1/30/2008 -- The beta period for Oracle's Enterprise Linux System Administration exam (1Z1-403), which became available Nov. 20, has been extended to Feb. 29. The exam -- a requirement for Oracle's Enterprise Linux Administrator Certified Associate certification -- consists of approximately 200 questions and costs $50.

Key domain areas are:

• Boot process & SysV init
• Client networking
• Filesystem administration
• Installing enterprise Linux
• Linux kernel compilation
• LVM & RAID
• PC hardware and Linux
• Post-install system configuration
• Security concepts
• Task automation and process accounting
• The X window system
• Troubleshooting
• User/group administration and NFS

More information on this exam can be found here.

JBoss Certification Discontinued
As of Jan. 1, Red Hat was no longer making the JBoss certification exams available due to the merely "modest interest" in the current program. Training, however, will still be available.

Red Hat has stated that it will offer another certification program "only when we can offer a program that provides the same value to certification holders and their employers we have provided with Red Hat Certified Engineer and our other performance-based certifications. Bringing a meaningful developer credential to market is an enormous challenge, but one we look forward to exploring in partnership with the JBoss community."

More information on the discontinuation can be found here.

Book of the Week: 'Windows Vista Sidebar'
I think of myself as a visual person. If you can show me what you're trying to say with a figure, I'll understand it much quicker than if I have only some text to look at and I'm left to visualize it in my head.

One of the best books I've found in a long time that appeals to that region of my brain is Dave Konopka's Windows Vista Sidebar: Your Visual Blueprint for Developing Cool Gadgets for the Windows OS. Clocking in at 320 pages, Windows Vista Sidebar is printed in two-color throughout -- black and blue -- to resemble an architectural blueprint. Tasks are usually two pages long and full of graphics, with a plethora of callouts and concise text. This layout makes understanding the task simple and enjoyable -- something that's rare to say about a computer text.