLNUX performance chart), the last thing that VA Linux needs is to lose more potential customers to a BSD, MacOS, or Win2K. (Not to mention that it makes the Andover.net [ANDN] purchase look pretty shaky.) Maybe if the stock improves a bit, we could see your FreeBSD article, but until then, I wouldn't hold my breath.
Cheers,
ZicoKnows@hotmail.com
Dont see them on freebsd.org
Isn't it lovely when you try to follow a link and everyone and their cousin are trying to hit at the same time...
We really destroy these sites...
"Being alive is a crock of shit." --Kilgore Trout
While I'll be the first to admit that ZicoKnows can be annoying as shit and does do a lot of pro-MS trolling, he's been around a while and very rarely posts inaccurate information. He does often take things out of context or re-state something in infuriating ways. Which makes for plenty of flaming replies. And those make for good reading (usually).
There goes my no-existant karma.
*borkborkbork*
"Sir, the MSCE's are revolting!"
King Gates responds, "yes, MSCE's are revolting!" and turns away with his nose up.
While I hate responding to a known pro-microsoft troller (are you TummyX, BTW? your attitude us almost identical) :
cache-control: private is no use if he's talking about his ISP's proxy server cache, rather than his browser's local cache on his hard drive. I mean if he's browsing online, and going to a page that may be updated, chances are he'll want the version from the net anyway. If the data is marked public, a proxy server can cache it, and since the proxy server is probably squid, which talks to other proxy servers allowing page updates to propogate through the proxy network, he'll most likely still get the updated page if reads the proxy page, but if it's marked private, the proxy server has to go all the way back to the originating host.
The "editorial independence" at Slashdot basically means "We won't push Linux company X over Linux company Y" and you know it. Regardless of the misleadingly generic "News for nerds. Stuff that matters," this is a Linux/Open-source advocacy site.
:)
You might as well cite the editorial indepence of "The Village Voice" to prove that publication doesn't have a fairly liberal bias. The editorial independence of Slashdot does NOT mean that Rob and Co. aren't pursuing an agenda which benefits VALinux. Why else would VALinux buy Andover? Do you see VALinux offering to buy sites targeted at Visual Basic programmers?
I agree with your charges against Microsoft, I'm merely saying that some Linux advocates go to the extreme and employ intellectual dishonesty in their zeal to defeat Microsoft. Is the dishonesty as bad as Microsoft's? No, but that doesn't make it ok, either.
Regarding your characterization of IE as "decent", please name a better browser available right now. Please don't waste my time with theories on how browsers should be fully W3-compliant, Mozilla will be great, blah, blah, blah. I want to see a browser that offers better rendering of web pages RIGHT NOW -- Javascript and all.
As far as Opera... please. Give me a break. The reason Opera doesn't require turning off options is because it doesn't OFFER those options. It is a fast, lightweight browser that does what it does extremely well. But it is deliberately limited in scope. We probably agree that WE don't want a lot of the "extras" that Opera omits, but who are we to make that decision for everyone else? If someone wants to play with Java applets, why not provide a browser that can handle it?
Characterizing my points as "flamebait" makes it easier to dismiss my points. It doesn't make them any less valid. Maybe you should employ the time-honored usenet trick of saying that I'm "Missing The Point" instead.
Well, Windows2000 is a radical change from previous versions.
I haven't had to reboot my W2K machine at home in weeks now. I've loaded a few 'legacy' apps that suggested that I reboot, but it hasn't been necessary.
The frantic FUD being spread on Usenet about W2K by anti-MS forces does make sense, because that's all it is... FUD.
I respect someone who has 10 years field experience much more than someone with 1 year and a MickeySoft cert. I agree that experience is preferable to paper. Unfortunately breaking into the field is difficult for beginners. Scanning the want ads in the paper, I notice that there are no listings for "entry level". There was a big job fair in the area and the fair's advertisement in the local major newspaper stated that "minimum 2 years experience required for potential applicants", in other words if you are looking entry level get lost. Given these conditions how does one get that "foot in the door" without having a relative that can get you hired?
Microsoft is keeping the cert intact until the end of the next year - it's just that a lot of test will be retired/expiring soon. People who just got their paper MCSE last week are the ones getting pissed, I'll gladly take on the next big challenge.
_path
The question in here is Is the new certification track going to get rid of all those "paper mcse". The anwser is obviously NO. New transcenders adre going to come out and people are going to learn those just like they did with the old. So why are they so mad? Well, I would have been pissed as well if someone told me to memorize the whole transcender exam and them added that I will have only one try to get it right. I'm feeling their pain.
Believe it or not Microsoft is actually right on this one! The MCSE has become a joke as anyone can get one by looking at the "brain-dumps" and memorizing them. Hopefully Microsoft's new program will limit the certification to those that truly understand the material and can pass the exams honestly.
I think they should hire some of these kick-ass new MCSEs and convert to Windows 2000.
This linux stuff is for the birds.
MCSE: Minesweeper Consultant and Solitaire Expert.
See also: reboot-monkey
This is not news, this is common sense. The real news is that FreeBSD 4.0 is being released today!!!
It has been regarded wise to experiment for quite some time with new products and to test their reliability and usability before introducing them. You have been caught by feature mania, ie, features that some product is supposed to have are a reason for you to use it, without good validation if those features are what you need.
I base this claim on the simple fact that Windows 2000 has been on the market for just over a month. Unless your business is very simple, that is not enough time to get a good view on such matters.
We have several MCSE-trained staff in my department whose job currently involves administrating the system, and it is my opinion that they must be fully trained in the use of Windows 2000 before we upgrade. Currently we have a test machine set up and they are using that to explore the advanced functionality of Windows 2000, but this advanced training course is a Godsend to our company, and we will spare no expense in making sure our staff are trained in the best operating system on the market. Unless our staff have these new qualifications then they will lose their worth to us, and we would have to find new staff to look after our network.
Of course your people should be well trained for their job, stating that is kinda stating the very obvious.
What I question however is if MSCE can be considered 'good training'
Vesides that, the issue here is not that MS is going to certify windows 2000 engineers, but that they void all previous certifivations inmediately. Realize that untill they went on the win2k course and got the certification, NONE of your people is currently MSCE certified, no matter what they did in the past and no matter how much money you sepnt on training them.
Also, 'the best operating system', this makes me wonder if you are just trolling this discussion... Sorry, but Windows 2000 is not the best operating system, It might very well be the best version of Windows so far, but there is no such thing as 'the best operating system' for the simple reason that each and every operating system has its own advantages in particular situations. For your e-business stuff I would strongly advice you to look at a Unix based system, nothing (esp. not milions of lines of new code) can replace the reliability and performance achieved after the very long time people have had to tune up various unix versions.
And last but not least, if you are in charge of changes there, it would be a good idea to think for yourself instead of just echoing what others are saying, ekse they could as well put MS' promotion campeign in charge of change at your place.
Informal n. Rough, single-ply toilet paper.
Actually, that would have been Einstein. Newton couldn't be humble if his life depended on it.
Thanks for your words, I wanted to say something along those lines myself.
If you work as a consultant & trainer like me (located in Germany) in the business area, you have to bring up SOLUTIONS that work and defend your ideas in front of some PHB, who really doesn't know jack about computers. Now, I'm certified as MCSE+I and soon MCT, although I'm earning my money primarily with Linux. If I tell them "hey, let's use Linux, it is [insert your favorite advantage here]", I can back it up, since I know NT4 in & out and can show it to those guys with my cert.
Face it: people are lazy, so if they see some cert, they will think: "ohh, he knows what he is doing". No matter how good/bad the cert is. And the MCSE track is not THAT easy (ever taken that damned IEAK test?).
You can get Linux Certification from SAIR and from LPI. And RedHat is doing their own stuff, RHCE.
Yeah, and the CCIE will cost you BIG BUCKS, like $30-50k. But it's a great thing, one of my colleagues is CCIE and he really "gets" it (things like EGP and BGP). Those guys can command at least 80-120k Euro/year, and earn every cent of it (the one I know, at least).
The main reason I rag on MCSEs is because most of the people I know who actually have a clue about NT - that is, can actually make it work tolerably reliably in a production environment - consider it a waste of time. Most of the people I know who have or have studied towards an MCSE are weenies trying to get a few extra bucks without actually enhancing their knowledge any.
My perception isn't helped by the number of cyniocal ds for things like "NT Boot camps" which promise to give you a week-long cram session where you learn everything you need to pass the exams and sit them straight away. Yeah, that really convinces me that the MCSE is a credible qualification that tells me someone is one of the rare people who can actually make NT perform adequately.
Unlike bonded, insured, licensed plumbers, MCSE's are not bonded, not insured, and no more licensed than anyone else.
Also unlike MCSE's, plumbers (or their company, or their insurance) will actually fix the damage they cause if they screw up your plumbing; you're lucky if an MCSE will fix a system they screwed up without charging by the hour for the fix.
A search for "Small Business Server Upgrade" and "Joyce Park" revealed the source with the first hit. Try this out.
Actually,
:)
It looks like the comments are dynamic. Coming out of a database, perchance? If you do a view source, you can see that either its dynamic, or written by a very, very anal person.
At least thats what i see, but i use MS products, so I must not know what I'm talking about.
Then why didn't you? Surely someone as smart as you must be aware that by obtaining an MSCE your average salary will increase by an average of $X. And for a mere $Y dollars, it certainly seems like a good deal to me! If the majority of /.'s could pass the test, they would for the money. Saying there smart enough for one but not smart enough to take "easy" money is insulting the intelligence of those that read slashdot.
/.ers are only interested in money. I'm not, but I may be in the minority. Quality of my job is really important to me. Programming on Microsoft(tm) equipment (something I used to do) is something I will never do again. It was a horrifying experience of system inadequecies, work-arounds, and banging my head against a wall.
You're assuming that
No Thanks! Not for all the tea in China! Unix/Linux is the only operating system I'm interested in working on ever.
Comparing MS qualifications to commercial pilots qualifications is wrong..
/don't/ get your qualification - you need to go get some real experience first. (it's probationary).
Firstly a commercial pilot needs a generic licence, an ATPL, which needs a lot of training, at the end of which you
As for individual aeroplanes, well there's no question of a type rating for a 737 being valid for a 757 - type ratings aren't even valid across different versions of the same plane sometimes. That'd be ludicrous. And type ratings differ from MS quals enormously in that they are regulated, eg by the FAA in the states, CAA in the UK, DoT in Ireland. The type rating has nothing to do with the vendor of the plane. (they might have had input into the requirements for the type-rating.) Also, once you have a type rating, you can stay current by getting checked out every 6 months by an instructor with the appropriate instructors type rating, and you can stay current on as many different type-ratings as you want, if you can find the time on the planes and an intructor for it.
So comparing a regulated, safety orientated, non-vendor locked, rigorous licencing scheme to a proprietary, vendor-locked, marketing orientated certification programme is mad.
(unless you want to argue that computer training should be regulated and licenced?)
I use Friend/Foe + mod-point modifiers as a karma/reputation system.
I don't know about the US, but here in the UK the hype on W2K has been very low compared to W95. Significantly there has been a fair amount of criticism of it in the computing press. There have also been comments from a large number of businesses that they are going to step very slowly into W2K.
I would guess that MS need to force people into conversion if they are ever to make any money out of W2K. They obviously aren't going to do this by marketing, so the obvious tactic is coerceion. Hence the pressure on MSCEs.
The only reason to use win2K is because it can support Chinese, Japanese, and Vietnamese at the same time.
Otherwise, I hate it and I want it to die.
"Reactionaries must be deprived of the right to voice their opinions; only the people have that right." - Mao
Reading through the responses to this letter, I've noticed some confusion about one particular passage of the letter. I did a "View Source" on the page, and realized that several pieces of text had been inadvertantly removed from the page due to a bug in the ASP code. The originally intended version follows, with reinserted text in square brackets:
They [MCSEs] are the best trained [. It has been, I kid you not, at least two weeks since one of the MCSEs left a dump on the office floor, unless you count the time Eugene only got it half-way onto the newspaper. But I digress, these guys are the best] group [ -- actually, "group" is probably not the right word. A group of wolves is a pack. A group of lions is a pride. What's the word for a harem of Bill Gates's slave-bitches? Anyway, whatever you call them, they're the greatest bunch of whores, errr, I mean] networking professionals [. Not computer networking, of course, but they really excel (Excel... that's a little MCSE pun there) at calling each other for help, and getting together for lunch and stuff. That kind of networking)] on the planet [. Which planet? I'll let you know as soon as we decide which one we're claiming in Bill Gates' name. We're leading toward Neptune, which we plan on renaming "Eula"]; the world [("world," of course, meaning "management")] listens to them [whine and complain about having to come to work in the middle of the night because the goddamn server crashed again, and about how much easier networking would be if everyone would just use the same friggin' netmask. 255.255.255.248? What the hell is that in English? Why can't they use 0 like everyone else?], and follows [, like lemmings, ] their advice [ as well as the advice of the "Psychic Friends Network" whose psychics, coincidentally, often moonlight as MCSEs as a talent for bullshitting your customers is equally valuable in both fields ] and [ there will always be a market full of people who can't tell the difference between bullshit and ] insight.
---
Consult, v. t. To seek another's approval of a course already decided on.
My experience with a lot of MCSEs with no other OS experience has been the same.
To call them "Engineers" is a bit of a joke. It should be called MCSO for "Operator".
Slashdot: Where nerds gather to pool their ignorance
Sorry, I missed all this alleged FUD. The frantic hype comming out of Redmond must have drowned it out.
"I once preached peaceful coexistence with Windows. You may laugh at my expense - I deserve it." Be's Jean-Louis Gass
--
so, i'm looking at this and knowing that a lot of corporations will not migrate production, mission critical pieces of equipment to Win2k without first seeing similar companies do so and experience the pains. just sound business sense. so, why don't they do their own in house certification once MS denies MSCE tests for NT4.0? they'll rest comfortably knowing their staff is trained and competant... and a lot of those example tests can lead to similar exams. *shrug* just an idea...
jose nazario jose@biocserver.cwru.edu
Part of the reason Microsoft started the MCSE program is marketing. That is how it can claim "There are 180,000 trained professionals currently using our products. We give them our stamp of approval." Also, by providing MCSEs, MCSDs, and all the other certified people with beta software, add-ons, and promotional materials, the company can use them to promote and to advertise upcoming software.
It's a symbiotic relationship.
For what it's worth, I actually have an MCP. That was the bare minimum requirement to keep my job here (which I'm leaving soon anyway :) -- and the reason I didn't go for anything else is that I decided MS was irrelevant to what I really wanted to do. Learning Perl, reading boatloads of books, and just experimenting with things I can actually break and fix (free software is for tinkerers) makes me many times more qualified than knowing how to click through some network configuration wizard.
--
how to invest, a novice's guide
Q. How many MCSE's does it take to change a light-bulb?
A. Which light-bulb?
--------------Rev. C.C.Chips---------------- For the real truth, visit
You take, what, five tests? At a hundred bucks a test at Sylvan, that's $500.
OK, sure, you *COULD* spend $10,000.00 on a training course a IKON or something, but the folks i know that did that still ended up borrowing somebody elses transcenders and cramming.
Point being - neither that training nor the certification equate to competence. Those who are competent should have no trouble with the certification.
This is just like television, only you can see much further.
Actually the album is coming out May 16th.. they are going on a mini-tour before then to promote the album and I'll be seeing them when they come to Toronto .. woohoo. Check out their website for more info.
