CertGuardian

CertGuard, Inc. is proud to announce that Trancender.com has earned the esteemed CertGuard Seal of Approval for showing exemplary commitment to the IT Industry through the ethical and professional development of their Practice Tests. Transcender (a division of Kaplan, Inc.) has been dedicated to helping IT professionals prepare for IT certification exams since 1992.

In a combined effort to reduce the risk of candidates in the IT Industry from losing their certifications to fraudulent Practice Test Providers and to increase the value of the IT Certifications, CertGuard, Inc. has verified that the practice tests produced by Transcender are of the highest ethical and professional quality. We strongly believe that the materials produced by Transcender are 100% genuine and are not in violation of non-disclosure agreements put forth by the numerous certification vendors.

It is our firm belief that Transcender.com has your best interests at heart and that studying for your IT Certification exams with Transcender’s award-winning products will give you the best chance at passing any certification exam without risking your certifications. Transcender’s morals, ethics, and integrity stand head and shoulders above any other Practice Test Provider and it reflects in their study materials. For exam candidates and I.T. Professionals looking to obtain their I.T. certifications, you need Transcender’s practice tests, study materials and other resources if you want to make sure you’re going to earn your certifications.

Transcender has been a dependable Practice Test Provider since 1992 and their commitment to excellence has once again been proven. Transcender’s longstanding, dependable commitment is proof of their dedication to the IT Industry. CertGuard, Inc. is honored to be coupled with one of the most proficient and adept Practice Test Providers in the IT Industry.

For practice tests that are guaranteed to help you earn your certifications, please visit:
http://www.Transcender.com/ and http://www.CertGuard.com/

Amazingly enough, in the United States.  As you’ll see by the figures below, the numbers are incredibly overwhelming. Although our braindump stats continue to grow, these are the numbers we’ve come up with as of today.

This is only a portion of the data we have been collecting over the past couple years. We’re still debating on posting the actual ISP information of each of these braindump sites.

COUNTRY	COUNT	PERCENT
UNITED STATES	1270	80.69%
CHINA	93	5.91%
UNKNOWN	86	5.46%
UNITED KINGDOM	36	2.29%
GERMANY	22	1.40%
CANADA	16	1.02%
SINGAPORE	9	0.57%
RUSSIAN FEDERATION	7	0.44%
MALAYSIA	6	0.38%
KOREA, REPUBLIC OF	5	0.32%
HONG KONG	4	0.25%
NETHERLANDS	4	0.25%
PAKISTAN	3	0.19%
AUSTRALIA	2	0.13%
BAHAMAS	1	0.06%
GREECE	1	0.06%
ISRAEL	1	0.06%
LATVIA	1	0.06%
MOROCCO	1	0.06%
PHILIPPINES	1	0.06%
TAIWAN	1	0.06%
THAILAND	1	0.06%
TURKEY	1	0.06%
UKRAINE	1	0.06%
VIET NAM	1	0.06%
TOTAL	1574	100.00%

Click the following icon to add our feed to your Simply Headlines subscription:

Well it brings me great pleasure in announcing that I successfully completed my CIW Site Designer exam this morning and will be upgraded to a CIW Professional certification.  This exam was certainly more challenging than the Foundations exam.  It covers all the essentials of site development & design and also covers quite a bit of both basic and advanced web technologies.  I used a couple of large books volumes from Prosoft for my study material.  Also had some video tutorials on LearnKey featuring Andy Anderson for most of the discussions.  And I used practice exams from Measure Up. 

So this one is in the books!  I think now that I’m done with this I’ll probably get back on track to wrap up my A+ certification.  I have already taken and completed the CompTIA A+ Essentials exam but I still haven’t done the IT Technician exam.  So that’ll probably be next on my plate!  More to follow….

I was checking out my daily news (via Simply Headlines) and saw the heading “Obama unveils new presidential Web site” so I figured I’d go check it out.

To be honest, the site looks MUCH better. It’s clean, everything appears to be in order, you can actually find what you’re looking for. Anyways, that’s not the reason I’m here.

The reason I’m here today is to point out a little something I thought should be mentioned to those interested in the Intellectual Property being stolen from our Certification Vendors. The two following points were taken directly from this page (President Obama’s Agenda on Technology): http://www.whitehouse.gov/agenda/technology/

• Protect American Intellectual Property Abroad: Work to ensure intellectual property is protected in foreign markets, and promote greater cooperation on international standards that allow our technologies to compete everywhere.
• Protect American Intellectual Property at Home: Update and reform our copyright and patent systems to promote civic discourse, innovation, and investment while ensuring that intellectual property owners are fairly treated.

Of course there are many other points in his Technology Agenda, but since we (CertGuard) are primarily interested in the Intellectual Property of the Certification Vendors (which is being stolen from individuals abroad and at home), I wanted to bring these to light.

Not to shadow any of the REAL issues out there (like the economy, or Guantanamo Bay, or whatever else Bush did that is eating at you), but this is something that I will truly take an interest in over the course of the 44th President’s term.

