Whether you're a seasoned veteran or a rookie, everyone in this industry eventually finds themselves back at square one, trying to wrap their minds around a particular technology. You could be a mainframe or an AS/400 programmer who now needs to learn SQL Server….or you could be a VB programmer who needs to ascend the object-oriented programming learning curve….or you could find yourself in a situation where you need to learn the basics of SQL Server Integration Services very quickly.
Maybe you need to learn this content as a step towards getting a job, or just looking to strengthen your skills.
Yes, there's a large amount of content on the web – often scattered all over the place. Once in a great while you might find a single website or article that covers exactly what you need. Other times (quoting a famous musician) it can feel like "wading through a cesspool in search of a water lily".
Well, the company where I work as an instructor and a practice manager (www.setfocus.com) has done something rather amazing about this.
We've made some of our training content available on the web, FOR FREE.
Our CEO (Mike Landau) and our president (Jerry Masin) talk about this free training initiative in an article in NJBIZ: Mike Landau also talks about this during an interview. (Note: on this interview link, you'll need to right-click and open in a new browser window).
If you're interested, here's how to get started:
First, the site is http://freetraining.setfocus.com. The free registration process is simple. You create an account (near the upper right corner), provide a valid email address and some general information (name, city, reason for joining). You will NOT be prompted to enter a credit card. (Many websites claim to offer free content, but still ask for a credit card). Free means free.
You'll receive a confirmation email, and then you can enroll in any of our free training courses. Here's a list of what we offer for free:
- An online course on Object Oriented Programming with C#. There are slides, videos, and labs on OOP basics, Class design, inheritance, interfaces, abstract classes, and more. Some of the content comes from our .NET Master's Program.
- An online course on Relational Database Management concepts. There are slides and videos on relational database models, data modeling, normalization, data integrity, and DBA concepts. Some of the content comes from our SQL Server Master's Program.
- Video content from our Business Intelligence Master's Program. There are videos on SQL Server Integration Services, MDX Programming, plus a link to some online articles and blog entries on different BI topics. This content comes from our Business Intelligence Master's Program.
- Video content from our SharePoint Master's Program. These videos cover SharePoint 2010 Forms-based authentication, creating Silverlight applications in SharePoint, creating workflows, creating custom ASP.NET pages, and creating input forms using InfoPath. This content comes from our SharePoint Master's Program.
- Video content on how to get the most out of LinkedIn. You might be thinking, "videos on how to use LinkedIn?" That's right – LinkedIn has a number of videos on getting the most out of LinkedIn, and getting your name "out there". At first, I was a bit skeptical about LinkedIn – the old "quantity vs quality argument". But I've come to see the value. With a job market that gets more competitive every day, business-related social networking sites can be a valuable tool. You never know when a connection might lead to something!
In addition, back in July I did a 3+ hour webinar for SetFocus on the entire Microsoft Business Intelligence platform. The webinar contains segments from our Business Intelligence Master's Program. (The same program mentioned in point 3 above). The link for this 3+ hour webinar is http://www.setfocus.com/onlinecourses/bi/bi.aspx.
While we have a substantial amount of free content, we'll continue to evolve this free training portal over time.
Finally, because I believe in telling people the whole truth, SetFocus might contact you via email to see if you have any further training or career services needs. But there's no obligation, no strings attached. Having said that, I'd be remiss if I didn't also mention the unique strengths and competitive advantages that SetFocus offers (both in training and career services), which I blogged about a while back.
SetFocus is a Microsoft Gold Partner for Learning Solutions with Microsoft technologies. They have a long history of direct involvement in software community efforts. For years, they've hosted meetings for the Northern New Jersey .NET User Group, the New Jersey SQL Server User Group, and the New Jersey SharePoint User Group at their facility in Parsippany, NJ. They're also supportive of my community efforts as a speaker at different CodeCamp, SQL Server, and SharePoint events (not all companies are supportive of community efforts). This free training initiative is further proof.
So, if you're interested, take a few minutes and sign up. You have nothing to lose, and possibly things to gain!
setfocus.com links are now dead. I think that domain doesn't exist by now. Please update
Posted by: fan | March 01, 2017 at 02:03 AM