-Ark
"I build my canopy of steel.. it fulfills my sense of real.. a chrome protection" - Catherine Wheel
I think you have the breakdown just about correct. One important thing to note is that the MS tests are primarily a test of your test-taking skills, not your knowledge
Quite often a simple concept (such as NetBIOS Name Resolution doesn't work with Unix and Mac clients) is clothed in a confusing double negative question, or a "Choose the best answer" scenario where multiple answers are technically correct, or in an even more confusion Required/Optional Requirements matrix.
The other trick is getting into the brain of the MS Marketeers. For example, multi-link PPP and dial-back authentication was a new feature in NT4. Thus lots of questions on these features, and very few questions on the RAS Server itself.
Basically, if you can do well on a test like the SAT or a college-level multiple choice midterm exam, you can pass the MS tests with a little 'prep' and no experience. The sad thing is that the NT5 tests are being pushed out the door so quickly that people are going to have follow the same model (test first, experience later).
--
Business. Numbers. Money. People. Computer World.
I freely admit that I know jackshit about real networking (Cisco stuff, etc). My point was that the MS networking test only requires you to memorize some quite simple information that is of arguable relevance to the modern corporate network. I know what a bridging router, a bridge, and a switch is. However the people I hire only need to know how to handle 10/100 TP switches and a pure TCP/IP network. That's a 'networking essential' here, and I'd guess that's pretty common.
The MS test in itself is not helpful at all -- so why does it exist? To weed out the Newbies? And as I said, almost everyone here could pass if they put a couple hours into studying for it. If you can deal with a Linux HOWTO, you can deal with MS's NT4 program.
The NOS questions I mentioned are examples of important knowledge that's not in the MSCE test program as a whole. Instead, they focus on trivalities, marketing propaganda, and new feature lists. That's why a MCSE does not necessarily have any skills what-so-ever in setting up an NT network or troubleshooting a broken NT machine.
--
Business. Numbers. Money. People. Computer World.
See post #99 - I have. Got 900-something.
(The ThickNet and Brouter stuff is not a joke -- that's actually what they ask! BTW, nowhere on Networking test is word "Switch" mentioned. The test is seriously stuck in 1993. Now, the Novell Networking test - I hear that's actually hard.)
--
Business. Numbers. Money. People. Computer World.
I took this quote because I found it to be the most poignant, quick-witted one-liner that brings home the bacon:
Brac Ken - 3/15/2000
Everyone involved up _and_ down the line are fools... Computer Darwanism is taking effect.
Thank you Brac, I now know there is more to you MCSEs out there - and You Know Who You All Are!
--
BlackHat Linux 6.66 (Discordia)
Dan Kissam e-mail: teeheehee@yahoo.com
"We are not always what we seem, and hardly ever what we dream."
Schmendrick the Magician
I happen to be an MCSE that is sitting next to my Linux Server. But I support a network of Windows and Mac. If I want a job MCSE helps me get it, and get paid more! I think that Gates is being a Fscking A**Hole about all this. He's just trying to push a product, maybe he should try to get hardware vendors and software vendors to support 2000.
1) Can you commit to memory the maximum cable length of Thicknet Ethernet?
:P
:P
:P
:)
Yes - replace it immediately with 100bt.
2) Could you guess how to correctly terminate a 10Base-2 Network?
With a sexy little chrome nipple.
3) Given a hypothetical device called a "Brouter", could you guess what it does in a
NetBEUI network?
Absorbs broadcast packets, like everything else on a netbui network.
1) How do you set up SMB network browsing in a multi-domain environment?
De-install windows on all workstations. Use NFS.
2) What is the proper way to design WINS replication?
With a hammer.
3) How do you restore the MS DHCP database in a recovery situation?
Format and reinstall, like you do in every other M$ recovery sitation.
--
blue (from the 'it's-only-funny-if-you've-never-had-to-do-it' department.
i browse at -1 because they're funnier than you are.
We are writing this letter to request that you reconsider your current
plans for the timing and testing requirements for the Windows 2000 reboot
monkey sucker drive. The changes that you've recently announced, such as
limiting enrollment for beta exams, restricting access to the accelerated
exam for existing reboot monkies to a single try, and limiting the
timelines during which reboot monkies must "upgrade" their certifications
reek far too much of actually encouraging only qualified technicians to
become certified.
Based on feedback from our large community of readers, we also believe
that these requirements will significantly impact the success of the
Windows 2000 reboot monkey sucker drive. The steps you are about to take
with your new program could impact the community-college enhanced work
experiences of over 220,000 current reboot monkies, and the countless
three-finger-salute wannabes who are studying to become certified under
your sucker drive.
In the mid-1990s you created and expanded the reboot-monkey sucker
program. Since that time the program has grown enormously. This growth
occurred because anyone with a little cash and a few open weekends is
gifted a very pretty looking certificate. Reboot monkies have quickly
become the driving force behind Microsoft's success in the networking
arena. In a sense, reboot monkies serve as an adjunct sales force and
technical support arm for Microsoft. We gave you our fucking money, and
it's bad enough that everyone calls us names as it is.
Changing and restricting the reboot monkey sucker drive is
counterproductive, because everyone knows that it is only the ubiquity of
reboot monkey certification, coupled with your headlock on the SOHO server
market, that keeps anyone even vaguely interested in your farcical
'tests.' Many reboot monkies who feel that they have invested their
careers with Microsoft now also feel that their investments are being
seriously and negatively impacted. This is particularly true because the
Windows NT 4.0 certifications will expire before many companies have
replaced that software with Windows 2000 alternatives.
We understand that you feel obliged to deliver an effective training and
community college night school sucker program that doesn't simply reward
"paper reboot monkies." To that end we strongly support the notion that
community college night school sucker programs should be challenging, and
that they should measure an individual's ability to perform on the job as
accurately as possible. But we also believe that such sucker programs
should be fair and open, and not simply provide a leverage point to push
people into upgrading software and systems as soon as possible, or before
their employers are ready to adopt the latest version of Windows software.
Reboot monkies gave your software a second chance; you should give them a
second chance, too. Please reconsider your limitations on the 70-240
Accelerated Windows exam, and stretch out the timetable for upgrading
reboot monkies to Windows 2000 by at least one more year!
Thanks for listening.
:1,$s/MCSE/reboot monkie
:1,$s/certification/community college night school/
:1,$s/program/sucker program/
:1,$s/professional/sucker/
--
blue, a little vi goes a long way.
i browse at -1 because they're funnier than you are.
"Mr. Gates, the geeks are revolting!"
"Yes, I know. Issue a memo on personal hygiene, would you?"
-- What you do today will cost you a day of your life.
Don't all professional certifications "age" to an extent? I've known several people with professional certificatons (lawyers, doctors, teachers, and even actuaries) that have to periodically take a certain amount of continuing education to keep their certifications current. So it doesn't surprise me that MS is requiring people with NT4-based MCSE certs to recertify.
I think the unfair things is the fact that their certs totally expire -- it would be nice if MS would enable an NT4 MCSE to take a greatly lesser number of new classes to enable them to keep their cert, along the lines of other fields continuing education requirements.
I've always suspected, based upon the few classes I've taken that were part of cert tracks, though, that the cert process was more about making money for the vendor than it was about actually making someone an expert at XYZ. The constant blitz of product cycles and the continuing "changes" in certification make it a constant battle to stay certified.
It kind of makes me wonder what the net economic savings would be to the economy if certs were eliminated completely. Comapnies presume to pay more for cert'ed employees, and many of those employees plow a percentage of those higher wages into maintaining certs, ad nauseum. It's kind of like a secret payroll tax that the vendor cert programs exact. I'd sooner join guild or union and at least get better benefits.
Thanks for posting part of the RFC. Would it be asking too much for you to read it next time? Maybe your confusion is due to your poor formatting. You do realize that what you posted refers to three different Cache-Control response directives, right? Public, private, and no-cache. You seem to be getting them all mixed up.
To answer your question, "cache-control: private" indicates that "a private (non-shared) cache MAY cache the response." Now, was that so hard?
Cheers,o tmail.com
ZicoAtLeastKnowsHowToReadWhatHePosts@h
They need to break up the certs into different certification levels ala Cisco. The top level should require actually setting up a network with several systems. I the current test only format is stupid. There is a reason that CCIE's command HUGE salaries and respect, the test is freaking hard.
Q.
Altought it's server-side and static doesn't mean that it will be fetched *every* time, indeed, it's more likely to be cached.
You might want to read up on cache control from a man who knows.
To ensure that the MCSE certification is recognized as a leading IT professional credential with value and credibility, it is critical that MCSEs be up to date on the most advanced technology available
You mean they're going to make MCSEs learn BeOS?
>Cluecheck: Slashdot is owned by VALinux.
Double Cluecheck: Once all of the stock changes hands, the /. domain will belong to VA Linux, the brains behind /. will be VA Linux employees -- with editorial independence as a part of the contracts. As far as I know, all Slashdot really sells are Banner ads.
How are they different from Linux advocates who push Linux as the answer to everything?
[BTW, I'm not sure if this is an honest question or a flame-bait, so just in case it's a question, I'd like to offer my opinion.]
Honest Linux advocates don't push Linux as the answer to everything. But we reliably push Linux as an alternative to Microsoft. Why? Well, the obligatory list of M$ corporate sins includes unfair business practices, shoddy code, bought benchmarks, and vapor-ware -- basically all forms of dishonesty glossed over by a slick marketing machine, a fairly good GUI [3rd place after NeXT and Apple, anyone?] and a decent browser.
Maybe they like the look of antialiased fonts in their office suite. Maybe they like an operating system that includes a web browser which actually works without disabling every option.
It becomes clearer -- this is a flamebait post. Because WinXX is not the only OS with anti-aliased fonts (Beos, Apple, etc.), Opera doesn't require you to turn off every option, and Linux itself is gaining ground in virtually every other area where M$ claims to be supreme.
...Open Source isn't the only answer -- but it's almost always a better value than the alternatives...
As far as Opera goes, I haven't used it, so perhaps I spoke out of turn. And as far as IE 5.X goes, at least on my NT box at work, I get ab-ends nearly daily, vs. only occasionally on Netscape 4. whatever the last version I downloaded (4.6, I think). And if I was on a non-Intel, non-Apple box, I wouldn't have a choice of IE because Microsoft is Intel/Apple Centric.
Finally, IMHO the charge that Rob & Co. is pursuing an agenda that favors VA-Linux is blatantly false. I think I read at least five to ten times more articles on /. about other companies' "wonderful new boxes" than I read about VA-Linux including the stock stories.
...Open Source isn't the only answer -- but it's almost always a better value than the alternatives...
I have 5 of the 6 MCSE exams done and I am about to get the 6th done. When I heard about the retirement of the NT 4 exams, I really started concentrating on Linux and Unix so that I can migrate away from Microsoft altogether. I see how big a mistake it is to base my entire career on a single company.
"Logic . . . merely enables one to be wrong with authority"
Logic ... merely enables one to be wrong with authority. -- Doctor Who
Should be under 'Zico's post.
Blar.
If I use my forward and back buttons to navigate such a site, I'm taking needless trips to the server! I HATE that!
Blar.
Yeah, it really does seem like Microsoft is finally trying to make the McSystemEngineer cert mean something. I just don't think that expiring the current certs it the right way to go about it.
Pardon me as I bow my head in shame. I am a MCP. I quit working towards my MCSE when I realized that I didn't want to work in that part of the industry anymore. I recently got my "your certifications will expire soon" letter. Even though I wasn't ever going to use the cert again for anything, I was still kinda miffed.
I mean really, just because another year passes, does it mean that I am somehow less qualified to do the 95/98/NT4/EtOH thing? If a company still wants someone who knows how to reboot, reconfigure and reinstall, why wouldnt the certifications that apply to their environment still be valid? I cant think of a reason that doesn't involve pushing new product lines through its in-house tech support sales force. Now I am just a bitter, soon to be former, MCP.
-BW
Couple of points...
Hypothetical device? That's strange, seeing I've worked with brouters before. Back when not all routers could bridge, there waa a clear destinction between routers and brouters. Now that all routers can bridge, nobody bothers with the labeling, and calls them all routers.
Thicknet? Seems like that's important, as there are still many sites using thicknet. The manufacturing industry still has a large installed base in plants.
And if you really knew your networking, you would know that the only difference between a bridge and a switch is the number of ports. But, this IS an OS certification, not a networking cert.
Before you go off spouting how much you know about networking, show a hardware networking cert. Comparing a bunch of networking questions with a bunch of OS relate questions doesn't quite gel.
So you think the MCSE's are offgepisst, eh?
Wait until word gets out to the masses that Space Cadet won't run under Win2K! Then you'll see the true meaning of pissed. And Bill will get some use out of his Y2K bunker after all.
--
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
>Hmm. Much though I dislike this tactic in
>Microsoft, it is probably worth pointing out that
>Novell, M$'s biggest competitor in the network
>server market, are doing almost exactly the same
>thing to their CNEs - "upgrade to a Netware 5
>CNE, or lose it"
Sort of, not really.
NW5 has been out since Fall 98, and you have until Aug 2000 to recertify. This requires 1 test for 4.x CNEs.
W2K has been out since Feb 2000, and you have until Dec 2000 to recertify. This requires 2 or 3 tests IIRC.
Which do you think is a bigger rip off?
The letter claims that MCSEs are the "best trained networking professionals on the planet". But they are using ASP to serve simple text pages. Now THAT'S funny.
--
Linux MAPI Server!
http://www.openone.com/software/MailOne/
(Exchange Migration HOWTO coming soon)
I'm not the flaming kind so I won't flame, I'll give my US$ 0.02...
Companies that I do not even work for have offered to train me to be a MCSE. I'm not kidding! As of now, I have not sold my soul to MS and I don't intend to - no little certificate will make me a better professional - EVER. I've built more networks from scratch than anyone I know (I don't know almost all of you, so slashdotters are not included in my guess-timate) running Novell, NT and Linux and as of yet I haven't met any MCSE that's been able to do what I can with a pair of pliers and a 5 year old laptop running the OS of his choice.
I know my trade VERY well and I'm proud of it - no certification - except a vanity one (like a Linux Certification) will make me feel better.
Sorry for my rant - I'm proud of being self-educated in the ways-of-networking.
All browsers' default homepage should read: Don't Panic...
If these are the same people that think it's normal to have their computer crash twice a day, yes. They have been brainwashed.
Hrm... we arn't talking about win3.1, or MacOS here. Windows9x last a lot longer then 12 hours. right now Mine's been up for two days, (you can check it by going to http://delmoi.dhs.org if you don't belive me). Most of the people I know who run NT/2k have to reboot once a month. Of course, you can still say that win32 crashes twice daily, and people who know better will still think you're an idiot.
ReadThe ReflectionEngine, a cyberpunk style n
Regarding your characterization of IE as "decent", please name a better browser available right now. Please don't waste my time with theories on how browsers should be fully W3-compliant, Mozilla will be great, blah, blah, blah. I want to see a browser that offers better rendering of web pages RIGHT NOW -- Javascript and all.
www.mozilla.org. It will be better, beacuse it is right now (well, better is relitive. It's more standars complient then IE, but its also slower)
Of course, I'm using the win32 version, if the Linux version is worse, it would certanly be ironic.
ReadThe ReflectionEngine, a cyberpunk style n
So quite your whining, and see it for what it is. A sure sign that you really don't want to work there. There really ARE better places to work. And you should try to find a place where intelligence counts. It's always a better environment.
Unless, of course, you have no intelligence.