So this morning, I received my new Dell XPS 630 desktop.  quad core Q6600 processor, WD VelociRaptor drive, dual GeForce 9800 GT 512MB video cards, 8GB of RAM running on Vista Home Premium 64-bit.  Now for my needs, it’s great.  Right now I just got on-board sound cuz I’m not much of an mp3 collector and I already own a decent sound card so if I really need it, I’ll just install it.

Ok so, I pull it out of the box and I’m quite eager to get it up and running to see how EVE Online runs on this.  I power it up and I start hearing this clicking sound about every 3 seconds.  And I’m immediately getting that “uh-oh” feeling.  I pop open the case and didn’t see anything out of place.   At the moment I didn’t really know what to make of it.  It literally sounded like a lawn gnome trying to kick its way out of my case.

So I call Dell Technical Support.  The last system that I owned was a Dell XPS 400.  I’ve been a Dell customer a while.  I like Dell.  And I’ve never had a single incident that has caused me to raise any red flags with them. When people ask me my opinion on computers to buy I always tell them if you can’t (or don’t want to) build your own - buy a Dell.  In my case, I didn’t want to build, so I bought :)  See how that works?

Tech support guy asks me whats up and I tell him there’s a lawn gnome trying to kick its way out of my case!  Ok, I didn’t really say that but wanted to.  After explaining the situation and letting him listen for himself he actually tells me, “Since it’s an out of the box system, let it run for a week and if the problem persists, call us back and we’ll remote in to do a diagnostics to see what the problem is.“  No joke.  I spent over $1700 on this thing and I’m suppose to give the lawn gnome a week to bust its way to freedom?

Well then I had to run off and do some errands.  Came back later this evening and took another more detailed look around.  Finally saw some small piece of plastic that was used to tie up some cabling inside to make it tidy - the tip of it went through the power supply case; keeping the fan from running.  That was the clicking sound.  And the tech wanted me to wait a week to see if the problem persisted :o)

So - Dell, if you are watching and listening, I still love ya.  Even though the tech support I spoke to seemed like he was really not that interested and gave advice that would have most certainly made matters worse 7 days from now had I followed it with blind faith.  This will go down as my one and only negative with them so far.  Hopefully it remains as such.  In the mean time, I’m loving the new setup.  It’s good stuff!  And I got my Site Designer exam scheduled for Thursday this coming week so I got to get back to preparing!

So, this is an introductory post of sorts.  I am a student working on my Bachelor of Science in Information Technology with a specialization in databases.  Throughout my program, I am also working towards a number of certifications: 

1. Oracle Certified Associate
2. Microsoft Certified Professional
3. CIW v5 Database Design Specialist
4. CIW Professional (will be taking CIW Site Designer shortly for this)
5. CIW Associate (earned in Oct 2008!)
6. Sun Certified Associate for the Java Platform (will take related course material but not test for exam)
7. CompTIA Network +
8. CompTIA Security +
9. CompTIA Project +
10. CompTIA A+ IT Technician (already passed A+ Essentials exam)

Needless to say, I’ve got a lot of work ahead of me!  And I will share that journey here as time allows.  As mentioned in that list I have already earned my CIW Associate certification.  I’m getting ready to take the CIW Site Designer exam and provided that I complete that, I will be upgraded to CIW Professional.  See how that works?  Pretty neat.

Outside of all the school work - I work full time in an IT dept handling technical support matters.  I’ve been doing that for several years now.  Needless to say I’m eager to expand my horizons a bit.  When I do manage to have some free time, I enjoy gaming (both online and console).  I still own a legacy PS2.  I recently purchased a Wii.  I am a big fan of mmo games; particularly EVE Online.  Prior to that I also played City of Heroes/Villians, PlanetSide, Earth & Beyond (long defunct, much to my dismay) and WWII Online.

I will probably share my thoughts on such hobbies/interests and I’ll probably have the occassional rant as well.  But for the most part, I’ll be staying on topic.  For viewers who are new to this site - CertGuard.com is an outstanding and extremely valuable site.  The few who are working behind the scenes for CG are doing everyone a tremendous service in the protection of the value and integrity of IT certifications.  All of us who have them - we have folks like CertGuard to thank for their relentless pursuit of braindump operators and those who would attempt to devalue what the rest of us work very hard to earn.

Where can I file a complaint about a Certification Practice Test Provider?
If you want your complaint documented and visible to others, then reporting them to the proper authorities is a must. “Bitching” about them in a newsgroup or IT forum is doing nothing to remedy the situation and it isn’t helping others avoid the company in question. Mentioning the company’s name in a public newsgroup or forum also looks like SPAM and leads people to the site, regardless of how much BAD information you provide.

What does reporting them accomplish?
When you properly report a company that has truly caused you some grief, you’re letting others know that the company is indeed questionable and should be approached with caution. You’re also letting other individuals know that they are not the only people to get scammed by this company.

Organizations such as the BBB, IC3, and the FTC don’t take these reports lightly and investigate them to the fullest extent allowable by Law. These organizations also contact the reported company and try to resolve the issue you’ve presented, essentially keeping them ‘in-check’.

