Visit the Microsoft Learning YouTube channel to check out some of the new playlists now available.  Some of the new playlists include:

• Microsoft Certification Tutorial: Let us help you get started on the path to professional certification. This snack will provide answers to frequently asked questions concerning where to start when getting certified, which certifications to take, prerequisites, and next steps on the certification journey. You'll also find information on job roles and how earning a Microsoft Certification helps show potential employers your commitment to continued learning and career growth.
• Managing and Troubleshooting with Microsoft SharePoint 2010: Microsoft SharePoint 2010 facilitates administration by providing several tools that help IT professionals efficiently manage data and troubleshoot any issues. This playlist describes the Large List Resource Throttling feature, which helps you manage large lists. It demonstrates how a SQL Server logging database can be used to log SharePoint events. The playlist also demonstrates how the SharePoint Best Practices Analyzer can be used to detect and automatically fix common issues.
• Desktop Experience in Windows 7: People who have more than one computer in their homes would want to create a home network so that they can easily share and access files and printers across the network. This playlist describes the new desktop and taskbar features in Windows 7 that help you effortlessly manage your applications, folders, and windows. It also demonstrates how to use features like Aero Peek and Aero Shake to manage open windows. This playlist will also show you to how create taskbar icons to easily access frequently used applications and Jump Lists to save files on your desktop without the clutter.

Check out the Microsoft Learning Channel on YouTube to find out more! Don't forget you can still get free training through Learning Snacks here.<-->

Thanks for taking a look at the previous post about our Cloud Comic. If you have time, drop us a short note to let us know what you think of this medium. Are comics a resource you think would be useful to have as part of your learning process? Would they work well for some technologies but not for others? Would you like to see more of this type of content from Microsoft?

In this post we are making the Cloud comic available as a PDF download. You'll find the remaining panels below followed by a link to download the entire comic.

Click here to download the Cloud comic.

On page 24, you'll notice a printing error where we did not update the Windows Azure link. Specifically, we link to the Chinese Windows Azure website instead of the English version of the Windows Azure website. This is because we brought the Chinese version of this comic to a conference in Beijing, China last November and missed this edit. So, perhaps the printing error will make this first edition extra valuable?

As we mentioned in a previous post, the Cloud comic has not been updated for a few months, so to ensure you get the most up-to-date information always visit the Windows Azure website.

In subsequent posts, we'll post the content from our PowerShell and Virtual Sprawl comics. Also, we are planning on hosting our Silverlight comic book viewer that we developed for online viewing of the comics. We'll have this ready in a few weeks. Later in the week, we'll have post explaining more about the process of going from technology to storyboard to comic panel. Again, let us know your thoughts, we hope to hear from you.

At last week’s RSA Conference in San Francisco, one of the key topics discussed was smartphone security. In this day in age where the smart phone is as capable and connected as a personal computer, many vendors predict that smartphones will become the next big target for malware. Although there have not been many documented mobile malware scares yet in the US, in many countries the problem has already arisen. 

One of the main concerns vendors say is that people put information on their smartphone that they may not put on their PC since their phones generally are never out of their immediate control so they feel more secure. However, it is that same mobility that puts them at risk - smartphones can be lost easily and they cross through myriad wireless networks on any given day. 

Similarly, the caution PC users exhibit when downloading and installing software on their PCs may not carry over to their smartphones even though their phones may be just as vulnerable. Fortunately many companies are taking preventative steps to ensure the security of their products with these risks in mind. The Windows Phone, for example, has a strict application development process making certain the security of its users’ information. 

According to the PCWorld coverage of RSA conference, many security software companies have either released or are planning to release a mobile security app of some sort showing that over the next few years a large emphasis will be placed on smartphone security and the development of smartphone security apps. This can be a huge opportunity for students looking to set themselves apart in searching for employment. Students with knowledge and skills in smartphone application development and security will prove to be valuable assets to their future employers. The ability to protect vital mobile information will become increasingly relevant as smartphone use and technology continues to grow. 

Students interested in learning more about mobile applications should familiarize themselves with Windows Mobile MCTS certifications.

What's happening on Career Factor? Read on to find out...

