ABCO Technology Computer & Tech School Blog

ABCO Technology Celebrates 16 Years of IT Training

Posted on August 25, 2016 - Posted in: News

On August 20, 2000 ABCO Technology opened its doors above a small electronics shop in Culver City. As Director of this new school, I had a vision for training students, which I believed was better than any form of education available at the time. I had been teaching at several schools, where students received training in large classes and few received personal attention. My vision, in contrast, consisted of students attending a specialized information technology academy. There, all students could receive personalized teaching from course instructors who brought real-work experience about information technology to the class. After 16 years, we’ve seen a great deal of change, and we’re proud of our successes!

Early Years: Hard Work

In the beginning years of our training the school had two instructors: Fatima Sethi and me. We worked very hard providing instruction to our students seven days per week. The school opened at 9 in the morning and for five days out of the week, we closed at 10 at night. Between the two of us, we taught a wide variety of courses ranging from networking through web development. In addition to teaching, we performed every activity for our students in those early days, including planning course curriculums, ordering books, scheduling classes and contacting companies for possible job placement. As a result, our students loved our training and we began to grow.

In 2001 we hired our first student recruiter, who also acted as teacher and counselor to our students. In the same year, ABCO began placing students in information technology positions.

The year 2002 brought state approval. New regulations by the State of California made it possible for ABCO Technology to gain approval from the state, which would open the door so that our students could participate in several state-funded programs.

2003 – 2005: Student Career Success Begins

In 2003, one of our students received an excellent information technology position with Pepperdine University. Additionally, several other students received jobs with large and small companies in 2003 and 2004.

In the later part of 2004, ABCO Technology received approval from the California Department of Employment Development to train California’s unemployed population.

In 2005, ABCO Technology created a computer consulting company, which employed many of our graduate students. We did this in order to create a company in-house that could employ our graduates and give them a start in the information technology industry.

The Veteran’s Administration approved us in 2006 to provide training to members of our armed forces who served our country.

Between 2002 and 2004 ABCO Technology moved to its current location. Now, in 2016 we have outgrown this facility and plan to make a move to a much larger campus.

In 2011 ABCO Technology began the process of accrediting our training academy. Finally in 2013, the school received accreditation from ACCSC. As a result, the US Department of Education approved ABCO to provide federal financial aid to qualified students.

Awards and Success, Even In Recession Years

Over the years of serving the Southern California Community, ABCO Technology received numerous awards for community service and job placement. We even received an award from the Southern California Job Collaborative for placing students during the 2009-2010 recession. In addition ABCO has received awards from the South Bay Work Source Center, West Hollywood Work Source Center, and others.

As we look back in 2016, we have placed students with Sony Pictures, Raytheon, IBM, Stamps.com, Los Angeles Unified School District, Loyola Marymount University, Teen Safe and the list of companies continues. ABCO Technology has trained and placed many disabled individuals through its partnership with California’s Department of Vocational Rehabilitation. These placements show that ABCO Technology is an equal opportunity employer, and we have a diversified student population.

As Director and founder of ABCO I plan to continue serving the Southern California information technology community for many years. I entered this industry because information technology improves people’s lives. It’s shown me that education, combined with solid skills development empowers our students to compete in today’s job market. My reward comes from changing the lives of our students.

Best Paying Jobs & Careers Out of High School

Posted on August 19, 2016 - Posted in: News, IT Career Training

Tagged: information technology certification, information technology training, job training for high school graduates, new high school graduates get jobs, performance-based education

best paying careers out of high school — Some of the best careers to pursue when you leave high school are in the information technology field

Congratulations, you’ve recently graduated high school–that’s a great achievement! You’ve completed twelve years of education and now the time has come to search for a full-time job. So you begin your search good-paying careers out of high school.

Are you finding that job search to be more difficult than you believed?
Would you like a better job than working at a fast food restaurant?
Have you been told by many employers that they would like to hire you, if you only had those important skills?
Have employers informed you that you have no work experience?
Would you like a real solution to this problem that will not take a lot of time?
Would you want that solution to have career advancement, provide future opportunities for education and give you excellent raises?

An outstanding solution to your problem is to enroll in a vocational school that teaches information technology skills.

Train for a Information Technology Career

Information technology is leading the job hiring fields today, because the education is performance based, and that is what employers are looking for in all new hires. Information technology training is based upon training, performance and certification. Employers are looking for employees they do not have to train, who can perform the job on the first day of employment. Would you like to be that special candidate?

