New Horizons Computer Learning Centers

***The Prometric Testing Center is located within this building. There’s no signage, at least that I noticed, on the building exterior indicative of such.
Anyway, my review is in regards to just Prometric.
Prometric in general is basically an exam-​proctoring facility. The anti-​cheating and security measures would make airport TSA green with envy. .take off all jewelry and watches, leave all belongings in a provided locker, expose forearms and calves for visual inspection, turn out all pockets, be scanned with a wand thingie (metal detector?).
(I guess they’re lenient at this location though. .at the San Pedro center a few months back, I also had to remove my hair from an up-​do and shake it out, and fold my earlobes forward for visual inspection behind them. Seriously.)
You’re given 2 pencils, a couple sheets of scratch paper, and a super basic calculator, then seated in a little computer cube where your scheduled test is initiated. Noise-​cancel headsets are also provided at each test station. (I wish they piped in music — preferably with a little student-​choice re: genre — that’s would definitely help ME focus. Personally, I find the silence distracting.) There’s an in-​room proctor, eleventyseven cameras mounted around the room, and staff viewing the testing room directly through a glass wall as well as on the video feed from said cameras.
If you have to tinkle, have questions, or finish your exam, don’t leave your cube. .raise your hand and rep will come over.
It’s all very police-​state like, but the staff (at this particular location, at least) is very cool about it, and friendly. And The space itself — despite being located in tittie bar central — seemed far cleaner and less-​ick than the San Pedro center.
I’m on the cusp of a professional designation course that will entail 12 more tests over the course of the next year or so — I’ll definitely be choosing this location of Prometric test proctoring for the rest of them.

So I really try to keep up with my skills in the technologies that run my business. We are getting ready to expand and with that we are going to be doing some redesign work on our database. With that I attended a one day relational database design course. This course was in the OLL (Online Live) format, where the instructor is somewhere else and I sit in front of a computer.
The software they have for the OLL courses seems a bit dated but its totally functional. The instructor streams video so you can watch him speak, they stream a PowerPoint presentation and can even share their desktop so you can watch what they do. He was a great instructor and brought the material out in a way that made it easier to understand.
The OLL classroom was a big one. There must have been 40 or 50 computers in this room and it was about 50−60% full. The facility is nice too. I attended a course last year at their old facility off I-​10 and this place is not only considerably larger, its laid out better and the overall feel of the place is nice.
The course lasted all day and the material was great. I wish we had more time to do the labs (we actually didnt do them at all) but for the conceptual information that was being presented, I could say how some things would have to be sacrificed in order to meet time constraints.
If I had to complain about one thing, it would be their choice of news stations that they left the TV on. Now I’m a very political guy and the TV station they chose happened to be a news network that airs things that are contrary to my political views but that isnt really the issue. The issue is that if I were running a place that large and that had that many people coming through it, I wouldn’t be playing politically motivated television channels/​shows at all for fear of alienating existing clients. Choose something that is neutral like the golf channel or something… no one is watching it anyway, its just on as white noise during breaks and lunch.
Other than that I will definitely be back for more classes (actually next week!).

Attended a preview/​dog and pony show for Microsoft Lync 2010 — I was only able to stay for the first 1.5 hours of the 3 hour preview due to meeting conflicts, but from what I saw in the first half, it was a waste of time and I want my money back. Unfortunately, it was a free event so I don’t think I will be seeing a refund any time soon… ;)
It’s been a while since I have attended a full one week training class here, but if they use the same chairs in their training classes that they used fort his event, I would NOT make it through the whole week. These were obviously cheap office chairs — no support at all, if you leaned against the back of the chair at all, you were practically in the prone position.