 | By: Beatrice Mulzer Harry Brelsford Binding: Paperback Publisher: SMB Nation Press ISBN: 097485803X ISBN-13: 9780974858036 Released: 21 Jun 2005 RRP: Average Rating:  |
Yes the book is full of cross referencing to a couple of other books - this book is unashamedly a book on passing the exam & is 350 pages in total - the two books it cross references total about 1800 pages - which is probably fine as reference books but not for reading from cover to cover!
Yes a lot of the exam material is related to Windows 2003 which is covered quite quickly in the book, but if you get to understand the wizards in SBS & what they are actuallly manipulating behind the scenes then you should understand Windows 2003. At the end of the day SBS is a bundle of Windows Server, Exchange, Sharepoint.... & I would expect a product specialist some sort of understanding as to how the underlying products work not just how to drive the SBS wizards.
A big part of the exam is also related to the "consultancy" side of things & being able to actuallly correctly identify which products are best suited to clients situation & being able to say things like "yeah I could sell a 1 man business a SBS system but 2 copies of XP Pro will provide the customer the remote access functionality to the business from home that's required". I guess the last thing Microsoft want is to produce load of people who are technicallly product competent but can't grasp the concept of how a smalll business works & then give them a bad name as having a load of specialists who try to flog inappropriate products for the customer needs.
What I would suggest is that you if you are a Microsoft Partner Programme member - which is where this MCP & book are aimed I would say then make full use of the free Microsoft Hands-On learning in the Microsoft Online Learning Centre. If you finish or get bored of following the tasks then you can just mess around & explore the software with the knowledge that at the end of it you can exit & not worry about messing up a live system or need to rebuild or reimage a system.
In some ways I like the way this book works - it gives you a foundation but then expects you to go away & actuallly expand on it by exploring the product which probably is better way of learning for most people than trying learn parrot fashion.
Ultimately as much as I put this book down thanks to it I now have the MCP to prove it can't be that bad - having never reallly used SBS 2003 before.
Hope you found that helpful
The technical information is almost none, the advertising in the book is massive, the humor terrible.....
Throughout the book there is advertising for the authors other books with lines like 'for more information read xxx book'
The chapters in the book contain next to no technical information at alll, just waffle about talking to clients. Might be great if this was an 'impove your business' book, but I need the facts required to pass the exam, not how to run my company.
At the end of the each chapter there are set of question which appear not to be releated to the chapter. I picked up some information from these questions but this should be in the chapters. (for example the ONLY place the minimum specs for 2003 sbs are mentioned are explain the answer to a question)
There are a few good comments on the Microsoft Exam techniques (but having done Microsoft exams before I found little use to this).
I have also looked at the amazon.com comments on this book, which say the 1st edition of this book as major faults (like answer E for a question with only for answers!)
As I paid for the book I have read through it, but would not pay for it if I had know what it was like before.
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