I have mixed feelings about this release from CBT Nuggets. Normally, I quite like their products and dont get me wrong, up front I will say that I did like this release but there are 2 points I should make right now before we go any further.

Being first to market at least allows other CBT Companies to know what they are up against, so if this product is a winner it raises the benchmark immediately for other players in the training game.

So did CBT Nuggets succeed here? Well, yes and no.

The product itself is fine for a first look at Vista and in the defense of CBT Nuggets, they don’t claim that this is a series of comprehensive training videos on Windows Vista. Its designed to be a pre-release introduction of what Windows Vista is all about, and they demonstrate their videos using the Beta and RC versions of Vista.

Since Vista is out now its probably worth waiting to see what else CBT Nuggets comes up with as this is a series that is rather simplistic for most Windows XP users wanting to step up into Vista. The video quality of this series is very poor and not up to the usual standards you’d expect from a company that does produce some quite good video training products. The trainer appears to be running Vista in a virtual machine with 8 bit color, which makes the product look awful. So if you expect to see the new Aero interface in all its glory – forget it. He also turns off some features on the Sidebar (but does explain why he is doing it), to make the videos smaller. Quite frankly I’d prefer a larger download size and the videos looking better (note to CBT Nuggets: your target market probably has broadband). Overall not a great product from CBT Nuggets, but a reasonable introduction to what you can expect to see in the final release of Windows Vista.

Pros:
Good Solid Introduction to C#.

Cons:
Training is rather boring.
Trainer reads a lot of documentation to you.

Company: CBT Nuggets
Product Link: On The Job Training Series C#

Price: $199

Our Rating: 4/10

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