Ok, so just this past week I think I’ve gone a bit crazy with the certification exam bookings. I booked myself in for two linux certifications which I was due to take yesterday. I say “due” because when I actually got to the place where the exam was meant to be “Professional Computer College, 85-89 Duke Street, Liverpool, L1 5AP“. The building looked just about abandoned, except through a ground-floor window I could just about see a noticeboard with some clippings about “Nerve”. A wee google later and it appears that they now occupy the building. The left brass placard next to the door had been removed so I only had the street number to go against. I rang the doorbell and what looked like a bodyguard (he had an earpiece with a spring cord) answered the door. I asked him if this building was Pearson Vue, or the computer college, he said no and looked at me rather suspiciously. He didn’t offer any information, or ask if I needed directions. He just closed the door rather quickly. As I was walked away, looking up a number on my phone, I was aware that a silver Range Rover with blacked out windows had pulled up rapidly outside the door I’d just been at. About three people, including the bodyguard guy I’d just spoken to quickly walked out of the building and got into the back of the 4×4 and sped off. That was… interesting.

Anyway, back to the story. I tried contacting Pearson Vue (or “Piss-On-You” as my sister honestly mis-heard on the phone) on three numbers, first off I tried the two numbers they gave for the test-centre both of which just rang out. Next I tried the customer services number which was auto-answered by a recorded message saying that “Due to an incident no-one can answer the phone at the moment. Please try again later”. To say I was thoroughly pissed off was an understatement. I walked up and down Duke Street twice more looking for a building that had anything like “Pearson Vue” of “Professional Computer College” as a placard. No dice. By this time I’d spent about an hour looking for the place. I eventually gave up after all possible routes of contacting Pearson Vue failed. I’m going to have to ring them on Monday and demand a refund.  Watch this space.

So, the exams themselves… these ones are fairly basic but I need to get them out of the way before I can move up to the more difficult (and higher regarded) levels. In case you’re interested, the ones I’m taking are with the LPI and they’re the Level 1 exams. Meanwhile in Windows land, I’m booked in for exam 70-290 at the end of July. I’ve been working with Server 2003 for, well, 6 years now, I’ve been on the course, I’ve read the book, I’m pretty confident I’ll do ok, I just need to keep in mind the “Microsoft way”.