MCSA - Overall Practice/Workbook Solution?

stevem5k

Hi all, I've been working through the MCSA 2003 program over the past few months and I only have 291 left to tackle. Hopefully I will sit the exam at the beginning of the year.

I have been using MS-Press and CBT-Nuggets to get through and so far I have scored very well on my exams, but in all honesty, since I'm not currently working in the IT field, I really feel like I'm just learning topics and exams and its not tying itself altogether. I was curious if any of you have been able to find some sort of "workbook" or a book that basically contains excercises that would lead you in lab exercises where you take, for example, a small start-up business and then gradually expand the company/network/enterprise larger and larger and use all of the skills you've learned.

I realize that in essence, thats what the MS-Press books, but they are spread out over multiple books and lack "real-life" scenarios. I'm sure that there some college-level/lab-book style prints out there that would be laid out the way I've described but I've not seen them and am not quite sure where to look. If there isn't, well then there should be...

Any tips or pointers in the right direction would be great, thanks!

skrpune

Hi stevem5k - I wish I had an answer for you, I'd love a book like this as well! I just started my studies for the 290 exam, and I'm also looking for (hopefully reasonably priced) supplemental books to help round out my studies to include more real life scenarios. Someone did recommend a general Server 2003 book to me, but I haven't looked too far into it - I'll check my notes and post back later if I come across the title.

Good luck with your studies!

blargoe

I've seen some stuff by doing a google for "windows 2003" lab exercises but I didn't dig down to see if this was the kind of thing you're looking for.

nel

ive never found a published book dedicated to labs like cisco does with its lab portfolios. I used lab books from uni but only ever got a printed version.

Shame, MS should really look into this. Like another poster says, i too had to just search about for labs on the net.

stevem5k

Aw well, I'll keep looking and be sure to post if I come across something.

dynamik

Well, I've been meaning to start publishing some content as well as review my MCSE material, so maybe I'll start doing weekly exercises or something like that. I'd like to launch my site by the first, but we'll see how that goes since I'm swamped at the moment. I actually have the layout done, but I need to get acclimated to Drupal (opted for CMS over traditional blog). It's coming though...

I'll post back here when its active (if I remember).

stevem5k

That would be sweet dynamik, I'm sure you could get plenty of support from this community. Keep us posted.