Microsoft Word 2010 Training: How Expert Labs Helps You Get Ahead
MOS:Microsoft Word 2010 Expert Labs (77-877) from uCertify are a cost effective way to complete your Microsoft Word 2010 training goals. The labs may be mapped to any textbook, self-directed course or training and simulate real-world environments and situations, making them the ultimate tool for those looking to master this Microsoft application.
The uCertify MOS: Microsoft Word 2010 Expert Labs are self-paced, allowing you to go at your own pace—reviewing areas of weakness more carefully while stepping quickly through the sections where you have a solid foundation. This functionality also allows you to schedule study and training times that best fit your schedule. Your uCertify access key is valid for one year from the date of enrollment, so you can easily resume your studies if you are forced to take an extended break.
uCertify content is developed by subject matter experts with a minimum of 15 years of real-world experience in their respective fields. This wide-lens approach facilitates the inclusion of interactive exercises that have current application to real-world situations. When combined with uCertify’s award-winning learning platform, LMS, the content comes to life. Instead of spending time learning the platform, you are able to immediately focus on the subject matter, interactive exercises and simulations—putting your knowledge to the test and deepening your understanding and ability to retain and recall the content points.
uCertify Expert Labs are compatible with both iOS and Android devices in addition to access from any personal computer or laptop, making study highly convenient. The only technical requirements are access to the Internet and any modern browser—less than two years old.
Switch Your Specialty: Alternative Career Options for IT Professionals
Jake Slater’s December 4th blog on CertMag.com discusses the decision making process when considering an IT career change—taking the plunge, if you will. Whether looking into alternative career options for IT professionals or other career paths altogether, I think his criteria is helpful for anyone in need of a change: “If you’ve noticed a decrease in your own job satisfaction, or your career goals seem to be slipping farther and farther out of reach, then you are among the ranks of thousands of others who are recognizing the need for a career transition.
However, he skirts an issue that applies specifically to the IT sector. Namely, “I’ve invested (a lot) in achieving and maintaining certifications to build a career path that I’m no longer excited about.” Because, let’s face it, IT plays with live ammo and developments happen quickly and constantly. So much has changed in the last 12-24 months that a career plan that is old enough to drive may no longer be what you want. So, what do you do?
1. Investigate your area of interest to see if you’re really interested or it’s “just a crush."
2. If you can, talk to some people who practice that discipline to find out what it’s really like.
3. If the discipline is used in your company, see if you can get some time with a manager for an informational interview.
4. As always, check the job boards, blogs and professional networking to find out what the market is saying.
If it’s not a “crush”, you need to figure out how to get there. This may mean switching certification tracks, but it does not mean starting over from scratch. The first thing is to actually make the decision to change. Procrastination is the forbearer of inertia. Keep in mind that your job experience can work in your favor. Even if it isn’t direct experience, you’re not brand new to the industry and that matters. The second thing is to carefully review your experience and certification history and look for commonalities with the IT specialty you want to enter. Education is never a closed path and switching tracks may be easier than you think. CompTIA’s career roadmap is a great place to start. See what you have that will assist you in your transition; discover your starting line. Then take a class or two and see if you still want to switch. Certification may not be your goal, but if you decide the new path is for you, earning those certifications will show your current—or future—employer that you’re open to new experiences and committed to learn and achieve.
In-Depth Insight on the LPIC-1 Certification Study Guide: How It Can Help You
This prepkit—pre-assessment, eBook, practice exams, videos, electronic flashcards, and searchable glossary of terms—covers all the exam objectives, highlights key concepts and features real-world scenarios. Topics include system architecture, installation, GNU and Unix commands, Linux files sytems, essential system services, networking fundamentals, and security, among others.
Beginning with the pre-assessment, you receive an honest appraisal of your current state of preparation for the exam. The handy indexing feature provides complete explanations of each pre-assessment question and points you to the chapter where you can further research the topic, allowing you to identify and reinforce your areas of weakness.
