Anyway, what finally got me to get moving was a great voucer/coupon I got via email from Prometric, the testing company I used last time.  Not sure if it’s specific to me because I’m already a MCP (yes, I passed that test from years ago) or not but I’ll share it just in case it does work for others…

…Improving and validating your technical skills can help.

That is why Prometric is providing a limited offer to the first 4,000 individuals to help get your Microsoft Certified Professional status current or achieve an additional certification.

Offer available for customers who have taken their last certification exam prior to January 1, 2007.

Use this promo code ‘MCPBACK’ and get a $25 USD Certification (Normally priced at $125 USD). This offer is valid for any exam in the MCTS/MCPD/MCITP track. Does not include Microsoft Office or Windows end-user (non-IT) focused exams.

Go to: www.Prometric.com/microsoft to sign-up for your next exam.

But you better hurry!
You must take your exam by June 30, 2009.

Offer valid in US and Canada only.

My plan is to obtain the MCTS: .NET Framework 3.5, ASP.NET Applications certification related to Visual Studio 2008.  What I’m going to do is take the C# test rather than VB.NET, which is what I mainly use here at work.  I can work in C# and have written a few things in it, but my main language since I’ve been working in .NET has been VB.NET.

I figure this will be a good way to become more familiar with C# and will force me to learn the language.  Once you’ve been working with .NET for a while and looking through code samples on Google you’ll quickly realize that the majority of the code samples out there are done in C#.  So, as you can imagine, converting those to VB.NET can be frustrating after a while.

So, we’ll see how it goes.  I only spent $25 to book the test and another $44 to upgrade my copy of MCTS Self-Paced Training Kit (Exam 70-536): Microsoft® .NET Framework Application Development Foundation to the second edition.  I picked up the first edition a year or two ago when I first decided I wanted to get the MCTS and only got about 1/2 way through it.

My test is set for June 17, wish me luck!