Some training companies still use a now out-dated method of training - in-centre classes. Very often portrayed as a huge benefit, following a chat with most students who've had to attend a couple, you'll hear a common theme of many or most of these problems:

- Multiple round trips - sometimes hundreds of miles at a time.

- Weekday access for events can be usual, and with two or three days required at a time, this can be difficult for most working students.

- Annual leave lost - most students only have 20 days holiday. If half or more of that is used up by educational classes, that doesn't leave much holiday time left for the family as a whole.

- 'In-Centre' days normally get fully subscribed quite quickly, leaving us with a slot that doesn't really suit.

- Workshop pace - workshops often have students of varied skill, consequently tension develops between students with more background knowledge and those with less experience.

- Add up the cost of all the petrol, fares, parking, food and accommodation and you could be in for a major shock. Attendees report costs ranging from hundreds to over a thousand pounds. Take some time to add it all up - and understand where they're coming from.

- Not wanting employers to know about the training can be very important to quite a lot of attendees. You don't want to lose potential advancement, salary hikes or accomplishment at work because you're getting trained in a different area. If your work discovers you're putting yourself through accreditation in a completely different market, what will they think?

- Many of us avoid posing questions while sitting with our fellow students - because none of us wants to look like we don't understand.

- Typically, events frequently become pretty much unreachable, when you work away for part of the week.

The ultimate convenience rests with watching a filmed workshop - with instructor-led learning available whenever it's convenient for you. You can study from home on your computer or if you've got a laptop, you can go anywhere. If you've got questions, then use the provided 24x7 live support (that we hope you'll insist on with any technical courses.) Repeat any modules when you're preparing for exams - repetition is good for memory. And you can say goodbye to note-taking - everything's ready to go. Put simply: You save money, avoid hassle, don't waste time and steer clear of killing more trees.

If you would like to be an exceptional user to assist you with your job, or study for a specialist career in a support position, there are a number of training programs to help you get there. To learn about Office 2003 (XP) look at MOS - 'Microsoft Office Specialist'. For 'Office' 2007 (Vista) skill-sets choose MCAS - 'Microsoft Certified Application Specialist'. A degree up from 'MOS' & 'MCAS' is MCDST - Microsoft Certified Desktop Support Technician, which will give you the skill-set to support other people within an office environment.

You could also be looking at a senior position within the I.T. market, that would mean more in-depth & specialised MS certification training. In a bid to update their skilled professional certification programs, MS have just lately re-structured many of their exams. Microsoft Certified IT Professional ('MCITP') & 'Microsoft Certified Technology Specialist' (MCTS) have been introduced, though many 'Microsoft Certified Professional' ('MCP') exams remain current. Students on the MCITP packages generally work up through MCTS training-paths.

Microsoft Network & Server Operating Systems dominate the business environment. The operating platform for approximately eight to nine out of every ten networked offices is believed to be 'Windows Server'. Clearly quite a few up-dates have been developed - the initial NT Server grew to become 2000, then '2003' and today 2008. Commercially, Server 2003 continues to be the more established, and it's likely that many companies utilising this platform won't update to 'Server 2008'. There are still companies with NT or 2000 installations, & they are the ones that have the biggest requirement to up-date to '2008'. If you refer to our MCSA and 'MCSE' web pages, you will learn more about Networking, Servers & the challenge of 'Server 2003' verses '2008'.

Can job security honestly exist anymore? In the UK for instance, with businesses changing their mind on a day-to-day basis, we'd question whether it does. When we come across growing skills shortages coupled with rising demand of course, we often hit upon a newly emerging type of market-security; where, fuelled by a continual growth, organisations struggle to find the staff required.

The Information Technology (IT) skills shortage in the UK falls in at around 26 percent, as shown by the 2006 e-Skills survey. It follows then that for every four jobs that are available across Information Technology (IT), businesses are only able to find trained staff for 3 of them. This distressing truth highlights an urgent requirement for more technically accredited computing professionals across the country. Because the IT sector is developing at the speed it is, could there honestly be a better sector worth investigating for your new career.

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