Happy New Year

This is to wish everyone a Merry Holidays and a Happy New Year. Next Year will bring a lot of changes, some of them good and some of them not. Either way they will bring opportunity that everyone can take advantage of and it will be exciting.

Certification Crazy

Linux Certification I've found a new certification web site which does a decent job of organizing the different options one has for preparing for a Linux Certification. Later in the month of January I will highlight some of the sites they feture through their links and try and find some gems that people should be aware of.

In the mean time I wish everyone a happy holidays and hope you're lookinf forward to the new year, there will be alot happening!!!

Brainbench

Brainbench Brainbench is offering up a free test for their Linux Administration exam. For anyone who is unfamiliar with the Brainbench site they offer a simple way to try and qualify your experiences.

I know some jobs accept a brain bench certification as an actual certification and I know other's have no idea who brainbench is. Either way if you currently have the knowledge or experience, this is a simple and fast way to judge where you are at in regards to where others are at.

If you have some free time it's worth the time for a look around their site to see what else they offer up.

Novell Certified Linux Professional Practicum Now Available

Novell Certified Linux Professional Practicum Now Available Ed Tittel has a little bit more information regarding the Novell Practicum. It looks like most of the free test slots have been filled up. From what he mentions the pricing for the tests should be around $195 but Novell should come out with a formal announcement.

He also has a link to the Novell site which goes into a little more information regarding the basics of the exam from Novell’s site.

CertCities.com's 3rd Annual Readers' Choice Awards

CertCities.com's 3rd Annual Readers' Choice Awards Somehow I missed this from earlier this month. It looks like the Red Hat Certified Engineer certification is the favorite with many thinking LPI and Novell will make a good showing next year. CompTIA's Linux+ also has a good showing.

Overall a good article to show what people had an interest in over the past year.

Red Hat People: Can I be RHCE?

Red Hat People: Can I be RHCE? The Red Hat People blog has some info on becoming RHCE. It's interesting that some poeple look at the RHCE as a beginning certification.

Maybe after taking this exam several times he might be able to pass, but that brings up the question of wether passing a certification exam without the experience behind it makes a good combination.

I've been busy writing some articles concerning Linux certification and hopefully I can link to them after they're published. I'll post something once I have more news.

Linux.com | How to get a job as a Linux administrator

Linux.com | How to get a job as a Linux administrator Occasionally, I like to post articles which help give guidelines as to what someone can do to prepare for certain jobs. I hope this help some of you out there.

She also talks about several items which future admins should be aware of when they are preparing themselves for a future as a Linux Admin. A good article overall and well worth the time spent reading it.

CompTIA Linux - Linux career - An Interview with Yvonne Keith, Linux Certification Program Manager for CompTIA (the Computing Technology Industry As

CompTIA Linux - Linux career - An Interview with Yvonne Keith, Linux Certification Program Manager for CompTIA Yvonne is involved with the Linux+ program and this interview was conducted earlier this year. Some of the information is dated but still good informationnone the less.

Hope you enjoy.

Linux, Security Certifications Gain Popularity

Linux, Security Certifications Gain Popularity There are a couple of good articles here. The main article is here and there is a Certmag.com article "The Big Payoff: CertMag’s 2004 Salary Survey" which says the same thing with more proof.

A good point the first article mentioned is that the results showed that during 2004 Microsoft certifications were a good investment. "Next year will be an interesting one for IT certifications," said Henry Allain, CertCities' group publisher. "As the eclectic mix on this year's hot cert list shows, Cisco, Microsoft and security certifications will continue to do well, but 2005 may be anything but typical. This diversity can only be good for the industry as well as for individual IT professionals."



It looks like it will be a good time to be involved with Linux over the next couple of years.

Which OS Are You?

BBspot - Which OS Are You? Yes! I know this has nothing to do with certification, BUT I still think it's a fun site to visit to get to know yourself better. Have fun.

Techworld.com - Red Hat and IBM join hands for Linux certification

Red Hat and IBM join hands for Linux certification I haven't had much time to look over this article, but i still wanted to put something up so I can remember to come back and look over what is covered here.

************ UPDATE

This is for software vendors who are looking to prove their applications work on Linux, and more specifically on all versions of Linux. Linux Pipeline has a follow up article, and LWN has a mention of this piece of news.

I know this blog focuses on skills certification and the job market for those skills, but this is also an important piece of news to keep in mind. Simple put programmers need a way of getting their applications out into the marketplace. It helps if there is a vertification process to verify that their applications work universally on the different flavors Linux.


************** Further UPDATE
It looks like this story has a few more legs to it. Slashdot.org has started a page on this idea and most of thepeople here say it is a good idea for the long term Linux movement. This will make it easier for developers to provide applications that are certified for any Linux vendor.

Open Source: Skills Shortage Could Mean Growing Pains for Open Source

Linux News: Open Source: Skills Shortage Could Mean Growing Pains for Open Source LinuxInsider has an article about a possible Linux Skills shortage in the near future. These conclusions are coming from a Forrester Research report, Dice.com report and interviews with other IT managers.

Contracting these ideas are Novell and RedHat on the other side who claim they are not seeing any shortages of people at all. Novell and RedHat are looking at the ease of retraining Unix people and the belief that new college grads have better open source skills than in the past.

It will be interesting to see how these ideas play out over the near future.