Because this is a
self-study course, you go at your own pace; spending as much time as you need
on any given topic before moving on to the next. This gives you the freedom to
concentrate on your areas of weakness without the hassle of classroom schedules
or worry about falling behind the class. Interactive exercises provide the
hands-on training that is critical to understanding the concepts covered in the
materials. Actionable analytics and a study planner keep you focused on the
task at hand and provide a logical study path. The one-year license gives you
the flexibility to learn at your own pace while providing just enough time pressure to encourage you to complete the training.
The content is developed by world-class subject matter experts with a minimum of 15 years of real-world experience. This is combined with a platform that is intuitive and can be accessed through a personal laptop or iOS or Android device. All you need is an Internet connection and current browser.
The content is developed by world-class subject matter experts with a minimum of 15 years of real-world experience. This is combined with a platform that is intuitive and can be accessed through a personal laptop or iOS or Android device. All you need is an Internet connection and current browser.
How to Improve Your IT Skills to Meet Market Demands
A recent Dice blog gave tips on
preparing for gearing up a 2015 tech job search. Two steps stood out among
the rest: “Research What Your Skills Will Earn You” and “Consider More Certification”. General image scrub
not withstanding, do you know the market value of your skills? Do you know which additional certifications and
training will increase that value and give you greater relevancy to market demands?
the rest: “Research What Your Skills Will Earn You” and “Consider More Certification”. General image scrub
not withstanding, do you know the market value of your skills? Do you know which additional certifications and
training will increase that value and give you greater relevancy to market demands?
Finding out what
your skills are worth to the market is a lot like getting ready to sell your
home. Often times,
there is disparity between what you think it’s worth and what the market says it’s worth. Discovering the market
value of a skill is a relatively simple task and there are several free resources available. Dice publishes an
annual IT Skill and Salary survey, as does Global Knowledge and Ranstad’s 2014 IT Workplace Trends and
Salary Guide is available for download through CIO magazine. Of course, you can always reference the
Bureau of Labor Statistics’ Occupational Outlook Handbook or The National Association of Colleges and
Employers’ job-seeker calculator for customized median salary information. In short, you need to know how
much your skills are worth in today’s market. In this appraisal, don’t give yourself “points” for years of
experience yet—just find out what the skill is worth to potential employers.
there is disparity between what you think it’s worth and what the market says it’s worth. Discovering the market
value of a skill is a relatively simple task and there are several free resources available. Dice publishes an
annual IT Skill and Salary survey, as does Global Knowledge and Ranstad’s 2014 IT Workplace Trends and
Salary Guide is available for download through CIO magazine. Of course, you can always reference the
Bureau of Labor Statistics’ Occupational Outlook Handbook or The National Association of Colleges and
Employers’ job-seeker calculator for customized median salary information. In short, you need to know how
much your skills are worth in today’s market. In this appraisal, don’t give yourself “points” for years of
experience yet—just find out what the skill is worth to potential employers.
Returning to the
house analogy, your realtor has just handed you a list of suggested
improvements that will
provide an excellent return on your investment by bringing in a higher sale price. This concept also applies to
your career. Consider taking on continuing education and adding certifications to improve your marketability.
While you’re finding out what the skills you have are worth, take a look at the other positions and specialties in
the IT market. Do the prerequisites apply to your experience and skill set? Can you qualify for these positions if
you add certifications to your resume? You need to find out what it will take to get to the next level. Resources
like CompTIA’s interactive career roadmap, give you a vendor-neutral look at how to prepare to get where you
want to be in your career. This is where you get to factor in your experience. When you review the
prerequisites, your starting point should be apparent—and it’s not always at the very beginning.
provide an excellent return on your investment by bringing in a higher sale price. This concept also applies to
your career. Consider taking on continuing education and adding certifications to improve your marketability.