This vocational training does not require a college degree, but it can put you on the road to getting one. Many students who get a job in this field wind up working for a company that will pay all or part of their college tuition after being an employee for more than one year. Countless new workers are taking advantage of this great opportunity. If you have heard that going to a vocational school will stop you from ever attending college, this is truly a myth. In fact, many students use vocational training to finance future debt-free college degrees. Many employers, especially colleges and universities, offer tuition-free classes to all university employees. This is one way to graduate from college owing no money. A great example of one university offering free tuition to college employees is Loyola Marymount University, which is about one mile from our ABCO Technology campus.

What certifications will get that great job?

If you are a person who enjoys repairing and solving problems with a computer, the CompTIA A+ certification is just for you. You can complete the A+ in six weeks, and after completing this training you can look for that better paying job as a computer repair specialist or in desktop support.

After repairing computers, you can advance to higher paying fields of networking, which include the MCSE or Microsoft Certified Solutions Expert and the Cisco Certified Network Associate. With a little experience and a few certifications your job title will be network administrator.

High school graduates can also train and certify in other fields of information technology, including:

Students certifying in web development build websites, which all businesses need to advertise their services. The database field has the job title of database administrator, which involves handling large amounts of information. In fact there is an explosion of new jobs in the database field because of recent changes in health care. Computer programmers write games, design smart phone applications and write programs for Windows and other operating systems. New jobs for computer programmers are now available in the U.S., especially since programming for smart phone applications requires an in-depth knowledge of local culture.

Some of the certifications listed in this article will take six months to complete.

Real Careers Out Of High School Are Out There!

Vocational training is popular because it is hands-on education. This means when you graduate, you can do the job a future employer wants. Employers substitute your performance for countless years of experience when you fill out that important job application listing your newly acquired job skills.

ABCO Technology is an ACCSC accredited institution. That accreditation means that students may apply for financial aid and receive help with their education if they qualify.

Students enrolling at ABCO Technology receive a diploma instead of a certificate. The diploma is highly valued when placed next to that important certification.

If you would like to receive more information about how a vocational education will jump-start your job career, contact ABCO Technology.

You can reach our campus by phone at: (310) 216-3067 Monday through Friday from 9 AM to 6 PM.

Email us for information at: info@abcotechnology.edu.

Get those important job skills today and go to work!

Train For Information Technology Jobs in 2016

Posted on August 10, 2016 - Posted in: Blog

Tagged: Cyber Security, network administration

On August 5, 2016 the US Department of Labor reported an increase of 255,000 new jobs for the month of July. Furthermore, the gain in new monthly employment showed that the U.S. economy is on a stronger footing than many experts believed. Information Technology jobs in particular accounted for 15% of all national employment in the month of July.

Information Technology Jobs Require Skilled Workers

This report also showed that workers who didn’t possess specific skills were left out of this new job expansion. Workers without employment skills fall into in the U-6 category; these under-employed workers tend to work part-time or hold several jobs. Unfortunately, nearly 10% of American workers fall into this category. On the bright side, learning a new skill will take you out of this punishing U-6 part time jobs category.

According to this report, 37,500 IT jobs were available in July, with the bulk of the new work being in California, Texas and New York.

The field of network administrator came in first, containing about 10,000 of the new positions. The next most in demand was Database administration, followed by computer programming. In the networking field, cyber security accounted for 6,000 of the new positions.

Cyber security is the fastest growing area in the field of information technology. In general, cyber security professionals defend a network against cyber-attacks. To find work in this exciting field, you need to pass a series of certifications, which you prepare for through both education and experience.

The database field was also very strong, showing 7,000 new jobs. In particular, changes in health care legislation have created the need for database professionals. Students who certify in either Microsoft or Oracle easily find gainful employment in the database field after graduation.

Americans Needed for Smartphone Apps

Computer programming jobs are coming back in the United States. The reason for this is that many of the new smartphone applications require the programmer to be familiar with the culture surrounding the application. It helps, then, to have a computer programmer live in the country where the application is written.

Career-specific Education — Better Than College

The jobs mentioned in this article do not require a college degree. Realistically, students need to work hard, get certified and work with our school as it relates to finding a job.

