6/3/2009 -- As of June 1, Microsoft Certified Professional (MCP) certificates are being issued digitally instead of printed and mailed.

While this is good news from a "go green" perspective, it's also good in that it allows new MCPs to access their cert more quickly, save it and send it to an employer as needed. Supposedly, the certificates will be accessible immediately after the completion of the exam.

If you still want the old piece of paper from Microsoft that represents an official certificate, don't worry -- you'll be able to order those beginning July 15 (this will entail shipping and handling charges, though).

A+ Objectives Finalized
After several months of tweaking, the final A+ exam objectives have now been finalized and posted on the CompTIA site.

Among the biggest changes? The number of exams has been cut from four to two. Previously, candidates had to take the Essentials exam (220-601) and their choice of one of the "Technician" exams (220-602, 220-603 or 220-604) to become certified. Now, you must take the Essentials exam (220-701) and the Practical Application exam (220-702).

Here's the final weighting of the domains for the Essentials exam:

And the final weighting of the domains -- which has changed in the past month -- is now as follows for the Practical Application exam:

CompTIA is looking for subject-matter experts to help determine the cut score for the new exams (the workshop for the Practical Application exam is scheduled for June 15 to 19). The exams are slated to go live in August, though the existing A+ exams (220-601, 220-602, 220-603 and 220-604) will remain available as options until July 31, 2010.

Book of the Week: 'Computer Repair with Diagnostic Flowcharts'
I always enjoy when someone takes a different approach to a topic and finds a methodology better than anyone else has. When it comes to basic PC and repair information, there's anything but a shortage of books (as a quick skim of titles at Amazon.com will confirm). There is, however, a shortage of books that are useful and not just repeats of the same old material ("Pin 1 has a red stripe...").

Out of this glut comes Morris Rosenthal's appropriately titled Computer Repair with Diagnostic Flowcharts: Troubleshooting PC Hardware Problems from Boot Failure to Poor Performance, Revised Edition. This book starts each section with a problem followed by a flowchart to walk through diagnosing and then setting solving it. It manages to do in a little over 100 pages what so many others fail to do in over 1,000, yet it's small enough to fit in your bag each time to get called to the field.