One more tip about installing the database samples: I believe that installing them is not enough. In order to improve your skills you need to have a deep knowledge of them. Therefore, don't deploy the SSAS project to the server and that's it. Build it yourself. Yes - create a new project called MyAdventureWorks or something like that and build all the objects by yourself. Indeed, this will take time and strength but this is worth this. After you'll do all the tricky things yourself then you really got it in hands. Learn the AW project and be a master.