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iOS 5 Development for iPad and iPhone Training
We are thrilled to announce the addition of our new iOS 5 App Development for iPad and iPhone training course here in Brighton. This is the latest course in our range of Mobile Development Courses, designed to prepare individuals and businesses for the mobile age.
Designed for programmers, the new 5-day iPhone Training course provides delegates with everything they need to know to design and develop Apps for iPad, iPhone and iPod Touch using the new iOS5 SDK (Software Development Kit).
The programme is a hands on workshop led by an award-winning iOS App developer, with real-world experience developing successful games and utilities that are currently available in the App Store. Because we only use experienced developers who are designing Apps right now our courses are guaranteed to be up-to-date.
The workshops are hands on – we provide each delegate with a 21.5″ iMac to use during the course with the SDK and emulators ready installed. We also provide full course materials and example files. So just bring along your iPhones and iPads for app testing.
When is the iPhone Training Course Available?
As the iOS5 has only just arrived, and includes significant changes from iOS 4 for developers – the new iPhone App development course will be available from Q1 2012 – as our trainers are currently busy updating the training material.
Our first 5-day iOS 5 Course will be running on 6th-10th February 2012.
Course fees are £1,200 + vat per delegate, and we expect places to book up FAST.
Who is the iOS 5 Course For?
The iPhone App Development Training course is intensive and gets delegates coding with Objective-C, it is therefore aimed at developers with experience using a modern Object-Oriented Programming language such as Ruby on Rails, Python, C++, C# or Java
If you are not sure whether you have sufficient experience to to take the iOS 5 course, please call our office on 01273 622272 and one of our training managers will be happy to answer your questions.
Read the rest of "NEW iOS App Training: App Development for iPad and iPhone"
Posted by Alistair Wylie in Brighton, iPhone Training, Mobile App Development, News on November 14th, 2011| No Comments »
Call 01273 622272 or e-mail alistair@siliconbeachtraining.co.uk to book your places early!
Back in 1999 we were one of the first training companies to offer web design training. At that time a lot of businesses still didn’t have websites – web designers were charging a fortune for their services and were always off snowboarding!
The advent of the web was a step change for all businesses – and our Web Design Week package (incorporating our Web Design, Dreamweaver and Photoshop for Web Graphics courses) helped our clients to take control of their websites instead of outsourcing everything to developers. The package is still popular with newcomers to web design.
Fast forward 12 years and we’re seeing another major step change in the way people access the web – MOBILE!
Most phones can access the web now – and the use of smartphones with proper web browsers is exploding. Browsing from mobile devices is set to outstrip desktop browsing within the next couple of years. Our own Google Analytics reports show that our mobile traffic is up 230% in the last year – for more detail on this read our latest post on Mobile Web Design.
Is your website mobile friendly?!
Think about what the figures above might mean for your business… In the near future, more than half of your users might be visiting your website from their phone – and what are they going to see?
If your competitors’ websites render perfectly on their mobiles and yours is unreadable – who are they going to call or e-mail first?
Thankfully – our new Mobile Web Design Course package is here to help! Aimed at those who already have basic web design skills (including HTML and CSS) – our new week long package provides a comprehensive overview of the design considerations and main technologies you will need to understand to whip your site in to shape for mobile users.
What’s in the new Mobile Web Design Week?
Read the rest of "New Mobile Web Design Training Package"
Posted by Alistair Wylie in Brighton, Mobile App Development, News, Web Design Training on September 29th, 2011| 1 Comment »
jQuery is the post popular JavaScript library on the web.
Since we launched our jQuery training course earlier this year, we’ve seen a huge amount of demand for places.
Why is there so much interest in a JavaScript library though?!
We have a bit of a nerdy love of jQuery – here’s 8 reasons why we love it so much – and why you should too!
You might also want to check out our list of FREE CSS & jQuery tutorials
8 Reasons to Love jQuery…
1) Cross-browser Compatibility
jQuery works in every browser that matters. From IE6 to Chrome 9. From Mobile Safari to Blackberry Tablet OS. You don’t need to worry about the incompatibilities.