The other day, I met someone who dropped out of Computer Science because they couldn't 'grok' the concept of header files and operator overloading....
ReadThe ReflectionEngine, a cyberpunk style n
There are a few reasons, most involve the company I work for -- they'll pay for it, and there are certain jobs that open up only if you have certification or a degree. I made the same complaint : cert!= good programmer. Their argument was pretty simple, and hard to argue with : Just like you wouldn't hire a plubmer that's not bonded,insured and licensed, WE'RE not going to hire programmers that aren't. Go fig.
CNE. heh, heh. Wouldn't it be ironic to see a big surge for CNE people in 3 decades, like COBOL programmers for Y2K?
That depends on how you go about studying for the test. I've seen some pass the MCSE test by luck, or memorization, get whisked off to the server room, and then have to deal with the pain their cluelessness causes. I've seen smart people study and get better jobs because they deserve it. This is just like anything else -- you CAN bullshit your way through it if you try.
Again I think it depends. Right now, I'm focused in on an incredibly specific database-related program -- I couldn't implement my own networking controls (something that wouldn't break appropriate RFCs) if I wanted to. You may be the zen master of debugging and error handling, but not know dick about interface, etc.
Wit all comes down to it, I agree. I love the environment, I love the languages, but yes, we're getting screwed.
Aaaah, the "party line " questions I've heard of.
Something like :
What's the best way to access FooDataBase?
1) Using DAO
2) Using ADO
3) Using RDO
4) Using a driver loving handcrafted by FooDataBaseWare programmers in C++ and Assembler, regression tested to the Nth degree and certified by a board of software engineers, Don Knuth and, uh, that guy who wrote perl
Answer 2). ADO is Microsoft's newest database technology.
Nodnod. That's all I want out of the deal.
Nodnod. I've irritated all of the Linux zealots here by saying "You want to do it with Perl on a Redhat box? Thank God; that's one less thing I have to be involved in. What? No, no argument here..."
Bah on yeh fancy software. We can do the entire thing with this capacitor, some solder and a potato! There's no need for some buggy *software* boy-o!
yep. It's a job, not life.
Yeah, we're deluged with MCSEs right now. But there's only 1 MCSD in the company. Someone's gotta write the apps
To me what the problem boils down to is memorizing facts. Whether you're taking a cert for Windows or for some variety of Unix, etc, the problem is when memorizing facts is considered learning.
Being an MCSE or having RedHat or Sun cert shouldn't disqualify you from getting a job or getting respect, but a much more telling quality is how interested you are in the hows and whys of the way things work. Being able to deduce things for yourself. I think the problems arise in many cases when people are entering IT for the $$$ and aren't really interested in their work. They take their MCSE courses and don't bother to think about what they're "learning", or to go and try things themselves.
The challenge for a company offering certifications that they want to be worth something is to be able to select the people that can figure things out for themselves and solve real problems.
The Microsoft Way is to save HTML files as .HTM
:-)
MS-2K is better than MS-Win98 because it is based on NT. Now excuse me, it's time to reboot NT for the 15th time in two days because my application now crashes and I get to test run my app once per boot...
Check out lpi.org. Linux certification IS available. It is amazing how many testing centers there are available too. Only $100 a test! and the official LPI books should be out in stores soon. $30 a piece. thats pretty cheap :)
Right on brother.... Think about this, there are people that learned Unix 30 years ago who's skill sets are still in demand. Try that with MSFT shit. I think not.
I dont hold any MSC paper myself and at this point in my life I never will. I will get a few LPI papers to hange in the office, I gave my input to the exams and I might have to study to get them, but I will get more mileage, and more hair out of it.
Must
Constantly
Snow
Everyone.
1) How do you set up SMB network browsing in a multi-domain environment?
You're right. I've not seen that one.
2) What is the proper way to design WINS replication?
Yup. Had at least a couple of those in scenario questions. Think it was in the NT Enterprise or in the MS TCP/IP test.
3) How do you restore the MS DHCP database in a recovery situation?
Pretty sure I ran into that one. It was at least covered in one of the exam preps.
One thing I miss on the exams, though, is questions about how to properly tune an NT network in a ISDN dialup WAN.
If J.K.R wrote Windows: Puteulanus fenestra mortalis!
And that's supposed to be the hardest of the lot.
If you have only been exposed to MS networking, and never touched a router or *nix then it probably is tough.
If you know your TCP/IP well you can read your way through Networking Essentials, MS TCP/IP, MS Proxy server and IIS4 in a few days.
If you don't have much experience with NT, then NT Workstation, Server and Server Enterprise will be a bit tougher.
If J.K.R wrote Windows: Puteulanus fenestra mortalis!
switch is generally some combination of a router and a bridge
A switch has got nothing to do with routers.
Routers work on layer 3 of the ISO model (i.e. ip adresses).
Switches and bridges are layer 2 devices. They look at the MAC adresses. A basic bridge has got two ethernet ports. By listening to the network traffic, it builds a table of which MAC adresses are connected to which port. It then forwards packets between the segments. A switch works the same way, by building a list of MAC adresses per port and then forwarding packets.
You may have heard about something called a "layer 3 switch", which is just a marketing term for routers with some (or all) routing logic implemented in hardware instead of software.
If J.K.R wrote Windows: Puteulanus fenestra mortalis!
If I tell them "hey, let's use Linux, it is [insert your favorite advantage here]", I can back it up, since I know NT4 in & out and can show it to those guys with my cert. That sounds familiar. After changing jobs to a 100% Linux shop, the certificate is gathering dust on the Wall of Shame though. (ever taken that damned IEAK test?) Good skills in memorizing matrixes and a thorough understanding of MS marketing are essential for passing that one. :)
If J.K.R wrote Windows: Puteulanus fenestra mortalis!
You say about 1/3 of the test is advertising. I have at this point taken 5 of the tests and have yet to see anything to the effect that "netbuei is better" or "buy microsoft".
Ah. You have not taken the IEAK test yet, I presume.
If J.K.R wrote Windows: Puteulanus fenestra mortalis!
Offtopic, actually. Catherine Wheel have a new album ETA June. Love their first two.
jpowers
-jpowers
-jpowers
And here I prefer to just call them "certified loonies".
Since when did these people think anything from M$ came without strings attached...
HBS in CS
10 years professional experience (forget the 8 hobbiest years, even though that's when I learned 6502 assembler)
2 years experience developing and administering Windows 95, 98, and NT systems
private is usually not cached by the ISP. arent you the same moron who said palmpilots loose data when they crash ? grow up dude - and get yer head outta yer arse.
> Are you suggesting that everyone who offers a
> Microsoft solution has been brainwashed?
If these are the same people that think it's normal to have their computer crash twice a day, yes. They have been brainwashed.
Ryan
Rick said: Dear MCSEs who are following this story: Watch closely, and you'll notice that you're being given the opportunity to vent your frustration, to give "input", to register your protest voice. That is how the game is played: You're presented with a fait accompli, and then given an opportunity to make futile, powerless gestures all about how annoyed you are.
Yeah, you're right. I'm not an MCSE, just an MCP, and I was considering whether I should consider taking an MCSE for Win2K or to get a RHLE certification for Linux. This was the last straw - I've had to retake certifications with Microsoft three times, as they came out with another release, and lie correctly to pass the test (hint: read the Security questions for their products).
But no more: I'm ditching the whole MSFT skill set at last and leaving the Dark Side forever. Sure, it's a bunch of work, but it's far more rewarding on a monetary basis, and as an intellectual challenge.
The last straw was when SAS announced they're going Linux - color me blue - sayonara, Bill G
Will in Seattle
Where the hell is that from?
More info please!
I'm in charge of policy...
What does that mean - in 25 words or less? "In charge of policy". What skillsets are necesary to be "in charge of policy"? I'm guessing pointy hair.
We have several MCSE-trained staff in my department whose job currently involves administrating the system, and it is my opinion that they must be fully trained in the use of Windows 2000 before we upgrade.
It strikes me that if your staff were really bright, well trained and had a wide experience base to draw on then they would be the ones setting IT policy and deciding on which tools will give the best leverage.
But hey, I'm a dreamer.
It costs money to get an MCSE, big bucks. If it didn't, everyone and their dog would have MCSEs.
Chris Hagar
"The price of freedom is eternal vigilance." - Thomas Jefferson
Not really the same thing at all:
Besides, Novell still offers NetWare 3 certifications. You are required to take one test about Netware 4, and get the Netware 5 upgrade, but 3/4 of the track-specific tests are on Netware 3.1x! You can't say Novell doesn't stand behind its products.
Note: Netware 4 has been out since 1991 or 1992. That would be like Microsoft offering a Lan Manager certification track. As if.
--
My word processor was written by Stanford Professor Donald Knuth. Who wrote yours?
The irony of this is that, looking at the wording very carefully, it might be true.
Of course the article would have you believe that having an MCSE is a way of demonstrating highly skilled knowledge of technology.
IMHO, it's just not true. Over the last 4 years, I've interviewed lots of candidates for lots of different technical positions w/in my company. During that time, I've never run into someone with an MCSE that could do anything outside of point and click. I have no doubt that there are some very talented MCSE's out there. I hope someday to meet one. My experience so far would suggets that MCSE is a worthless certification.
Wanna prove it to yourself? See how many MCSE's can answer this questsion:
I'd wager that the majority of them don't mention anything about NS records, but instead describe how to manipulate the MS provided wizard.
My colleagues and I call them "clickers", because that's the only way that can work with a computer.
Key to financial independence: Spend less than you earn. Save and invest the difference. Do it for a long time.
It just depends on how hard you push your box. You are correct in your own experience, but naive to think that yours is the only experience. There are plenty of W2K boxes out there that need rebooting much more frequently, whether they are run by someone inexperienced with maintaining them, or pushing them harder than they can handle (not hard to do).
I'm also an MCSE. I wouldn't consider the exam HARD. Given a little practice, and a bit of cramming anyone could do it. Sure, some of the simulation questions get tricky and all.
I looked at the MSCE stuff as training wheels. First that, then solaris, then Linux.... or should it be the other way around.... after all certifications are for the money right?
Becides you can always tell who is paper-credentialed. those are the ones that have 15 M$ certs and have been doing it for one year.
"the difference between myself and a madman is that I am not mad" -Salvadore Dali
How can your certification expire? Do they actually implant some type of non-upgradable chip in your head, that has a date expiration built in, when you take the test?
"I'm sorry, as of 12:01AM you know longer know anything about the OS you've been maintaining 24/7 for the last 3 years."
I understand the certifications are for MS products in general but the tests are geared towards specific product releases. Once you are certified to operate/maintain a specific release that certification should never expire (unless, for some reason they release a new version but still call it by the old name).
Another interesting thing I noticed, is that many of the posts added to the open letter advocate moving to Linux - I like it! =)
LRJ
I wrote the TCP/IP exam because our consulting division wanted us to be a Pollution Provider and needed someone else in the company to get an MCP to qualify.
...
Studied 2 evenings. Got 1000 on the exam. And that's supposed to be the hardest of the lot. I could do my MCSE in a week if I actually wanted it for any reason.
On the plus side, I did actually learn a few things about NetBIOS name resolution, but since I don't use the crap it hasn't done me much good
Moron Confused by Sun Equipment
actually, as stated before, asp pages that contain no asp code are processed nearly as fast as static html pages under IIS 5.0. The added advantage to using strictly asp pages is session management. I have done a few projects where, at times, static html was sufficient, but the user might be viewing those static pages for quite some time and the session may timeout. when they request an asp, the session timeout is restarted. Yes, you could set the timeout higher, but then you run into resource allocation issues for folks who really are not there anymore as opposed to those who are merely reading other content. with IIS processing pages that contain no asp code at nearly the same speed as regular html pages, there is very little downside to using only .asp, and a big plus to doint it
I reject your reality
Might not be fair, but it's true. And it's been my experience as well.
MSCE may to more or lesser extent how to use MsProducts. True in-depth knowledge on a product is definitely not just knowing how to use a product, but when to use it, especially when not to use it.
MsProducts contain a minefield angles, buggyware, vapourlibs, and other crap you want to stay away of. To be a successful MsDeveloper you must know where the crap is. Only then, you can do successful projects. A big part of the solution is to use competing products for a particular job, even if Microsoft gives their alternative away for free: It doesn't matter.
The very last persons, who are gonna tell you where the crap is hidden, are the teachers on the certification programme. They'll, most likely, send you right into it! And then, armed with propaganda, instead of skills, you can go on to start wasting your customers' money, big time.
People who invest time in certification, obviously fail to understand this problem. That's why certification by Microsoft creates strong hints in the direction that you are not very intelligent, at best, and incompetent for sure.
All certs do age and expire if you don't keep them up, this is no different. If a pilot doesn't take his continuing testing, he's no longer a pilot. Same with Acccountants, presumably lawyers and doctors as well, but I can't say that for certain. Its *no* different with this. People just percieve it as different for some reason.
And MS does offer a shorter method if your already certifed. They offer an Advanced 'fast track' exam for people who are already certified in NT4. Its one exam you can do once (for free at that) and only once. If you pass it, you get all four 2000 core exams just like that. That means you only have to do 3 exams instead of 6 if your re-certifying instead of starting from scratch.
-- "So they told me that using the download page to download something was not something they anticipated." - Bill Gates
My salary would be unchanged. So I would be wasting it. In fact, my salary is signifigantly higher than the "average" MCSE.
I happen to know a few MCSEs myself, and they're definately no slouches.
I know quite a few. Some are not. Those who aren't are always MCSE's after experience that isn't inclusive to NT.
Well, did she get certified in TCP/IP? Maybe you're not aware that to be MSCE you only need to pass the 4 core exams and 2 electives. TCP/IP is not a core exam.
You're splitting hairs, and incorrectly. The point is that she was an MCSE. She made decisions on an ISP level. Hint: "I" in ISP and TCP/IP stands for the same thing. You're selling IP services, and unaware of how IP works? That is indicative of something. Why *wouldn't* she have gotten the IP certification - further, why isn't it required?
Companies are paying $X more for MSCE certified people
Some companies. Some automatically junk MCSE resumes. Many are, its true. But those jobs are also among the most routine and repetitive jobs.
Sir, the number of people who are certified has absolutely zero bearing on how comprehensive a test is. If this was the case, your IQ would be directly proportional to how many neighbors your had.
The two have nothing to do with each other. You're correct - the number doesn't tell you how comphrensive it is, by itself. There is contextual information missing. How many failed? Further, how many (to another standard) passed the MCSE but fail another standard?
ere again you're taking two unrelated facts and trying to arrive at a conclusion.
No, the poster is relating experience. Which I corroborate. UNIX admins - even the "green" ones are far more well-rounded than green NT admins.
Largely, this is because UNIX and NT are very similar in difficulty. UNIX has a steep learning curve at the initiation - but almost everything builds on everything else, and as you learn, you begin to get better on almost an exponential level. Further, the fact that building helps you remember related issues/helps/tricks/tips.
NT, on the other hand, has masses of unrelated, uncoordinated trivia. What button do you click here, what Registry setting is configured wrong by default? Almost impossible to remember without promting/notes. And certainly not self-prompting.
By your own admission, you state that the tests could be of comparable difficulty yet the people who are certified may or may not have the same level of competence when they are finished!
Yes.
After all how do you compare what someone certified on Solaris knows versus somebody certified in NT?
Watch what they do, how well they do it, and the length of time it takes to complete roughly similar tasks.
