Newbie Looking for advise!

jimlad0407

Hi all,
Sorry if this has all been posted before, but i have been looking through the forums for days and havent nailed all my questions down. Firstly im going to start my MCSE 2003 track and was wondering if that is still the route to go down or whether to do something with server 2008 instead???
I have worked in computers for 11 years, mainly macs (Apple certified), and have dabbled with PCs too, and now think its the time to spread my wings. I was going to do the XP (270) exam first, then the vista (for the elective) then start the 290, 291 (after reading, not looking forward to that one) then the others. Is this a good route??
I also have a problem reading, so was looking at CBTs. I have read many posts that people supplement the videos with books, but i was wondering if its possible to get multiple CBTs to cover all the areas. I was thinking CBT Nuggets, Trainsignal and Testout with some transcender and measure up tests, and setting up my own lab. What do you reckon? possible??
I know most people use the MSPress books...are these available as audiobooks??
I know the CBTs are going to cost me a lot of money, but it may be my only option.
Any advise would be appreciated.
Thanks in advance!

dynamik

When are you anticipating that you will actually start working with it? If it's going to be something like two years, you might be better off going with the 2008 track.

For the CBTs, you can get monthly and yearly streaming subscriptions to CBT Nuggets. For $200/month, you could power through two or three series and save some money. If you take good notes, you shouldn't need to refer back to them.

Reading is going to be a necessary evil, so you're going to have to come up with a strategy to handle that. Even if you only do 15-20 pages a day, you'll make great progress as time goes by. 10 pages in the morning and 10 at night should be manageable for you.

I use Transcender myself. There's a lot of criticism of Measure Up around here.

There are no audiobook versions, but Prep Logic does have audio training for a lot of courses. I'm sure the information is good, but I found them to be a bit boring and dry. Microsoft also has podcasts, video, etc. as well, but I haven't used them before.

HeroPsycho

I do have to say that you're gonna need to eventually overcome your problem with reading. There will come a time you're gonna have to read A LOT of technical material in IT jobs, so you might want to start overcoming this now.

I wouldn't bother with the 70-270 exam at all at this point. Get 70-620, and use your elective for something else like Exchange or SQL, something that gets you more into enterprise level applications. That's far more valuable than being certified in both XP and Vista.