PowerPoint and Presenting Blog: April 2005

Impatica for BlackBerry Enterprise Server is the solution for viewing animated, graphically rich Microsoft PowerPoint presentations on BlackBerry handhelds. It seamlessly converts PowerPoint files attached to e-mail messages into a format compatible with the BlackBerry, so that PowerPoint attachments can easily be received and viewed on a BlackBerry handheld the way they are meant to be seen. More on the Blackberry Cool site...

Jan Ozer has worked with digital video since 1991, originally in the video compression industry and since 1996 as a contributing editor for EventDV and PC Magazine. Jan teaches courses in digital video production, both privately and for the University of Wisconsin Department of Continuing Education, and shoots and produces DVDs for local musicians near his hometown in Galax, Virginia. In this interview, Jan discusses PowerPoint, the book and video stuff...

A codec is a compression technology, and you have several choices. I like Windows Media for two reasons. First, at similar data rates, Windows Media quality, when encoded using variable bit rate techniques, exceeds the quality of all competitive technologies, except for RealVideo, which is neck and neck. Jan Ozer discusses more on Indezine...

Microsoft offered details about the compatibility of its Mac products with Mac OS X v10.4 "Tiger." Apple announced earlier that Tiger will ship on Friday, April 29, 2005. According to Microsoft, it has worked closely with Apple to make sure that Office 2004 works with new Tiger technologies. More on the Macworld site...

Aspose.PowerPoint, from Aspose Pty Ltd, is a .Net reporting component that enables you to read and write PowerPoint presentations without utilizing Microsoft PowerPoint. It can read and write such features such as text frames, pictures, etc. The latest version adds support for Wave and DoubleWave autoshapes on thumbnails. The thumbnails will have correct shapes for rectangles, ellipses and autoshapes with text instead of only rectangles in previous versions. More on the Programmer's Heaven site...

PointeCast Corporation, a privately-held developer of rapid e-Learning tools announced that it purchased the iCreate PowerPoint-to-Flash online training product from Cisco Systems, Inc. PointeCast is incorporating the instant multimedia publishing capabilities of iCreate into its existing product suite, which includes web- based platforms for the tracking and delivery of multimedia training. The new combined product suite will provide business users with the industry's most user-friendly and cost-effective online training and e-Learning development tools. More on the Yahoo! Finance site...

Grass Roots Software announced the availability of Powertool, a new playback application for Microsoft PowerPoint users. Featuring dual screen playback and a simple drag-drop interface, Powertool alleviates non-linear presentations for worship, corporate communication and educational environments by enhancing PowerPoint’s ability to project a slideshow on a second monitor or data projector. More on the Powertools site...