2) CSS3 Selectors
jQuery lets you navigate the DOM using a syntax specifically designed for the job – CSS! If you want to find all the paragraphs on the page: $(‘p’). If you need all the hyperlinks with a class of rollover: $(‘a.rollover’). For anyone who’s ever needed to use the DOM API this will be GOOD NEWS!
Read the rest of "8 Reasons we Love jQuery"
Posted by Alistair Wylie in jQuery Training, News on July 12th, 2011| 1 Comment »
Silicon Beach Training now offers the increasingly popular range of Agile Project Management training courses – but what is Agile Project Management, and why is it such a big deal all of a sudden?
In March 2011 the government unveiled it’s new ICT Strategy which identified a number of problems (or challenges using their words!) with the method in which IT projects and programmes were managed and delivered, causing them to fail. The first of these challenges being:
- “projects tend to be too big, leading to greater risk and complexity, and limiting the range of suppliers who can compete”
Silicon Beach Training now offer accredited Agile Project Management training, including the Agile Project Management Foundation course and Agile Project Management Practitioner course.
For example, if a project to implement a large IT system is deemed to take 5 years to complete, it is very likely that, in those five years circumstances (e.g. technology, customer and business requirements, even governments!) will have changed, rendering the final solution based on the original specification unfit for purpose.
A number of strategies were identified to address these challenges, one of which is “by the application of lean and agile methodologies that will reduce waste, be more responsive to changing requirements and reduce the risk of project failure”.
Agile methodologies have been used in software development for some years, but are now being applied in project management as they offer a flexible process that can change according to customer or organisational needs.
How does Agile Project Management differ from traditional project management methodologies?
Traditionally a project manager may direct the project team using a ‘command and control’ style, actively directing their team towards the work that must be completed. Agile project management uses a different technique. At the beginning of an Agile project a high level plan will be created by the project manager, which is based around basic requirements and a high level vision of the solution. From there on the final project is created iteratively and incrementally, with each increment building on the previous increments. Agile Project management also differs in the way that team members create the plans for each increment, rather than the project manager themselves.
Read the rest of "What is Agile Project Management?"
Posted by Alistair Wylie in Agile Project Management, Business Skills, ITIL, MSP, MSP Training, News, PRINCE2, Project Management on May 11th, 2011| 2 Comments »
What are Active Listening Skills?
“A good listener tries to understand thoroughly what the other person is saying. In the end he may disagree sharply, but before he disagrees, he wants to know exactly what it is…” (Kenneth A. Wells)
Listening is one of the most useful skills we can have. How well we listen has a major impact on how we do our job, and on the quality of our relationships with others.
Active Listening intentionally focuses on who you are listening to, whether in a group or one-on-one, in order to understand what he or she is saying. As the listener, you should then be able to repeat back in your own words what they have said to their satisfaction. This does not mean you agree with, but rather understand, what they are saying.
Active Listening is a key business skill, and is covered on our Management Skills training course as well as our Leadership training course in Brighton, Sussex. We also offer a course specifically on Active Listening Skills which can be arranged on a private or on-site basis if you want to focus on this topic alone.
Active listening is a way of listening and responding to another person that improves mutual understanding. Often when people talk to each other, they don’t listen attentively. They are often distracted, half listening, half thinking about something else.
For example: When people are engaged in a conflict, they are often busy formulating a response to what is being said. They assume that they have heard what their opponent is saying many times before, so rather than paying attention; they focus on how they can respond to win the argument.
Are you a good listener? Think about your relationships with the people in your life – your boss, colleagues, subordinates, best friend, and spouse. If asked, what would they say about how well you listened? Do you often misunderstand assignments or only vaguely remember what people have said to you. If so, you may need to improve your listening skills. The first step is to understand how the listening process works.
Four Steps to Active Listening
- Hearing. At this stage, you simply pay attention to make sure you hear the message.
- Interpretation. If you fail to interpret a speaker’s word correctly it may lead to a misunderstanding.
- Evaluation. Decide what to do with the information you have received.