Additionally, using those “Complaint forums” is bullshit. Websites like BadBusinessBureau that accept complaints from anyone are breeding grounds for BadBusiness. What often happens there is that competitors of businesses will often “anonymously” post bad, misleading, or completely false information about a company with hope thats people who do research them will see that information and not use their products or services. Personally, I don’t trust those sites and believe that they should be reported to the Better Business Bureau for allowing the slander and libel to happen in the first place.

Just who do you contact if you have a complaint about the Services or Materials provided by a Practice Test Provider?
Regardless of your locale, the best place to report fraud of this type is the Internet Crime Complaint Center.

Other Reporting Agencies
Better Business Bureau
FTC Bureau of Consumer Protection - Consumer Information
Consumer.gov

What else do I need to know?
Certifications are a pivotal point in your career, don’t just let any PTP put your certifications or your career at risk. Please take a minute to SEARCH for the company you’re thinking of using.

If we have them listed as Unethical or as a Braindump, then do more research. Go to the sites listed above and look them up; you won’t know what you’ll find if you don’t look first. Please, only take our recommendations as such. We pride ourselves on getting you the most accurate information, but we can’t be right ALL the time.

If you have questions or concerns about a specific company, you can use our Visitor Feedback Form to let us know.

If you know of any other Reporting Agencies that we haven’t included above, please post a response here and include those links.

My braindump on the three solutions I found for “Cannot use a leading .. to exit above the top directory.”
Whether you’re a Classic ASP programmer or an ASP.NET developer then I’m sure you know that maintaining your Access Databases above the ROOT (i.e. outside of ‘webroot’) has it’s perks. The number one perk is that it is a secure way to keep your databases from being accessible to the public.

If you’re a Classic ASP Programmer exploring the ASP.NET realm, you’ll soon find out that you cannot use the old standard Server.MapPath(”../MyAccessDB.MDB”) to get to your once available database.

In my search for a fix to “Cannot use a leading .. to exit above the top directory.” I have found three viable solutions to this problem. And NONE of them required the changing of the “ParentPaths” setting. ParentPaths can be enabled or disable, it does not matter.

---

Because the solutions I found did not explain the resolutions very well, I’m going to attempt to make this as easy as possible.

FIX #1 - Move the Database to a folder within the root
I don’t like this solution. As I stated earlier, there is a perk to keeping the DB ouside the root…SECURITY! But if you’re not worried about security, or you don’t care that your DB can be downloaded by anyone that knows it’s there, go for it.

---

FIX #2 - Draw the Physical Path to the DB
Although this works (AND keeps your DB out of the hands of the Public) there are always unforseen problems with hardcoding paths to anything within your website.

But, if you really want to, you can do something along these lines:

Let’s assume your website is located at “c:\inetPub\wwwroot\mysite” and your DB is kept in a folder that is outside the root (i.e. “c:\inetPub\db\MyAccessDB.mdb”).Your hardcoded connection string should look like this:

dbconn=New OleDbConnection("Provider=Microsoft.Jet.OLEDB.4.0; data source=c:\Inetpub\db\MyAccessDB.mdb")

---

FIX #3 - Back out of the Webroot with a simple workaround
Remember that I stated you could not use the traditional Server.MapPath(”../MyAccessDB.MDB”) to access your database? I wasn’t lying, but you can fudge it a little. This is probably the best solution to the problem, as it allows you to access the DB and there is no hardcoding needed, which leaves your DB nice and secure. What you’re going to do is send the path into a folder (any folder that is located in your webroot), then you’re going to backout until you’ve reached the folder that houses your database. The only downside to this is that you CANNOT delete that folder, so choose a folder that you KNOW is not going anywhere.

The following is an example of the solution:

Server.MapPath("/bin/") & "..\..\MyAccessDB.MDB"

Your new connection string should look something like this:

dbconn=New OleDbConnection("Provider=Microsoft.Jet.OLEDB.4.0; data source=" & server.MapPath("/bin/") & "..\..\db\MyAccessDB.mdb")

Alternatively, you can set that last part into a String variable and provide that wherever you need to connect to the db.

Dim strDBConn as String = server.MapPath("/bin/") & "..\..\db\MyAccessDB.mdb"
dbconn=New OleDbConnection("Provider=Microsoft.Jet.OLEDB.4.0; data source=" & strDBConn)

Additionally, if you use more than one Access Database, you can create a subroutine and provide it with the Name of the Database, such as:

Public Sub DBConn(sDB as String)
    Dim strDBConn as String = server.MapPath("/bin/") & "..\..\db\" & sDB
    dbconn=New OleDbConnection("Provider=Microsoft.Jet.OLEDB.4.0; data source=" & strDBConn)
END SUB

We at CertGuard are always looking for ways to expand education on the Internet when it comes to preventing braindumps.  Today, we are pleased to announce the CertGuard Official Braindump Quiz.

This quiz was designed by the team at CertGuard to not only be fun, but also in hopes that it will teach everyone a little about identifying potential braindump websites. The quiz will give you the knowledge you need to avoid them when researching study materials. We hope that this will be educational for those in and outside the IT field.

Give the quiz a try today:

http://www.certguard.com/Braindump-quiz.asp

Good Luck!