Well another year has flown by it seems and Christmas is almost upon us. We have been working hard to ensure that all of our delegates have had the best possible training experience with us.

Even though the weather has been particularly bad this winter, this hasn’t stopped us in providing the training required by our delegates. Although it has prevented a few delegates from reaching us, our flexible approach to training meant that they were able to call us up and reschedule for no extra charge.

Let’s look back at some of the things which have happened in the past year:

We had the release of Microsoft Office 2010 in June of this year, which we are now happy to be able to offer our delegates Training Courses in each of the individual programs: Excel, Word, Project etc.

We added Windows Server 2008 courses to our ever-growing list of Training Courses and spoke about Microsoft Certification.

Over the course of the year, we have published a wide range of Microsoft Office Articles & Business Articles as well as a library of invaluable Hints & Tips for each of the Microsoft Office Programs.

We would also like to thank all of you for training with us and for your support throughout the year and wish you all a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

The launch of Facebook Places last month could be seen as a good idea, but it has now added to number of risks associated with other location based services.

Having your address visible to everyone could result in a few surprises, unfortunately not all as cute as this little cub.

The Facebook Places service is a service in which Facebook users list their current location to their friends and other users of the service

Home-owners as a majority seem to be unaware that their address may be available to be sold legally on the internet, even if they are ex-directory. Providing that they are listed on the electoral role, their address could be sold on.

Another down-side to this scheme for people who hold home insurance could face raised premiums in the future. This is due, according to the price comparison website confused.com to the ‘additional risks which could arise from broadcasting your information online and on social networking websites.’

So, it might be beneficial to check your settings in sites such as Facebook and Twitter to ensure that you aren’t sharing any information which could be used against you or to aid a burglar.

Would you like to read more of our articles? Then visit our Articles page. 

Welcome to another Microsoft Excel Tip. In this tip we will explain to you how you can set Excel to give you a notification of any task which needs carrying out, a number of days in advance of the deadline date.

There are a couple of ways in which you can do this and these will both be explained over the course of two tips in order for you to choose which way you think is best. The first option is to use Conditional Formatting.

Steps to follow:

1. Select the range of cells with dates to be compared C2:C6
2. Go to Format and select Conditional Formatting
3. From the dropdown list change Value is to Formula is
4. Enter =AND(C2-TODAY()>=0,C2-TODAY()<=30)
5. Click Format button
6. Select formatting options (Bold used below) and click OK
7. Click on Add button
8. From the dropdown list change Value is to Formula is
9. Enter =AND(C2-TODAY()<0)
10. Click Format button
11. Select formatting options (Italic, Strikethrough used below) and click OK
12. Click OK

Want to read more? Be sure to look out for our next tip or feel free to check out our Microsoft Excel Tips page.

Want to learn more? Then book yourself on one of our Microsoft Excel Training Courses.

After our Google Docs V Microsoft Office Apps article about Google & Microsoft locked in their battle for domination of the Cloud Office Software Market, Google is now taking on more big rivals in the form of Apple and Hewlett-Packard in the up-and-coming battle for the Cloud Printing market.

Both Apple and HP already have established their technologies with Apple offering its AirPrint technology and HP with ePrint. Google Cloud Printing will become available with the next version of its Internet Browser Chrome.

The end of printer drivers?

With the introduction of Google Cloud Printing, Google Apps will no longer have to rely on the Operating System & Drivers to print documents and manage print jobs.

Apple and HP are determined to gain the same ease of use with their technologies and lose the need for printer drivers as well as the tedious and time-draining set-up processes which are currently a necessity to have a smooth running printing system.

In Google’s technology, users will be able to associate printers with their Google Account using the service. The printers stored in the technology are treated in a similar fashion to how documents are in Google Docs so it is extremely easy to share the printers with your colleagues, family and friends, wherever they are in the world.

As well as the printer being stored on a persons account, there is also a record of that particular printer’s capabilities which will give any user the opportunity to select the options appropriate to their particular print job. For example, for one job you might want to print out a document but then afterwards you choose to print out a photo too. The photo would need different options applying to it.

Once the service receives the print job, it will send the job on to the printer and receives regular updates on the progress of the job which it in turn makes available to the app.

Google describes the service as the ideal experience for printing, without the need for any PC connection or print driver at all.

But is it too good to be true?

As great as all this new technology sounds, there is one rather large problem. The fact is that at present, no printers capable of this exist yet; meaning the only thing holding Google back is the waiting period before printer companies decide to join the party.

However, once all the right software and hardware are in circulation, it will make the whole job of printing a whole lot easier than it is at the moment. No need for wires or to have time wasted setting up the printer. It is definitely something to keep an eye on in the coming months.

Would you like to learn more about Cloud Computing? Read our article: Pros & Cons of Cloud Computing

Would you like to read more articles? Then feel free to visit our Articles Page to read our previous articles.

Welcome to our latest Microsoft PowerPoint Tip. In this tip, I will explain how you can use Microsoft PowerPoint 2010 to convert your newly created slideshow into a WMV (Windows Media Video) format video without having to install any additional software.

In previous versions of Microsoft PowerPoint (2007, 2003 etc) anybody that wanted to convert their presentations into a video format would need the help of a third-party program to save and convert the presentations. Here are the steps on saving your Presentation as a video:

Once you have finished creating your presentation in Microsoft PowerPoint 2010 and checked it through, then click on the File tab and select Save As.

In the Save as type drop down menu, select Windows Media Video. Then input a name for your presentation and click Save.

A video creation progress bar will then be displayed in the status bar, showing you how much has been converted. Once complete, you can then play the video straight away in Windows Media Player.

Put your feet up & grab the popcorn, time to watch Your PowerPoint Creations on the big screen…

Converting the presentations to videos makes sharing the presentation with others a whole lot easier. The videos can be easily shared with your friends on Facebook or MySpace as well as on video sharing sites such as YouTube. Having the presentation converted to a video format also makes it alot easier to burn the presentations off onto a CD/DVD disk for you to watch on your TV.

Would you like more tips? Then feel free to take a look at our Microsoft PowerPoint Tips page.

Would you like to learn more about Microsoft PowerPoint? Then you should book yourself on one of our Microsoft PowerPoint Training Courses.

According to a recently report published by Ofcom, us Brits are amongst the quickest people to pick up new technologies being released. Data from the report shows that the Brits lead the way in Broadband connections, mobile and digital TV services and also smart phones.

The big surprise is that even though there is a great demand for these items, the UK was found to be among the cheapest countries providing these products and services to their inhabitants.

At the end of last year, the study shows that UK households were amongst the highest adopters of land-lines as well as fixed broadband connections and mobile connections at the end of last year. This was also true regarding Digital TV services.

If you would like to read some of our other articles, please visit our Articles Page.

If you would like to become more tech savvy with our help, visit our Technical Training Courses page.