How to Get Rupee Symbol in Documents Created in your Ubuntu System

I think most of you are aware that Indian Rupee got a symbol few days before. But the government says it will take more than a year for the new Rupee symbol to become commercially available. Though a Mangalore-based Foradian Technologies Pvt Ltd has come up with a new font called Rupee_Foradian, which can be downloaded free of cost. This will be showing up in your fonts list in all your applcations if you do an install of the same font in your system. But unfortunately, it is available currently as a True Type Font (ttf) file type and which is not suppored in a Linux based system in its naive way.

So I would like to help you guys to find how to get the Rupee Font in your Ubuntu system working. Other Linux based systems, I am not that too familiar with. The following steps needs to be followed:

1. Open Terminal (Applications-> Accessories -> Terminal)
2. Execute sudo apt-get install msttcorefonts (This will make your system to show up Microsoft Windows fonts)
3. Then it will ask for a question with [Y/N]. Type 'y' and press enter.
4. After execution of the command, Open your User Home Folder (Places -> Home Folder)
5. Create a folder name '.fonts' there and copy the Rupee_Foradian.ttf file which you can download from here.
6. Now go to Terminal again and execute the command sudo fc-cache -fv or restart your system which is best option.
7. Now open any text editor software which can select fonts in that (eg. Open Office Word Processor) and select the Rupee-Foradian font and type the key '~', as shown below.

Then it will show the Rupee symbol and that is it.

Do this and enjoy using the Rupee symbol in your documents and promote the Rupee symbol.

This is the same way, you need do for getting any Windows fonts in your Ubuntu system, by copying the font file to the '.fonts' folder and running the sudo fc-cache -fv or restarting the system.

Register for Visual Studio 2010 Beta Exams

You are invited to take part in one or more beta exams for Visual Studio 2010 and the Microsoft .NET Framework 4.

If you pass one of the beta exams, the exam credit will be added to your transcript and you will not need to take the exam in its released form. The 71-xxx identifier is used for registering for beta versions of MCP exams, when the exam is released in its final form the 70-xxx identifier is used for registration.
By participating in beta exams, you have the opportunity to provide the Microsoft Certification program with feedback about exam content, which is integral to development of exams in their released version. We depend on the contributions of experienced IT professionals and developers as we continually improve exam content and maintain the value of Microsoft certifications. The following exams are a part of this beta offering.
Exam 71-511, TS: Windows Applications Development with Microsoft .NET Framework 4
Exam 71-515, TS: Web Applications Development with Microsoft .NET Framework 4
Exam 71-513: TS: Windows Communication Foundation Development with Microsoft .NET Framework 4
Exam 71-516: TS: Accessing Data with Microsoft .NET Framework 4
Exam 71-518: Pro: Designing and Developing Windows Applications Using Microsoft .NET Framework 4
Exam 71-519: Pro: Designing and Developing Web Applications Using Microsoft .NET Framework 4

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Availability
Registration begins: March 17, 2010
Beta exam period runs: April 5, 2010 – April 30, 2010
Receiving this invitation does not guarantee you a seat in the beta; we recommend that you register as soon as registration opens. Beta exams have limited availability and are operated under a first-come-first-served basis. Once all beta slots are filled, no additional seats will be offered. If you register, please ensure you are committed to attend.
Testing is held at Prometric testing centers worldwide, although this exam may not be available in all countries (see Regional Restrictions). All testing centers will have the capability to offer this exam in its live version.
Regional Restrictions: India, Pakistan, China

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Registration Information
You must register at least 24 hours prior to taking the exam.
Please use the following promotional codes when registering for your chosen exam(s):

Exam Number	Beta Code
71-511	511BC
71-515	515AA
71-513	513CD
71-516	516B1
71-518	518PE
71-519	519ZS

To register in North America, please call:

•	Prometric: (800) 755-EXAM (800-755-3926)

Outside the U.S./Canada, please contact:

