I was really impressed after going through the structure of the book. It was well organized and the flow of topics was well maintained. It covers most of the topics and concepts required for getting started with WPF and building your application but the author expects you to have a good knowledge of .Net framework and basic programming knowledge. Examples like in most of the books are provided in C# and VB, so language over here is not more of an issue, and yes XAML is used too.

After reading this book I found it more focused to a developer and many of designer related topics like 2D and 3D are missing, but after going through the skill set required for this exam I found it to be quite comprehensive.

Also the point that I will like to make is that this book is totally meant for preparing for the exam and not quite useful if you are new to WPF and want to start learning it right away. For this will really recommend Pro WPF in C# 2008, with a caution that this book is language specific while the preparation guide is not.

My final verdict:

·  In-depth coverage of exam objectives and sub-objectives—plus instructive case studies and troubleshooting scenarios to enhance your performance on the job

·  300+ practice and review questions (in CD that comes along with the book)

·  Test engine that enables customized testing, pre-assessment and post-assessment, and automated scoring and feedback (in CD that comes along with the book)

·  Handy exam-mapping grid available at the end of index.

The point that I want to make is the patrons are just loyal to their brand, I guess it should be the other way around too. I would like to associate my self with the technology that am interested to work in rather than who created it. I was Java programmer in my academic days but when I moved to professional world I started to work on MS technologies just as I found that it was increasing my productivity, which was more important in my career at that point of time.

I had faced the similar problems when I wanted to by a new bike for myself. After taking test drive of couple of bikes I was confused about which bike to go for and even posted the same on some famous bike forums,over there I received a similar response. People actually transformed the topic to brand wars. Patrons were just loyal to their brands, not wanted to accept the fact about the other brand is better is some places. Each one trying to prove the brand the follow is immaculate, while the other one is not even worth a penny

This might be slightly OT but at some places the brand just takes the name for a specific technology. Still back in

Well in my point it should be cycle of loyalty, brands being more loyal to their customers return them with better products in the market and in return they find more patrons.

Be it Zune player which is more or less like Ipod, which definitely came into market existence after Ipod was a huge success. Even the rumors about ZunePhone to be launched are out having features much like iPhone. From phones I go to the software part of it i.e. the Compact OS For Mobile phones/PDA , Microsoft does have Windows Mobile with a good market share but this also came into existence after Symbian and Palm already had a presence in the market.

If we start to talk about OS, DOS never belonged to Microsoft and even the first versions of Windows OS were derived from iMac (source Fire in the Valley: The Making of The Personal Computer by Paul Freiberger and Michael Swaine). Later operating systems Like XP and Vista have a good resemblance to Mac OS and some flavor of Linux. If I talk about  Server based operating system Windows NT model was largely derived from VMS(not so well known though), but it was VMS which actually turned the tide for mainframes.

This mysterious series of replication stuff also continued when Microsoft announced Next Generation Windows Services (NGWS) now known as .NET framework which I fell is very much Java-like software programming language.

Now lets move to web, our very famous Internet explorer’s development started after the launch of Netscape Navigator. It gave a good competition to Netscape, but the later versions are highly inspired from Mozilla Firefox.Hotmail also was never developed by them, they just bought it. To keep its footprint in the search engine market they still don’t have a good answer to Google, rather the only answer they have is to buy out Yahoo.

Talking about  database systems, this concept was a major topic of discussion when in 1970’s Mr. E.F.Codd   drafted his 12 rules, Oracle and DB2 were the first to enter the market with their products, Microsoft entered at a very latter stage with SQL Server.

Microsoft’s Office products were also largely inspired from Lotus 1-2-3 the most famous spread sheet application which belonged to IBM (am not so sure about the real owner but right now it’s IBM).

Even in the gaming console business Microsoft has a fairly successful product XboX in the market but even over here they are not pioneer, just followers as in other cases.

This list goes on and on for me. The only place where I was unable to find any inspiration for a Microsoft product is its Surface. Also might be the case where Microsoft might have been the pioneers but they didn’t come out with the product before thier competitors. Even you might have figured out by now that while their competitors have just foothold in one or very limited area of business, they have mostly found a good foothold in most of the business/ventures they have entered into being more like Jackal of all trades, of course market leaders in many too.

To end on a lighter (much heavier for someone) note: The most innovative stuff I like about Microsoft is the blue screen of death, which I guess no other OS has been able to provide it as easily as Windows OS provide it.

Disclaimer: I am not Anti-Microsoft, I am a developer by profession and I work only on Microsoft technologies, it was just a thought of my mind and I posted it over the blog. The information may be wrong; I don’t mean to hurt anyone (especially Bill Gates and his army of loyal followers/programmers). 

It has been two weeks since I arrived in Austria, and today I was just looking at the expenses I had made in this past  couple of weeks and was trying to figure out how much euros I had actually saved in this period, sooner I realize that my saving are so good, after analysing(i love this word, used a lot in my software world) the expenses , I conclude(again from software world) some mistakes were committed by me and heavily by others, that made me poorer by those extra euros.

1. Knock: After arriving in Austria I took a taxi to my apartment, when getting of it I forgot to collect my suit, the moment I realized (which was much later than I had left the taxi) it, I called the Taxi driver (luckily I had his phone number) and asked him to return the same, he did exactly what i had asked him to do but he charged me 15 euros for his kind services.
2. Punch: We were invited for a party by our Austrian colleagues, without giving a second thought I went to party and ordered some of the most costliest dishes on menu card, later I realized we had to pay for ourselves as it was farewell party  for some of the employees who had resigned. So all I had to do now was to contribute 22 euros.
3. Blow: I trusted some of my Indian friends and went to shop for daily groceries as we were planning to cook. My friends invited the rest of the team for dinner as he realized I knew cooking and the entire stock was over in a flash.Damn, I had paid 32 euros for the groceries.
4. Final nail on the coffin: After I treated all my friends with my own cooked food I decided to give a break to cooking, hence today I went for lunch in nice canteen near our office, I didn’t had exact change for the amount and hence I paid 100 euros for the bill of 4 euros 90 cents I just got back 45 euros 10 cents, the lady said I had just paid her 50 euros.had an excellent debate,but I lost it. This was bit heavy on me and I could hardly even finish by lunch. So loss of 50 euros over here.

Left suit in taxi: 15 euros

Not thinking before ordering lunch at party: 22 euros

Treating friends for dinner: 32 euros.

Losing a debate to canteen owner: 50 euros

119 euros worth of learning : PRICELESS !!!!!!