For starters first go to register at http://developer.force.com for a free account.
Then download the Force.com Fundamentals ebook – This book is intensive and requires a lot of reading. It guides you in building your first application using different kind of relationships, adding security, loading data via excel and alot more. It doesn’t cover some other features in the exam though like Data Loader and salesforce enabled features like multicurrency, audit field, etc.. But never the less a good resource.
I found this website which is a great help if you want to get certified, it’s focus though is on Spring 09 release .
Certified Developer
And before taking the exam a prerequisite is that you have finished the Force.com Fundamentals or took the DEV 401 Essentials Training. Good news though is there is an available Itunes podcast of the Dev 401 recorded training . A true jackpot resource. So if you don’t have iTunes get it now and download the podcasts.
http://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?id=325668840
One thing I felt I was weak and had lots questions is case scenarios and which features of the platform is best to use. So I would be focusing on enhancing that skill too.
Chow for now.