•	Prometric: http://www.register.prometric.com/ClientInformation.asp

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Test Information and Support
You are invited to take this beta exam at no charge.
You will be given four hours to complete the beta exam. Please plan accordingly.
Find exam preparation information:
Exam 70-511, TS: Windows Applications Development with Microsoft .NET Framework 4
Exam 70-515, TS: Web Applications Development with Microsoft .NET Framework 4
Exam 70-513: TS: Windows Communication Foundation Development with Microsoft .NET Framework 4
Exam 70-516: TS: Accessing Data with Microsoft .NET Framework 4
Exam 70-518: Pro: Designing and Developing Windows Applications Using Microsoft .NET Framework 4
Exam 70-519: Pro: Designing and Developing Web Applications Using Microsoft .NET Framework 4

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Frequently Asked Questions
For Microsoft Certified Professional (MCP) help and information, you may log in to the MCP Web site at http://www.microsoft.com/learning/mcp/or contact your Regional Service Center: http://www.microsoft.com/learning/support/worldsites.asp.

•	What is a beta exam?
•	Where can I learn more about the registration process?
•	Where can I learn more about the beta exam invitation process?
•	Where can I learn more about the new structure of Microsoft Certification?
•	Who do I contact for help with this beta exam or other MCP questions?

Ubuntu 10.04 Lucid Lynx is coming soon...

Ubuntu 10.04 Lucid Lynx is coming soon on 29th April 2010. The dwonload links for Ubuntu Lucid Beta 1 will be available at Ubuntu official website from 18th March 2010. Download it and help the community to improve the initiative by spotting the issues and other things regarding this.

The full release cycle of Lucid Lynx is as follows:

Version	Expected
Ubuntu lucid-updates	None
Ubuntu ubuntu-10.04	2010-04-29
Ubuntu ubuntu-10.04-beta-2	2010-04-08
Ubuntu ubuntu-10.04-beta-1	2010-03-18
Ubuntu lucid-alpha-3	2010-02-25
Ubuntu lucid-alpha-2	2010-01-14
Ubuntu lucid-alpha-1	2009-12-10

For this list my courtesy goes to http://www.launchpad.net

.NET Framework 4.0 Certification Beta is Here

The .NET Framework 4.0 Certification beta exams are coming soon. The major points to be noted are as

• Pattern - This will contain 125 to 150 questions and take up to 4 hours and it is different from the non-beta exam by the way that, non-beta will contain only 40 to 45 and you will have a 2 hours to complete the exam.
• When - All but one exam will be available between the dates of March 31, 2010 to April 20, 2010.  Mark your calendars now! They will also be opening registration earlier for these as well.
• Cost - This is the main thing. This exam is free of cost.
• Why is It Free? - They make the actual exams available, at a Prometric testing center, for no charge. This is a step that helps them to increase exam quality by having industry experts evaluate each question, by taking the exam, and providing feedback to Microsoft. They use your feedback to fix, replace, or scrap questions that are technically incorrect, not relevant, etc. You help Microsoft create a better product for your fellow developers that will have to pay for the exam.
• Is this Real? - Even though the questions are not scored at the time you take the exam, they are real questions and the exam is real. If you pass the exam, you earn the certification just the same as if you took it in a non-beta environment. This means you don’t get a pass/fail or score immediately following the exam, but you do get notified 8 to 10 weeks later because we move slow in getting the final scoring in place.
• Who is eligible? – The prep guides will go into more detail about the target audience for the exams, and the links to those will be forthcoming, but, If you use .NET 2.0, 3.5, or 4, and Visual Studio to create software applications using the technologies included in the .NET framework, you are eligible.

But the sad thing is that beta will not run on some countries. They excluded India, China and Pakistan to run beta. So these countries needs to wait until the actual exams get published in 2nd July 2010.

Visual Studio 2010 and .NET Framework 4.0 Certifications Initial Discussions

Everybody knows that Visual Studio 2010 with .NET 4.0 is going to be released soon. That is going to have a new CLR also due to the introduction of the new language F#. So geeks there is one more reason to learn. But professionals are still confused about the certification. Mainly the grooming professionals. Till now MCTS 70-536 was the base for all the Visual Studio 2005 and 2008 MCTS and MCPD exams.

