PowerPoint and Presenting Blog: March 2007

PowerPoint and other Microsoft Office programs like Word and Excel allow you to insert all sorts of media files including high resolution pictures, animated clips, and other formats. And you can often copy and paste almost anything within these applications. The result is that presentations, documents, and spreadsheets gets bloated -- a huge complication if you need to store and share many of these files.

NXPowerLite, the product I am reviewing, optimizes the size of these files without compromising their content or quality -- thus making them easier store and share.

Read the review here...

Categories: add-in, powerpoint

Labels: add-in, powerpoint

Impatica ShowMate has won the Most Innovative Wireless Device award in the Andrew Seybold Choice Awards 2007.

Andrew Seybold, Inc. is a wireless industry consulting firm that advises both Fortune 1000 organizations and emerging companies. At the annual Andrew Seybold Choice Awards, the key themes were "imagine," "innovate" and "impact". The awards recognized innovative products, businesses and concepts that are making or have the potential to make a positive impact on wireless mobility.




More info on the Impatica site...

Categories: impatica, powerpoint

Labels: impatica, powerpoint

W2solutions announced the release of HeadsetPresenter 3.0, a simple program that turns any Bluetooth headset into a Windows application remote control suitable for controlling onscreen activities including PowerPoint presentations.

Some of the new features are:

• Control any Windows application with the buttons on the headset. HeadsetPresenter comes preconfigured with the most common applications like PowerPoint, Open Office, Windows Media Player, Winamp and iTunes. However users can easily add custom applications to control.
• Integrated speech recognition capabilities. As a complement to controlling applications with the headset buttons the user can give direct voice control commands through the headset.
• AVRCP (Audio Video Remote Control Profile) support. If a multimedia headset is available, all buttons for instance Play, Stop, Pause, FFWD and REW can be used to perform any given action in any given application, not only in media players.

Labels: powerpoint, remotes

Kathy Villella is cofounder of PowerFrameworks, and is primarily responsible for the site content. She has provided presentation development support for 20 years. Kathy supported client engagement teams and supervised and trained team support at McKinsey & Company, Inc., for nearly 15 years and has provided freelance production support to world-class firms for over 13 years.



Read the interview here...

Categories: interviews, powerpoint

Labels: interviews, powerpoint

The lastest startup to join a rapidly-growing market for web presentations is Zenter, which takes an interactive approach to presentations while providing common features of Microsoft (MSFT) PowerPoint. The three-month-old startup is currently in beta and is expected to launch next month where it will join WebEx, which was just acquired by Cisco (CSCO), and a slew of others including Empressr,Thinkfree, Thumbstacks, Slideshare and Zoho.

More on the Business 2.0 site...

Categories: conferencing, powerpoint

Labels: conferencing, powerpoint

SlideAware has two components. First, there's a plug-in you add to your PowerPoint toolbar (it doesn't work for Office 2007 yet, so I couldn't test this component). The plug-in lets you zap your PowerPoint presentations directly to the SlideAware service.



More on the Webware site...

Categories: add-in, powerpoint

Labels: add-in, powerpoint

SlideShare.net's Jonathan Boutelle told me about this awesome contest they have on their site. It's called the "World's Best Presentation Contest", and all you need to do is upload your PowerPoint presentation to the SlideShare.net site.

Thereafter, a selection of judges comprising presentation gurus will decide the winners. The judges are Guy Kawasaki, Bert Decker, Garr Reynolds, and Jerry Weissman.

"The point of this contest is to shine a spotlight on well-designed presentations and to highlight the creative and effective use of PowerPoint. If you've got a killer slide deck, this might be your chance to make it big!" said Rashmi Sinha, CEO of SlideShare.

Read more here...

Categories: slideshare, powerpoint

Labels: powerpoint, slideshare

Impatica's ShowMate device is a finalist in the Andrew Seybold Choice Awards 2007 at the CTIA Conference in Orlando. The ShowMate is a small, lightweight hardware accessory that plugs into any projector and allows users to present PowerPoint presentations from a mobile phone. Since the communications between the phone and the ShowMate is wireless via Bluetooth, the user is free to move around the room giving a better presentation. For many, this is the last product needed to break free from their laptop leaving it behind when they travel.

There are six categories each for the awards, with four finalists selected from a long list of nominees. Impatica ShowMate made the short list as Most Innovative Wireless Device and Most Innovative Business Application.

More on the Impatica site...

Categories: impatica, powerpoint

Labels: impatica, powerpoint

Wildform just released WildPresenter Pro 3.1, a major update to their multimedia presentation software. The update includes many requested features including:

• Full screen playback mode,
• FLV video seeking on the timeline,
• Ability to combine an unlimited number of animations for a single object, and
• Improved PowerPoint to Flash conversion

Labels: powerpoint, wildpresenter

I just got back a few hours ago from a somewhat long trip -- so that explains why you haven't seen too many blog posts in a while. There's so much to come yet -- so wait and watch for the new posts!

