Greetings again from Amsys Training! Following on from my previous blog about OS X Server Essentials 10.9, last week I had the pleasure of delivering my first OS X Support Essentials 10.9 course!
Despite being the first Amsys Trainer to deliver the Mavericks Server course, I was the last to deliver the Mavericks Support course. I guess that’s only fair!
For those of you not already familiar with the Apple OS X Support Essentials 10.9 course, this course is designed to give students a tour of the breadth of OS X Mavericks and the best methods for effectively supporting users of OS X Mavericks systems.
The new Mavericks 101 OS X Support Essentials 10.9 course keeps true to the Apple training format and is a great update to the previous 10.8 version.
Day One
As with all courses, the first day kicks off with an introduction to the course and facilities. Last week, most of my students were fairly new to the Mac platform, so I was determined to show them what it can do!
The first section of the course gets the students to look into the installation and configuration of OS X Mavericks. For some of the students, this was their first real look at OS X, and I’m pleased to say that everyone successfully configured their Mac systems and were ready to start delving deeper into the file system.
User Accounts were covered in the afternoon session, where we investigated User home folders and System security.
- Security is certainly an increasing concern in today’s digital world and Apple’s built-in solutions to secure user data are highlighted here.
Day Two
The second day of the course stat off with some of the key areas to master, File Systems and Data Management.
By understanding file system permissions, how they work, how to view, modify and troubleshoot them is certainly a useful tool for any IT technician. We also show students how to access hidden items and how OS X handles Metadata.
Applications and Processes
Installing, running applications and working with documents are most people’s main reason for using a computer.
Therefore, we spend some time looking into these areas as it is important for technicians to know how the operating system installs and runs applications and background processes as this knowledge is key to being able to resolve user’s issues with documents and applications that are not running correctly. OS X includes some great built-in features for apps and documents.
The Mac App Store is covered to explain how Apple handles applications. Plus with the tight integration of iCloud, students learn how easy it is to manage documents across multiple Mac devices.
Day Three
The final day encompasses two areas:
- Network Configuration & Services.
- System Management.
The networking lessons come in very handy to any technician who needs to setup a Mac on an existing network or indeed troubleshoot a Mac’s network connection. There is a collection of labs that create real-world scenarios where students have to work through a systematic troubleshooting process to resolve the loss of network connection.
The System Management section completes the course by explaining how OS X handles Peripherals and drivers, Printer configuration and management and then rounds up with a lesson on System troubleshooting.
Students learn what happens in the background when you power up a Mac and see all the startup processes required to successfully authenticate a user to OS X.
All the troubleshooting boot modes you can startup a Mac to are also covered, with more scenarios for students to act out to troubleshoot system issues.
By the end of day three, all my students had successfully configured an OS X mavericks computer through a variety of scenarios, and we also spent some time going through their own environment setups to see how they could apply the knowledge that they had acquired.
Alas, it was then exam time! Before taking the exam, my students had time to refer to the official student book and to test their knowledge using the Amsys Revise IT iOS app.
Well done to all those who attended the course and were brave enough to attempt the exam on the last day and pass, you’ve made me proud! Since this is a fairly new certification, they are now amongst the first, of hopefully many, to achieve the Apple Certified Support Professional (ACSP) 10.9 certification and half way towards achieving their Apple Certified Technical Coordinator (AATC)!
The benefits of ACSP
Most students who have successfully completed their Support Essentials course and passed the exam feel that Apple’s Support Professional certification provides them with the key knowledge required to start configuring and supporting Mac client computers. Many will go on to attend the Server Essentials course to get to grips with the server side, or perhaps attend one of our bespoke Apple courses specialising in a particular area of interest.
If this journey to Apple certification and knowledge of Apple’s new Mavericks OS is something you’d be interested in, please feel free to contact one of our helpful and friendly training team or take a look at our collection of Mavericks Training courses on our website here.