People who Support Apple @ Work....

RedvGreen

RedvGreen

RedvGreen

Soldato
Joined
2 Dec 2009
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Location
Midlands
Reason I ask, is that me and a colleague are expected to be experts in Apple Macs (we support several IT Labs full of them) but we have had zero training. We support everything from Server side, Imagining and CS5 (design software).

We can't help but feel stupid at the simplest of questions which are easy fixes on a PC, but are finding it very tricky to get our Manager sufficient justification. He had been on one Certified Apple Tech course 7yrs ago and said it didn't help him. We don't have Macs as our own machines either, so very little opportunity to practise.

Has anyone had any official Apple training and would you rate it?
 
I've been on a few company made courses and some apple produced causes. TBH like with anything, as long as you know how its suppose to work and can figure out why its not working, you should be able to figure out what you need to change to get it working and then how to change it.

It does comes with practice and experience but having a mac so you can play around and find the locations of settings or to play with the settings is a must as it build confidence and stops you sounding like a panicky clown (not very professional.)

I would say the snow 101 course (3 days) was one of the the hardest I done, as simply everything was so crammed in, and at that point I've been supporting macs for about 7 years and it was really just to get the paper work to prove I have the knowledge, skills and its always good to know how they would like you to resolve the issue.

Apple have released mac integration to windows network causes which are self paced and cheap, I've just been given permission to do one by work, so I report back later on how good it is, but I'm half tempted just to sit the exam and see how a fair.

But at the end of the day, its your responsibility to improve yourself! Buy yourself a mac, teach yourself and when the next review or promotion or different job opportunity comes up. you have that extra skill card to play. :)

I support about 300 macs at my work along with the servers, security and network. I don't do the app support as I don't need to, just the OS but if needed I have loaded up the program and played around with the settings till it works but 9/10 resetting the settings resolves apps issues.
 
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The 101 course would be a good start. I did Lep101 a couple of years ago. It helps if you are familiar with the OS from a users point of view, my colleague who wasn't that Mac familiar struggled a bit.

Unsure if there's a Lion Support Essentials (aka 101) available yet.
 
Lion 101 has been out for a while, there are non apple courses done by apple trainers to convert experience windows techs into apple techs, it's worth looking into as I believe they are cheaper and a better place to start on the training path for non mac users than to jump straight into a 101 course.
 
Similar things going off on my workplace and a lot of naivety from SLT and teachers to expect everything just to integrate fine.

I ended up getting a macbook so at least I knew the basics around the OS. (Well that's one of the excuses I used to justify outlay:D)
 
The basics are probably on par with doing an ECDL. However if you don't own a Mac yourself then you will likely learn a lot.

If you can get your employer to pay for the certification then its of course well worth doing.
 
I started in support on the Mac side back in 08, I didn't go on one of the official courses until 2010 - SL101 and to be honest I feel like I knew most of the course already.

I personally find that the course books are so thick, and the content is whipped through so very fast that it wasn't a great benefit to me, especially as its the kinda thing where there is most definitely "direction" towards the knowledge that you might just need for the test ;) ;)

The books are a very useful reference but to be honest Google is your friend as always. Someone somewhere has always had the same/similar problem to you so the answers are always there. I'd go with your idea of getting a Mac for practise, new Mac Minis are around the £500 mark for a base model, and will serve you better than sending the 2 of you on a course that at best will likely jog your memory enough to help refine a search on the web or a flick through the book. Hands on testing is the best way by far imo
 
MagicBoy said:
Unsure if there's a Lion Support Essentials (aka 101) available yet.
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The 101 Snow Leopard is expiring in Prometric test centers at the end of this month, so I suspect 101 Lion will become available then. Pretty sure the Apple Authorized Trainers already have access to it.
 
Am finding more and more need for Mac support now and have invested in a Macbook which has been by far the best learning tool I have found. If you are expected to be doing Mac support on a day to day basis you really need to persuade your boss in to getting you one to use, even if its the base spec Mac Mini although I would argue a Macbook Air or base spec pro would be more useful as you can take it in to work as well as at home.
 
Well your boss is an idiot then. If a Mac problem comes up wait until a loan Mac becomes available, research how to recreate and resolve the problem on that machine, and then go and do the same to the one having the actual issue.

If no loan machines are available, welp, the issue doesn't get fixed does it. Unless you have spare OS X server licenses to use for learning on then I guess you won't be touching the servers either, since who'd prod around on a live system if they didn't know what they were doing?
 
f00f1ght0r said:
Was a no-go - our IT team loan out kit and I am expected to borrow one of the Macbooks as/when I can.
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Wow.. I'm amazed. They couldn't even arrange to "loan one" to you on a semi permanent basis at least? Craziness.

The real shame about this is that it's just halting your progress. Of course you can say "well I haven't got access to the right tools" and to a point that is right, but gives you no ground to progress on, increase your knowledge and move forward constructively. As I said earlier you can of course learn through the medium of Google but still it's better to have that as a resource and then practise on an actual Mac.

I'm guessing they wouldn't even let you try to pick up a cheapy cheep cheep on the bay or similar so you at least have OSX?
 
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