Another day dawns and the career factor gang were no where to be seen for a 7am start from the hotel.

Breakfast was good (welcome back hot food) and i barely noticed the hike back to my first session of the day, an exam cram for 70-432 SQL maintenance and deployment.

I've had on the backburner a wish to try and get at least the TS certifications for SQL 2008 (both Admin and Dev) if only to be able to talk no a par with candidates when we are looking for SQL skills. I found the session to be pretty informative and a good guide to what to expect in the exam. Something that really jumped out at me during the talk was the 80/80 comment - Exams are notionally developed to target skills being used by 80% of the target audience 80% of the time, a reasonable target, but not one that i was seeing hit when discussions were held around the room regarding technologies that were being given a high coverage factor in the exam yet the room was not using them, with this and my experience with the developer certifications I have to question how exactly they are determining these usage figures.

After that it was on to the show floor to spend some time at the Microsoft Learning area chatting with some of the people who put together the exams and also writing yesterday's post, my major career factor commitments are over for the week, but I still feel obliged to blog regularly whilst we are here.

Highlight of the afternoon, a developer session, a tool that i have had my eye on for a while now, SketchFlow and i'm completely sold on it. In a nutshell it allows a developer/designer to quickly mock up a sample UI for an application complete with transitions and data to allow for evaluation/proof of concepts etc, this then coupled with the viewer allows for feedback to be given by stakeholders without wasting a lot of time on writing the code that would normally be required to achieve similar in Visual Studio. Best of all, no chance of it being taken and shipped in its current form as has happened with previous concept applications.

Our attempts to dine at the Hard Rock Cafe before the evenings Springboard party were thwarted by it being completely closed for a private party. Worked out pretty well really as instead we hit the Legal Seafood restaurant.  Mighty fine food, just make sure you have a reservation and be prepared to wait if its busy.

Onwards and downwards to the Springboard gig,  (well actually upwards as the party was on the top floors of the same building). Twinges of regret that we had just eaten so well as the food here was good as well, we mingled with the crowds, Rabeb had a photo call with The Mark Russinovich and then we moved on to try and find a place for Caroline to watch the hockey.

We ended up at the Quest party at Halo, a club right by our hotel, no food, but plenty of drink and goood pours!  Final port of call for the evening was the hotel bar where those who were lasting the night put the world to right.

Only one day to go and it's the big closing party night. I really don't want this week to end, the connection that we as a group have made here means that I know already how much I'm going to miss each and every one of my fellow cast members, we came together just 6 months ago with a passion for technology and learning, we met for the first time a mere 5 days ago yet I feel as though we have been friends for life and really hope that we stay in touch with each other when this is all over.  Thank you all I've had a fantastic journey with you.

That's all from me for now, I expect it will be the weekend or early next week before i get a chance to post my final Teched update.  Until then i raise a glass to all those involved with Career Factor and to each and everyone of my followers.

/SiD