Now onwards, that is going to change. VS 2005 and 2008 had same CLR behind that. Due to that reason for VS 2005 and 2008, the foundation exam for certifications (MCTS 70-536) remained same. But, VS 2010 is going to have a diffrent CLR. This is due to the introduction of the much awaited language F# in VS 2010. So by that reason the certification exam structure is going to be changed in case of VS 2010. But as per the current discussions, it may decrease the number of exams as compared to the VS 2008. So here is a reason to get certified once VS 2010 is out for feel.

According to the recent discussions, the strucute of the VS 2010 certifications may be as follows though it is not the final word. The new .NET 4.0 exams will have what looks like 3 MCPDs and a number of MCTS certifications. To date the ones that have been announced (or passed the initial exam design stage with SMEs) are

• 70-511 TS: Microsoft .NET Framework 4, Windows Applications Development (WPF) - The Windows exam will cover both Windows Forms and WPF. This will also help to address the feedback over the Windows vs WPF requirements for MCPD Enterprise on .NET 3.5.  No, it doesn’t mean they are changing the 3.5 certs, It mean the new plan will not have seperate Forms/WPF issues.
• 70-515 TS: Microsoft .NET Framework 4, Web Applications Development - Web to cover some Silverlight. Silverlight is akin to nailing Jell-o to a wall.  The dev cycles are shorter than our exam dev cycle.
• 70-513 TS: Microsoft .NET Framework 4, Windows Communication Foundation Development
• 70-516 TS: Microsoft .NET Framework 4, Accessing Data with ADO.NET
• 70-518 Pro: Designing and Developing Windows Applications Using Microsoft .NET 4
• 70-519 Pro: Designing and Developing Web Applications Using Microsoft .NET Framework 4

These exams have finished their initial exam design stage. Betas for these exams should be around March 30 maybe. For this information my courtesy is for Gerry O’Brie's blog on this.

Here are the other 50% definite exams:

• MCTS Windows Workflow Foundation .NET 4.0 - Workflow has some great changes and is an awesome technology but, they need to decide based on other factors.
• MCPD Enterprise Application Developer .NET 4.0 - MCPD Enterprise is still a non-defined audience. They need more market research into what an “Enterprise Professional Developer” really is.

For this also courtesy goes to his another blog. Keep watching patiently for more information about VS 2010 to catch it hot and fresh.

HOT UPDATE: Information about the Certifications in VS 2010 and .NET 4.0 Frameword you will get here.
 You can get the VS 2010 .NET 4.0 Certification Upgrade Path here.

Microsoft Certification in .NET - Visual Studio 2005 & 2008 - MCPD

MCPD - Microsoft Certified Professional Developer

This is the expert level of certification offered by Microsoft for .NET and Visual Studio. There are six different MCPD certifications available in Visual Studio 2005 and 2008 combined together. There are certain prerequisite exams for all these exams, which all are MCTS exams and links for more information about these exams are available in my previous post about MCTS.

Please find the MCPD exams available below:

1. Visual Studio 2005
• MCPD: Web Developer (Prerequisite: Exam 70-536 and Exam 70-528) - Exam 70-547: Designing and Developing Web-Based Applications by Using the Microsoft .NET Framework
• MCPD: Windows Developer (Prerequisite: Exam 70-536 and Exam 70-526) - Exam 70-548: Designing and Developing Windows-Based Applications by Using the Microsoft .NET Framework
• MCPD: Enterprise Application Developer (Prerequisite: Exam 70-536, Exam 70-526, Exam 70-528 and Exam 70-529) - Exam 70-549: Designing and Developing Enterprise Applications by Using the Microsoft .NET Framework 
2. Visual Studio 2008
• MCPD: Windows Developer 3.5 (Prerequisite: Exam 70-536 and Exam 70-505) - Exam 70-563: Designing and Developing Windows Applications Using Microsoft .NET Framework 3.5
• MCPD: ASP.NET Developer 3.5 (Prerequisite: Exam 70-536 and Exam 70-562) - Exam 70-564: Designing and Developing ASP.NET Applications Using Microsoft .NET Framework 3.5
• MCPD: Enterprise Application Developer 3.5 (Prerequisite: Exam 70-536, Exam 70-505, Exam 70-562, Exam 70-561 and Exam 70-503) - Exam 70-565: Designing and Developing Enterprise Applications Using the Microsoft .NET Framework 3.5. This is the most difficult one as of now. Six Exams in a row!!!