For many students who do not have a college degree, federal financial aid is available to those who qualify.

Contact ABCO Technology. You can reach our campus by phone at: (310) 216-3067 from 9 AM to 6 PM Monday through Friday.

New employment is available today, so don’t miss out on these exciting career opportunities.

Web Designer or Web Developer? What’s the Difference?

Posted on August 8, 2016 - Posted in: News

What’s the difference between a web designer and web developer? If you are a member of the general public, without any technical knowledge of coding, markup or design, you may use those terms interchangeably. And in the early days of the World Wide Web, when web pages were often “brochures on the screen”, you may have been right. But in 2016, owners and users alike expect much more from their websites than a pretty, static page. They want rich media, e-commerce, fillable forms, integration with social media and more. And for this level of sophistication, it helps to share the creation of web pages between these two separate roles.

Many layers of code go into the creation of computer content, and websites are no exception. Basically, “front-end” code is what the end user sees: it’s concerned with the design and layout of the page. “Back-end” code consists of the hidden functions that make the pages load and run smoothly.

Knowing how to work with all of the above makes you a very versatile web developer. Some people call developers with this ability “full stack” coders, because they can manage each layer of code, from front end through back end.

Do you have to know code to design?

Up to the advent of mobile, the answer was sometimes “no”. Some excellent designers have been able to do their work in Photoshop or Adobe Illustrator. They would then hand off their design to a developer, who would code the HTML, CSS and sometimes jQuery. But now that a website is certain to be seen on screens of many different sizes, designers must know how their site works across all sizes and browsers. Understanding how CSS and HTML work is essential for this understanding.

Even more important, designers should know which aspects of their work speed up or slow down the loading time of a web page. With over half of all website visits now taking place on mobile, site loading speed is more critical to the ranking of a website than beautiful features.

By understanding enough code to talk with developers about how the site functions, web designers bring essential User Interface (UI) and User Experience (UX) knowledge to their work. By doing some or all of this coding work themselves, web designer/developers exercise better control of their web projects, and can often write cleaner, more effective code as a result.

Full-Stack web development training at ABCO Technology

ABCO Technology knows about both sides of web page design and development, and has programs to support either specialization. In the Certified Internet Webmaster Program, students learn a broad foundation of full-stack development skills. Our courses include:

Design (Adobe Photoshop, Dreamweaver, Flash, HTML/XHTML, CSS, WordPress)
Development (J-Query, Javascript, XML, Java Applets)
Search Engine Optimization
E-Commerce and Marketing
Internet Business Foundations

If the “back end” development skills are what you are looking for, then consider our Programmer and Applications Developer Program, which teaches you:

C + + programming
Microsoft ASP.NET
XML
Visual C Sharp
and more

Looking for Training in Web Development? Talk to Us!

ABCO Technology, in Los Angeles, is a locally-run, career-focused technical institute. We are proud to be accredited, so that you can take the career training you need and get financial assistance if you qualify. To learn more, please feel free to contact us and make an appointment for a campus tour.

What Does A Computer Systems Analyst Do?

Posted on July 21, 2016 - Posted in: Blog

Tagged: Network Administrator, Systems Engineer

Are you adept with computers and the information networks they are part of? If you are looking for a job with good pay and a bright future, you may want to consider becoming a computer systems analyst. According to the Bureau of Labour Statistics* the United States will need 118,600 new computer systems analysts between 2014 and 2024. The pay is excellent as well, at typically over $85,000 per year. So what do computer systems analysts do?

The main role of a computer systems analyst is to help an organization operate effectively using computer systems, procedures and software. He or she works with both the business side of the organization to determine their needs, and the IT side to help create the solutions. Getting from determining the need to creating the solution takes a number of steps.

Step One: Work With Business Managers to Understand Their Needs

Whether a business sells products online, keeps client records or tracks the movement of equipment, a computer systems analyst is the person who designs the IT system that makes it all work. By consulting with the business leaders, systems analysts create diagrams that show how information should move be accessed and stored throughout the organization. This is an investigative step, where the systems analyst has to ask open-ended questions like “Who, What, When, Where and Why?”

Step Two: Research Potential Solutions

If the current IT system isn’t providing all the solutions that the business leaders need, then the systems analyst starts his or her research. Their goal is to find out what new software, hardware or networks might work.

