I'm taking the opprtunity of the holiday slack time to restart my exam preparation for certification as an MCPD: Windows Developer. I currently hold an MCAD, so I need take only one exam to bump up to the next cert. I had been studying in August and September, but I let myself get distracted, so it's almost like I'm starting over. I've set myself a new goal of passing exam 70-552 by April 30.
I'm reading selected chapters of Jeffery Richter's CLR via C#, largely for background and a refresher on concepts like boxing and unboxing. The heavy-lifting prep is working through Microsoft's self-paced training books MCTS 70-536, MCTS 70-526, and MCPD 70-548. Fortunately, all of these are available through Safari, albeit at two slots a piece. I'm not looking forward to the long units on crypto and security, because, try as I might, it's an area I find it hard to get excited about.