25 February 2010: 7 tips for Windows 7. As we enter the next decade, virtualization is fast becoming a key skill. Although The Mac is fast gaining market share, Windows still rules the corporate market. In this presentation, you’ll get the best of both worlds as we show you how to install and run some productivity-busting features of Windows 7. Although we’re using Mac OSX as the host platform, it could just as easily be Linux or Windows itself.

21 January 2010: Tonight we’ll be taking a look at Adobe Lightroom 3 Beta, Adobe’s latest incarnation of it’s premiere digital workflow application which provides tools to assist with every stage of the photographic process from downloading the image to final delivery.

3 December 2009: Come and celebrate Christmas with NWIITT. If previous years are anything to go by, there’ll be great food, great company and plenty of geek and techno chat. All are welcome (including friends and partners) and we look forward to seeing you there

17 September 2009: Networking is an essential way to market yourself and your business. Tonight we provide the opportunity to meet up with other trainers in a cosy, informal atmosphere.

27 August 2009: Creating neat, informative summaries in Excel from huge lists of raw data is a common challenge. Pivot Tables, one of Excel’s hidden gems, can solve this problem.

13 August 2009: It’s that time of the year again … you’ve just returned from holiday. All your wonderful memories captured with your digital camera. What better time to pick up some new photographic skills.

30 July 2009: Are you drowning in a sea of email? Do you regularly get the dreaded “Inbox Full” message from your SysAdmin? If the answer to either of these question is “Yes” then this presentation is for you!

16 July 2009: In this presentation you will learn how to create a Flash project from start to publish. Learn the fundamentals of working with Flash including working with symbols, creating and controlling animations, adding audio, creating buttons, and video.

25 June 2009: “It’s all in the presentation”. How many times have you heard that said? Whether it’s your CV or a Sales Proposal, what you type in a document is just the beginning – words alone won’t always get your message across.

11 June 2009: Originally providing a way to control the appearance of elements on a web page, CSS has come a long way. Come along and discover some cool techniques of CSS which will add some pizzazz to your websites.

28 May 2009: Most people know HOW to build a presentation … but that’s only half the story. If you want your presentations to be clear and effective, the best thing you can do is forget about the default settings and templates, along with any of your own preconceptions about what makes a good presentation.

14 May 2009: Most of us have access to a digital camera but are you getting the best out of it? No idea what RAW is? Heard of it but confused? Using it but want to get more out of it? We’ve got you covered

30 April 2009: In the current economic climate, networking is an essential yet cost-effective way to market yourself and your business. Tonight we provide the opportunity to meet up with others in the IT industry in a cosy, informal atmosphere. So come along and expand your circle of contacts and acquaintances.

23 April 2009: No matter how good your images are, whether you show your photos via the web, slide show or print, the delivery is the key in how to wow your audience.

26 March 2009: Spreadsheets – boring lists of boring numerical data! Well that’s often the perception anyway. After a while every table and every chart begins to look the same. In this presentation we will demonstrate a number of ways that you can bring your spreadsheets to life.

12 January 2009: Spry provides the ability to retrieve, manage, and integrate data into your web page content without requiring a page refresh. This creates a much more seamless and interactive experience for your users.

16 December 2008: Flash is an advanced authoring environment for creating rich, interactive content for digital, web, and mobile platforms. Use it to create interactive websites, rich media advertisements, instructional media, engaging presentations, games, and more.

4 December 2008: Come and celebrate Christmas with NWIITT. If previous years are anything to go by, there’ll be great food, great company and plenty of geek and techno chat.

18 November 2008: Imagine a world where you don’t have to purchase and install software. Imagine a world where you don’t have to worry about data loss. Imagine a world where you don’t need the latest and greatest hardware to run your applications…Imagine a world where you can access you data any time, from any place, from anywhere…

10 November 2008: Imagine a world where you don’t have to purchase and install software. Imagine a world where you don’t have to worry about data loss. Imagine a world where you don’t need the latest and greatest hardware to run your applications…Imagine a world where you can access you data any time, from any place, from anywhere…

4 November 2008: Acrobat.com is an exciting collection of online services providing document creation, collaboration, conversion, sharing and storage. And best of all – It’s completely FREE.

27 October 2008: Promises of a paperless office have abounded for many years but somehow the reality has never lived up to the expectation….until now !

16 October 2008: Gmail is more than just another web-based email client – and it’s FREE! Attend this online meeting, part of our series of Google-related events, learn how to get the most out of Gmail and become a Gmail power user!

18 September 2008: With digital cameras and camera cell phones getting cheaper every month, the volume of digital media on our hard-drives will continue to grow leaps and bounds. Photo sharing websites such as Picasa Web Albums (owned by Google) not only make it easy for others to view our content, they also act as reliable backup services in the event of a system crash.