Step Three: Create a Cost/Benefit Analysis

Usually, a number of solutions will present themselves. When this happens, the systems analyst has to determine the pros and cons of each. A systems analyst might present a variety of recommendations, from “basic and inexpensive” to “powerful but costly”. They then work with the business leaders to find the right balance between the cost of the system and the benefits to the organization.

Step Four: Improve existing systems /Design new systems

Depending on what decisions the business leaders reached, it’s the systems analyst’s job to manage any changes and upgrades. Systems analysts choose the hardware and software, and make sure that IT staff install and configure it correctly. They test the system thoroughly to make sure it works as expected once it’s installed.

Step Five: Document and Train

The computer systems analyst knows the new system like no other employee – at first. The final task in a project is to bring all the users up to speed. The analyst does this through training and providing documentation of how to use the system. Until recently this documentation would be provided in the form of instruction manuals. Now, that instruction can also take the form of video tutorials or guided online instruction and support. The systems analyst can to this job, or can act as the subject matter expert to an instructional designer who prepares the training materials.

Interested? Learn more

A computer systems analyst combines deep knowledge of computer systems with excellent communications and managerial skills. If you think this work is right for you, consider the hands-on, focused training at ABCO Technology in Los Angeles. Our Network Administrator and Systems Engineer program will help prepare you with the technical knowledge for success in this high-growth field.

*Bureau of Labor Statistics, U.S. Department of Labor, Occupational Outlook Handbook, 2016-17 Edition, Computer Systems Analysts,
on the Internet at http://www.bls.gov/ooh/computer-and-information-technology/computer-systems-analysts.htm (visited July 13, 2016).

Help Wanted: Cyber Security Professionals

Posted on July 19, 2016 - Posted in: Blog

Tagged: Cyber Security

Cyber Security is the fastest growing career in the information Technology industry. The Bureau of Labor Statistics has made outstanding career projections for cyber security through the year 2024. However, this career is still a bit of a mystery to anyone outside the technology industry. It’s time, then, to shine a light on the hidden world of cyber security professionals.

Cyber security professionals plan and carry out security measures to protect an organization’s computer networks and systems. Because cyber attacks are increasing in both number and sophistication, this is a career with expanding responsibilities and a constant need for continuing education. One source of cyber-attacks are government-trained hackers from countries or governmental agencies who encourage cyber-attacks as a matter of their national policy. Another is organized crime, which specializes in stealing identities or valuable intellectual property.

How to become a cyber security professional

As a cyber security professional, you need several certifications in a computer-related field. You should also gain experience in a related occupation, such as network administrator or network engineer.

The training for this profession takes place in two phases:

Phase 1 – Learning Computer Networks

A cybercriminal will usually break or, in many cases destroy a network while hacking into it. Therefore, a cyber security professional must understand how to maintain and repair a damaged network. To fully understand computer networks, this training includes three valuable certifications.

CompTIA A+

The first certification, the five-week CompTIA A+, teaches the beginner how to:

repair and maintain desktop computers
install devices onto a network
troubleshoot computers for problems including viruses

Students take two exams for this certification, one for hardware and another for operating systems. Recently, the CompTIA has added repairing smart phones and other small mobile devices. Many students obtain part-time or full-time jobs after receiving the A+ certification.

Microsoft Certified Solutions Expert

The next certification in the networking phase of this training is the Microsoft Certified Solutions Expert (MCSE). In this 25-week program, students concentrate on five areas of study, each with its own exam:

repairing and maintaining a corporate server, delivering programs to all of the small computers in a company
maintaining an E-mail server
working with active directory, which assigns rights and privileges
performing backup and recovery of networking systems
working with hypervisor, which gives you skills in virtual networks

Cisco Certified Network Associate

The final certification in the networking phase of cyber security training is the Cisco Certified Network Associate (CCNA), a five-week course. The Cisco certification deals with commercial routers, which act as gateways to the Internet for thousands of computers. A router controls the type of information a network receives by actually controlling the kind of packets allowed into the network. Proper router configuration will create a strong firewall, which will enhance a network’s security.

These three certifications by themselves are an excellent gateway to a career in information technology.

Phase Two: Cyber Security Certifications

The second phase of this training contains the actual cyber security certifications, which are CompTIA Security+, Certified Ethical Hacker and the Certified Information Security Systems Professional or CISSP. Each of them take five weeks to complete, and they follow one after the other.

