C# 3.0 Unleashed

I’ve been doing a lot of supplementary reading to try and get myself to the point where I can pass the 70-536 exam. I’ve found a couple of books on Safari that have been pretty useful. C# 3.0 Unleashed: With the .NET Framework 3.5, in particular, has a lot of useful content. I’m putting an Amazon link below.

I link to Amazon frequently on this blog, but I never got around to signing up for an affiliate account, so I just went ahead and did that, so if you buy the book from this link, I’ll make a buck or two. Oh, and I just figured out that ABP was interfering with the fancy Amazon links, so I had to go ahead and tweak that again. I like ABP for blocking the really intrusive ads that some sites have, but I’m finding lately that it’s blocking stuff that I actually do want to see. I may have to look into tweaking it a bit more, to let more stuff through.

progress

I finally got through the security chapter in the 70-536 book.  And I got through chapters 13, 14, and 15 today too, so now I’ve just got one more chapter to go.  After that, I’m going to try getting through a practice test and see how I do on that. 

I have a feeling that I’m probably not going to do well on the practice test.  If that happens, I’ve got a few ideas lined up for reviewing the material and trying to get a deeper understanding.  First, I have access to some online training material from Element K through my ACM membership.  I’ll probably try working through some relevant material there and see if that helps.  Second, I’ve been compiling a list of references to coverage of exam topics in other books I own.  I will probably use that as a guide to do some supplemental reading.

crypto trouble

I just finished reading the Cryptography section of the 70-536 book.  While I do understand, conceptually, how all this stuff works, I have to say that I may be in trouble on the test if I really need to memorize the difference between, say, RIPEMD160 and HMACSHA1.  I can’t think of any reasonable mnemonic device that will help me remember that RIPEMD160 is a non-keyed hashing algorithm, and HMACSHA1 is a keyed hashing algorithm.

Scottish people are cool

I just realized that I’ve been paying a lot of attention to Scottish people lately.

I don’t have anything useful or interesting to say about this.  Just, yay for Scottish people.

.Net code access security

I got through two-thirds of chapter 11 in my 70-536 book today. This chapter covers application security, which is a pretty big topic, and one with which I’m not that familiar. Looking around for other reading material, I realized that Juval Lowy’s book Programming .NET Components has a chapter on security. I bought this book for the advanced .Net class I took at NYU last year, but never read far enough into it to get to that chapter. That seems to be the only book I have that covers application security though.

Looking around on the web, I see that Microsoft is dropping CAS in .Net 4.0, so I guess I’m learning this stuff just in time for it be replaced with something else. This blog entry at the .Net security blog has a bit more info on the .Net 4.0 CAS situation.

Big books


Big books
Originally uploaded by andyhuey

I just got the last of the three books that I need to read to get my “Web Developer on Visual Studio 2005” certification. I bought the first book at Borders, new, but the other two I got used from Amazon, really cheap. And they both still have the 15% off exam coupons in them, so I’m actually saving more money on the exams than I paid for the books. So, good deal, assuming I follow through and take all three tests!

Catcher in the Rye

I finished reading Catcher in the Rye last night. I’m not sure why it took me so long to get around to reading this book. There are a lot of other great books that I’ve never gotten around to reading. I think next up is maybe Catch-22 or For Whom the Bell Tolls. I’ve actually never read any Hemingway, and it seems like I should. I vaguely recall having a conversation with my father about a particular Hemingway novel that he liked. I can’t remember which one it was though.

Well, now that I’ve read Catcher in the Rye, and Salinger’s short story Laughing Man (which I read a year or two back), I should probably re-watch the Ghost in the Shell: SAC anime series. There are various references to Salinger throughout the series, and I think the series as a whole might make a little more sense, having read a bit of Salinger.

progress

Over the course of this week, I managed to get through chapters 6 through 9, and most of chapter 10, in the 70-536 book. I’d like to have finished chapter 10 today, but I’m feeling a little under the weather, and I can’t really concentrate on anything too complex right now. So maybe tomorrow, after a good night’s sleep.

I’m hoping I can get through the remaining chapters (11 through 16) next week, then take the exam on Saturday April 3, maybe.