20 August 2008: This is the final part of our summer look at Adobe’s Creative Suite and we’ve saved the best for last!

29 July 2008: There are times when everyone feels they could benefit from a little enhancement and if it’s pain free all the better. Tonight we’re taking at a look at digital plastic surgery in Photoshop, digital Technology can hide every fault from bumps to lumps, wrinkles to crinkles, complexion, hair, cellulite and teeth which are all digitally enhanced and every imperfection is fixed.

30 June 2008: The explosion in digital photography has only exacerbated the problem but tonight help is at hand in the form of Lightroom the digital Swiss army knife for photographers and photograph management. From managing a few snapshots to delivering a full digital album Lightroom has all the features you need to put the fun back into photography.

20 May 2008: In the training room we like to work with tried and tested examples – demonstrations and exercises that we know will work. However, it’s only when you come to use a program in anger that you really find out about it’s capabilities, it’s limitations and it’s annoyances. In this presentation Mike will provide an insight into the development of a number of real-world applications that he has built in Microsoft Office.

28 April 2008: After last month’s introduction we take the opportunity to examine the more powerful features of Google Docs.

16 April 2008: Ever wondered what the Start Meeting button in Adobe Reader does? Well wonder no more ! Tonight you are invited to join an online event using Adobe Acrobat Connect.

15 April 2008: OK. You’ve probably already got Microsoft Office, so why do you need Google Docs? Simple … for all the things Microsoft Office was never intended to do and for FREE!

31 March 2008: Following on from February’s highly entertaining and practical demonstration of software and methodologies for creating training materials tonight we move on to the creation of video training content.

11 March 2008: The presentation will cover all you need to know to get the best out of Google Notebook. You’ll be up and running in minutes. In fact, since the meeting is online, why not follow along with our live and interactive demonstrations.

25 February 2008: Do you want to understand how training materials are created? Do you need to construct training of some sort? Do you need to create more effective training resources? And most of all do you need to work faster?

12 February 2008: In this presentation Mike will give you a guided tour of Google Calendar – a FREE online calendar application.

28 January 2008: Although it’s been out for 12 months, it’s only now that businesses are beginning to seriously roll-out Windows Vista. So tonight’s presentation could not be more timely and relevant. Join us for a whistle-stop tour of Vista where we’ll be covering some of the new and improved productivity-enhancing features.

6 December 2007: Get into the Festive Spirit at the NWIITT Christmas Meal. We’ve gone for early December before the work parties and Nativity plays start – so you’ve no excuses

26 November 2007: Getting Things Done is the title of one of the most popular self-management books of the information age. David Allen outlines an intuitive approach for managing the ever increasing intensity and volume of communication, workflow and responsibility ever present in today’s working environment.

5 November 2007: You’ve sweated blood, you’ve designed the database, built the tables, queries, forms and more – it’s ready to go …or is it? Have you underestimated the ability of your users to ‘break’ your application?

29 October 2007: Do you spend hours each month turning raw data into useful information? You can fight this type of Spreadsheet Hell with help from Excel’s key functions.

18 October 2007: Did you know just how many training resources there are available online for free? Not just limited samples of expensive enterprise-level solutions, but a complete range of tutorials, how-to’s and general advice.

Don’t waste your time looking – we’ve done it for you and we’ve got a plethora of FREE resources to demonstrate tonight.

24 September 2007: The next regional event is on Monday 24th September when Elaine Giles will be delivering a presentation entitled “Effective Presentations”.

20 August 2007: The summer months mean that many people are on holiday. We’re still meeting up at The Old Pelican but just to make sure nobody misses out on our informative presentations, we’ve decided to make the August meeting a social event.

25 June 2007: Crystal Reports is fast becoming the ‘must have’ tool for presenting data quickly and professionally in a business. Data sources such as Relational databases, Business Objects Universes, SAP, Peoplesoft, XML and many others can be used.

12 June 2007: The last thing you need is to hand an application off to a user, leave for vacation, then have your boss call you back because of an unhandled error that’s brought the company to a halt. Mike’s presentation will show you some techniques for creating bulletproof applications in Excel

21 May 2007: To celebrate the recent launch of Adobe Creative Suite CS3 we’ll be running a special CS3 Event. Come along and see us demonstrate many of the new features across the applications.

15 May 2007: This presentation will cover some of the exciting new features of Microsoft Outlook 2007.

30 April 2007: Following our highly successful 2006 Photoshop workshop we’ve managed to persuade our resident imaging expert, Elaine Giles, to dazzle us with techniques we can all use to improve our photos.