While you’re finding out what the skills you have are worth, take a look at the other positions and specialties in
the IT market. Do the prerequisites apply to your experience and skill set? Can you qualify for these positions if
you add certifications to your resume? You need to find out what it will take to get to the next level. Resources
like CompTIA’s interactive career roadmap, give you a vendor-neutral look at how to prepare to get where you
want to be in your career. This is where you get to factor in your experience. When you review the
prerequisites, your starting point should be apparent—and it’s not always at the very beginning.
In the IT market,
it appears that longevity is less of a critical factor than it was in the past.
Before a recruiter or
potential employer considers your 15 years’ experience, they are scanning your resume for keywords relating
to your skills, experience and credentials. If the magic words (and matching skills) are not in your resume,
discussing your experience with a prospective employer may be a harder goal to reach than it should be.
potential employer considers your 15 years’ experience, they are scanning your resume for keywords relating
to your skills, experience and credentials. If the magic words (and matching skills) are not in your resume,
discussing your experience with a prospective employer may be a harder goal to reach than it should be.
Need Help Tackling the CompTIA CASP Certification? Training Can Help!
The
CompTIA CASP Course(CAS-001): Powered by Calibrate from
Medallion Learning is the definitive CompTIA CASP training tool designed to help each individual learn efficiently while
maintaining the pace that best suits his or her needs. The course content is
developed by industry-leading subject matter experts and delivered through
Calibrate—a learning platform designed to integrate content delivery,
assessments, and active learning in an individualized setting.
CompTIA Advanced Security Practitioner (CASP) certification
is designed to follow CompTIA Security+ Course, although there are no
prerequisites. CASP is recommended for those with 10 years’ experience in IT
administration, including at least 5 years of hands-on technical security
experience. Job titles relevant to CompTIA CASP include:
- IT Specialist, InfoSec
- Risk Manager/Analyst
- Security architect, ISSO
- Penetration Tester/Ethical Hacker
Key skills addressed in CompTIA CASP training:
- Host, network, application, and storage integration
- Enterprise-level infrastructure security
- Risk management
- Enterprise security research and analysis
- Advanced authentication tools and techniques
- Security policies and procedures
- Identification and assessment of industry trends
Although
the product tour gives an excellent overview Calibrate’s user interface,
features and tools, here’s a rundown of what you will find:
- The course requires you to take a pre-assessment at the outset. This enables Calibrate to determine your unique learning path based on the gaps in your knowledge. A check mark is placed next to any topic for which you have a good understanding, so you know exactly where you stand when you start training.
- Your custom learning path is also your table of contents. This is a very convenient feature, keeping you focused on the progression of training—building upon concepts logically.
- You can’t get too far ahead of yourself. Courses are made of units that contain topics. All of this content is accessible from the learning path, except those that are locked. Calibrate keeps you focused on the task at hand by requiring you to review any prerequisite topics before unlocking others.
- Flexible, interactive instructional interface. The instructional window is divided into four panes: primary instruction, transcript pane, notes, and tools pane. Every feature of the interfaces is designed so that you can customize it to fit your learning style, and the instructional display has several different layout options so that every pane where you want it to be. Additionally, the tools pane displays only the tools available for the topic at hand, reducing clutter in the interface.
- Read along with the video: Each video includes a complete transcript that runs simultaneously with the video so that you can read along. Key terms highlighted in orange reveal definitions when rolled over.
- Taking notes and marking concepts is a breeze. Copy and paste content from the transcript to your notes.
- Entering text in the notes pane pauses the video to give you the time to finish your thought.
- Each note is synchronized with the location in the video that it was entered.
- Clicking the note returns you to that moment in the video.
- Each note also adds a clickable tag to the video’s time-line that allows you to return to the note associated with that tag.
- Track your progress: Topic quizzes and unit assessments give you the opportunity to measure your understanding of the content and validate the results of the pre-assessment. Unit assessments are tracked in the learning path with check marks added to—or removed from—topics according to the results of the assessment. This ensures that you have an accurate snapshot of your understanding of the content at any given moment.