The popular CompTIA Security+ certification teaches valuable security skills to protect a network against cyber-attacks. You will learn how to analyze a network for vulnerabilities, create strong passwords and defend against social engineering.

The next certification, the Certified Ethical Hacker, has gained a high degree of publicity. The Certified Ethical Hacker teaches you what cyber attackers are doing and how you can defend against their attacks. The certified Ethical Hacker gives you access to the latest information about the state of cybercrime, and how cyber security professionals are defending against it. For example, you will be able to detect when a computer’s IP address has been spoofed. As a Certified Ethical Hacker, you create counter-measures to guard against social engineering or an angry employee that has just left an organization.

The final cyber security certification is the CISSP or Certified Internet Security Systems Professional. Students acquire computer forensic skills and are able to recover lost data, which is extremely valuable in today’s environment.

What do Cyber Security Professionals Earn?

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics the median annual wage for cyber security professionals as of May of 2015 was $90,100 per year. This amount will vary, depending upon the area of the country you live in and your overall level of network experience.

Available jobs

Cyber security professionals work in a number of different environments:

cyber security employees in a large firm
network engineers with cyber security skills
member of a cyber security penetration team
cyber security consultant
cyber security business owner

In addition the United States Department of Defense has a special Security Clearance, known as DOD 8140. If you do not have a criminal record this certification will open the door to you for career positions with organizations that require a high-level security clearance. Organizations that employ DOD 8140 cleared cyber security professionals pay fantastic benefits along with a generous salary. One year of constant training can place you at this level with no college degree required.

We advise a two-year training program, to allow you to gain work experience along the way. The work experience will enhance your opportunities for that first great job in cyber security.

Career Outlook

The Bureau of Labor Statistics projects that the job outlook from 2014 through 2024 will grow at a rate of 18% per year. Unfortunately, many companies are reporting that they can’t fill positions because the individuals applying do not have the right cyber security certifications.

Continuing Education

Your cyber security certifications usually have a life cycle of three years. While you are in this occupation, there are numerous online seminars you can attend to increase your knowledge. For example, the Certified Ethical Hacker and the CompTIA Security+ certifications offer continuing education to ensure your knowledge is up-to-date. Microsoft also offers a comprehensive continuing education program. If information is your passion, a great deal of education is available.

Where to go for this training

If you are someone who wants to join this exciting field of cyber security, you need a good computer training school. You want to enroll at a computer training school that is accredited by a national accrediting board working under the US Department of Education. These schools have an .EDU at the end of their domain, indicating that several governmental agencies have audited the school for its curriculum, job placement and quality of courses.

ABCO Technology is computer training school in Los Angeles, offering courses in cyber security. We are accredited by ACCSC and offer full hands-on training for all of the certifications listed in this article.

Call our campus today to receive more information.

You can reach us by phone at: (310) 216-3067 between 9 AM and 5 PM Monday through Friday.

If you are comfortable with email, email our campus at: info@abcotechnology.edu

10 Types of Cyber Threats to Look Out For

Posted on July 13, 2016 - Posted in: Blog

Tagged: Cyber Security

The job of cyber security is growing, despite the popularity of security software, and increased awareness of security threats among computer users. Cyber Security Engineers need to be aware of these ten common threats, and know how to seek out and disable them.

Phishing

Phishing is when the cyber attacker tries to get you to give them your sensitive data, such as user names, passwords and credit card details. Often, they accomplish this by imitating a trusted financial site, such as your bank. Phishing is a form of social engineering, described below

Tampering

Tampering refers to people modifying physical computer hardware. Attackers can install software that disables a computer’s encryption system, or plant spyware in a router.

Spoofing

Any communication that is sent from an unknown source, but is trying to look like a trusted address is known as spoofing. It is most common in email systems that lack a high level of security. A person could argue that those emails from a “Nigerian prince” is one of the simplest forms of spoofing.

Backdoors

Just like a popular club, your computer system could have heavy security at the front end, but a back door that has none at all. Sometimes backdoors exist by design, and sometimes it’s an oversight. Either way, an unguarded back door leaves computer systems vulnerable to attack.

Denial of Service Attack

Denial of Service Attacks are a frequent form of cyberattack, which makes a site unavailable to its users. They can affect either individuals, or block all users at once. Often the attack comes from many points, called a distributed denial of service attack, or DDoS. The computers attacking can be “zombie computers” or the computers of innocent people can be roped into the attack.

