OSX Certificates?

[thestaton]

I have a few months left in the Air Force and just learned I had 9K to spend on obtaining any certificate I can get my hands on.

So I'm curious what are the best certificates one can get for employment in the IT field for Macs?

How do you go about obtaining them?

thanks for the help,

Mike

 

[Hobofuzz]

OS X is just BSD underneath.

You could probably get by with Unix certification.

 

[rmarasa]

You say IT field for Macs, so nothing beats these:

Check out this link:
http://train.apple.com/certification/index.html

You can take courses from Apple, buy a kit, or if you're comfortable with the subject matter, buy a book from amazon.

Are you more interested in hardware or software? Or both? What is your level of knowledge, and I can give you a better idea.
Best of luck!

 

[jvmoore1]

im looking into this also.

my question is would the certification make it possible to work on macs on the side? i have a great job now, just wanting a lil extra income.

the problem i see is getting parts. not like you can order a new mobo from newegg for an imac.

 

[yellow]

The certifications are worth it. For the moment. Apple is pushing pretty hard to make the certifications more relevant in the job market and employers are starting to ask for them (or look for them). But there may be a point when they are meaningless like the MCSE.

ACDT and ACPT are hardware side. I don't have em, I don't need em. AFAIK, the study materials are readily available to study for the test.

ACHDS and the ACTC are software side.
You can get these yourself pretty easily. All you need is experience with OS X Client, OS X Server, and (if you need it) there are a couple of readily avilable books to study for the tests.

ACSA is pretty advanced.
This one will cost you money. Not for the faint of heart. Get the ACHDS/ACTC first and worry about this one much later.

 

[jvmoore1]

The certifications are worth it. For the moment. Apple is pushing pretty hard to make the certifications more relevant in the job market and employers are starting to ask for them (or look for them). But there may be a point when they are meaningless like the MCSE.

ACDT and ACPT are hardware side. I don't have em, I don't need em. AFAIK, the study materials are readily available to study for the test.

ACHDS and the ACTC are software side.
You can get these yourself pretty easily. All you need is experience with OS X Client, OS X Server, and (if you need it) there are a couple of readily avilable books to study for the tests.

ACSA is pretty advanced.
This one will cost you money. Not for the faint of heart. Get the ACHDS/ACTC first and worry about this one much later.

is the hardware side a waste since you cant order parts?
i was going to start off with software based, but you saying i need to experience in os x server..that may be a prob since i dont have anyway of playing around with the OS.

i have spent alot of time on pcs and even built a couple of systems myself, but have only gotten into mac in the past couple of months.

also thinking of getting a past gen powermac,emac,or imac (maybe a g3 or g4) to kind look at the inside and see how things work.

 

[yellow]

is the hardware side a waste since you cant order parts?

Not specifically... for me, I can fudge my way through hardware, having worked with computers for many years, built my own, blah blah blah, but ultimately it boils down to what you want to do. I don't do hardware and I don't work anywhere where I would have to do hardware replacement. Nor do I want to. I do support from the software side (better money, IMO) and take the busted hardware to someone who CAN order parts and wants to do that job.

ii was going to start off with software based, but you saying i need to experience in os x server..that may be a prob since i dont have anyway of playing around with the OS.

To get the ACTechnicalCoordinator, you're really going to have to have OS X Server to play with. You could try just doing it from the study materials (the book), but it depends on your learning style. I learn by doing and wanted to have practical experience with OS X Server. Bought a cheap copy on eBay and slapped it on another HD in my home machine. Etc.

 

[jvmoore1]

Not specifically... for me, I can fudge my way through hardware, having worked with computers for many years, built my own, blah blah blah, but ultimately it boils down to what you want to do. I don't do hardware and I don't work anywhere where I would have to do hardware replacement. Nor do I want to. I do support from the software side (better money, IMO) and take the busted hardware to someone who CAN order parts and wants to do that job.





To get the ACTechnicalCoordinator, you're really going to have to have OS X Server to play with. You could try just doing it from the study materials (the book), but it depends on your learning style. I learn by doing and wanted to have practical experience with OS X Server. Bought a cheap copy on eBay and slapped it on another HD in my home machine. Etc.

awesome!!
thanks yellow!

ill see what i can find