Merit Newsletter - November 2007






	Helping Merseyside Entrepreneurs to Gain Competitive Advantage The Harnessing Digital Technologies Project (HDT Project) has been running for just a few short months and is already helping entrepreneurs on Merseyside to gain competitive advantage by harnessing digital technologies appropriate to the needs of their businesses. The project works with SMEs across Merseyside to identify key functional areas within their business where the adoption of digital technology will deliver real business benefits and a great return on investment. The HDT Project also delivers small grants to qualifying SMEs towards the cost of delivering their ICT project helping ease the financial impact of these extremely important and necessary technology investments. To find out if your business qualifies for support from this great project visit the Harnessing Digital Technologies Project website.

















	The Information Revolution is transforming the nature of business. The ITIL® framework has become the most widely accepted approach to managing IT service quality and costs in a context of ever changing business requirements and increasing expectations. At our next FREE event Mark Flynn will explain the nature of the ITIL material and qualifications - ITIL origins and credentials, scope, key concepts and the benefits, costs and risks of adopting an ITIL approach. We're also running the ITIL v3 Foundation Course on the 29th January 2008. Book Your Place on this Event








	We're currently putting together a programme of courses for the New Year but would still welcome some input from you on courses that you'd be interested in attending at info@merit.org.uk Please contact us with your requirements at the e-mail address above and a member of the MERIT team will get back to you. Featured Courses Get up to speed on the new versions of Word and Excel for as little as £40+ VAT... 28/11/2007 - Microsoft® Office Word 2007: New Features 29/11/2007 - Microsoft® Office Excel® 2007: New Features Increase your web presence with Social Media tools and optimise your search engine ranking for as little as £110+VAT.... 24/01/2008 - Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) Workshop View all MERIT Courses







					Could your company benefit from sponsoring the MERIT Newsletter? If you would like to use this space to promote your companies logo (which links directly to your site) to 9000 businesses across Merseyside then call 08700 663 994
	We would like to thank Pete Wilson (JMC) & Earnie Kramer (Lightspeed Europe) for presenting at MERITs latest event. The presentation outlined how you can best protect your network and valuable data whilst greatly reducing the associated administrative burden. If you would like to view a short video or download the slides from the presentation please visit the MERIT website





	Filehippo.com Update Checker The MERIT team have recently stumbled across a free application whilst looking for updates to something as simple as Windows Media Player. The latest version of WMP is version 11 and we were running version 9. A website called Filehippo has a built in online updater which displays it's results in a web browser. Once installed, the software searches your computer for any free programs you have installed and displays them all neatly, showing clearly the version your PC has installed, and a direct link to the latest version, so you can easily update them. If you were to run this program just once a week, you can keep your PC up to date with the minimum of fuss. Read More at the MERIT Blog for Download and Installation Guide

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	The Flexible Working Event held in partnership with MERIT on 6th November has been hailed a success, with 100% of attendees confirming their view that the speakers and format were ‘very good' or ‘good.' The morning event, held at the ICDC conference centre, was put on for employers thinking of introducing, or developing, flexible working practices. It boasted a strong line-up of speakers, including Gary Coombes (regional manager, Orange), Fiona Crane (Director, Legal & Democratic Services, Vale Royal Borough Council & the Sunday Times Best Council to Work For 2007) and Andy Lake (Editor, flexibility.co.uk) Read More



	Gary Duffield is our resident IT expert. In each newsletter Gary will be answering your IT questions. You can send your queries to gduffield@merit.org.uk Q. In very simple language can you explain what Skype is, and what it offer the smaller business? A. Skype is an example of VoIP. (Pronounced VoyUp). Standing for Voice over IP and translating as “having a chat using a network which uses the same protocols as the internet.” Here is the good news; it is not as complex as you may think. In fact, you may already have used VoIP technology. Read More