Which in my experience is greatly in favor of the UNIX greenhorns, who can troubleshoot better, and think through how things are supposed to work.
Addison
That's worth a guess, but with >$20B in the bank.. I don't think that's the issue. Hell, they can buy and sell just about any 2 3rd world nations at this point.
I don't think it's reasonable to assume they can go blithely on for another year without _seriously_ big profit centers from something major and current- and if they are trying to make this profit center out of MCSEs, they are fscking desperate! I say this is blood in the water, and it's not all MCSE blood.
Here's where you're right - for the wrong reason.
NT 5 (AKA Windows 2000) is going to be a dog out the door. Actually, just like 95 and 98 and NT were. But the benefits of going to 2000 - what are they?
With 95, for instance, it was obvious. 32 bit, multitasking (yes, I know, but it kinda did), memory management. So people did upgrade - albeit much more slowly than Microsoft would have you believe.
And now that NT is so endemic in computer rooms, (NT, its not just a adventure, its a job) - and its worse than rabbits - it takes 2 rabbits to multiply, but only 1 NT box to mulitply).... That's where Microsoft wants to be. They'll get the desktops, with preloads, and time. They know that. When 98 and NT 4 aren't preload options, Windows 2000 will take over.
But the servers... How to get them upgraded? Hell, they just got decently stable, (as much as NT is) recently.. And stuff works, and the staff knows how to deal with the NT 4 issues.
How to force an upgrade *there*?
Simple, make everybody HAVE to go see JUST how wonderful and gee whiz golly and magical the new OS is!
FORCE them to get educated, and then say "why do we have to do it THIS dumb way when its so much easier with 2000?" (And hope not too many are UNIX, OS/2 or Novell admins who say "its still THAT freaking hard, and you STILL can't do this easily?).
That's the blood in the water. If they can't force you to upgrade - they've got problems. Microsoft don't like supporting old stuff. They don't LIKE it. Newest! Greatest! Now! That's Microsoft.
I used to point out that IBM had a "Stable" OS/2 sales item. When Warp 4 came out, I don't think Warp 3 had passed the tests to become that, and it was still OS/2 2.11 for several more months. That's the difference in mentality here. Novell sold off NW 3.x - but to a group that has a vested interest in keeping it fixed - and so they still sell it - and generate bug fixes. What, almost 10 years later?
Microsoft is scared of having to try and maintain the sloppy code that is NT - for years and years. That's the blood in the water - the attempt to get everyone to upgrade to 2000...
Addison
What's changed?
Are the Windows 2000 tests substantially harder, or are they just being forced to take more tests, not that much harder, and pushed to use Windows 2000?
Addison
I have ask the important question? Since all things in technology have a lifecyle (kernel revs, hardware, programs, etc) why not certifications? People who got certified in NT 4.0 in 1996 have recieved the best value, pass 6 tests and stay certified for 4 years. The people who get certified in 1999 get screwed because it only lasts until 12/31/2001.
Its not a degree, it is never been advertised as a replacement for a degree or any other benchmark of knowledge. It does not mean you know networks, it means you are CERTIFIED in MICROSOFT PRODUCTS and the SE credential just happens to include things like Workstation, Server, Exchange, Proxy, etc.
Too many people make blanket assumptions that just because someone carries a certification there are a genius, just like many people who finish college but are idiots there are those who finish college who are not.
The whole thing boils done to a metaphor to any industy licensing or certification, you need to stay fresh and current.
The biggest problem is the numbers over 180,000 people got MCSE (6 tests) but only 8,000 went beyond the basic and got MCSE+I (8 tests). Just two more tests and 172,000 people were too lazy to do it.
Expect a large drop in the number of MCSE 2000 from the 180,000 number I would expect about 10,000 MCSE 2000 in 2000 only because the Certified Trainers have to pass the tests to teach the classes.
My two cents.
Rob
techboy.com
rob@techboy.com all the tech, a growing boy needs
Well, Microsoft has just turned the tables (for the worse on their part, while helping the Open Sourced Community). The way I see it, it's cheaper to certify employees as RHCEs opposed to MSCE. In the long run, support and training for Red Hat 6.1 isn't exactly going to be phased out that quickly, well it is, but the 6.2 courses won't be too much different than the 6.1; the knowledge will carry over.
Microsoft on the other hand has backed themselves into a corner. A well informed IT manager evaluate with ease the fact that they will be forced to upgrade, or install win 2k on their systems. I highly suspect that win NT will be under $100 for full version from the clearance software shops, but since there is no more certification available, no one will be able to take advantage of the lower cost advantages which could possibly make Win NT a price competitor to the cheaply available Linux Distros.
The open letter is precisely what triggers the type of letter-writing campaign you describe.
Well, this seems to be just another dumb move by M$. I've got a few friends who are MCSE's and I have a feeling they're gonna be pretty pissed off about this one. One of them just finished the MCSE this winter, and I know for sure he's not going to want to get recertified already for something he's not going to use (Win2K). So, since there was just a story up about M$ treating its certified folks better than RedHat, does this change all that?
Eruantalon
Eruantalon
The Annals of Middle-earth
And if you really knew your networking, you would know that the only difference between a bridge and a switch is the number of ports.
I'm not sure what you're basing your definition of 'switch' on, but in my experience, and according to Radia Perlman, a switch is generally some combination of a router and a bridge (or 'brouter' as you state earlier). Which is pretty much every router (or switch) you buy today. Not, as you say, just a bridge with more ports. In fact the term 'bridge' is a bit old school. Switch can also be marketroid speak for "really fast." gid-foo
Do I smell a turn in the tide?
Yep - that is the difference between knowing the answer on a test and having actually done the work.
How did Microsoft manage to brainwash these guys into such utter dependence.
FUD, FUD and more FUD.
I really hope this announcement affects the majority of the 220,000 MCSE's into thinking of viable alternatives to MS.
Amen, brother.
FYI, there is a reason why Netscape blows so hard; it's compiled with Motif statically linked in. If they had done dynamic links with GTK and/or Qt, it would be much better. I think Mozilla will do all three, but I'm gonna let that app mature a bit more before I use it as an example.
Here's my DeCSS mirror. Where's yours?
Here's my DeCSS mirror, where's yours?
Unfortunately, some of the same ex-MCSE's are hopping on the Cisco Certification bandwagon. And in a year or two they'll be just as disillusioned. It seems reminiscent of $cientology to me.
I'd just like to point out that anything MS makes is suspect in the quality department. They do not have the best protocols, they have the worst. Because something is prevalent does not automatically mean it is the best.
So there I was, between a rock and a hard place, when suddenly I think "Wait a minute. . . what am I doing on this side
Of course I think we all know why they want NT4 to expire. This is just a way to leverage another one of their monopolies (MCSE exams) to promote the sales of their great new OS. It's all about the leverage.
No matter how stupid some people are that have an MCSE, it will continue to be valuable. Why?
Because unfortunately most of the HR drones and interviewers for IT positions wouldn't know if someone was lying to them about what it meant to change their screen resolution, little less be able to tell if someone honestly knows LAN-WAN, and System Administration basics.
Because of this they look for some way of identifying if these people have any IT skills at all... They've already been brainwashed by MS FUD, so all they're looking for is MS skill...
"Well Wow, look, Microsoft has it's own independent certification. That's exactly what I'm looking for!"
Now if you're looking for a job and you want to be very marketable, you could have advanced knowledge in quite a few areas... But if you try to explain this to the typical HR person or interviewer they'll have NO CLUE what you're talking about. But say you have an MCSE (Even if you're almost ashamed to say it) and they'll think you're extremely knowledgable. If not they'll wonder why you don't just get one, and then be done with it... especially if you let them know that it far below your level of knowledge.
That's why even if an MCSE means nothing... It still makes sense for many peoply to pursue.
As an aspiring MCP, I still wonder how MS can certify people in the setup, administration and troubleshooting of an operating system that still has yet to have all the kinks ironed out anyway. Isn't that a bit like raising the curtain at the opera before all the actors have their lines memorized? In any case, it's disheartening to see that Microsoft is willing to isolate those relatively rare individuals who are actually able to fix problems, and haven't just gone ahead and bought a certificate.
Thank you :) It was just something I knocked out before I left work and I never thought anyone would ever get to see it, but yet again /. proves me wrong. It's trolls like that that make me glad to be a part of the open-minded, open-source community that /. promotes :)
This story should not surprise anyone, and provides a very good argument against any proprietary, distribution-specific certification for Linux.
People may find it easy to use this as another excuse to beat up on Microsoft (like we really need one!), but the reality of the situation is that any company in a similar situation will find it necessary to use their certification program as a marketing tool. This means that decisions will eventually made, not based on what is best for the certificate holders, but on what is best for the company.
O.k., fine. Nothing wrong with that. But we have a prime opportunity to not play that game. Savvy employers should display a bias towards a vendor-neutral certification. Savvy Linux professionals should avoid the RHCE in favor of a neutral alternative. By keeping certification separated from software sales and distribution, we help ensure that the incentives are skewed in favor of the needs of the certificate holders and their employers, rather than in favor of the vendor.
So check out LPI and help promote a non-proprietary alternative!
Wikia
You're making an awfully big generalization. I'm the brat of both a Navy contractor (my dad) and an MCSE (my mom). Both my parents, especially my mom, try to give the customer the most they can. When my mom came on board this one company, she started working out problems the "man with 10 years experience" had completely ignored, and in many cases caused. She ran smack into the old boy network. One of the senior company officials actually took her aside and told her to stop doing such a good job because he didn't want to customers to get used to that level service. Some are only in it because they see the giant salaries advertised, but some aren't. You do those people a great injustice with comments like that.
It's their test they can do what they want . This does mean I like it ,but what the hell I dont consider a MCSE a good reason to hire somebody(I dont list it on my resume) It's not something I am proud of . It kind of reminds me of riding a moped or screwing a sheep it's ok to do untill you get caught.
Alot of the comments on the page refer to linux, like, "I too have spent some time messing with Linux and feel that might also be the way to go." And, "I am sure the future is Linux, the only thing we need is a Linux workstation with more user-friendly features for an average user. So, now next certification is Linux." They're pulling out the big guns now!
It's interesting to see a similar argument seen in various Linux forums go against M$.
:)
I've seen tons of people try to get a rise out of Linux folks by posting a, "I'm trying to use Linux, but on a Windows machine I can do XXX, certainly Linux has this feature?" style of message. So it was kinda funny to see a bunch of, "well if M$ is going to do this I'll just have to start looking into Linux and Novell, they have feature XXX anyway" messages....
(on topic)The certification game has always been a marketing game and M$ just plays the game better than anyone else.
I am, weell, I don't care.
-d
I find it amusing how many people on Slashdot rip on MCSE's.
Some of us rip on ALL certifications.
When a shop requires certifications (MCSE, Cisco, Novell, Solaris... don't care which), you can count on the following:
1. You will have a pointy haired boss. This person will be a "manager", and have little technical skill. He/She will not be able to actually evaluate your work at a technical level. He/She will use "industry standard" metrics to evaluate your performance. The fact that you have a $CERTIFICATE makes you a safe bet for them to hire, since they probably can't tell the difference between someone walking in off the street and lying their ass off, and a seasoned 10 year IT vet.
2. You will make roughly "industry standard" wage, since your boss will really have no idea what you may or may not be worth.
3. Your chances of getting promoted to management are close to nil. After all, you can't go promoting the people that do all the work. They're too hard to find!
4. Your shop will get dragged, kicking and screaming into new technologies, since these likely have no certifications, and therefore no way for management to evaluate their worth. Your positive opinion towards new technologies will be considered an attempt to fill your resume in a vain attempt at escape or promotion.
Get certified... Work for the clueless.
Temkin - Not Solaris certified... But US++++$ none the less.
test as i have been having trouble posting
"Patience is a virtue, afforded those with nothing better to do." - I don't remember
We still need to know about limitations on cable lengths and the like, but knowing that makes you a "network engineer" no more than being able to change the oil in your car makes you a "engine engineer" ready for an exciting new career in Detroit or Seattle (Boeing).
I agree, and so does MS. When you pass your Networking Essentails (cable lengths, OSI model and so on) you have earned your "Networking Essentails" certification. This does not even give you the MCP (Microsoft Certified Professional). But it is required groundwork to obtain the MCSE. At this point, 6 exams later, MS calls you a "Software engineer". I do not recall anything in their advertisements claiming this makes you an avionics engineer. Please look at the material before discussing it (and bashing it).
If you are getting "Microsoft not only has the best protocols, they're the fastest and they'll even find you a date for Saturday. Use the outdated, flawed protocols used by Unix, Novell, Apple, or others and you'll be shunned by friends, rejected by lovers, and have your car repossessed." out of your studies than you obviously weren't studying for the test. Perhaps if you had studied for the test you might have learned things like how to work with Unix or Novell. I seem to recall a bit about Unix, and a significant amount about Novell.
You also state that the rest of the exam actually contains "useful" information. Your own argument defeats itself. 1/3rd being crap is alot better than what most universities will have you learn, FYI. You might want to try doing more than skimming the book at the bookstore before you make such a judgement.
Then why didn't you? Surely someone as smart as you must be aware that by obtaining an MSCE your average salary will increase by an average of $X. And for a mere $Y dollars, it certainly seems like a good deal to me! If the majority of /.'s could pass the test, they would for the money. Saying there smart enough for one but not smart enough to take "easy" money is insulting the intelligence of those that read slashdot.
Your error is in assuming that /.ers have no other experience with MCSE's or other certifications. I know a lot of MCSE's, and I would definitely say that the vast majority of them lack a lot of knowledge. ("Looks like you need to
MSCEs, or MCPs? I happen to know a few MCSEs myself, and they're definately no slouches. reinstall Windows." Way to ascertain the root cause, dude!) I worked for an MCSE once, and it quickly became apparent that she know virtually nothing about TCP/IP. Considering that she was the Manager of Internet Operations at an ISP,
Well, did she get certified in TCP/IP? Maybe you're not aware that to be MSCE you only need to pass the 4 core exams and 2 electives. TCP/IP is not a core exam. Also, saying that being knowledgeable in TCP/IP = being knowledgable in computers is the same as saying that knowing how to use a stick shift on your car will make you an expert driver (ie: you can do NASCAR). that was a severe handicap. And there are countless more examples. I would say that easily 80% of the MCSE's I've run into know crap, not even including the jokers who are studying for it now.
How many MSCEs do you know? If you know 5, then that's not really a good judge of MSCEs on the whole. Companies are paying $X more for MSCE certified people, this is publically-available information. There's a reason for that, I'm sure, and I'd love to hear your thoughts on why they'd be paying so much for people with such a low skill level.
The point remains that there are too many MCSE's out there who know next to...
There's 140,000. Divide that into the 250 million people in the US. Consider now the incredible demand for IT workers. Also note that there are over 350k people who have slashdot accounts, and that slashdot gets more than that in hits each day. Too many? I say too few. nothing for the rest of us to be able to put any credibility into that certification. Other certifications may not necessarily work you harder, but my...
Sir, the number of people who are certified has absolutely zero bearing on how comprehensive a test is. If this was the case, your IQ would be directly proportional to how many neighbors your had. Look at the material, not the numbers. You might as well say becoming a CPA (Certified Public Accountant) is easy. There are certainly a lot of those around!
experience has generally been that admins certified on, say, Solaris, typically know more and are more competent, even if the test isn't massively harder.