- Respond. This is a verbal or visual response that lets the speaker know whether you have gotten the message and what your reaction is.
Active Listening Tips:
- Don’t talk-listen. People like to have a chance to get their own ideas or opinions across. A good listener lets them do it.
- Don’t jump to conclusions. Many people will tune out a speaker when they think they have the general idea of the conversation.
- Ask questions. It’s perfectly acceptable to say, “Do you mean….?” or “Did I understand you to say….?”
- Overlook a speech problem, a twitch, or sexist language. Paying too much attention to these types of distractions can break your concentration.
- Keep an open mind. The point of listening it to gain new information.
- Listen to others’ points of view and ideas. It could turn out to be fascinating.
- Provide feedback. Make eye contact, nod your head and if appropriate, interject a comment such as “I see,” etc.
Posted by Alistair Wylie in Management & Leadership, News, Personal Development on April 15th, 2011| 2 Comments »
HTML has had many incarnations over the years. All of these are similar, but successive refinements have been added over time to cope with our evolving understanding of the best way to make a website.
HTML5 has been on the radar for a while (in fact we wrote about its emergence in this blog in January 2010). As new browsers (including the new Firefox 4) start to support a wider range of HTML5 features, it’s use among developers is sharply on the rise. To meet demand we now offer a regular public HTML5 Training course, which builds on the knowledge gained in our existing HTML4 Training and CSS Training courses
We also provide a range of other Web Design courses including our Web Design Week and more advanced programming courses such as JavaScript, AJAX and jQuery in Brighton, Sussex.
We still get asked a lot of questions about the different versions of HTML – especially the differences between HTML4 and HTML5. Throw XHTML in to the mix and it can be a confusing picture for the uninitiated!
So – here’s our quick summary of the three main types of HTML in use today… Read the rest of "HTML4 v XHTML v HTML5 – The Main Differences"
Posted by Alistair Wylie in Dreamweaver Training, JavaScript Training, jQuery Training, News, Programming, Python, Web Design on March 30th, 2011| No Comments »
Interview with Jennifer Tarjyani from MyTraining Manager – plus a chance to win a free course
Jennifer Tarjanyi from MyTrainingManager recently attended our Blogging Training and Social Media Training courses, and we took the opportunity to catch up with her about what they are doing to help businesses in the south, and how their new MyTrainingManager service can help managers to make the most of their training budget by choosing training that is appropriate to their needs.
In addition to online marketing courses, Silicon Beach Training offers a wide range of Management Training, Leadership Training, Appraisals Training and Project Management Training courses (including PRINCE2 Training and MSP Training) in Brighton, Sussex. We will soon be launching a competition in partnership with MyTraining Manager to win a free course at Silicon Beach – more details to follow soon…!
Read on for our interview with Jennifer about the new MyTrainingManager service
Posted by Alistair Wylie in Brighton, Competitions, Management & Leadership, News, Offers, Personal Development, Train to Gain Funding on March 23rd, 2011| 1 Comment »
Here at Silicon Beach Training we offer a wide range of Management Training & Leadership Training courses, and a topic that regularly appears in a lot of them is SMART objectives. So what are SMART objectives? In this post we take a look at how you can use them effectively.
Some of the training courses that look at SMART objectives in more detail include Management Skills for New Managers, Leadership Skills Training, Performance Management Training & Appraisals Training.
Goals, aims and objectives are often confused. All describe things that you want to achieve, however I see goals and aims as broader, more aspirational intentions whereas an objective is a narrower more defined task you need to achieve in order to meet your long term goals and aims.
All managers and leaders must be able to set effective objectives for their staff, whether they are to achieve project or task objectives, personal development objectives for people to grow in their role or performance standard objectives aligned with a competency framework, values or behavioural guidelines.
When setting objectives for your team you will need to ask yourself:
- What are my team’s targets and goals for the coming period?
- What standards do I need the team to maintain / improve?
Read the rest of "What are SMART Objectives?"
Posted by Alistair Wylie in Appraisal, Business Skills, Management & Leadership, News, Personal Development on March 14th, 2011| 3 Comments »
