70-534 Azure Certification Study Guide + Tips

Hi there!

I just passed my Azure cert 70-534 and wanted to share my study guide.  Please click here to see my guide. It is a 35 page long PDF. I basically took the outlined points from the official Azure exam outline and added in notes between them.  Most of the notes are copy pastes of relevant information from the Azure documentation.  The notes from the Azure documentation and outline from the Azure exam are current as of August 2017 -- so take note that if you are reading this a year out that some of the exam has probably changed. 

 Please also utilize the Measure Up 70-534 practice exam along with studying + doing things on Azure.

Notes after taking exam, I think that you should…

• Know the difference between page and block blobs.
• Know when to use A series, D series, DS series, G series, GS series VMs and approximate size/RAM
• Know ARM templates very well and the pieces in it
• Know a lot of Azure AD stuff
• Know security stuff for DBs, VMs, other Azure resources etc.
• Know on-premises & communicating with Azure
• Know Traffic manager and CDNs very well
• Know Federated Stuff
• Know Azure Batch.
• Know what Chef or Data Lakes or all these other technologies do at a basic level.

General Exam Observations

• I had about 2 hours and 45 mins (I think, it was definitely between 2.5-3 hours) for the exam, 50-60 questions total
• I had 4 cases + the rest were multiple choice (31 multiple choice)
• There are a lot of stupid multi-part questions, usually if it's a 3 part answer each part is scored individually.
• There are a good amount of "order the steps to do such task" with 3-5 steps in it, no idea how this is scored.
• Small amount of Azure CLI / Portal / Powershell / C# specific questions, I think about 5 total.
• I had about 1.5 hour to spare at the end, after obsessively slowly double checking everything. Might be unfair though, was a med student so I take exams extremely, extremely quickly. I did not feel any time rush at all. 

Read More

What do I do, how do I start? Guide to being a C# web developer.

Welcome to the “What do I do, how do I start?” relatively all encompassing guide to becoming a C# web developer.

These are very solid step by step directions. Use it as you wish and feel free to sub out whatever. I figured it is easier for someone in the industry to give advice having done it than for someone to try to guess what they need to do. This kinda pairs up with my C# study guide in another blog post.

Completing the entire guide will cost you $30 for a month subscription on one JavaScript website.. And everything else on here is all free applications and materials to learn.  You can sub out that JavaScript section for free materials too if you really want to do it all for free, but that site is just awesome and interactive and worth it.  

Preview/Notice/Disclaimer/Stuff:

• Everything without “optional” you really, really need to know to be a web developer. Note there are obviously other tracks you could do like Java etc., this is just a specific set of steps to get to a specific job as a “C# full stack web developer”.  I went in the order you should do everything, top down. A lot of getting an interview depends on on how well your resume is written, how well your cover letter is written, and what kinda of GPA/job experience (did you hold jobs for a long time? Did you have gaps between your jobs? etc.) you have and how consistent it is… also if you have a well written nice looking blog and if you have a GitHub with projects on it.  Boring generic resumes and cover letters get thrown in the trash.  You NEED to have a very powerful set of both.  A lot of getting a job will be your people skills, communication skills, ability to show your understanding, breadth & depth in certain topics, and how well you know all the technologies they listed on the posting. I believe getting a job is more dependent on your competition and not you individually.
• I am biased in this guide and picked one option for technology / blog choice / IDEs.  It is just easier this way and I don’t want to explain all of the options out there, this is a quick start guide.  Also if I get questions from you, I can answer them because these are all things I have used / use currently.  Yes, you can use Wordpress or Java etc. instead.
• Yes you can do Mobile, Machine Learning, Desktop, or whatever else instead. I just am not one of those developers and cannot write you a guide for that. I have no idea what you need to know to get those kinds of jobs. Just writing about the area I know about.

Open up accounts

1. Open a Blogger account
1. Install SyntaxHighlighter to your Blogger http://alexgorbatchev.com/SyntaxHighlighter/integration.html

Download software

1. Download Notepad++

Learn HTML:

1. Go to the following: http://www.htmldog.com/guides/html/
2. Complete all of the Beginner tutorial section
3. HW/Project: Create a sample website using Notepad++ about a Nintendo hero.  Save it as a .HTML page.  When you are viewing the file on your Windows Explorer, right click to see in a Browser to view as HTML and right click to Edit/View in Notepad++ to edit the HTML code.  As you change HTML code in Edit mode you can hit save, then refresh your Browser viewing the HTML page to see the changes.  
1. Include a photo of the Nintendo hero, the name in bold, then a link from the hero’s name to any Nintendo hero guide, 3 paragraphs with random text, and a bulleted list of your favorite items/powerups/whatever to get on this hero.
4. Complete all of the Intermediate tutorial section
5. HW/Project: From your previous HTML page, put your paragraphs inside of div tags and give them an ID or a class name. Make a short blog post about something you learned about in HTML, a screenshot of your HTML page, and use the syntax highlighter to post your HTML code online.
6. Complete all of the Advanced tutorial section
7. HW/Project: Make a blog post about how to target HTML to different versions of a browser and a few examples of when/why this would be very useful.  