In an earlier post, we provided the first 10 pages of the Cloud comic. Today we give you the next nine pages. In the story, Zach and Leah get into the Cloud mindset and realize the applications of Windows Azure to their business. The informative text pages provide an overview of the Windows Azure platform. In case you missed them - look here for the first ten panels. Without further ado:

Come back soon for the last few pages - and the PDF!

We are introducing a new item type on our certification exams known as extended matching. Although it's new for us, it is an item type that is used frequently on medical licensure exams, and we're borrowing the idea. Here's how it works...

Several questions are written using the same set of answer choices, but the list of answer choices is "extended" to include more options than you would see for a typical multiple choice question. In other words, more than four answer choices are presented for each question. The most important piece of information that you need to know about these items is that the same answer choice could be correct for more than one question in the set, and some answer choices may not be the correct answer for any of the questions.

These items appear together on our certification exams. They are preceded by a brief introduction and instructions reminding you that an answer might be correct for more than one question or not correct for any. In some ways, this experience is similar to the experience you have when answering case study items--extended matching items with the same set of answer choices appear together on the exam because they are related to each other (i.e., they have the same set of answer choices); however, unlike our case study items, these items are not timed separately, and you can return to these items at any point until you submit the exam for scoring.

If you want to learn more about how this item type is used on other exams or to get a feel for what these items look like, see http://onlinetog.org/cgi/reprint/8/3/181.pdf

You will start seeing extended matching items on our exams as we begin rolling out this new item type. In time, they may appear on all of our exams, but we are currently investigating where they are most effective. The results of our early roll out of extended matching items will guide decisions on when and where they will be used.

Although this is something new for Microsoft certification exams based on an idea borrowed from medical exams, I hope it doesn't make you feel blue. Extended matching items are a more rigorous test of your skills and abilities than traditional multiple choice questions because they require candidates to understand under what conditions certain actions are correct and when they are not. I'm very excited about the possibilities that extended matching items adds to our item type portfolio and hope you see the value that they add to our certification program!

Want more of the online exam crams like the ones at last week’s Microsoft Certified Career Conference? Want to experience what TechEd North America attendees will in Atlanta? Want to do it for free?

Register for our next online Cram 4 Exam, taking place on Monday, February 28.

Microsoft Certified Trainer, Zachary Niemann, will share his knowledge on the Technology Specialist exam 70-640, TS: Windows Server 2008 Active Directory, Configuring. Zach is the owner of Training Experts, Inc. and has frequently been featured as one of the MCT Ambassadors delivering exam prep sessions at TechEd. He’s a highly knowledgeable and entertaining speaker, so don’t miss this chance to prepare for your exam with this expert.

Register Now! Monday, February 28, 2011 8am Pacific Time (What time is this in my region?)

Have you joined the special offers and updates mailing list from Microsoft Learning? Here's a good reason to sign up soon: 

In addition to announcements about exclusive deals and the latest training and certification resources, if you sign up by February 28, 2011 we'll give you free access to a pre-release excerpt of Beyond Bullet Points, 3rd Edition. This book won't be publicly available until the spring, but you'll get a sneak peek at bestselling author Cliff Atkinson's methodology for creating compelling presentations using PowerPoint. Keep your meetings interesting with this exclusive offer.

Enterprise search has grown in the last few years in multiple ways. Companies are learning about the many solutions needed to help them overcome all of their information access challenges. While the business challenges vary, the solution is the same; search. As a part of this solution, knowledgeable employees are a key element to the success of your business. To help you succeed with these is the education team at MSL FAST University.  We deliver the skills and knowledge necessary for students to increase their productivity. Employers want a highly trained staff of professionals who can provide quality service and boost company prospects for future business.  To face today’s challenges; search professionals require a high degree of product knowledge. Microsoft Learning’s FAST University teaches students how best to apply this knowledge to be effective in their daily roles. FAST University offers a variety of education services to meet the training demands of our students. We help build a strong foundation in search technology. We hope that this blog will give you a lot of useful information around the training programs and events that are available from FAST University.

