MCTS - Microsoft Certified Technology Specialist

MCTS is the certification exam provided by Microsoft to enable you to prove your specialization in Microsoft technologies. For now, Microsoft is providing eight exams under this category. They are :

Technology Specialist: .NET Framework 2.0 Web Applications
Technology Specialist: .NET Framework 2.0 Windows Applications
Technology Specialist: .NET Framework 2.0 Distributed Applications
Technology Specialist: SQL Server 2005
Technology Specialist: SQL Server 2005 Business Intelligence
Technology Specialist: BizTalk Server 2006
Technology Specialist: Microsoft Office Live Communications Server 2005
Technology Specialist: Microsoft Windows Mobile 5.0 Applications

.NET Framework 2.0 Web Applications

This certification is for you, if you want to prove your specialization in .NET web applications.

You have to take the following two exams to get this certification.

Exam 70–536: Microsoft .NET Framework 2.0 - Application Development Foundation This exam tests your skills in the following areas. This exam can be taken either in VB.NET,C#, or C++.
- System types and collections
- Threading
- Configuration,
- Serialization
- Security
- Interoperability
- Reflection
- Globalization in .NET 2.0.
Exam 70–528: Microsoft .NET Framework 2.0 - Web-Based Client Development. This exam covers web application development with ASP.NET in .NET. The following are the main areas in this examination. This exam can be taken either in VB.NET or C# .
- Web controls
- State-management, configuring, site navigation and validation
- ADO.NET, XML , Data-Bound controls
- Creating custom web controls
- Tracing, Configuring, and Deploying Applications
- Customizing and Personalizing a Web Application - master pages, themes etc.
- Implementing Authentication and Authorization
- Creating ASP.NET Mobile Web Applications

Books

For the above exams, Microsoft Press provides two books one for 70-536 and one for 70-528 as follows:

MCTS Self-paced Training Kit (Exam 70-536): Microsoft .NET Framework 2.0 - Application Development Foundation - Tony Northrup and Shawn Wildermuth
MCTS Self-paced Training Kit (Exam 70-528): Microsoft .NET Framework 2.0 Web-Based Client Development- Tony Northrup and Shawn Wildermuth

Each of the above book would cost you Rs.795/- and each comes with a CD that contains ebook and practice tests.

Useful Resources

For details syllabus and other details, access Microsoft website at http://www.microsoft.com/learning/mcp/mcts/default.mspx.

You can get more information and test exams from the following websites as well.

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Srikanth.