Learn CSS:

1. Go to the following: http://www.htmldog.com/guides/css/
2. Complete all of the Beginner tutorial section
3. HW/Project: Take that same HTML page you were working on before. Add style tags “<style>” inside of your “<head>” tag and add some global CSS to change the background color of the page.  Add some inline CSS to change the colors of each paragraph to be different.
4. Complete all of the Intermediate tutorial section
5. HW/Project: Add the same class selector to each div holding a paragraph.  Also give each div a unique ID.  Add a background image of some pattern you can find on Google images.  
6. Complete all of the Advanced tutorial section (these are not as commonly used but you need to know the extent of what CSS can do so make sure you read through all of it and try a few things out in your sample html page)

Learn Twitter Bootstrap:

1. Go to the following: http://getbootstrap.com/2.3.2/
2. Use this as a reference: https://www.w3schools.com/bootstrap/
3. Read through these pages: https://www.tutorialspoint.com/bootstrap/
4. Learn about Responsive Web design: https://www.w3schools.com/html/html_responsive.asp
5. Build yourself a responsive webpage using Bootstrap, with just HTML and CSS.  You should be able to shrink down your page to mobile size and it still looks decent.

Download software

1. Download Visual Studio Code.  This is an IDE:  http://searchsoftwarequality.techtarget.com/definition/integrated-development-environmentThis is for front end code only (HTML, CSS, and JavaScript) AKA client side. You would use this for making front end only projects or if you were to break your project up into a front or back end portion.  Code is a much more lightweight program and often more liked that the full Visual Studio, it is much quicker.
1. Read about server side vs client side code: https://softwareengineering.stackexchange.com/questions/171203/what-are-the-differences-between-server-side-and-client-side-programming

Learn JavaScript:

1. Go to the following: https://www.codeschool.com/learn/javascript
1. It used to be free long ago but it’s killer good site, it’s put out by PluralSight.  It is $30 for a month. I would recommend paying this once and completing the full JavaScript course in a month. It is worthwhile and the only thing on my guide that will cost any money. Complete the 5 JavaScript language courses and the 2 jQuery courses in one month and cancel your subscription.

How to use Google Debugger

1. Understand HTML and CSS in the Chrome Debugger: http://blog.teamtreehouse.com/tips-debugging-html-css
2. More HTML and CSS Chrome Debugger stuff: https://developer.chrome.com/devtools/docs/elements-styles
3. Go through this tutorial: https://developers.google.com/web/tools/chrome-devtools/javascript/

Download software

1. Download Visual Studio Community 2017. This can hold all of your code front and back end (HTML, CSS, JavaScript, C#, additonal frameworks, unit tests, connections to databases, config files, everything..).  
2. Download Fiddler

Open up accounts

1. Open a Github account

2. Open a Stackoverflow account

Learn C#:

1. Start here: https://www.microsoft.com/net/tutorials/csharp/getting-started
2. Go to the following: http://www.learncs.org/
3. Go through all the exercises.
4. Go to the following, you need to know all of these topics in order to do well long term with programming. It will be hard to fully understand until you start working, but conceptionally get as strong of a grasp as you can, then come back to this site and go over it again and again in your first year of dev. This site is very crucial and everything on it is important: https://www.tutorialspoint.com/csharp/index.htm
5. Try the Fizz Buzz problem:http://www.codekatas.org/casts/code-kata-fizzbuzz-csharp
6. Go through other problems on this site:http://www.codekatas.org/casts/tagged/csharp
7. Try these problems and understand how they work: http://www.c-sharpcorner.com/UploadFile/9582c9/basic-C-Sharp-programming-problem-and-solutions-part1/
8. Optional, take a free Coursera course: https://www.coursera.org/learn/game-programming
9. Build a simple calculator with addition / subtraction / divison / multiplication and no order of operations. Then try it with order of operations.
10. Do the first 10 problems on Project Euler: https://projecteuler.net/
11. Build yourself a small app that takes in multiple inputs from a user, utilizes a list internally, then will read off to the user from the list what numbers they entered.
12. Build a simple 2 player tic tac toe program. UI can just be console printing out ASCII characters. For ex. http://mmnaviwala.com/images/ttt_5.PNG
13. Try to build an unbeatable tic tac toe program (1 player).