MSL|FAST University

In an earlier post, we introduced the concept of comics and talked a little about what we had done and why. In this post we want to show you the first 10 pages of the Cloud Comic. The focus of the comic is on Windows Azure, which as most of you know is an Internet-scale cloud services platform hosted in Microsoft data centers around the world that provides a simple, reliable, and powerful platform for the creation of web applications and services. In the comic, together with Leah and Zach, you will learn about the cloud mindset and:

• The benefits of cloud computing
• The flexible features and options for storage and service management that Windows Azure offers...
• The application life cycle for Windows Azure applications

We originally produced this comic for TechEd, Japan last August (2010). But, had it translated into English for distribution on this blog. We'll do a few more posts with additional pages and then will release the entire comic as a PDF file for you to view, download, and distribute. Keep in mind that Windows Azure is a dynamic platform and some of the information in this comic may be out-of-date. So, remember to go to the Windows Azure website for the most current documentation. Please take a look and let us know your feedback and comments. Enjoy!

.... stay tuned for the rest of the comic...

Before we could start writing our first comic, we had to think about who our main characters would be. The process of developing our characters was educational journey that brought us leaps and bounds closer to publishing our first comic.

We knew that we wanted to reach out to the younger crowd, so we created two young IT professionals as our main characters. We thought our characters should be Chinese, because we knew we wanted to reach out to the Chinese market; the names given to them were "Xing" and "Ping.

Figure 1 – Xing's initial character panel. Compare facial features to the final art located at the end of this article.

Figure 2 – Ping's initial character panel. She will be revised to have a smaller chin and softer features in general.

We also chose to introduce a fun character, named Squishy. Squishy is a fantastic, mascot-type of character. He's modeled after those stress-balls you get at technology trade shows. (You know, the ones that help with Carpel Tunnel syndrome, and with getting your product's name out there.) Squishy guides our two main characters (and the reader) through the learning process.

After taking a look at the initial character designs, I felt that they weren't quite right somehow. We decided that we needed some outside feedback on the visual design and character development. I put together a focus group, using a sample of people I know who are fans of Anime and Manga. This group of people includes some diverse backgrounds, including American, northern Chinese, Japanese-American, and Korean-American.

Figure 3 – Initial version of Squishy. Note the small eyes. The eyes, we were told, should normally be as big as they are in the bottom-right frame.

I was amazed at how much feedback I got when I ran the character designs past my group. I was told that the names "Ping" and "Xing" might be insensitive, because the characters looked Caucasian (surprise! ), so why would they have Chinese names? Also, it was pointed out that our female character seemed too masculine, her appearance needed to be softer, and that she had a funny-looking chin. The guy was okay, albeit very generic-looking, and his chin also looked a bit overdone. As for Squishy, I was told his eyes were too small and beady; he looked a little bit like a villain. His eyes needed to be a lot bigger if he's going to be our comic relief.

Figure 4 – "Leah," revised panel. She laughs, she frowns. Note the improved chin line, softer facial features, and half-rimmed glasses. Eventually, we went with full frames - but these are cool, too.

We reviewed the feedback and thought about how we could improve our character development. We brainstormed new names for our characters, settling on "Zach" and "Leah." We wrote character descriptions for each one. Zach, we decided, needed to be the goofy one. He would be very smart, but not well-organized and a little silly. Leah would also be smart, but more interested in things like reading books, being organized, and getting things done on time.

We synthesized the feedback and passed it on to our artist, who provided a set of samples in return. We picked what we thought was the best work from the samples, choosing what seemed to be a more appropriate eye size for Squishy, and better proportions for Leah. I took the set of samples back to my group (we met every Wednesday), and asked for feedback on the improvements.

Figure 5 – The updated version of "Squishy." His eyes are now bigger and more adorable, similar to the large eyes that are prevalent in Anime publications.

The process was involved, but as you'll see in the final art, it was well worth it! The characters are better proportioned, and they have a more complete look in general. They look great!

That's it for now. Please respond, we appreciate hearing your thoughts and feedback. Tune in soon for some info on our Storyboarding Process and more panels from our comic on the Cloud!

Figure 6 – Final character art. This watermark is on the inside front cover of all three comics in this series.