- Understand your exam readiness: Each unit assessment gives you the opportunity to earn a “medal”, based on your performance in the assessment. Like the Olympics, the levels are gold, silver, and bronze. A bronze achievement indicates that you have a good understanding of the material. However, you are welcome to take more instruction and try the unit assessment again if you wish to increase your rank to silver or gold. This system is also applied to the course assessment, with a bronze medal indicating that you are likely to pass an independent, external certification. As with the unit assessment, you are welcome to take additional instruction and retry the course assessment.
- Search the entire course: Search any term and the results appear with the term categorized by location within the course. Select any result in the list and you are taken to that instance of the search.
When
followed faithfully, the CompTIA CASP Course(CAS-001): Powered by Calibrate,
is a complete self-study option that provides the training, tools, and
self-assessments necessary to gauge your readiness to tackle the exam and earn
your CASP certification. With it’s three-tiered ranking system, earning a
“gold” on your course gives you maximum preparedness.
Want
to try it before you buy it? Use the free trial
to test drive the software before you purchase it.
NOTE: CompTIA is
retiring CAS-001 in May 2015. CAS-002 is being launched on January 20, 2015
will be offered alongside CAS-001 until CAS-001 is retired. For more
information please visit the CompTIA website.
How to Get the Most Value out of an IT Certification
A recent article
in CIO magazine discusses the value of IT certification and the
difficulties of selecting just the right one to advance your career. Subhash
Tantry, president of certification, testing and assessment platform provider
Mettl, is quick to point out that the best certifications often include a
performance metric—a lab component that proves you can apply what you’ve
learned in real life situations. Another pitfall is the marketing associated
with the certification—industry analysts warn against letting certification
promotion cloud your decision on which certifications to choose. Lastly, the
article touts benefits like building soft skills, increased marketability to
employers, and rapid acclimation for new hires who hold IT certifications.
Fantastic, but here’s my question: how does the career IT professional navigate
this given the full spectrum of career paths and specialties?
While clearly targeted at businesses and making the argument
that the investment in training and certification is critical for IT staffers, the
question lies open to the individual—how do I navigate this? Recently, CompTIA
announced that it had issued its one millionth A+ certification. That’s right:
1,000,000. This is a beginner’s certification and it goes without saying that
many of the holders of A+ certifications have gone on to develop their careers
and earn increasingly complex certifications. That doesn’t mean that it’s not
worth your time if you’re just starting out.
Here are some ideas that may get you started:
1. Browse the job
boards. Whether or not you’re looking for a job or interested in a
particular company, browsing job boards is an excellent indicator of what the market wants for your area of interest.
If employers are requiring certain skills repeatedly, it’s definitely something
to research further.
2. Watch the news. For
instance, data breaches are always big news. As criminals get more inventive,
so will the IT security professionals charged with protecting data.
3. Read industry
publications. Following trade publications that target different groups and
topics, managers, executives, trend-setters, and so forth will help you gain a
broader understanding of industry movement. Be aware of what’s coming next so
that you can allocate your training and certification dollars wisely and with
an eye toward future development. A quick glance around tells you that IT
skills are constantly evolving and you don’t want to be left behind.
4. Find the path to
your dream job. It's a safe observation that even though no one wants to
remain in an entry-level job for their entire career, you have to start
somewhere. Defining your interests and matching them with IT specialties will
help you set career goals. From there, there are tools to help you determine
your path and the certifications you need to earn to get there. CompTIA’s
Career Roadmap is a vendor-neutral resource. It’s also updated regularly,
making it easy to see how you get from “A” to “B” if you are starting today.
The one thing that is agreed upon
by all participants in the article is that ongoing IT investment and
certification is a sound investment in your career—particularly
performance-oriented training and certification programs which have the
advantage of proving that you can apply what you learned.
What's the Best CompTIA A+ Certification Study Guide?