Learn REST APIs:

1. Learn how to use Fiddler: http://www.asjava.com/tools/fiddler-tutorial-how-to-use-fiddler/
2. Read through this: https://www.tutorialspoint.com/restful/
3. Go through this site and video: http://www.restapitutorial.com/
4. Build something! Go through this tutorial: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/aspnet/web-api/overview/older-versions/build-restful-apis-with-aspnet-web-api
5. Build something! Go through this tutorial: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/aspnet/web-api/overview/getting-started-with-aspnet-web-api/tutorial-your-first-web-api

Learn LINQ:

1. https://www.tutorialspoint.com/linq/

Learn Unit Testing:

1. Just go through the basics: https://www.rhyous.com/programming-development/csharp-unit-test-tutorial/
2. https://www.codementor.io/wbsimms/unit-testing-foundations-programming-beginners-du107q81d

Design Patterns:

Learn SOLID Principles:

1. https://medium.com/@cramirez92/s-o-l-i-d-the-first-5-priciples-of-object-oriented-design-with-javascript-790f6ac9b9fa

MVC:

1. https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd381412(v=vs.108).aspx

Learn Gang of Four (super optional, nice to have):

1. http://www.blackwasp.co.uk/gofpatterns.aspx

Learn SQL:

1. Do this course: https://www.codecademy.com/learn/learn-sql
2. Know these charts (this always comes up in interview + is important to understand): https://www.codeproject.com/Articles/33052/Visual-Representation-of-SQL-Joins
3. Go through this website: https://www.w3schools.com/SQL/deFault.asp

Learn Agile:

1. Look at this page, read all of the sections.. The links are in blue on the right side of the page: http://www.agilenutshell.com/

Learn SDLC (Software Development Lifecycle):

1. Watch this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kQPTB0ygYfY
2. Learn how software is made: https://www.tutorialspoint.com/sdlc/sdlc_overview.htm

Interview Practice Questions

Study ALL of these. If you don’t know anything about any of the questions, go study all of it until you really understand it. Not joking, most of these will show up in an actual interview. Do not just memorize stuff, use it as your guide to learn all about these languages.

1. http://a4academics.com/interview-questions/52-dot-net-interview-questions/417-c-oops-interview-questions-and-answers
2. https://www.tutorialspoint.com/csharp/csharp_interview_questions.htm
3. http://www.c-sharpcorner.com/UploadFile/8ef97c/C-Sharp-net-interview-questions-and-answers/
4. https://career.guru99.com/top-50-c-sharp-interview-questions-answers/
5. https://career.guru99.com/top-50-sql-question-answers/
6. https://www.toptal.com/sql/interview-questions
7. https://career.guru99.com/top-50-csscascading-style-sheet-interview-questions/
8. https://career.guru99.com/top-85-javascript-interview-questions/

Read about the following so you know what they are

By this I mean spend 1-2 hours and summarize 3-4 sentences about each topics so you can at least intelligently speak about it if you hear it in an interview, on the job, talking with other developers, etc.. and so you have a background of what is upcoming and what development was like before. If any of these technologies are listed on the job description then definitely dig into it much more!!!

• General/new stuff: ASP Core, Test driven development, Azure (web/worker roles, general technology offerings, how the cloud works), version-control like VSTS (Visual Studio Team Services) and TFS (Team Foundation Server), Node JS, Angular JS, React JS, Entity Framework Content Management System (CMS, like SiteFinity or SiteCore), Dependency Injection, Automated Testing, Performance Testing, know all the roles in a software team (Business Analyst, Quality Assurance Analyst, Project Manager, Database Administrator, Test Engineer)
• Legacy / “old” stuff: WebForms, Access (the database), VB, VB.NET, F#,   

THESE MATTER!!! This will determine whether or not you get an interview. If you are applying to small places and not getting an interview, then work on making these better.

• Build a strong resume
• Explain on every job what the company does and what your role was as the first sentence
• Explain why your role was important and what you brought to the table
• Highlight your accomplishments
• Explain specific technologies / etc what you worked with (very industry specific and varies a lot depending on what kind of job it was)
• Do not make the text eensy weensy
• Get a good structure/format for your resume
• Put the months and years for everything
• Do not add colors or crazy designs. Clean, simple, black text, white backgrounds. People print resumes. People don’t want to run out of ink printing resumes.

• Build a strong cover letter
• Write about why you care about working at this company at this position
• Write about why pick you
• Write about solid things and steps you have taken to be competent
• Write about your passion
• Thank them for their time and be very passionaite and positive about the whole process

Practice Interview Skills

• Confidence
• It’s good to say you don’t know and be honest when you don’t
• Questions are open ended, if you don’t know the answer then talk about what you do know about the technology
• Never interrupt the interviewer
• Explain things with a summary first, then dive deeper into what you know. Don’t go off on tangents. Learn to be able to explain anything well to a 5 year old.. If you can’t do that you aren’t explaining it well enough. You should always be able to tell a non-technical person what you are doing at a high level so they understand what is going on
• Always ask questions at the end about things that were said during the interview
• Always ask questions about the job in general so you understand exactly what you will be getting into and what it will be like to work for a certain company

Read More