Professional
This part of my site discusses some of the professional development I have undertaken thus far in my career. 

Microsoft Certification
 I currently hold Microsoft Certified Professional (MCP) status after successfully passing exams for two core modules.  I fully intend to complete my final examination in the first half of 2008 order to gain the Microsoft Certified Application Developer (MCAD) qualification.

The complete list of Microsoft courses that I have undertaken are as follows:

Year Course ID Course Name Duration
2005 MS2734 Updating your Database Development Skills to Microsoft SQL Server 2005 3 Days
2005 MS2310 Developing Microsoft ASP.NET Web Applications Using Visual Studio .NET 5 Days
2006 MS2389 Programming with ADO.NET 3 Days
2006 MS2524 Developing XML Web Services 3 Days
2006 MS2555 Developing Microsoft .NET Applications for Windows (Visual C# .NET) 5 Days
2007 MS2543 Core Web Application Technologies with Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 3 Days

The Microsoft examinations I have undertaken to date are:

Year Exam ID Exam Title Mark*
2006 70-315 Developing and Implementing Web Applications with Microsoft Visual Basic .NET and Microsoft Visual Studio .NET 943
2006 70-320 Developing XML Web Services and Server Components with Microsoft Visual C# .NET and the Microsoft .NET Framework 936
2008 70-316 Developing and Implementing Windows-based Applications with Microsoft Visual C# .NET and Microsoft Visual Studio .NET ?

* Please note that the pass mark for Microsoft exams are approximately 740.

Other Professional Courses
During my career to date, I have undertaken a number of courses which have assisted in furthering my professional development.  Although a number of these courses have been focussed on specific technologies, a number have been non-technical in nature.  Below is a summary of the main ones:

Year Organisation Course Name Duration
1997 CI Group Advanced UNIX & AIX 3 Days
1999 GA Information Systems BusinessObjects Designer & Supervisor 5 Days
1999 Xenon Training Advanced Web Page Design 3 Days
2000 Xpertise Training Advanced HTML & JavaScript 2 Days
2001 DWP Skills for Appraisers 3 Days
2002 DWP Government Computer Security 3 Days
2005 Oracle Oracle 9iAS: Discoverer 3 Days

Conferences Attended
Whilst at Lancaster University, I have been fortunate enough to attend a couple of Microsoft conferences - one in the States and one in Europe.  Here are the details:

Conference: Microsoft DevConnections 2005
Dates: 07/11/2005 - 11/11/2005
Venue: Mandalay Bay Resort & Casino, Las Vegas, Nevada, USA

This is where I will put some details about the conference.

Here is a listing of the sessions I attended:
Conference: Microsoft TechEd 2007
Dates: 05/11/2007 - 09/11/2007
Venue: Centre Convencions Internacional (CCIB), Barcelona, Spain

This is where I will put some details about the conference.

A detailed account of my time at the conference can be located on my conference blog.