Direct Access Attack

Like Tampering, a Direct Access Attack involves having physical access to a computer. Once in, an attacker can make operating system modifications, or install a keylogger (to pick up passwords, etc).

Eavesdropping

Private internet conversations are at risk of eavesdroppers, including ones from official channels. Eavesdropping programs can listen into hosts of Internet Service Providers (ISPs). They can also pick up the electro-magnetic transmissions that hardware sends out.

Privilege Escalation

When Ferris Bueller logged onto the school computer system and boosted his grades by impersonating the principal, he was using Privilege Escalation. It’s when a standard computer user is able to fool the system into giving them access they’re not entitled to.

Clickjacking

Clickjacking is a common threat on some of the shadier alleys of the Internet, such as unauthorized streaming sites. It’s when the web developers create a user interface where the user clicks a button they think will do one thing (like stream an episode of Game of Thrones) and they are routed to an irrelevant page owned by someone else. Some cyber attackers will use this technique to log keystrokes onto an invisible frame, on top of a legitimate-looking web page.

Social Engineering

Social Engineering refers to any strategy that tries to convince a user to give away secret information such as passwords, card numbers and confidential data. It can be phishing sites, mentioned above, or fake letters from supposed CEOs or customers. This strategy is as effective as it is simple, and costs US business over $1 billion per year.

Are You Interested In Tackling Cyber Threats Head-On?

Learn how to recognize these threats and disarm them, by training as a Cyber Security Engineer at Abco Technology.

June-July Courses Eligible for FAFSA Award – Twice!

Posted on May 26, 2016 - Posted in: News

Take advantage of the FAFSA academic year rollover

If you are planning to fund your education with the help of a Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) Award, now is a great time to apply. From now until June 30^th, you can take advantage of grants and loans for both 2015-2016 and 2016-2017.

According to the US Department of Education, a new academic year starts on July 1^st. If you are planning to begin your studies in May or June of this year, you could receive loans – and non repayable grants – for the academic year coming to an end on June 30th. Come July 1^st, whether you are enrolled in our two-month Cisco Certified Network Associate (CCNA) course or the 20-month diploma in programming, the federal Department of Education sees you as attending school in two academic years. And that means you are eligible for more financial aid.

Only accredited schools are eligible for payment with FAFSA Award

ABCO Technology Institute is proud to pass on this access to Federal Student Aid. It’s possible because we have earned our accreditation through the Accrediting Commission of Career Schools and Colleges (ACCSC). Accreditation confirms that ABCO Technology Institute meets high standards in the following areas:

Management and Administrative Operations
Requirements for Residential and Distance Education Programs
Educational Administration and Faculty Qualifications
Student Recruiting and Advertising
Admissions Policies and Practices
Student Services
Student Achievement

You can be sure that when you enrol at ABCO, you are at a school that has a proven record of good management, qualified teachers, small classrooms, hands-on instruction, and excellent support as you begin to look for work in your new career.

Not sure if you qualify? No problem

If you need help applying for a FAFSA award, we have people on staff to help. Our Financial Aid specialists will help you determine if you qualify for funding, and can assist you in preparing your applications as well. Today could be the start of a new future for you.

Microsoft SharePoint Important Facts

Posted on November 26, 2015 - Posted in: News

Getting Started with Sharepoint 2010

Sharepoint 2010 includes numerous new capabilities and features for professional developers. This course will assist you in getting comfortable with Sharepoint and utilizing the program to its full potential. Sharepoint allows multiple users to share the same documents, allowing for more flexibility and efficiency throughout a corporate environment that utilizes spreadsheets, word processing, and other Microsoft Office applications.

SharePoint Developer Roadmap

Sharepoint includes numerous new capabilities and features for professional developers, most of which are highlighted in this unit. SharePoint helps you develop those solutions easier, quicker and allows for flexibility. Much of the required work that developers had to accomplish in earlier versions of SharePoint has been revised with simple configuration of the SharePoint platform, use of Visual Studio and SharePoint Designer or with calls to the SharePoint API.

