New to Sharepoint

Question

Being new to sharepoint, and there being an urgency in my learning the technology quickly, where is the best place to start... Books to buy, sites to research from etc not sure whats out there? I know i have around a fortnight before i am looking to pass the 70-667 exam (Yeah right, before i ask to take it again).

EDIT: Also, does anyone have any idea why the 70-667 exam has been out for so long yet the training kit still is not?

Answer 1

Microsoft offers a "Second Shot" retest option for certification exams. Specifically, if you pay around 15% more for the first exam, you get a voucher that will let you retake it again at a later date if you do not pass the first try.

Also, if you are working for a Microsoft Partner then your company has access to the Partner Learning Center which include a large library of training sessions, demos and more. It is definitely worth looking into.

Answer 2

The exam hasn't been out that long in comparison to other Microsoft certs (less than one year since the Beta exams came out).

Best thing to do is to read this page: http://www.microsoft.com/learning/en/us/exam.aspx?ID=70-667#tab2 Then look up the Skills Measured on TechNet: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sharepoint/default

Answer 3

Sign up for a cloud trial instance of SharePoint. Then, watch the Lynda guide. http://www.lynda.com/SharePoint-2010-tutorials/essential-training/65720-2.html This will teach you what a working instance of SharePoint is for... yes that does take a couple of days or so of full-time learning. It's important to know this before you try to set it up, otherwise you'll be completely lost.

Chuck the could trial instance and start reading Microsoft Press SharePoint Administrator's Companion book. When you feel comfortable, start to build your own environment in VMs. You'll probably want a TechNet subscription to get all the software (or use trials - don't use foundation), and you'll need a 4 core machine with 8GB RAM and 200GB free space, minimum. 3 Tier architecture.

To be honest, I think you'd have to be already pretty knowledgable to pass this with only 2 weeks prep time. I would recommend skimming the companion book first, reading a few random pages in depth, and getting a feel for the complexity of the system. That'll give you a good idea on whether you should just give up now or not...