PowerPoint and Presenting Stuff

YawnBuster: Conversation with Vikas Joshi

Vikas Joshi is regarded as a thought leader for pioneering e-learning and knowledge management. He is also known for his groundbreaking work in the online learning industry, product innovations, and offshore outsourcing models. Under his guidance and leadership, the Harbinger group has built innovative software products for the global marketplace.

In this discussion, Vikas discusses the new YawnBuster product.

Geetesh: Tell us how YawnBuster evolved, and what is its raison d’etre?

Vikas: As presenters, we all know how difficult it is to keep boredom away in meetings and enliven them. We try various tricks to make the presentations more interactive. With this need in mind, we thought of YawnBuster. YawnBuster is useful for every person in the world who needs to make a presentation since it brings together PowerPoint and Flash, two most popular tools used in presentations and web development. With YawnBuster, a PowerPoint user can quickly and easily introduce Flash-based group activities in the presentation, with no need for programming.

YawnBuster is the ideal tool for enhancing PowerPoint with group activities for the busy presenter. Its quick-to-learn and easy-to-use interface allows you to create lively interactive presentations without having to learn Flash ActionScript or the Flash timeline. It’s a great way to add Flash to PowerPoint presentations.

Geetesh: Can you share some usability scenarios for YawnBuster?

Vikas: Well, YawnBuster can be used in corporate training, education, sales presentations, business meetings, and many more such applications. YawnBuster allows the presenters to include various Group Activities such as audience polls, games, group exercises, and competitions in your presentations. With these, the presenters can get their audience to think, enjoy, participate, and identify key takeaways quickly and easily.

The views and opinions expressed in this blog post or content are those of the authors or the interviewees and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of any other agency, organization, employer, or company.

Filed Under: Interviews
Tagged as: Add-in, Interviews, PowerPoint, Vikas Joshi

Ultimate Windows Tweaker: Tweak Software for Windows Vista

Anand Khanse and Ramesh Kumar, Microsoft MVPs from India have announced the launch of their free Windows Vista tweaking tool that fulfills a need for a TweakUI equivalent in Windows Vista. This new tool, called the Ultimate Windows Tweaker allows you to customize several facets of Windows Vista including personalization, security, Internet Explorer, UAC, network optimization, etc.

Download Ultimate Windows Tweaker here.

Filed Under: Microsoft Office
Tagged as: Microsoft Windows, Troubleshooting

Novatrox releases Slide Executive Professional 2.3

Novatrox AB, a Sweden based company announced the release of their new version 2.3 product: Slide Executive Professional enables organizations to store their presentation content in a slide library, making it available to business professionals and decision-makers throughout the enterprise through any web browser, anywhere in the world. Slide Executive can also be used as a digital asset management system since it handles document formats other than PowerPoint, including Microsoft Word, Microsoft Excel, PDFs, graphic files, movies, etc.

More info can be found on the Slide Executive site.

Filed Under: Add-ins
Tagged as: Add-in, PowerPoint, Slide Management

PowerPoint Live 2008 Retrospective: Conversation with Rick Altman

  Rick Altman is a presentation consultant based out of Pleasanton, CA. Rick is well known as the host of the annual PowerPoint Live User Conference and has a strong sense of the needs of the presentation community. In this conversation, Rick discusses the PowerPoint Live in San Diego that was held in September 2008.

Geetesh: Looking back at the just-concluded PowerPoint Live held in San Diego, tell us about the highs and lows, wows, and anything else.

Rick: The biggest wow for me was the demographic of the patrons—so much enthusiasm and spirit this year! Most of them were first-timers, but sent from companies that had sent people in previous years. So they were fresh and yet predisposed to having a good experience. As the host and organizer, you gotta like that!

The highest high and the lowest low were actually the same event: the Wednesday keynote address with Garr Reynolds was amazing, as we established a video connection with him from his home in Osaka, Japan, at 1:00 am in his morning. It was an incredible experience for everyone. And it was, without any doubt, the most stressful hour of my conference career, as we careened out of control, totally at the mercy of the technology and a fragile hotel Internet connection.

The non-academic high water mark had to have been the concert at the beach Tuesday evening, where we took over a Mexican restaurant on the boardwalk for a big margarita party and visit from a Journey tribute band who really played and sounded like the real thing. People were buzzing about that all day on Wednesday.

Geetesh: What gets PowerPoint Live to San Diego every alternate year?

Rick: I just love the city. I grew up vacationing down there (I’m from Northern California, about 500 miles north), so it’s in my blood. It offers a perfect September-October climate (when other parts of the country are beginning to get cold and even snowy), it’s easy to get to, affordable, with lots of attractions.

Also, the hotel we chose fits us like a glove and has many services and amenities nearby. At some point, the patrons might get bored of going there every other year and will tell us so, but so far, nobody has.

Geetesh: Why did you choose Atlanta for the next PowerPoint Live in 2009?

Rick: We are alternating between east and west each year, but we have not yet gone all the way to the East Coast. We know of many people who will appreciate direct flights or simple drives to Atlanta, as well as people whose companies simply don’t have the budget to travel for conferences.

And the Buckhead community of Atlanta is a fantastic place to visit, with lots of dining, shopping, and entertainment. The hotel we chose was purchased by Marriott six months ago and is almost finished with a $65M renovation, so it will essentially be a brand new hotel for us.

The views and opinions expressed in this blog post or content are those of the authors or the interviewees and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of any other agency, organization, employer, or company.

Filed Under: Events
Tagged as: Events, Interviews, PowerPoint, Presentation Summit, Rick Altman

ChristmasPowerPoints Site – The Indezine Review

ChristmasPowerPoints is a specialized PowerPoint backgrounds site that provides 865 ready to use backgrounds for themes like Christmas, Thanksgiving, and other festivals. These backgrounds can be used as backgrounds or graphics in PowerPoint presentations and templates, or in posters, cards, etc.

You can see a few designs here.

Read the Indezine review of ChristmasPowerPoints.

Filed Under: Templates
Tagged as: PowerPoint, Review, Templates