Here again you're taking two unrelated facts and trying to arrive at a conclusion. In order to prove/disprove your assertion, we would need a sufficiently large random cross-section of the IT community, and have them seperated into three groups - Solaris, MCSE, and the control group. Then we'd need to come up with a metric measuring how 'competent' they are. This alone would take years of research. It would be akin to comparing apples and oranges. But, if you happen to have a report from somebody who did this handy, I'd love to see it. By your own admission, you state that the tests could be of comparable difficulty yet the people who are certified may or may not have the same level of competence when they are finished! After all how do you compare what someone certified on Solaris knows versus somebody certified in NT?
In short, you don't have a leg to stand on.
Put your money where your mouth is. Go take the test, today. Lets us know how you did.
That would be correct.
There's a lot to consider when making this kind of decision. I read the open letter and response yesterday on coriolis.com. My first thought was: "I've started down a definite career path. Do I really want to make this kind of drastic change to another OS? Or should I just keep on trucking?" The implications are staggering. (To me, anyway.) Well, I used to be a die hard Mac user. I knew the ins and outs of the O/S, networking, applications... I did graphic design for Kinko's for a year and a half. I was a Mac Genius. (Not to blow my own horn, but I'm getting to the point.) During that time, I began making the slow change to the wintel platform. Now I'm an NT admin. I see no logical reason that I can't make the change again, save one: money. I'm well paid as an NT admin, and with little Unix/Linux experience, I foresee hard times ahead if I decide to make the switch directly. Hybrid environments are hard to come by, from what I've seen. (getting off topic.) Could I make the change? Yes. Am I prepared to make the change immediately? No. The MCSE got me a lot of money, quickly. I'm not entirely prepared to let that go yet. Especially starting a new life, getting married, moving later this year, massive car expenses recently... I need certification not just now, but for a while.
Political and social issues aside, I was less than pleased by Microsoft's response to the open letter. I say Microsoft's rather than Donna Senko's because she's just a pawn too. Nothing against her. The response seemed to say a lot more than it intended, depending on how you want to interpret it. My personal interpretation is that it read like a marketing press release. What I got from it is: "We're giving you the latest and greatest operating system, so you should expect support for the latest and greatest operating system." And to the MCSE's: "Since this is the latest and greatest product we offer, we need you to be able to support it." However, not giving your greatest public supporters the power of choice seems like good marketing and bad public relations. I know that I certainly feel left out in the cold. Who is to say that NT4 will no longer be a widely used operating system in 2001? Companies are slow to change. I know of organizations that have just recently migrated to Win95 on the desktop. That, and I expected to be certified for more than a couple years. I guess my knowledge will be ancient soon.
Another issue that kind of touched me was the whole "paper" MCSE argument. I have VERY strong feelings about this. Guess what folks? ALL MCSE'S ARE PAPER MCSE'S. I have never taken a MS exam without saying, "I know this is the right answer for the test, but THAT'S NOT THE WAY IT WORKS IN REAL LIFE!" And I KNOW there's an MCSE or two out there that will back me up on this. A lot of what is on the tests has no application in real life situations. It's all theory. Any employer worth working for will look at your expereience first, certifications later. (Unless of course, their boss told them "I want an MCSE..." or some other such nonsense.) Certification doesn't count for much in the higher level tech circles. Not to say that certification isn't vaild. I'd be nowhere without it. It certainly got me a good job. But I had to have the real-life skills to keep it. See what I mean? It's the paper that gets you the interview, it's the skills that get you the job, and keep it. (Sorry about the caps, but I get a little passionate on this subject.)
I guess the final question I have to ask myself is, in the long run, is it worth it to me to keep the MCSE? After considering all of the above, my answer is: No. I will let my MCSE certification expire, and persue other certs instead. Cisco, Solaris, RHCE... All just as valid, and more attractive to me.
The change begins... now.
--Written in my favorite MS application: notepad!--
--Come see my bad html at www.maxwells-alley.com! (hey... I'm still learning)--
I'm a HAPPY sysadmin... *bang!* *Whump*
I don't know about that.. my company has NO ONE who is MSCE certified and can care less. In fact the supervisor of that department can care less about MSCE. He wants NETWORKING people, Not M$ drones. Like others have said, The paper is a joke. Experience is more important that test taking ability.
UPS Sucks
I don't get it. They are saying that the NT 4.0 certificates are going to expire in two years. Then what exactly is their meaning?
Seems to me you've either learnt how to administer NT 4.0, or you haven't. And if you have, that skill and knowledge is not going to disappear in two years, not if you've been actively maintaining NT 4.0 systems all that time.
So how can an "NT 4.0 qualified engineer" suddenly lose his qualification? That would be like my university cancelling my Bachelor degree because it was awarded to me too long ago.
Bizarre, bizzare.
Rizzer
Wow - I am ashamed to admit I didn't see this one coming - looking back, I should have. First /vent on - "They are the best trained group of networking professionals on the planet" TOTAL horseshit. /vent off - Now, in my **extensive** networking experience, a ***vast*** majority of MCSE's are jokes. (note I said in *my* experience) If you are NOT one of these MSCE's, don't flame me. You deserve respect. You have somehow managed to gain valuable and worthwhile knowledge, despite having subscribed to one of the planets more pathetic excuses of a certification.
mas cerveza, por favor politically incorrect stu
Yes, there are a lot of paper MCSEs. But, (1) if MS had a concern about MCSEs who didn't know their shit, why didn't they make the cert. process harder in the first place. It's not like they weren't aware of the whole fiasco with paper CNEs years ago. And (2) the whole purpose for getting an MCSE in the first place is to get considered by retarded HR and IS/IT people in the first place who if they don't see that magic acronym on your resume in the first place, it goes in the trash can. Hard to get real-world experience if you can't get a job without being certified. Oh, screw it! Who wants pie!?
It's a very dark ride.
This is enable us to make use of the superior reliability and extended scalability that Windows 2000 offers
For god's sake, if you're upgrading for better reliability and scalability, then upgrade to Unix or Linux! Honestly, if that's what you're looking for, there's no excuse to be using windows. If what you want is a quick plug-it-in system that approximates security and all of that, then maybe consider windows...
Two quick questions:
:)
1. What does this have to do with expiring Windows NT 4.0 certs and forcing the "upgrade" path?
2. Where did this guy get this URL? He sounds like he'd be more comfortable reading Jesse Berst's Wanker Desk!
P.S. Apex DVD players are awesome. Don't hesitate.
People shape laws. Not the other way around.
I'm an MCSE certified engineer (9 exams) but I don't use it. Well, not all the knowledge I need I got from the exams. Most knowledge I use in my daily work as a senior software engineer is the Computer Science degree I got on the Uni. Why I did the MS exams? to get some in depth knowledge fast and to get a LICENSE that proofs I studied some of the books and thus THEORETICALLY I know what's all about.
And that's the essence of a certification: a proof you've studied the material. Like a degree on some university is a certain proof you've studied the material. If you just study the books required for an MCSE, MCSD, CNE etc certification, but you do NOT take the exams, a company interested in your IT-services have no proof that you've actually studied those books and indeed have the knowledge in your head.
With a certification in some area, you can proof you've looked into the books, studied some in depth stuff and passed some exams who (in the case of MCSE) have sometimes tough questions just to let you fail.
A lot of ZEALOTS here (I can't say it differently, sorry) just bash MCSEs as if they're the most stupid people on earth. Well, some are, but as with every qualified group of specialists, some are more clever than others. The MCSE-certification is just as valuable as any other company/product based certification.
On to the topic of Win2K certification: Microsoft gives ALL MCSEs a ONE TIME CHANGE to upgrade their certification in 1 large tough exam. You have just 1 chance. If you fail, you have to take all 4 new exams. To me, this seems fair: study hard, if you don't you fail and it's your own fault.
The exam revoking is just for keeping the value of graduation up to par. To me, the MCSE diploma has not that much value anymore because I know a lot of people faked exams by just learning the parts of the books to pass the exams. By revoking the 4 NT4 exams in a shorter timeframe, MS forces MCSEs to study harder on the topics and make the certification more valuable.
Disclaimer: I don't work for MS nor a MS related firm. I just get frustrated when people insult me and collegues who worked hard on universities and courses and have a LOT of knowledge of MS products and general IT topics. Just because they're not UNIX/LINUX focussed doesn't mean they're airheads: most MCSEs I know have CS degrees and are definitely not what I call 'brainwashed dumbo's. Be nicer to people who have knowledge. Perhaps it will give more respect for Linux/Unix under the MS oriented CS graduates.
--
Never underestimate the relief of true separation of Religion and State.
I don't know about you all...but I am not one to read the "FOR DUMMIES" series of books. Well...Let me just let you all know...I was in a Borders last weekend and saw the "MCSE for Dummies" book and I haven't stopped laughing yet. the day they make an RHCE for dummies I think I will blow up the for dummies headquarters out of respect for Redhat. just my $.02
Now that's not really fair, almost all of the MCSE's I know can spell NT properly given three chances and both letters.
"there is eloquence in screaming" - Patrick Jones
--
--
We have fought the AC's, and they have won.
When you go on a date with the Devil, remember that you will be expected to put out!
love is just extroverted narcissism
Why would they cert. someone on "old" technolgy? Hell, like any good bussiness with a stranglehold on the market, make the sucker buy the new product
Perhaps it would be better if there were an organization to handle certifications, either one large organization for all platforms to ensure a consistent level of quality across the board, or maybe a seperate group for each OS's or platform or whatever.
Any thoughts?
Microsoft seem to be behaving like the previous Evil Empire(TM) IBM. IBM nearly went bust in the early 90s, and we can hope that MS will go the same way in the early 00s.
Call me a cynic, but...
By accelerating the expiration on all of the NT 4 certs, they have effectively reduced the amount of 'free' time that current MCSE's could use to seek other certifications. I think it could be viewed as a defensive move intended to put just one more obstacle in the path to wider-spread adoption of non-MS revenue stream products.
I've gone through Net Essentials, Win98, NT4WS, and NT4Server. Now I'm gonna become a former MCP.
Fine with me. Think I'll mail M$ a CheapBytes CD and tell them I am upgrading from 4.0 already.
Where I live the biggest networks around are in resorts connecting a couple motels to a central server. The local ISP's run BSD and Linux... Couldn't see much use for Enterprise anyhow. I live in a small town and "Hey, this guy fixed my problem" has gotten me more business than having MCP on my card. My big sales pitch when someone asks me about setting up a NT sever is "Well, if you REALLY think that's what you need OK but for the price of the sever software and client licenses I can set you up with a server installation, support, AND throw in the hardware!
"If I have seen further than other men it is because I have stood on the shoulders of giants."
-Isaac Newton
"If I have made more money than other men it is because I have stood on the shoulders of giants while my legal team imprisoned and castrated them."
-Bill Hank Gate$ III
"They are the best trained group of networking professionals on the planet; the world listens to them, and follows their advice and insight." Hmmm. I know some MSCE certified folks that really don't know their networks from their ass. Kind of a bold statement methinks.
"I'm in charge of policy" == I can't define "scalability", but I have a pretty good idea what it is. I saw a diagram of a network in a book once.
"...superior reliability and extended scalability that Windows 2000 offers..." == My watch is more accurate because it's newer and more expensive than yours.
"...they will lose their worth to us..." == Their convincing arguments against upgrading may expose my ignorance of the subject.
Thank you very much, I will check them out ASAP. $100/test and $30/text is reasonable. I'm surprised I've missed that info with all the schlepping around I do on Linux sites.
"First things first, but not necessarily in that order."
- Doctor Who
Naturally, I mean, 2000 is so much more stable, secure, and plays quake3 bett... i mean, nevermind. Come on, lets all act suprised but then follow through with billy-boys plans.
Microsoft does not seem to care what MCSE's think. Do they realize the importance of pleasing us, we're the customers dammit. Maybe after they pay the govt. another billion dollars in fines they'll get a clue. I just think they have some nerve.
Not surprised to read about this. MSCE and other such qualifications are purely a form of 'vocational training'. Thus as technology changes companies will ellicit more $$ for new training courses, ie a form of self perpetuating money making enterprise. The underlying assumption being that someone who has an MCSE with 'older' subjects is incapable of adapting their skill stes to the new technologies. Some can and some will not be able to. The vagaries of humans !. AS an employer, just because a candidate has an MSCE does not mean that its a guarantee that one is not employiung a 'lemon'. My hope is that as the new Linux Cerification course come along, maybe instead of focussing on 'vocational' needs maybe some eudcation about computers and operating systems is included so that people that finish of such certification courses have a life time skill sets rather than specific skills that gives them short term immediate employement.
I have already explained that -- without expiration or modification date in the header (both are missing) caching on the client won't work unless it's configured to assume that pages never change (infamous "check once per session" option).
Contrary to the popular belief, there indeed is no God.
In what way do static .asp pages screw up caching for you? Since they can be cached on both the server and your browser, why are you having such a slowdown?
HTTP/1.1 200 OKServer: Microsoft-IIS/5.0
Date: Wed, 15 Mar 2000 19:20:43 GMT
Content-Type: text/html
Set-Cookie: ASPSESSIONIDQGQGQXLK=INJPMONDHKDPDOMBBJGJAAKM; path=/
Cache-control: private
And how do you think, that bullshit is supposed to be cached?
From RFC 2616 (HTTP/1.1):
14.9.1 What is CacheableBy default, a response is cacheable if the requirements of the request method, request header fields, and the response status indicate that it is cacheable. Section 13.4 summarizes these defaults for cacheability. The following Cache-Control response directives allow an origin server to override the default cacheability of a response: publicIndicates that the response MAY be cached by any cache, even if it would normally be non-cacheable or cacheable only within a non- shared cache. (See also Authorization, section 14.8, for additional details.) private Indicates that all or part of the response message is intended for a single user and MUST NOT be cached by a shared cache. This allows an origin server to state that the specified parts of the response are intended for only one user and are not a valid response for requests by other users. A private (non-shared) cache MAY cache the response.
Note: This usage of the word private only controls where the response may be cached, and cannot ensure the privacy of the message content. no-cacheIf the no-cache directive does not specify a field-name, then a cache MUST NOT use the response to satisfy a subsequent request without successful revalidation with the origin server. This allows an origin server to prevent caching even by caches that have been configured to return stale responses to client requests. If the no-cache directive does specify one or more field-names, then a cache MAY use the response to satisfy a subsequent request, subject to any other restrictions on caching. However, the specified field-name(s) MUST NOT be sent in the response to a subsequent request without successful revalidation with the origin server. This allows an origin server to prevent the re-use of certain header fields in a response, while still allowing caching of the rest of the response. Note: Most HTTP/1.0 caches will not recognize or obey this directive.
Proxies can't cache it because the content is "private" (what is bullshit -- the document is public), and clients can't cache it because it has neither expiration nor modification time in the header.
Looks like this "ZicoKnows" doesn't know shit after all.
Contrary to the popular belief, there indeed is no God.
Just like you wouldn't hire a plubmer that's not bonded,insured and licensed, WE'RE not going to hire programmers that aren't. Go fig.
No one can be held responsible or guarantees anything about anyone with MCSE, or the job that he will or can perform -- if MCSE screws up, employer is just as mich screwed as if anyone else did it.
Contrary to the popular belief, there indeed is no God.
Especially in the case of Microsoft, it seems that there is a widespread adversarial relationship between them and their customers. Friends and collegues of mine that are avid Microsoft users are constantly complaining about how MS shafted them and others. But when I mention that if they're so mad and disatisfied with the product that they paid for that it's their duty as a customer to spend their dollars elsewhere. Then I get looked at like I'm from another planet. They all seem to think that I'm some sort of computer genius/guru because I use Linux exclusively. I've tried to explain that I'm extremely far from either one, and as far as I can tell if a person were to spend as much time reading Linux documentation as they did trying to "trick" some MS app into doing what they wanted that they too would quickly become adept at the Linux environment.