In case you missed Ruth Morton's Live Meeting on Moving to the Cloud, you can now view the recording on demand.

Moving to the Cloud
Ruth Morton discusses BPOS and how cloud computing will change the game for IT managers and organizations. Ruth addresses what you need to think about from a business perspective, what skills are necessary, and how to look at your team’s roles/responsibilities in the new light of the cloud.

Watch Now.

Visit the IT Manager Portal for the full schedule of upcoming Live Meetings for Managers, to download meeting materials, and to view previous meetings on demand.

Check out all the great offers from Microsoft Learning Partners for course 10159. Eamonn provided a great overview of what you’ll get from the course in his recent blog. If you are still unsure, check out the course outline http://www.microsoft.com/learning/en/us/course.aspx?ID=10159A&Locale=en-us Registration for this course is required by the end of the month to enjoy the savings.

I recently worked with a small user assistance team at Microsoft to develop and prototype new form factors for presenting and publishing help content. Based on market research, we focused on comics and Silverlight-driven interactive experiences (more on that in a later post).

The comics were a fun project that garnered a lot of feedback and interest at several IT conferences. Each comic featured two characters, Leah and Zach, along with their light-hearted guide, Squishy (a stress ball come to life). To move the story forward, Leah and Zach were assigned typical tasks, such as automating the administration of the operating system and applications, combating virtual sprawl, and addressing concerns over moving to the Cloud. At the outset of this pilot project our goals were to:

• Improve customer satisfaction in Japan (we will share Japanese versions of the comics in a later post)
• Connect with IT Professionals under 30
• Entertain and engage people who may be curious about, but a little intimidated by, technology
• Get customers interested so that they dig deeper into the technology

We hope that you’ll enjoy the comics and find them useful. Feel free to distribute them (electronically and otherwise) and please let us know what you think. Do you like them? Obviously we’re not the only company to do this, but we want to know what you think and if you want to see more of this type of content? Do you prefer learning though comics as opposed to more traditional documentation? Some customers suggested the comics could be used as classroom educational tools, learning guides for user groups, and as casual desktop references (for example, the PowerShell comic). Here are some customer quotes from TechEd North America and TechEd Japan, 2010:

• “Nice way to humanize PowerShell.”
• “A great opportunity for reaching young people”
• “A newbie will keep this at their desk.”

In this first post, we’ve included the front cover and back cover of two of our comics below – please take a look! Reading your comments, we realized that in our previous post we had very small thumbnails. We've fixed that, so now you can get a better look at what we've done. Stay tuned in the coming weeks as we release all of the panels for all three of our comics.

In the next post we’ll describe how we developed our characters and early panels. In subsequent posts, we’ll show how we went from script to whiteboard to storyboard to final panels, how we developed a customized Silverlight application for online comic viewing, and the reaction we had in Japan to the project. As you read these posts, if you have any questions about the project or the process, let us know and we’ll talk about that as well. Your comments and participation in this blog will help set future direction for this project and other visual content efforts at Microsoft.

Thanks for reading and hope you enjoy the comics!

If you receive our MCP Daily Flash, you’ve seen in the announcement about some new and updated MCP Benefits. If you receive the weekly or monthly editions, here’s what you have to look forward to:

• MCP and MCT Member Sites: Look for a new site to launch later this year—we’re hard at work improving, simplifying, and polishing the site, and we think you’ll find it significantly easier to use and a lot more useful as well. Also coming soon: an updated Certification Planner tool
• Wallet Cards: By popular demand, they are coming back—and soon! Beginning April 4, 2011, you’ll be able to order your wallet card (complete with uploadable photo and Microsoft Tag). Similar to our certificates, there will be an ordering fee for the wallet cards.
• Virtual Business Cards: Also on April 4th—VBCs get a facelift, with a new UI, new themes and avatars, and Microsoft Tag integration.
• MCP/MCT eStore: A long overdue revamp is coming—including new items and lower international shipping rates. We’ll be rolling out the store region by region as our fulfillment vendors ramp up—the Americas will be first out of the gate, followed by Europe, the Middle East and Africa, and then Asia Pacific.

More information to come next month—in the meantime, we’d love to hear your feedback below!