I was in Redmond, USA attending the Microsoft MVP Summit, and I spent a few days in the Los Angeles area before heading back home to India via Singapore. Yes, that was one long flight.

Have a great day.

Categories: opinion

Labels: opinion

E-learning has made it possible for users to learn online at their own pace -- and tutorial movies can make this process even more interesting and real. The best way to create these tutorials is by capturing your onscreen activities with a specialized program like ALLCapture that not only allows you to create tutorials this way, but also product presentations, demos, software simulations, etc.

Read the full review here...

Categories: elearning, powerpoint, movies

Labels: elearning, movies, powerpoint

Ppted released a new PowerPoint template set -- this one is called Eyes. You don't have to be interested in eye anatomy, or be an ophthalmologist to use these designs, although that can help! Here are some previews.

None of the templates at Ppted.com are free -- these are all designer templates. I just wanted to say that because lots of readers write in to say that their Indezine passwords don't let them download all the Ppted templates for free!

Labels: powerpoint, templates

Most of us would not want to delete anything -- so how can we do something so that the same files take less space?

PackITSuite is the product from I-Logik which helps reduce the size of stored file data without deleting or archiving them.

Let us explore further...

Categories: add-in, microsoft_office

Labels: add-in, microsoft_office

Actually, the last ezine issue has been out for the last two days but my blog system at Blogger had some issues, and I could not post about it here. Check out the latest issue of the PowerPoint Ezine here...

In the ezine, I mention that I am giving away 10 copies of my De Stijl collection of PowerPoint templates -- make sure you enter the giveaway and stand a chance to win this awesome collection! The giveaway ends on March 5th.

Categories: ezine, powerpoint

Labels: ezine, powerpoint

Dick Rodstein is is an international award-winning voice-over narrator who is based in New York City but serves business clients all over the world. His website, includes audio samples of his work and the Notorious List of 114 Character Voices.

Geetesh: Tell us more about yourself and your voice-overs.

Dick: Corporate communications have always been at the core of my voice-over work. I love narrating TV documentaries and some other assignments have been a lot of fun, like playing Orson Welles in the 60th Anniversary "War of the Worlds" broadcast. But business always needs to speak to consumers and to other businesses, and that's what I've been doing for my whole professional life.

The delivery process has changed over the years, as technology has given us new ways of communicating with each other, but the content has not changed nearly as much. I've narrated literally over 10,000 pieces of business communication, one way or another, so I'm familiar with the kinds of messages the workplace likes to get out.

What is especially new these days is the global reach that the Internet makes possible. Recently, I've been able to help businesses in Macau, Jakarta, Nairobi, Hyderabad, Tel Aviv, London, Dublin and Stockholm by narrating their presentations for U.S. and Canadian audiences. And all from emailed scripts recorded in my home studio.

Geetesh: Tell us more about situations in which using voice-overs in PowerPoint can be beneficial, and add value to a presentation.

Dick: PowerPoint has democratized the communications process. Instead of going to a media guru with mysterious skills and uncomfortable budgets, now anyone can put together an effective sales presentation from their office cubicle or their kitchen table at home. And indeed, there are times when it is enough to show a succession of graphics while offering your own commentary live to your audience.

However, there are other times when you might not be the most persuasive voice to drive your own message. Trade show presentations, websites, instructional or motivational communications can all benefit from the use of a professional narrator. We've all suffered from watching beautiful visual presentations rendered ineffective by stumbling or self-conscious voice tracks. It's the function of a narration to increase understanding, not to impede it.

Sometimes your message is too important not to maximize the effectiveness of every element in your presentation. One way to do that is to hire a professional narrator who knows how to sell without seeming to sell, balancing the emotional sizzle and the informational steak of your presentation with deftness and security.

PowerPoint gives you the ability to add sound to your slideshow. There are simple instructions in the help menu and more elaborate tips and tricks on websites. The more important your show, the more you should consider hiring a pro to narrate your script. We're trained and experienced in getting your points across. If a lot is at stake, your investment in a professional narrator will pay you back many times over.

Categories: interviews, powerpoint, sounds

Labels: interviews, powerpoint, sounds

Here's a quick walkthrough of the PowerPoint 2007 interface.

Explore here...

Categories: powerpoint_2007, tutorials

Labels: powerpoint_2007, tutorials

authorGEN announced the release of authorPOINT 3.8 with several new features for rapid e-learning authoring.

authorPOINT is a rapid e-learning presentation creation tool, which installs within PowerPoint as a toolbar and captures PowerPoint presentations when an instructor is presenting. It comes with the option to embed presenters' video through a web cam as they present, or integrate video and audio as required.

Presentations created with authorPOINT can be saved in Flash or Windows Media formats. Further, the Flash file can be uploaded to a dedicated server on authorSTREAM which provides the presenter with a unique URL to deliver streaming Flash presentations.

More info on the authorGEN site...

Categories: powerpoint_flash, powerpoint, add-in

Labels: add-in, powerpoint, powerpoint_flash