Sorry to rant about like this, but it just amazes me sometimes that people don't feel bad about handing over money for a product they don't feel is the best solution for their particular need/problem/situation.
RFC2119
Crap or not, the MCSE is the only way to get a job interview in most cases. Think about a college degree.. Nowadays it doesn't really get you much other than a foot in the door at a company for an interview. Same thing with the MCSE for the most part. I don't have one and I certainly know more than most of the MCSE people I've met, but that's just the way it is.
--
Never hit your grandmother with a shovel, for it leaves a bad impression on her mind...
I disagree. More than anything the MCSE is a marketing tool. Today they want sell Windows2000 and convincing everyone that 2000 is a radical change from previous versions is the first step down that road.
It *is* pretty sad and it makes everyone involved look all the more pathetic.
"I once preached peaceful coexistence with Windows. You may laugh at my expense - I deserve it." Be's Jean-Louis Gass
>There are a few reasons, most involve the company I work for -- they'll pay for it, and there are certain jobs that open up only if you have
>certification or a degree. I made the same complaint : cert!= good programmer. Their argument was pretty simple, and hard to argue with :
>Just like you wouldn't hire a plubmer that's not bonded,insured and licensed, WE'RE not going to hire programmers that aren't. Go fig.
Ugh. That's disgusting. Do any of the great programmers have certs? (e.g., Ritchie, Kernighan, & most of the other famous hackers) I mean, it would funny -- in a disgusting way -- to hear an interviewer tell a prospective hire, ``you worked at Borland on their Pascal compiler . . . worked at Novell fixing bugs first on Netware 4.x, then Word Perfect . . . then at Microsoft, working on Windows 98 & Windows 2000. I'm sorry, since I don't see that you have an MCSE certificate, I have to say that you aren't qualified. Good luck in your job hunt."
> I suspect many people have this expectation that they will learn something about how the Windows OS works.
>
>That depends on how you go about studying for the test. I've seen some pass the MCSE test by luck, or memorization, get whisked off to
>the server room, and then have to deal with the pain their cluelessness causes. I've seen smart people study and get better jobs because they
>deserve it. This is just like anything else -- you CAN bullshit your way through it if you try.
I guess I'm revealing how I look at the descriptions of what certification tests cover: as a reality check for what I've learned either on the job or teaching myself. If you've spent your time as an ISP phone tech (say), you think the world revolves around dialers, winsocks, & crappy modems; you're oblivious to just how much video drivers & RAM enter into the equation.
This is my gripe: instead of offering a guarrantee that the recipient understands -- on some level -- how Windows works, their certification is merely another step in indoctrinating a computer professional into the Microsoft Solution to All Problems (tm).
Geoff
I think I see a trend here. Maybe for them it really would be easier to muzzle the entire internet than to produce p
>Here's a summary of MS' reply.
>"Rather than answering your question, we'll reiterate that we're forcing the cert. change. Despite the numerous complaints you, as current
>MSCEs, have logged, we'll try to tell you that this is being requested by our customers."
Well put.
>Crap. I use Visual Basic and C++, and wanted to get my MCSD, but now, I don't know if it's worthwhile.
Why do you want this piece of paper? If you have the experience in these programming language, then it really isn't necessary for your resume. If you think it will teach you something about these languages, then you are sadly mistaken.
From watching people first study & take CNA/CNE certs, & now MCS* ones, I suspect many people have this expectation that they will learn something about how the Windows OS works. Something that will head off the usual countless hours of trial-and-error testing to determine what is actually happening behind the GUI & amongst the poorly-documented registry & the swamp of dll's -- or at least give them a clue about what is important to know about Windows.
Unfortunately it does not work -- at least in this case. This is another example of Microsoft treating its ``partners" shabbily.
Geoff
I think I see a trend here. Maybe for them it really would be easier to muzzle the entire internet than to produce p
Yes, my level of cynicism and not infrequent outright sarcasm is a delightful talent being honed to perfection in this job. Lock 'em in, take their money, read them the EULA and chuckle all the way to the bank.
try { do() || do_not(); } catch (JediException err) { yoda(err); }
What I see McSE's as are like the folks with the brooms who follow the elephants in the parade: the animals get the peanuts & attention and the McSE's get to sweep up the dung. Meaning, the salesfolks make their awesome presentations, hoodwink entire corporations and the McSE is there to do the patches, rebooting, and other various and sundry rites of exorcism while the poor owners cuss at 'em and bemoan the loss of office productivity for all the outages, downages and inconviences.
Haha - any fool to gives their entire career to the capricious whims of a tyrranical, overbearing business deserves to be left broke and forgotten. I prefer *real* computer science, not memorizing Bills favorite color of the month or what butten is hidden in what window. Besides, if you learn a *real* computer system windows is easy, since it's just Unix for the command line challenged. My B.S.E.E. is valuable; my McSE is just a quickie trade like muffler repair or hairdressing, my 'day' job to fund personal projects.
try { do() || do_not(); } catch (JediException err) { yoda(err); }
I can't believe the bullshit in that letter. I can barely choke down that statement about the best trained networking force on the planet. These bootcampers and paper MCSEs actually have the fscking gall to complain about the retirement of NT4? We saw it coming two years ago - or you should have if you had your eyes open. It's Microsoft, for crissakes! All they do is screw people. Of course they want to force everyone to use Win2K.
;) I'm off to some quake server to vent my frustrations on other hapless geeks... have a nice day.
MCSE certifications DONT MEAN CRAP. Any fsckwad can pass those tests with their brain turned off. All you have to do is MEMORIZE. If you can't think and know nothing about computers, take heart! You can still get your MCSE.
MCSEs tend to think that they know everything because they have NEVER been exposed to a real computing situation. Ever. Their answer to it all is simply follow the three R's - Reboot, Reformat, and Reinstall.
Your value does not depend on your certification. The only reason you need one of these certifications is to get in the damned door somewhere. Microsoft has made these tests too easy. They are giving you a single, one time free shot to upgrade your core to Win2K. That should be enough. Hell, I'll be able to upgrade mine in a weekend, simply because I know my shit after trying in vain to support Microsoft products for the better part of three years now. Its absolutely amazing when you learn how much you really don't know when you are in the field. You learn more there in a week than you do reading all of the study guides on the market.
Going into a company that is dependent on windows, and trying to make everything work correctly after a bunch of MCSEs have fscked it all up, is one hell of a tough job. I steer people away from Microsoft products every chance I get for mission critical work.
I got lucky. The company I work for has three main networking professionals. Bill, the Unix guy, Carmen, the Novell guy, and Me, for the Microsoft shit. Unlike most MCSEs, I know from painful experience just how to get those obscene Microsoft products to work. That doesn't mean I have to like them. I learn more by watching Bill and Carmen than I do reading books.
Microsoft products may look pretty, but they are the smelly shitstain on the boots of real networking professionals the world over. I hope that someone, anyone, comes along and puts them out of business.
We have lots of Linux boxes at home. Now there's a server. Did you know that NT simply CANNOT handle hosting multiple quake3 players from the internal network to any single outside server? You and your buddy can't join the same game outside your local network. You would have to install 3rd party software to add that forgotten 'feature'. Never had that problem with ipchains - worked like a charm right out of the box. Microsoft only promises. Linux delivers.
And to those of you who say the MCSE tests aren't that easy - fsck you, yes they are, I know, I passed them without knowing a tenth of what I do now. If you still disagree, you probably haven't worked in the field very much, have you?
I'll pass the accelerated Win2K exam the same way - study for a weekend and take the test. The only 'new' feature is active directory, and it stinks like a smelly cesspool behind a shanty in vietnam. You can't even turn it off.
Win2K also completely freaks out samba (at least on our home LAN), so watch out for any of you who are trying to make Linux work with windows.
The thing tht I resent the most is that if you don't have a worthless piece of paper, no one takes you seriously. If you do have the paper, chances are you aren't worth looking at because you spent your time getting the paper and not the experience.
Have the rest of you noticed a complete and total barrier to anyone who is under 25 (I'm 23) getting any credibility and responsibility in the IT field? If you aren't thirty you can't possibly know your stuff. Apparently I am a freak of nature, but then again so are my two roomates, both also MCSEs and hating it.
We have to play the certification game for now, until we can start up our company. I think I'll get CCNA, CCDA, CNA, and finish off the damned MCSE+I. I spend all my day supporting Exchange, SQL and Proxy, so why not read the books and get the certifications, right? Trouble is, the things you need to know to make it all work and the things you need to know to pass the test are two very different things.
You'll have to excuse me if I come off as being a little irate here... I just had a really, really bad day supporting small business server. It works, but I think fixing it may have cost me a few bits of sanity. Anyone have modem sharing just plain break for no reason, then spend an entire day fixing it with no success, then come in the next morning and find out that it is working perfectly, having apparently repaired itself overnight? That one stumped MS Support too
Hell is being intelligent in a world full of idiots.
If you know your shit, recertifying should be a walk in the park.
I have no sympathy for anyone who doesn't feel they're up to that challenge. Browse through a sample exam, pay another hundred bucks to the testing center, and get your new fangled slip of paper.
Personally, i resisted the MCSE goldrush and decided to instead concentrate on systems that i would actually consent to use. Thus, i avoided what has become the best recognized resume stain.
Some of you people out there feel you need this slip of paper from microsoft in order to give the people around you a reason to believe you're worth some fraction of what you're making.
Those of you who know your shit, obviously don't actually need any such paper. Your accomplishments should speak for themselves.
Those of you who aquired said slip of paper in order to quit the job at the quickiemart and enter the new workforce, who don't know your shit, please feel free to sit on it and spin.
You have chosen to use Microsoft products. Win2k is a *New* Microsoft Product. It's a lot different from NT4. It has different features and different bugs.
Again, if you're worth your salt, this shouldn't be that big of a deal, and you should be able to accomplish recertification in a weekend.
If you're not, you made your bed, now sleep in it.
This is just like television, only you can see much further.
Nothing in the MCSE tests prepare you to deal with real world problems.
That *IS* the problem. Too many people think that if someone has an MCSE after their name, they are automatically able to deal with any situation that arises with a Microsoft product.. This is nothing more then pure ignorance.
I have my MCSE, and to earn it, I went out and bought the Exam Cram books and studied each of them for about a week before I went and took the test. Prior to this I had maintained an NT network for about two years and taken many of the Microsoft classes.
However, all the skills I use daily were never taught to me, were not in any of those exam cram books, and never were tested. What are these skills? Basic troubleshooting. The facts that I learned while studying for my MCSE help with that troubleshooting. If you don't know the how's and why's of something that is giving you a problem, then it is hard to fix. But just having the facts alone doesn't make you a good troubleshooter.
What does make you a good troubleshooter? Experience. Plain and simple. I've used and programmed personal computers for about 12 years now.
That is why many slashdotters make the correlation that MCSE=easy to get. Getting your MCSE is nothing more then memorizing a bunch of facts.
Really troubleshooting a problem requires an understanding of those facts and the concepts behind them.
(I was only an egg, but then I cracked)
"How to connive your clients into using Windows 2000"
"Vaporware: The Next Generation"
"FUD: It ain't as easy as it looks"
And more, yours for a nominal fee of half your soul!
-Ark
"I build my canopy of steel.. it fulfills my sense of real.. a chrome protection" - Catherine Wheel
Let's see...
1) Can you commit to memory the maximum cable length of Thicknet Ethernet?
2) Could you guess how to correctly terminate a 10Base-2 Network?
3) Given a hypothetical device called a "Brouter", could you guess what it does in a NetBEUI network?
Yup -- Most Slashdotters could pass "Networking Essentials".
Now, try these:
1) How do you set up SMB network browsing in a multi-domain environment?
2) What is the proper way to design WINS replication?
3) How do you restore the MS DHCP database in a recovery situation?
Whoops! Microsoft never asks those questions. Sorry.
--
Business. Numbers. Money. People. Computer World.
I think you make a good point -- there probably should be two levels of certification. The first should be focused on setup and troubleshooting and knowing when to reboot.
The second, harder one should be focused on architecture and planning (AD, WINS, so on). Since the current NT5 program is designed so that people only understand a little of both, there's no way to prove if someone actually understands the NT beast.
--
Business. Numbers. Money. People. Computer World.
The path to wizardry is frought with "almost as"'s and "practically as"'s.
P.S.: I'm not a Karma Whore. I'm an undercover enforcement agent POSING as a Karma Whore.
P.P.S.: Crap, I think I blew my cover.
P.P.P.S: Damn, did I just use whore and blow in a post on SlashDot?
Bad Mojo
Bad Mojo
"If you can't win by reason, go for volume." -- Calvin
Your hilarious satire of Microsoft marketing materials and ZDNet-style managementspeak was truly superb. Please read below for selection of /. readers who didn't quite catch on that this was a troll and/or a joke. Lighten up and smell the grits, folks!
Your right to not believe: Americans United for Separation of Church and
In what way do static .asp pages screw up caching for you? Since they can be cached on both the server and your browser, why are you having such a slowdown? (The Coriolis web site doesn't seem to be having that problem, whether I use my browser's cache, or force a reload to test the server's cache.) On which sites using IIS 5.0 have you experience such problems?
Cheers,
ZicoKnows@hotmail.com
While Microsoft says this move is required to correctly certify people on the Windows platform of the future, I cannot stop to see how the attitude is so contradictory to the principles and foundations behind the certification process. I mean, here we have a number of people strongly against this change in Microsoft upgrade policy. Should that not tell us something?
Is not the certification process an means by peers to evalute, test and authenticate their peers on their knowledge in a particular study or area(s)?
I think that is the point that the whole certification process is missing. Whether you are talking about Novell, Microsoft or even RedHat. Too many other variables, whether it is money, advocacy for their own product, etc...
Non-profit organizations are only the true, unbiased source of certification.
Just $0.02 ...
-- Bryan "TheBS" Smith
-- Bryan "TheBS" Smith
Independent Author, Consultant and Trainer
Product pushers. Drug Pushers. What's the difference?
--
Lab test show that use of micro$oft causes deadly cancer in lab animals.
> What's wrong with simply saving html files as html?
That's a horrible idea, because you don't have to buy a MS product to do it, nor does it give them a leg up on the all-important vendor lock-in.
--
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
Here's a summary of MS' reply.
"Rather than answering your question, we'll reiterate that we're forcing the cert. change. Despite the numerous complaints you, as current MSCEs, have logged, we'll try to tell you that this is being requested by our customers."
Crap. I use Visual Basic and C++, and wanted to get my MCSD, but now, I don't know if it's worthwhile. When they upgrade one of them, will they expire those certs immediately? I'm not spending 3k-6k for training and testing only to do it yearly! You go to hell, MS. You go to hell and you die!
Somehow a company that produces a product, then designs a certification exam for it, charges for both the product and the exam, and then tells everybody in the market that the only qualified people will have to get that exam, making it the defacto standard, sounds an aweful lot like collecting protection money. It sounds like a scam.
I also think that microsoft is not being very smart by alienating so many of their trained techs. I think that people are going to take a once-bitten/twice shy sort of approach on this one. Everybody that MS screws over is going to be less likely to give it another toss. Also, younger geeks are certainly not going to want to pay a lot of money to get screwed by MS. I think that it is irresponsible to push software like that for marketing reasons, and it is even more irresponsible to try to use people and throw them away like that. I know this adds one more item to my list of reasons to distrust MS (and most other large companies...)