Visual Studio Tools for SharePoint The unit will provide you with an overview of SharePoint development with Visual Studio. Specific topics covered will include an overview of the project and item templates, a walkthrough of the designers included, and areas of extensibility within Visual Studio that can enhance SharePoint development. Visual Studio includes support out of the box for the most common types of projects that you may want to build with SharePoint as well as new features for more easily defining features, solutions and wizards to walk through the most common settings for each project type.

UI Enhancements

The look and feel of SharePoint has radically changed from earlier versions of the product. In addition to being more accessible to the user it allows for improved extension points and fewer workarounds. The new user interface components that you can extend and build applications which include the fluent UI ribbon and an extensible dialog system.

Lists and Schemas In a typical system data is somewhat normalized – not all of the system’s data exists in one large table or list. Instead data exists in set of tables or lists which have one entry for each entity across multiple tables.

LINQ to Sharepoint

LINQ is a new data access paradigm which users to express SQL like syntax against a variety of data sources. LINQ can improve performance by allowing the back end data source to decide the best way to solve the query. SharePoint now fully supports LINQ for querying lists so that you can query information form the platform in a more condensed, easier to understand format.

Client Object Model

In SharePoint there are a number of object models that can be used by developers to access the server. The Client Object Model (Client OM) is a unified model which uses the same or similar programming concepts as the Server Object Model (Server OM). The Client OM can be accessed via web services, via a client (JavaScript) API, and via REST.

Workflow

In SharePoint you can associate workflows with a site so you need not associate a workflow instance with specific item in a list. Site-Level workflows are a powerful mechanism to create generic functionality using the power of Windows Workflow Foundation (WF).

Services Architecture

In this course the elements that will be covered are the new Service Architecture model for SharePoint. IN SharePoint the Service platform has been re-written with anew more scalable and flexible architecture.

Accessing External Data

In SharePoint Business Connectivity Services (BCS) enables integration with back end systems. Business Connectivity Services includes a set of presentation features, a connectivity framework and tooling with SPD and Visual Studio that enable developers and Information Technology Professionals to connect to external data and services and to surface this data in SharePoint and Microsoft Office. This course will provide an overview of the BCS capabilities and usage in Sharepoint.

Enterprise Content Management

From a free form Wiki to a highly controlled intranet or internet site, learn about all of the new Web Content Management features in SharePoint. This course will cover enhancements to the core authoring UI, publishing infrastructure, the content query webpart, and content deployment.

Extending Search

This training Will provide an overview of the enterprise search product line in SharePoint. With the implementation of FAST ESP this course will teach you how to utilize the best complete Enterprise search product line in the industry. Will showing you the overall strategy for enterprise search and delineate each of the key search products in SharePoint.

Business Intelligence

There has been considerable investment in the Business Intelligence capabilities of SharePoint. From new product capabilities like balanced scorecards, interactive dashboards, and line of business integration to improvements in Excel rendered content with Excel Services, improved and new capabilities for Self-Service information access and creation of BI assets. This course will cover the major components and identify the new capabilities.

Sandboxed Solutions

SharePoint adds a new deployment model for SharePoint called Sandboxed Solutions. It is a controlled solution packaging format that offers SharePoint Server Farm owners a way to easily mitigate risk that custom code will cause issues for them. It does this by restricting the API’s that can be called and governing resources that can be used. Because of this Sandboxed Solutions provided a solution package that can be easily deployed to a shared server environment. This talk will describe what Sandboxed solutions are, it will demonstrate how to create them with Visual Studio 2010 and how to deploy and monitor them on SharePoint farms.

SharePoint Security

SharePoint Server 2010 incorporates a new, more powerful and flexible authentication model that works with any corporate indent system, including Active Directory directory servies, LDAP – based directories, application-specific databases, and new user-centric identity models such as LiveID. This model uses claims-based authentication and a new product, code-named “Geneva.” Claims-based authentication is built around the concept of an identity and is based on standards – WS Federation, WS – Trust – and protocols like the Assertion Markup Language (SAML).

Upgrading Custom Solutions

Microsoft SharePoint Foundation provides new members that make it possible for you to upgrade custom features through versioning and declarative upgrade actions. In this unity you will learn how to leverage the new feature upgrade capabilities in SharePoint. Upgrading VSeWss Solutions to SharePoint Today there are many solutions written using the Visual Studio for WSS (VSeWss) tool. This tool was utilized by developers used to build the previous SharePoint application. In this unit you will learn about how to upgrade your existing Sharepoint software to a newer version.