Personal training with a Guru

Personal training sessions are available in store, 7 days a week. You can opt for either 30 or 60 min sessions. A Mac Guru will sit you down gather some information about what you would like to explore in your session before starting. Each session is unique and tailored to your individual requirements.

contact your local store to check availability and book Personal training sessions.

Apple Certified Training

Solutions inc. train professionals on Apple software and creative software that was designed to use the superior capability of the Mac. Whether you're an architect or network administrator, we can enhance your Mac experience and get you qualified to further your career.

As an Apple Authorised Training Centre, you'll get the very best training. We also offer the exams to get Apple Certification Pro status. We have dedicated classrooms at our Hove, Bournemouth and Chichester stores or can come and train you at your own site.

Contact For all Apple and Adobe certified training enquiries contact our training team on: 0844 8751 610 Email: This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

Apple Certified Mac OS X Lion Training

Apple have announced there new training programme for Mac OS X Lion. At present it includes only the following three qualifications;

Apple Certified Associate: Mac Integration 10.7

Apple Certified Support Professional 10.7 (ACSP)

Apple Certified Technical Coordinator 10.7 (ACTC)

The ACSA (Apple Certified System Administrator) qualification has disappeared completely and there is every likely hood that the courses that made it up have gone for for ever, from now on only Support Essentials and Server Essentials courses will be in certification programme.

As time has gone on Apple have moved to focusing training only in their technologies and their interface. So as the interface simplifies there's less to teach. It doesn't mean that the functionality isn't there, if you have already have an understanding of the underlying Operating System you can modify the UNIX configuration files or make changes on the command line. Apple just doesn't see it as the job of their training courses to teach stuff that is not theirs and you can find out else where. The problem is that this now extends to some of the most fundamental network protocol; DHCP, DNS etc.

There is a window where the Snow Leopard ACSA courses will still be available and this gives an opportunity for those with requirements for a higher level skill set . The Snow Leopard ACSA courses cover the the detail of  the fundamental network technologies as well as detail of Apple's own technologies that are also apparently missing from the GUI in Lion. The interface will still be Snow Leopard but the Command Line is the same and those skills will stand you in good stead for a future with Lion or what ever comes after.

The release of Apple's new Mac OS X Operating System is imminent, but it is not yet absolutely certain what it will bring. The rumour sites have all kinds of nonsense both optimistic and pessimistic.

The biggest change seems not to be with the operating system itself but who it is aimed at and how they will use it. It appears that the underlying functionality is still there, it would be virtually impossible to cut great chunks of it out. Now that Apple are happy with their operating system they have set about simplifying the interface for the user, something that can be seen clearly in the iOS and recent release of FCP X. Apple have long been  touting the "It just works" slogan. The GUI changes that they have made in previous versions of Mac OS X and that it appears they will make in Lion continue this trend.

This fine for your average consumer, but many of Apple's traditional customers have more esoteric and specialist needs, and require an Operating System that provides the tools to allow them to setup and customise to meet their needs.

To do custom configuration these users many no longer have the necessary skills and for a first time in a while Macintosh configuration and usage will require a skilled and experienced technician

In the past with the right tools anybody could change the sparks plugs on a car, now you are lucky if you can work out how to open the bonnet to find them. You need a mechanic who knows what they are doing and has the right tools.

So what does this mean if you are supporting Macintoshes, well much of the easy stuff know how to do will work without any need for your assistance, making the daily need for support smaller. But for the more complicated stuff you will need to ensure that you have the necessary skills to get under the bonnet.

Additionally I think we will find that because some of the control has been taken away from the users that many of them will be reluctant to upgrade immediately, and possibly for some time. The skill set from Snow Leopard that you have built up will continue to be needed, both to support those that haven't upgraded yet, but more importantly it will give the necessary understanding of how the underlying Operating System under Lion works and clues to how make the changes that are no longer possible in the GUI.

So ensure that your Snow Leopard tool kit is polished and up to date as the Lion interface may well not give you the options that you need and you will have to lift the bonnet spanner in hand.

Training at Solutions inc.

Solutions inc. offer a full and comprehensive array of training solutions. From in store seminars in our high street stores, through to to personal 'Guru' sessions tailored to meet your individual requirements and all the way to Apple Certified Training courses. Click on the appropriate box above to discover more about our Mac Enlightenment, Guru and Apple Certified Training.  

Apple Certified Mac OS X v10.7 Lion Training

Apple Certified Mac OS X Lion Training

After my post on FCPX I have been getting lots of questions about Apple's certified training for Lion. As it turns out my response is pretty similar.

A couple of weeks ago Steve Jobs formally announced the release of Mac OS X v10.7 code named Lion. In the keynote speech at WWDC he described and demonstrated a number of new features. We all eagerly await it's release at the end of July. But what does this mean for Apple Certified Training? The answer at the moment is we just don't know. Apple have not said anything, all we have to go is what happened with the last major upgrade from Leopard to Snow Leopard, and there are no guarantees that things will be the same this time round.

For the upgrade to Snow Leopard;

The new version of Support Essentials materials came out with the release of the OS.

Server Essentials materials took a little longer,.

It was at least six months before the ACSA training courses were available.

This time round if the Apple Certified Trainers need to attend Lion upgrade training courses it may take longer before we are actually able to roll out the courses.

For those who were certified in the old version of the OS Apple offered an online recertification exam that could be sat at home with book in front of you, for the first two months after the release of the OS. There was no requirement to resit the course.

But to find out what the training programme for Mac OS X Lion will be we need to wait for the announcement from Apple.

So what should you do?

You have to step onto the moving walk way at some point. If you are currently supporting Snow Leopard then you need to get trained in it until the new certifications come out and you are ready to upgrade. Upgrading to an new version of any operating system before it has had time to mature and settle down, can bring a world of problems. Snow Leopard is stable and it's idiosyncrasies are well know and understood, it will be around for a while.

Attend the training and get certified in Snow Leopard,