---
Play Six Pack Man. I
It sounds good when Donna M. Senko (Director of Certification and Skills Assessment) writes: "We expect any individuals who choose to certify in the MCSE track to assume a leadership role in helping their employers or clients stay competitive." But there is a little discrepancy in this sentence with the reality: After you have done all the investments in education (time and money) and you have passed all the necessary exams to become a MCSE, you are not able to "help your employer or client to stay competitive" because you have to invest into the education for the next MCSE certifications.
This guy correctly points out the major problem with vendor certification - it's expensive and often useless. It's also dangerous to annoy people who have the potential to drive sales from within an organisation. From within is really important - no matter how many salespeople approach from outside, the MCSE-trained bloke inside is far more likely to be up to date on the latest solutions, updates, bugfixes et al. From there its a simple matter for Microsoft to keep him supplied with the latest goodies, invite him to regular brainwas^H^H^H^H^training functions and keep him warm and fuzzy. He might not have influence now, but he may have in the future - perhaps as an IT manager.
Personally I think MS are being mightily arrogant by cutting off the NT 4.0 courses. Instead of everyone falling over themselves to upgrade to Win2k, I suspect lots of potentials will be checking out the alternatives.
--- Hot Shot City is particularly good.
What I did was get a niche cert. I am a proud owner of an HP-UX certification. I also have my CNE, and I'm working on my CCIE (cisco). I get great jobs doing HP-UX administration (which isn't so bad if you bring a gameboy).
PR1ME were mini's, competing with PDP10's and other similar sized systems.
I suppose... depending on your school and major... I had several of the MCSE exams under my belt long before I graduated from college (far easier than Network Programming, or TCP/IP design and implementation), and I didn't even bothre putting on my resume. Why? I listed my UNIX skills, and I was looking for more of a hardware/microcode job, though several large companies were throwing large sums of money at me for IT jobs, which I wasn't really after.
Real experience in the job is more useful than a cert (anybody could pass these things with a day or two of prep), and if that's really needed to get your foot in the door, do you really want that job? I suppose it's a little different when you are graduating with a computer engineering degree from a highly regarded center of higher learning than if you are out in the field trying to get a new job, but I'm convinced that unless you think the MSCE is the greatest thing since sliced bread then you shouldn't want a job where they require it... you'd be happier somewhere else.
"It's tough to be bilingual when you get hit in the head."
Well, if people (M$ or companies) cared about making the MCSE cert worthwhile, they would make a separate Inactive DirectXory exam, which would actually be difficult and twice as long as the others... from what I've seen, the biggest problem upgrading your NT domain to w2k is AcDir (aside from the process of it, which is ludicrous), and people should properly understand how to do any of this before they get a little paper from Bill. For now NT/W2k may be a fact of life... but rebooting isn't always the best answer...
"It's tough to be bilingual when you get hit in the head."
Sally Struthers now offers home correspondence courses in tv/vcr repair, air conditioning repair, MCSE, stamp colleting, literature...
"It's tough to be bilingual when you get hit in the head."
Well, sure. My NT box (NT40/1381) was actually quite stable, but my win95 box shat itself daily. I was using it as a development system and it didn't seem to like that :) But still, windows has worked long and hard to earn itself a horrible reputation.
Note: I would've liked to use NT for dev work but it didn't support the pc cameras I needed.
Ryan
You're right, netscape blow dead goats. We're working on a replacement.
Ryan
...your career!
MS can consider you a source of revenue, or a pawn in their strategy for world domination for the product they are pushing this week.
Computer professionals shouldn't tie themselves to proprietary protocols.
Geeky modern art T-shirts
Before I start (to avoid flames) may I just say I'm not one of those people who sits under the Microsoft sign. Neither am I one of those people who dogmatically says 'M$ sux, Linux rulez' without looking into both products for myself.
I work in an IT department - the IT department uses NT - therefore I am studying NT - they're paying, that suits me fine. (I'm also playing with Linux and BeOS when I get home). ATM I am currently between NT exams. I've just passed Server, and I'm taking Wks in April.
Now I'm asking myself WHY?!!!
Side one:
Why is because we use NT where I work. I have to use it everyday, I need to support it, and to keep my job, I need to try to understand it. We are not going W2K overnight anytime soon without a darned good reason.
Side two:
What's the point in me doing these exams if this qualification is redundant even before I've picked up the cram book? It's obvious M$ are rushing and pushing this product. If all MCSE's are now going to know W2K better than NT4, then of course they're going to use it! But aren't they FORCING an upgrade? Yeah - and it stinks.
Everyone here knows (outside of the betas) that W2K is the new boy in town. It's fresh out of the box and what I'd call completely unproven, yet M$ insist that this is the solution we should all be going for. The first SP isn't even out yet, and already security fixes have appeared the same month as the OS.
I won't waste time ranting - just summarise by saying that if I was paying for it, this little stunt would have stopped me cold dead from buying another M$ course. (Thanks Oprah)
insignificant sig
I've been at my present employer for 2 years now, and survived their hiring and firing of an MCSE that they "knew would make things better". Every MCSE I've worked with has shown a very surprising lack of knowledge. They know the basic network and application model, but they don't have real-world experience. Not only that, most have refused to listen when I mention Linux and it's superior stability. How did Microsoft manage to brainwash these guys into such utter dependence.
So I basically thought this way of every one of them. Every time someone has mentioned that they're an MCSE, I tend to tune their opinions out.
But looking at the comments from these guys, I'm blown away by how open they are to Linux. You can't blame them, of course, but it was still surprising to me. I really hope this announcement affects the majority of the 220,000 MCSE's into thinking of viable alternatives to MS. And the fact that Linuxites have a sense of morality can only help in this regard.
Let's hope they see the big picture instead of cowering to the heavy handed giant.
...generally follows this comment:
But FWIW, the same is also true of U.S. military contractors -- the buggier the product, the more follow-on money you get -- so the terminal herdthink disease is hardly confined to the field of MCSE.
You cannot apply a technological solution to a sociological problem. (Edwards' Law)
As someone already noted, NetWare 5 has been around quite some time now. Actually, it came out in september 1998, a few weeks before the actual schedule. You could immediately toy around with a free double CD package, containing NetWare 5, the clients, the Internet services etc, and a 3-user license. So, you could hook up 3 client machines to your NetWare 5 server, and all this was given away for free. Current CNEs also received a Student Kit and an exam voucher (for the NetWare 4.x to 5 Update) for free! The Student Kit alone is worth at least 500US$. So, I believe these are pretty favorable conditions for passing an exam.
I am forced to assume you are one of the lucky CNEs that live in america then - English CNEs didn't (and don't) get any of that, we have to fund our own way through the program........
--
-=DaveHowe=-
Yes, I know - I am STILL trying to get my boss to fund it for me...
W2K has been out since Feb 2000, and you have until Dec 2000 to recertify. This requires 2 or 3 tests IIRC.
Which do you think is a bigger rip off?
Well, Apparently the fast-track exam is just that - a single exam, and free. Of course, if you fail you have to take the full thing, and The OS isn't even stable yet, but still. For non-US CNEs, many of who are fighting to keep their networks Novell rather than Microsoft, the difficultly of getting your company to fund additional training for you is a real one - if the additional skillset isn't needed, why should you be forced to upgrade your certification by EITHER company?
--
-=DaveHowe=-
For that matter, a LOT of companies refused to certify, or actually WITHDREW Y2K certification to try and force companies to buy their latest and greatest - so M$oft is at least in company.
--
-=DaveHowe=-
I'd assumed it would be pretty simple until I actually read the Networking Essentials book. Yes, it was humbling. I never got around to actually taking the test--but assuming the Transcenders/CBT's are anything like the real test then I'd have to agree that it's a tough test.
However, some absolutely inept people seem to pass it anyway. One consulting company I worked for had me doing technical interviews for potential recruits--mostly MCSE's. (I scored well enough on mine to qualify as an interviewer despite never having taken the MCSE.) Generally the MCSE's were incredibly knowledgable about Windows and network administration as it relates to Windows--certainly more than I.
I'd estimate I interviewed about 20 of them. Out of the 20, one or two of them seemed to be well rounded enough to discuss anything computer-related out of the Microsoft realm. And two or three of them had no clue whatsoever even about basic stuff like formatting a floppy from the NT command line (or maybe that's just not covered in the MCSE exam?) Despite the few bad apples the rest were, as I said before, incredibly knowledgable about Microsoft products.
numb
Ok... some background... first off, I'm an MCSE myself (yes people, you may mod this down now because I'm one of the bad guys ;-) ), and I currently run an NT network environment... I have extensive experience with Windows and other MS products, and not a lot of experience in other products. (unfortunately)
Now here's the thing... right now, the fact that I am an MCSE is fairly useless, because it doesn't prove anything. I got it to try and show that I knew something about running an NT network, but the fact that there is so many "Paper MCSE's" out there right now basically makes it useless to me. Virtually all of these people know nothing about computers at all, its kinda sick. Actually, at the school where I was learning to get my MCSE, we had one of these people. She was certified, and knew nothing. She had to ask me how to do pratically everything. In a way it was kind of funny, but it shows the problem with the system.
What MS is doing is trying to listen to the people who want the certification to actually mean something. By retiring NT4 more quickly, they force people who actually use it to upgrade to 2000, thereby keeping them up to date. However, because a lot of books aren't going to be available for easy passage of 2000 exams for a while, its going to severely injure the Paper MCSE's... and I don't pity them one bit. They are also adding some different styles of testing to make it more difficult, and I hope it works as they plan.
They aren't being evil here... there is six exams needed to have an MCSE in 2000. However, you can take the Accelerated Exam, which counts as 4 of those 6. You can also take it for free if your already an MCSE. You only get one crack at it. If you fail, too bad. Thats a good thing, it really helps out the people who actually do know what they're doing get it with a lot less expense (like me), while severely hurting the people who don't actually know a whole lot about NT4 and 2k.
There has been a lot of complaints in this thread about MCSE's who don't know anything... and the steps MS is taking are an attempt to greatly reduce that problem, a problem which is rampant right now. But not all of us are total idiots. And not all of us are brainwashed either, its just a matter of using what your comfortable with. I know how to make NT do all the things I need it to, I don't know how to make Linux do it, so for the company, we go with NT. I do have a Linux box sitting here that I use whenever I have some spare time, and try to figure out how to make it do the things the NT boxes can't do very well. When I'm comfortable enough with it to actually put it into a production environment, then it'll go up, but not before.
I really hope that MS' efforts are successful in this, so that the general perception of an MCSE certified person is not "oh that guy is good at memorization", but rather "that guy is good with Windows 2000.". And that would be a good thing. If you think about it, Linux certifications should be the same. You want them to mean something, not "well that guy knows how to become a superuser, lets give him a certification!".
(ps - I really hate it when people say that all MCSE's are brainwashed... thats like saying that all Linux users are anti-social nerds who just hate Bill Gates because he's more successful then they are. Some probably are, just like some MCSE's are brainwashed, but its really unfair to those of us who aren't, just like its unfair to Linux users to dismiss them all like that. Thanks.)
-- "So they told me that using the download page to download something was not something they anticipated." - Bill Gates
..your career!
You shouldn't but that dosn't mean that you can't learn something.
MS can consider you a source of revenue, or a pawn in their strategy for world domination for the product they are pushing this week.
They may but you can gain information and still use it to your advantage. Not many sysadmins now can run an all non-MS shop. As a general rule you need to know that everyone does and try to have them all play nice.
Computer professionals shouldn't tie themselves to proprietary protocols.
I would agre however you shouldn't ignore them.
Slashdot social engineering at it's finest
Disclaimer: I too am almost done my MCSE.
I take a bit of offense when people lump all MCSE's together into one moronic group. Not everyone who has their MCSE is an inexperienced and useless worker. Sure there is a pile of people who got their MCSE for no other reason than to get more money, or to switch trades, but that doesn't mean that all MCSE's don't know their shit. I won't bother to try and convince you I know what I'm talking about...
When the MCSE program first came out it was a hell of a lot harder to get your certification and having it showed that you really knew your shit. Lately though it is rediculously easy to get that cert. So easy in fact that we have someone working on our helpdesk with his MCSE and he thinks if he minimizes a window that his information will disappear.
What MS is trying to do with the new Win2k cert's is make it difficult again. They have listened to the large base of experienced and knowledgable IT workers out there who have expressed their opinion of the MCSE program.
They are giving current MCSE's a one shot deal to upgrade their certs to Win2k, if you fail then you have to do the whole set of exams. They are also giving the current MCP/MCSE's 2 full years to upgrade to Win2k. That's a pretty decent amount of time to take the 2 upgrade exams or 5 core exams needed to gain the new Win2k MCSE.
The only people I have seen complaining are folks like Coriolis who have a financial interest in selling NT4 books, and MCP/MCSE's who don't know their stuff. Everyone I know who knows their stuff is happy to see these new changes.
Then why didn't you? Surely someone as smart as you must be aware that by obtaining an MSCE your
average salary will increase by an average of $X. And for a mere $Y dollars, it certainly seems like a good deal to me! If the majority of
A lot of people who read Slashdot aren't interested in working with Microsoft systems. I have 6 years production experience in HP-UX and Solaris, 5 years in Linux, and 5 years being forced to use NT.
When I go on job interviews I tell them flat out, I don't want to support anything Microsoft. If the job entails working with NT or supporting users (like RAS), then I won't take it.
So why would I, or others who have similar tastes, want to get certified with something that's going to rope us into supporting NT? Besides, the tests are trivial. I've taken a training course provided by an employer for NT certification, and I could have easily went along and passed the test afterwards. But, it's a joke, and those of us who have been in the industry know it.
MSCEs, or MCPs? I happen to know a few MCSEs myself, and they're definately no slouches.
I've worked for a few large global consulting organizations, and have had my share of projects. I probably met a hundred or so MCSEs in my time, possibly more. I can't say I've been impressed.
About half shouldn't even be in the industry at all, never mind touting Microsoft's highest certification. I'm being more than fair in that statement. 30% or so don't know a whole hell of a lot, and the rest might know what they're doing.
I've seen them not know how to set up printers, not know the difference between bits and bytes, but they know how many clicks it takes from the desktop to change the dialup networking properties. That's useful.
To tell you the truth, I know 5 guys who are world class NT people. One of them had 10 application servers online for over a year without a reboot, and they would have stayed up another year if it wasn't for Y2K testing.
Of those 5, not a single one is Microsoft certified, and every last one of them came from a UNIX background. Every single one knows more about NT than any MCSE I have ever met.
There's a reason for that, I'm sure, and I'd love to hear your thoughts on why they'd be paying so much for people with such a low skill level.
You sound like one of those Katherine Gibbs Business School ads that they play here in NYC. "Earn 40-50-60-70 thousand, without any computer experience!!"
I tell you, if you get an MCSE without any real world experience (which it appears you're doing) and you get a job paying that, and can hold it for more than a month, let us know about it. Because it'll be legendary.
On the other hand, most of us who work with UNIX and routers can get double or triple that amount.
What an MCSE makes may seem like a lot to you if you're currently trying to get out of the fast-food industry, but UNIX people usually get paid more, if money's your motive.
