Microsoft, in a mysterious move, have offered anyone with a valid shipping address in the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom, a free TechNet Professional subscription.

As Neowin points out, it may well not be for absolutely everyone, but it does appear to be so. Confirmation will be needed from Microsoft but as of yet, they are not commenting on this. Still, if it works for you, you will have access to a wealth of Office, Windows and Dynamics software for three months for absolutely nothing.

Once you make your way through the online “ordering” process, you will receive an email confirmation shortly afterwards. This will provide you with download links and your access information to begin downloading.

Hmmph looks like the rest of us miss out.

This post was retrieved from Zack W’s blog @ http://blogs.zdnet.com/igeneration (check it out)- hopefully he dosen’t mind

[Update]: Ars Technica is reporting that this offer may not be for one year as first thought, but only three months. Never-the-less, it’s best to get in early and make the most of this while you can.

[Update 2]: It appears as though there are errors in requesting keys and we are hearing that this offer may have been limited to a select few rather than public. Microsoft has not officially responded to requests for comment. (Neowin)

Check out Kristan Keeny’s Site for latest update

Education is one of the primary reasons to which computers were developed. For the aspiring student, doing their homework and doing research has never been easier considering that they can type and do computations through the various software such as MS Office installed in standard desktops.

Businesses as well have benefited and has become a learning experience. Imagine doing away with the standard manual means of doing business to produce timely business reports pertinent towards overall assessment business performance. Through computers, much of the reports have become easy to produce and pinpoint should there be figures up in question.

In all aspects of life, it shows that computers have surely showed the way. Children today should be happy that computers came to be during their time. Learning and enhancing their studies has opened a lot of doors as far as methods of learning is concerned. In short, a lot of time and methodologies make education these days totally advanced.

There are still families without computers and while they aspire to have one, finance constraints have become an issue. But just the same, they are provided proper exposure through schools today which are normally offering computer courses and lessons to familiarize students of their use and benefits as they progress.

Indeed, a computer is a child’s partner and is a good investment. All that really remains is knowing up to what extent you can invest on them. Whatever the amount would be, it is a good one considering it helps in practically all aspects of our life these days.

If you are a Microsoft Certified Systems Administrator (MCSA) or a Microsoft Certified Systems Engineer (MCSE) on Windows Server 2003, you can now transfer your skills to achieve multiple Microsoft Certified Technology Specialist (MCTS) certifications or Microsoft Certified IT Professional (MCITP) credentials on Windows Server 2008.

For the first time, the transition path is available before the product release. If you have a Windows Server 2008 certification on your resumé, you have an excellent opportunity to catch the eye of early adopter organizations. Microsoft Learning developed this transition path to recognize the investment and expertise you have demonstrated throughout your certification history—don’t miss your chance to take advantage of these new certifications.

Your path consists of one exam, which allows you to earn multiple Microsoft Certified Technology Specialist (MCTS) certifications on Windows Server 2008.
-First step: Take one exam to earn MCTS certification on Windows Server 2008

From there, you can complete the remaining requirements for one or both of the Microsoft Certified IT Professional (MCITP) certifications for Windows Server 2008.
-Your transition path from MCSA on Windows Server 2003 to MCITP 
-Your transition path from MCSE on Windows Server 2003 to MCITP

Because there is a significant technology gap between Windows 2000 Server and Windows Server 2008, only IT professionals with specific Microsoft Certifications on Windows Server 2003 can utilize these transition or upgrade paths. In addition, there is no upgrade path from messaging or security specializations to Windows Server 2008 certifications.

 Check out all the details here:
Thanks Microsoft

Microsoft has just launched Microsoft Student Experience beta.
This site has a lot of features and useful information which is predominantly targeted at students.  
The site contains information from Microsoft internships, getting discounted software ( e.g. obtaining Microsoft Office 2007 Ultimate for just $600) to a set of How-To’s.

So if you are a student or just interested in the site-Check it out… 

… its a silverlight enabled site-although is still able to be browsed without it

Why does your degree certificate say the same thing mine does when you can’t program and I can? I was reading an article recently on codinghorror titled, Why Can’t Programmers..Program? and it got me thinking. You see I often wondered about these people at university and what would happen to them after they graduated. You know who they are. The people that failed or repeated multiple and in some cases, countless subjects over the course of their degree. What’s more, some even failed the same subject multiple times. As if once wasn’t enough!

Not all programmers created equal

Yet they still continue on to get that piece of paper at the end that dictates they are a competent programmer and are worthy of the Computer Science Degree they received it for. When it all comes down to it, on paper at least, they look and appear as ‘qualified’ as their real graduates. Now you obviously know these ones. They are the ones that probably didn’t fail a single subject in their entire degree, they worked hard to never get a single assignment in late. Some of them, may even have achieved distinction averages across the board or higher. So how is it we produce two polar opposites, two opposite ends of the spectrum and they get a piece of paper that draws equal?

This type of equality Jeff advocates as a slap in the face…

…I am disturbed and appalled that any so-called programmer would apply for a job without being able to write the simplest of programs. That’s a slap in the face to anyone who writes software for a living.

But whose fault is it really?

Because that’s what graduates do. Whether they can actually program or not. Once they get that piece of paper, they go out into the work force and look to slap somebody in the face, or at least in Jeff’s mind….and I’m of a mind to agree with him too. But I’m not entirely sure it is their fault (yes I know we are all responsible for our own actions).

I would further extend this slap to the universities in question. After all, they are the ones producing graduates who supposedly can’t do what their certificate says they can do. Is it not their responsibility to ensure that those that do get through, that do receive that certificate of completion can actually do what it says they do? Because if it isn’t, than they may as well hand them out (graduate certificates) like every other flyer handed out at universities.

Jeff raises for loops, recursion, data structures (specifically the linked list) and other simple tasks into the lime light advocating that in his experience, most programmers struggle with the basics. He even pointedly targets Master’s graduates and experienced (or so called) programmers with time behind their belt. Now I’m currently undertaking a masters and I’d like to think I gave a check (a very big one at that) to all those tasks before I even considered doing further study. So tell me why their degree paper says the same thing mine does when they can’t do what I can do?