Good book for preparing for the 70-528
There's not a lot of good resources out there for studying for this test, but this one did help get me what I needed to know to pass it.
Leaning ASP.NET Basic
I have read several ASP.NET books since I have been using .NET technology 2003. I had more deep understanding about ASP.NET from reading this book than any others. Of course, it's not perfect, but you will learn lots of things from the book. A+++
A good survey of the material
This book presents a good survey of the material covered on the exam. It is for the most part well written. There are some areas where the book seems to rely on a list of steps to take without much explanation. The one area where I was seriously unprepared was mobile controls. The book covers this topic sparingly, but my exam seemed to focus strongly on it.
WOOHOO! PASSED ON FIRST TRY!!
The book does exactly what it promises - it covers whats going to be on the test! If you read the book from end to end; do the exercises and use the transcender tests - then you will pass with no problems. I have to stress though that you need to read and study the book! The exam covers the correct way to administrate and deploy websites and how to configure your apps for various security and user profile scenarios. It also covers those things that you'll probably never use (i.e. programming against mobile devices) but if you want to pass then you have to study up on it. Also be sure to know how to work with xml and be familiar with the xml namespace classes. Also, know your basic ado.net concepts and how to hook up your data aware controls (i.e. combobox and gridview). All of these were covered in the book. Bottom line, read the book, study it, do the transcender tests and you should pass.
Covers material, but the 'finish' is somewhat lacking
for a $50 book, I would expect there to be very few or no typos. While definitely not the worst tech book in this regard, there are some definite 'fit and finish' issues that could be resolved by employing a stricter editor. This is particularly important when the book is centered around exam preparation.
Over all, when paired with on-the-job-experience and other tools (like Self Test Software's exam prep materials) the material in this book does a reasonable job preparing one for the exam.
As an aside, forests everywhere would breathe a sigh of relief if MSPress would just provide these training materials in electronic form (as they are on the provided CDs). The only reason I cracked the book was to retrieve the CD.