Of course, thats not the problem, the problem is that MCSE used to be a permenant certification, where you got certified and that was it. Now they require recertification every year. (people who were already permenantly certified were grandfathered in.) This means, that institutions running NT 4.0 if they had someone certified within the last year, have to keep him certified. This actually isn't that much of a problem, as keeping your personel updated on changes and such is a good thing. The problem is that microsoft is dropping NT 4.0 certification completely, so those who certified within the last year or just getting certified now will find out quickly, that the money and time they spent on NT 4.0 certification will have to be spend with windows 2000 certification. Spend $2000 on a certification, and then spend another $2000 another one and you'll find you get a little upset that the first $2000 doesn't mean anything to anyone except you. If microsoft offered NT 4.0 training for a few more years, this wouldn't be such a big deal. Theres not a huge rush to upgrade to 2000 and there are plenty of NT 4.0 machines that need to be maintained.
Stupid is as stupid dies.
Education versus indoctrination. Is explains why, in years past, I have had career enhancing, even illuminating experiences reading documentation selected from HP, and Borland, and Cisco. Yet despite reading mountains of SDKs and DDKs docs for Windows, I have no memory of such an experience there. The reasons are clearer to me now.
Today again :)
Just after yesterdays heavy discussion on RHCE and MCSE. Take a look at the article: Red Hat Takes Heat Over Certification.
neither do i
Relax, this isn't a flame :)
I'm working on my MCSE right now, and I intend to get the NT4 cert under the wire. Unfortunately, unless you have the alphabet soup after your name, you don't even get called in to an interview (I have experience dating back to 1977 and PRIME mainframes). Luckily, the Veterans Administration is paying for the college course I am in and the following degree. I am forced to get the MCSE just to get in the door, after which my experience will speak for itself. I agree with you that a lot of the folks who are bashing the MCSEs couldn't pass Network Essentials, and I am sure that there are a bunch of Linux/Unix folks who could've written it better. Seems that the derision concerning M$ is misplaced by those who are getting or have a cert by M$. Hell, for all I know maybe the MCSE is the mark of the Anti-Christ in the Apocolypse!
I do expect to push Linux when I need to develop a networking solution. When a client wants M$ "reliability" though, I have to be able to deliver, no matter how oxymoronish M$ and "reliability" are. You are correct in saying that just because you have the letters trailing your name it does not equate to being pro-M$. It is (sadly) just a marketing requirement. I've been getting back into Unix, and I own legit copies of Novell and SCO. I then went out and got distros of this newfangled Linux thingy, and I have been pro-Linux ever since. I have a virtual library of the evolution of Linux in my Linux CD case. I can't wait until a Linux certification is available to the working poor.
Insightful post, onyxruby, thanks for your thoughts.
"First things first, but not necessarily in that order."
- Doctor Who
I'm in charge of policy for a medium-sized company's mission critical e-commerce servers, and we are currenly running Windows NT4 and IIS. In order to expand our e-commerce business we are currently considering upgrade options to take all of our computers to Windows 2000. This is enable us to make use of the superior reliability and extended scalability that Windows 2000 offers, and thus make us a better competitor in the expanding e-commerce market.
We have several MCSE-trained staff in my department whose job currently involves administrating the system, and it is my opinion that they must be fully trained in the use of Windows 2000 before we upgrade. Currently we have a test machine set up and they are using that to explore the advanced functionality of Windows 2000, but this advanced training course is a Godsend to our company, and we will spare no expense in making sure our staff are trained in the best operating system on the market. Unless our staff have these new qualifications then they will lose their worth to us, and we would have to find new staff to look after our network.
In a sense, MCSEs serve as an adjunct sales force and technical support arm for Microsoft. They are the best trained group of networking professionals on the planet; the world listens to them, and follows their advice and insight.
That's pretty much how MS sees the MCSE program, a way to force new software on the dumbed-down masses. Some bosses treat an MCSE degree higher than a four-year university degree.
I'm sure there are some MCSE's that know their stuff, I've known a few, but my experience with them in the corporate world isn't so favorable. We had one that though Microsoft invented DHCP, and the only way to fix some problem (after initial attempts) with the DHCP server/Domain Controller was to re-install NT Server on it. Then there is this fifty-something year old guy that got his MCSE and swore back when K6's came out he got a juiced up one doing 500+ Mhz, when the rest of the world was at 200. I could go on...
From my experience, there are far too many untrained network professionals "slipping" throught he cracks. I put that in quotes because I'll give MS the benefit of the doubt before I claim the are willing to give certificates to anyone who pays the fees. To me, a certification program wouldn't want so many dolts, as it would demean the integrity of the entire program. But as we've seen, this is a certification program with a huge marketting budget.
So folks, MS gave you that certification, which got you that job as a network professional, with a nice salary, the least you could do is to convince the company to upgrade to Windows 2000 now. That, my friends, is how they see you.
It's not really that these people don't want to support Microsoft, they do - they're committed to their products.
Their concerns are primarily logistical:
1) Microsoft is decertifying NT4 people before most corporations will have rolled out NT5.
2) This was a suprise change in policy that came too quick to be accounted for in corporate training budgets.
3) Making certification harder means they can't rely on MCSE Bootcamps as a source for cheap entry-level help.
Microsoft is doing the right thing, however. It wasn't that long ago that there were less than 5,000 MCSEs in the entire country. (I used to work with a guy who was MCSE #300-something on LanMan.) Before anyone was paying attention there were a million people in the program and corporations were using it as a hiring checklist. I know a few people that went and passed 7 tests without even a trivial desktop support job as experience. They have to kick a lot of the deadwood out of the system -- it's totally clogged right now.
Ironically, there's lots of potential for this to backfire. Novell found themselves in a similar situation when they introduced the significantly more complex NetWare 4 and NDS, and simultanously decertified much of their CNE support base. The net result was that quite a few people started working on NT and just never bothered to understand NW4/NDS. MS is now in a similar situation with NT5 and ActiveDirectory -- a good portion of the MCSE base might find it better to learn Linux than try to dive into that complexity and stay certified.
(My Disclaimer: MCSEI-NT4, haven't decided whether to bother staying certified or not.)
--
Business. Numbers. Money. People. Computer World.
As of IIS 5.0, which Coriolis is using, .asp pages containing no ASP code whatsoever get processed practically as fast as .html files, with hardly any overhead. There's not much downside to saving all the pages as .asp files, so that you don't have to bother renaming files if you want to add some code to it later. But I guess you didn't know that.
Or, maybe it's just ironic that you thought you knew more about server side processing of web pages than they did, when it turns out your knowledge is pretty lacking. :)
Cheers,
ZicoKnows@hotmail.com
Minesweeper Consultant, Solitaire Expert
[tip o the hat to Userfriendly.org...]
-- 100% MS-Free as of 4-4-1999, 11:47:38 PST. "The lapdance is always better when the stripper is cryin'" Free Kevin,
Keith Weiskamp, CEO of Coriolis, wrote:
Ha ha ha! Keithy boy, you don't get it!
This person seems to think that the -- ahem -- services provided by MSCEs are a response to the adoption of Windows. Wake up! The adoption of Windows is caused by the existence of MSCEs and other highly indoctrinated IT people.
You MSCEs are not there to support the Windows market. You are there to create it! Of course Microsoft is going to push you into Windows 2000. Does the word "duh" mean anything to you? How do you think NT4 ever got off the ground?!?
(Man, it feels good to get that off my chest. It is so fucking funny to hear people complain when Microsoft backstabs them. I remember when Tim O'Reilly bitched about Microsoft forcing NT Workstation to be limited to serving only 10 simultaneous connections, after he had gone to so much work to "legitimize" NT as a server. Damn, I must have laughed myself to tears on that one. It seems like the knife-in-the-back is always a surprise, no matter who you are. When will they learn? Bwahahaha! At least their whining makes for decent, if bittersweet, entertainment.)
---
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
Reasons to get rid of 4.0 tests:
1: The MCSE is becoming rapidly devalued.
There are ads/banners for "become a fully fledged MCSE in x weeks". Microsoft needs a way to block off all the people who have their MCSE with no training and actually get the perception that having an MCSE is worth something again.
As it is now, if someone says they have it, you have no idea if they achieved it from years of hard work, or from a few thousand dollars and a study guide.
My guess is that the idea is that the 2000 tests are supposed to jettison the bootcamp MCSE's and keep the good ones.
Personally I dont think that will work as there are too many companies out there making up "practice exams" etc. such that all the bootcampers will just go back for 2000 training and keep getting their cert.
2: nt 4.0 is EOL. (end of lifed)
Well I disagree with that too. I'm pretty sure that people will still be running it well into 2002, if just for the fact that it runs relatively stable on lower end systems (aka 1997/8 higher end systems). Not to mention the pricetag of upgrading software.
Reasons to keep 4.0 tests:
1: It shows the person has some knowledge of microsoft products.
Well yes, it does show "some measure" of understanding. However the entry point for that can be significantly low.
2: Good PR.
3: Like the man said, not a lot of people will have converted over to 2000 by the cutoff date: 12/31/01 (or 6/30 if you tested on IIS3.0)
Some notes:
1: No cert can be made "bootcamp" proof, people go in, smuggle out thier questions, post them as braindumps on web sites etc. (no matter how much legalese they have to click on)
Just a few thoughts
-- C
Your error is in assuming that /.ers have no other experience with MCSE's or other certifications. I know a lot of MCSE's, and I would definitely say that the vast majority of them lack a lot of knowledge. ("Looks like you need to reinstall Windows." Way to ascertain the root cause, dude!) I worked for an MCSE once, and it quickly became apparent that she know virtually nothing about TCP/IP. Considering that she was the Manager of Internet Operations at an ISP, that was a severe handicap. And there are countless more examples. I would say that easily 80% of the MCSE's I've run into know crap, not even including the jokers who are studying for it now.
OK, there's nothing saying that an MCSE is automatically a fan of Microsoft. And I don't think anyone is saying that it's pointless to know Microsoft products.
The point remains that there are too many MCSE's out there who know next to nothing for the rest of us to be able to put any credibility into that certification. Other certifications may not necessarily work you harder, but my experience has generally been that admins certified on, say, Solaris, typically know more and are more competent, even if the test isn't massively harder.
"You can never have too many elephants on your team."
M$ is actually trying to get it's act together here. They know as well as anyone that the MCSE isn't worth anything. They just created it to be buzzword compliant, "Sure we have a certification". So now they actually want to make it mean something and the people who believe their certification means they are 31337 computer gods while in fact not knowing crap are getting pissed.
Well hot tip folks: That's what you get for taking the easy way out as opposed to learning your business.
---CONFLICT!!---
Hmmm....MCSE.....?
-- WhiskeyJack, tossing out whatever came to mind in ten minutes....
And, of course, using .asp pages with static content is a good way to screw up a lot of caching, which slows down at least my reloading time from a fraction of a second to several thousand times that... so maybe there are other reasons for not using .asp when it isnt needed, eh?
Why?
My guess is this: Microsoft is hurting for money. (oh, stop laughing! I'm serious!) Microsoft depends on the _perception_ that it has so absurdly much money that it can do or buy anything. Lots of that is 'virtual' money, tied up in stock valuation, and there are also concerns about the accounting procedures used at MS, plus they have expanded so much that they've basically lost the 'start-up' energies that they once had. Apple suffered exactly the same fate in the days of never-shipping Copland and all those neat Apple-funded science projects that Jobs basically threw out. Apple nearly died of it, few people saw them as a dominant force strong enough to make their weak finances insignificant.
In a way it's like Amazon to the Nth power- Amazon doesn't earn money, instead they try to maintain a valuation based on their chances of dominating online bookselling. Microsoft does dominate: does that mean that they earn more than they spend? That's a good question. That is _the_ question to ask as MS continues buying stuff and launching grand huge projects to theoretically maintain their empire. Ask yourself how much, do you think, it cost them to bring Windows Me to its current (dubious) state? For that matter, how much did they spend on the name? Odds are it was some shockingly large sum. The amount of overhead and bureaucracy they have to deal with staggers the mind- _and_ they have piracy to contend with, as in full-on bootleg copying of their wares including all the packaging and stickers, plus the less formal copying that's always been rampant.
People behave as if Microsoft can't possibly be in financial trouble. I think this is a fallacy- particularly now, with no major product expected but Win2K which itself gets a 'wait and see' rating from the Gartner Group. I don't think it's reasonable to assume they can go blithely on for another year without _seriously_ big profit centers from something major and current- and if they are trying to make this profit center out of MCSEs, they are fscking desperate! I say this is blood in the water, and it's not all MCSE blood.
Must
Consult
Someone
Experienced
'nuff said.
Sig (appended to the end of comments you post, 120 chars)
Disclaimer - I'm working on my MCSE
MS owns the exams. They will behave capriciously and arbitrarily if they want to. They are the only game in town when it comes to NT certs. Deal with it.
If you want to do something to Microsoft, then don't support their products. Don't buy their software, their training, or their certifications. In a politely worded letter, let Microsoft know the reason for your decision. Describe specific situations where you have steered clients away from MS and to a competing solution (MS would fit this category). Don't offer to change your mind.
Don't be so naive as to think that an open letter will have any more effect on Microsoft than it would on the U.S. Marines ("Dear General, We think killing is bad..."). MS (the masters of marketing and perception) knew exactly what its MCPs would think of its policies, so congratulations to those who confirmed what market researchers told MS ages ago...
The other thing that I find amusing is that if you have certifications from certain other vendors such as SUN, Novell, or Banyon Vines, you don't have to take as many certification tests to obtain the MCSE. That is because they (their competition) are aware of just what it takes to get the certification. This also works in reverse. The reality of the IT environment is that you are going to run into MS products. Wither or not you like their products or business practices is really not relevant. It's no different than learning Cisco if you want to get into WAN's and routers.
Save the flames, I have and am learning to use Linux.
notice that the people who are most likely to get screwed by MS are always the ones who are closest to them, busisness wise or professionally. Perhaps they would consider changing their often snide attitude toward Linux, and the Linux community and quit trying to shove MS down our throat. This really isn't about MS at all, it's about this attitude that people have that if you just stick with the status-quo corporate America they'll take care of you and everything will be ok......
It's not a revolt if all people are doing is complaining. To the contrary: People tend to complain instead of taking corrective action, as many classic studies have amply demonstrated.
Dear MCSEs who are following this story: Watch closely, and you'll notice that you're being given the opportunity to vent your frustration, to give "input", to register your protest voice. That is how the game is played: You're presented with a fait accompli, and then given an opportunity to make futile, powerless gestures all about how annoyed you are.
This is one of life's intelligence tests. The way you pass is by declining the opportunity to protest, and instead act to fix the underlying situation. Or, be honest with yourself and admit that you're going to cave in. But don't waste your time protesting.
Consider how you came to be in this bind, and you'll see you've slowly moved into a certification relationship that's not working. Your best move is to say "No thanks": The only way to win this game is not to play.
When Redmond is done saying it's considered "your thoughts and concerns", has finished "helping you understand", and has ceased portraying your anger as "confusion", just ponder whether you will ever want to be in a position to be conned by these people again. There are healthy business relationships to be found, and good people to work with. Your first step towards finding them will be to say "Thanks, I'll get back to you", and start looking elsewhere.
Either that, or admit that you're dependent on Microsoft, and, as a business decision, will do what you're told. That's your decision to make -- but there's no need to kid yourself about the supposed value of protest, on your way to that course of action.
-- Rick Moenrick@linuxmafia.com
The Microsoft Certified Software Engineers are revolting!
revolting
adj.
revolt
He he he he he hev. revolted, revolting, revolts.
v. intr.
Thad
Thad