17 April 2007: PDF is the standard for distributing and exchanging electronic documents. This event covers the more advanced features that will help you get the most out of your time with Acrobat.

26 March 2007: This event will cover how you can capture, edit, package and deliver a range of video based materials using a variety of applications from free video converters through to professional level editing suites.

13 March 2007: This presentation will provide some practical examples of how spreadsheets can be used to solve real-world business problems.

26 February 2007: This presentation will be addressing a variety of security issues, and how they might affect you as business owners, advisers or end users

13 February 2007: Tonight we’ll be showing how you can use the free iTunes software to access free high quality learning materials available from the iTunes Music Store and other online sources.

29 January 2007: We are starting the New Year with a visit to The Apple Store in The Trafford Centre instead of our usual meeting. This is a fantastic opportunity to see and experience what Apple can do for you and your business.

16 January 2007: This online event follows on from our well received Office 2007 launch event in November 2006. So it was put to the vote at that meeting and by popular request Excel and PowerPoint were singled out for a more detail demonstration.

5 December 2006: Come and join us for some festive fun and chat at the NWIITT Christmas meal. Partners/Guests are most welcome

27 November 2006: It’s the NWIITT Microsoft Office 2007 launch presentation and we’ve got all the inside news on the new Office suite together with free resources for all attendees.

14 November 2006: OpenOffice is a fully-featured office suite compatible with leading office products. It was the first product to deliver the benefits of open-source software to mass-market users, delivering essential everyday software tools. Tonight we will present an overview of each component of the Suite.

30 October 2006: Tonight Derek Peters will be demonstrating TuringPoint – a response system designed to integrate with PowerPoint.

10 October 2006: Most people tend to shy away from Pivot Tables, as they see them as too complex – and to be honest, when you first use a Pivot Table the whole thing can seem a bit daunting. Don’t be put off by this as persistence will almost certainly pay off.

25 September 2006: InDesign is able to produce a broad range of documents including newsletters, product leaflets, adverts, posters and sales material if not effortlessly then at least easily. We’ll be taking a look at a range of features applicable to many of these documents.

12 September 2006: Everyone is looking to increase their productivity and there’s no better way to achieve that than by making the software you already have work better for you. Tonight we’ll be demonstrating how Outlook can be configured for optimal returns on your time.

21 August 2006: Taking the fear and guesswork out of working with Microsoft Project

8 August 2006: As Mike said when he delivered a presentation on Excel forms at the March Regional Meeting – “to do the subject justice, you have to spend more than an hour on Excel forms.” With that in mind, this presentation continues where the last one ended – with a look at the more advanced elements of Excel forms – including combo boxes, list boxes, spinners, custom controls and multi-page forms.

31 July 2006: Microsoft Access Reports provide an easy way to output your data in a professional format. Although the built-in Wizards will get you started, most applications require additional functionality that can only be done ‘by hand’. This presentation will cover some of these areas: Multiple-column reports, Criteria-based reports, Printing alternate row colours, Printing the current record via a command button on a form.

18 July 2006: Blogs, Wikis and Podcasts are three of the hottest topics in the world of IT and IT training in particular. This presentation will cover these exciting new areas and how they relate to training.

11 July 2006: Chat and good food are the order of the day (well night). Good company and no doubt plenty of IT related discussions.

26 June 2006: Excel contains a number of very powerful (and often under-used) Data Analysis Tools and tonight we’ll be showing you how to get the most out of them

22 May 2006: Microsoft Access forms provide a quick and easy way to modify and insert records into your databases. Although the Wizard will get you started, most applications require additional functionality that can only be done ‘by hand’ which is what we’ll be demonstrating tonight

18 May 2006: Mind Maps are a simple but infinitely versatile technique for improving the speed at which these tasks can be handled and the effectiveness of the time spent working on them. First described by Tony Buzan in the 1970’s Mind Maps have become a favourite methodology for numerous situations for millions of people.

24 April 2006: Our resident Digital Imaging and Photoshop Expert, Elaine Giles will be running a Digital Imaging workshop.

27 March 2006: This is the first instalment of several Excel presentations that will be delivered throughout the year and focuses on the magic that is Excel forms

16 March 2006: This presentation will look at the different types of query, including update and append queries. We will also show you how to use complex selection criteria, create calculated fields and set up SQL Union queries.

27 February 2006: Alan Holding from the Manchester Digital Development Agency is our guest speaker for this meeting and will demonstrating the creation of accessible web sites.

16 February 2006: Add-ins add functionality to Microsoft Word. These small, sometimes free, but always cost-effective, programs will save you time and increase your productivity.

30 January 2006: The presentation will concentrate on how to integrate the elements of the Studio and the improvements made in each application with this latest release.