With more than 1 million A+ certified
individuals world-wide, CompTIA A+ certification is one of the most popular
certifications for IT professionals to earn. Pearson VUE has created the
ultimate CompTIA A+ certification study guide in the CompTIA
A+ Deluxe eBundle. This comprehensive preparation
kit contains all the necessary tools to prepare for the CompTIA A+ 220-801
and 220-802 certification exams.
Key to this bundle is the CompTIA A+ (220-801 & 220-802)
Authorized Cert Guide, Deluxe Edition, which is a comprehensive
resource in itself. Published by Pearson IT Certification, it is the go-to
learning resource for everything CompTIA A+.
Highly
respected authors Mark Soper, David
Prowse and Scott Mueller team up to share preparation and test-taking tips with
the goal of helping you to identify and master your areas of weakness and
strengthen your grasp of concepts and hands-on skills. Their concise style is enhanced
by full color graphics that strengthen your understanding of the material. And,
because this is an eBundle, you can start studying almost immediately after
purchase. With this eBundle there’s no waiting for books to arrive in the mail.
Once access keys to the purchased materials are delivered to your email and you
have easy online access to begin your exam preparation right away.
Also included in this eBundle are two MeasureUp
practice tests and two exam vouchers, one each for the 220-801 and 220-802
exams.
MeasureUp is the leading provider of
certification practice tests and assessments for IT professionals. Whether
taking instructor-led training or embarking on a self-study regime, these two
practice tests are critical for mastering the objectives of the CompTIA A+ exam
objectives.
MeasureUp
ensures that all objectives of the exam are covered in depth in the practice
tests so you'll be ready for any question on the exam. The practice tests are
written by industry experts in the A+ subject matter. MeasureUp practice test
developers work closely with certification providers to understand the exam
objectives, participate in beta testing and take the exam themselves before
creating new practice tests.
MeasureUp
practice tests provide the following benefits:
- Online performance-based simulations give hands on work environment experience
- Questions are similar to exam questions so you test your knowledge of exam objectives
- Detailed explanations for both correct and distractor answers reinforce the material
- Study Mode covers all objectives ensuring topics are covered
- Certification Mode (timed) prepares students for exam taking conditions
- Instant, drill-down score reports tell you exactly the areas to focus on.
And when you are ready to sit for your A+ exams, included in this eBundle are two CompTIA A+ exam vouchers, one each for 220-801 and 220-802 exams. The exams have an expiration date of one year from date of purchase, so you have ample time to prepare to take the exams without the pressure of a looming test date.
What’s
included in the CompTIA A+ Deluxe eBundle:
- The Premium Edition eBook and Practice Test contains the following items:
- The A+ 220-801 and 220-802 Premium Edition Practice Test, including eight full practice exams and enhanced practice test features
- PDF and ePUB formats of the CompTIA A+ 220-801 and 220-802 Authorized Cert Guide, Deluxe Edition from Pearson IT Certification, which are accessible via your PC, tablet, and smartphone
- Premium Edition practice test:
- An enhanced version of the Pearson IT Certification Practice Test (PCPT) software with eight full practice exams.
- All
the end-of-chapter assessment questions from the book.
Direct links from each question to detailed tutorials to help you understand the concepts behind the questions. - Unique sets of exam-realistic practice questions.
- Performance tracking and feedback on a module basis, fully assessing your knowledge and helping you to discover areas requiring further study
- The MeasureUp A+ Practical Application (220-801) 30-Day Practice Test contains 245 questions covering the following objectives:
- PC Hardware
- Networking
- Laptops
- Printers
- Operational Procedures
- The MeasureUp A+ Practical Application (220-802) 30-Day Practice Test contains 275 questions divided among the following topics:
- Security
- Mobile Devices
- Troubleshooting (120)
- Two CompTIA A+ (220-801 & 220-802) exam vouchers. These vouchers are only valid for use at a Pearson VUE test center in the USA. Vouchers expire 12 months from date of purchase.
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