More information about these exams you can find at Microsoft Learning Web Site. Wish you all the best in your path of certification.

Microsoft Certification in .NET - Visual Studio 2005 & 2008 - MCTS

Microsoft is offering certification in .NET Technologies with a categorization for Visual Studio 2005 and Visual Studio 2008 in different streams of the IDE. But most of the professionals are lot confused about the certification path and due to that they refrain from taking one. I would like to make a brief about the certification path here. There are basically two levels of certification:
1. MCTS - Microsoft Certified Technology Specialist - It will be explained below
2. MCPD - Microsoft Certified Professional Developer - You can more about in the next blog

MCTS - Microsoft Certified Technology Specialist

Exam 70-536: Microsoft .NET Framework – Application Development Foundation - This is the basic requirement exam for all the MCTS certification exams on VS 2005 and 2008. It needs to be passed for all the Certifications on VS 2005 and 2008. This is to be passed only once. But it doesn't provide any certification by itself. But by passing this you will become an MCP (Microsoft Certified Professional).

There are different MCTS certifications available according to the stream of interest.

1. Visual Studio 2005 
• MCTS: .NET Framework 2.0: Windows Applications - Exam 70-536 and Exam 70-526: Microsoft .NET Framework 2.0 - Windows-Based Client Development
• MCTS: .NET Framework 2.0: Web Applications - Exam 70-536 and Exam 70–528: Microsoft .NET Framework 2.0 - Web-based Client Development 
• MCTS: .NET Framework 2.0: Distributed Applications - Exam 70-536 and Exam 70-529: Microsoft .NET Framework 2.0 - Distributed Application Development 
2.  Visual Studio 2008
• MCTS: .NET Framework 3.5, Windows Presentation Foundation Applications - Exam 70-536 and Exam 70-502: Microsoft .NET Framework 3.5, Windows Presentation Foundation Application Development
• MCTS: .NET Framework 3.5, Windows Communication Foundation Applications - Exam 70-536 and Exam 70-503: Microsoft .NET Framework 3.5 – Windows Communication Foundation Application Development
• MCTS: .NET Framework 3.5, Windows Workflow Foundation Applications - Exam 70-536 and Exam 70-504: Microsoft .NET Framework 3.5 – Windows Workflow Foundation Application Development
• MCTS: .NET Framework 3.5, Windows Forms Applications - Exam 70-536 and Exam 70-505: Microsoft .NET Framework 3.5, Windows Forms Application Development
• MCTS: .NET Framework 3.5, ADO.NET Applications - Exam 70-536 and Exam 70-561: Microsoft .NET Framework 3.5, ADO.NET Application Development
• MCTS: .NET Framework 3.5, ASP.NET Applications - Exam 70-536 and Exam 70-562: Microsoft .NET Framework 3.5, ASP.NET Application Development

 More information about these exams you can find at Microsoft Learning Web Site. Select your path and succeed as a certified professional

What I do with Microsoft?

I already specified in my personal blog that I am a software professional working on .NET and related technologies. So that is why I would like to blog about Microsoft. By Microsoft, I mean the technologies which are products of Microsoft which I am quite familiar with as a profession.

Here goes the list of them.

1. .NET
2. SQL Server
3. ASP.NET Web Forms and MVC
4. Visual Studio

These are the technologies by Microsoft which I use to make my living.

But there are few other related common technologies which I work with along with this.

Those includes.

1. HTML
2. Javascript libraries
3. CSS

So you may find different blog posts of me on these all technologies.
Keep watching.