PowerPoint and Presenting Stuff

Brainshark SlideShark v1.5: Conversation with Jay Wilder

  Jay Wilder is director of product marketing at Brainshark, Inc. Brainshark’s cloud-based software lets users create online and mobile video presentations — using simple business tools like PowerPoint and the telephone — and then share and track their content. Thousands of companies use Brainshark to improve the reach and results of their business communications, while also dramatically reducing costs.

In this conversation, Jay discusses new features and functionality in SlideShark — the free app from Brainshark that solves the problem of PowerPoint’s incompatibility on the iPad.

Geetesh: What are the new features in SlideShark v1.5, and how do these help users get more from their presentation content?

Jay: We’re thrilled to add a number of ground-breaking new features and functionalities to the latest version of the app, which is the fifth major update since its launch last October. SlideShark v1.5 now includes the following features:

Share presentations

Users can now easily share links to online versions of their presentations by email or social media channels (including Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn) from the app or their online account for on-demand viewing on any device.

Track results

Instant email notifications alert users when their shared on-demand presentations are viewed. SlideShark Plus and Team Edition users also receive details on who viewed which slides, in what order and when.

Re-order slides

The ability to re-order slides by tapping and moving them to the desired location lets users tailor presentations for specific audiences, complementing SlideShark’s existing hide/un-hide slides feature.

Search for presentations

Users have easy, instant access to specific content by using the new search functionality to locate presentations in their account.

Select favorites

By tapping the star icon next to a presentation, users are able to select and filter their favorites for convenient access to the presentations they use most often.

Delete content

Users can delete files from their online account from the iPad, freeing up additional storage space as needed while on-the-go.

Expanded file support

In addition to supporting .PPT and .PPTX files, the app now supports .PPS and .PPSX file types.

Team Edition Administration via iPad

SlideShark Team Edition administrators can now easily log into their account from the app on the iPad by tapping “administration.”

By providing these new features, SlideShark v1.5 offers users an enhanced experience by allowing users to both share and track content. Additional content management capabilities also allow users to take advantage of new accessibility and organizational functionality.

Geetesh: Two of the significant new features in SlideShark v1.5 are the sharing and tracking capabilities –- can you tell us more about these features?

Jay: Yes, absolutely. The sharing capability allows users to easily share PowerPoint presentations via email or social media channels, which can be viewed on-demand from any device –- including computers, iPads and other tablets and smartphones. This capability is critical for users who want to share important business content anytime and anywhere, whether it’s before a meeting for preparation purposes or after a meeting as a leave-behind.

In addition, with the tracking capability Slideshark offers, users are instantly notified by email when their presentations are viewed and as a paid upgrade option, SlideShark Plus and SlideShark Team Edition users receive additional details on who viewed the presentations, which slides they viewed, in what order and when. By offering this feature, users can now gain valuable insight into how their content is being consumed in order to conduct both effective and timely follow-up.

We’re very excited to offer both of these unique features and look forward to continuing to add valuable capabilities to SlideShark to further enhance our users’ experience of properly playing PowerPoints from their iPads.

Existing SlideShark users can update to the current version via the Apple App Store -– and new users can sign up for a free account or start a free, 60-day trial of SlideShark Team Edition by visiting SlideShark.

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: Brainshark, Interviews, iPad, Jay Wilder, PowerPoint

Learn PowerPoint 2010: Remove Digital Signatures

When your PowerPoint presentation is digitally signed and shared, it helps to validate your identity. However, at times you may want to remove a digital signature attached to your PowerPoint presentation for several reasons — you may want it to be signed by someone else, or maybe there’s no need to for a particular presentation to be signed any more. A digital signature can be easily removed from your presentation.

Learn how to remove a digital signature from a presentation in PowerPoint 2010 for Windows.

Filed Under: PowerPoint 2010
Tagged as: PowerPoint 2010, Security, Tutorials

PresenterMedia Content: Conversation with Art Holden

Art Holden has been in the animation and presentation industry since 1996. He helped start Animation Factory in 1997 and served as general manager of Animation Factory for thirteen years. He currently lives in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, USA, and works with PresenterMedia, a media content creating company.

In this conversation, Art discusses the media content available from PresenterMedia.

Geetesh: Tell us about your PresenterMedia collection of clip media and templates for PowerPoint.

Art: PresenterMedia is an ever-growing library of professionally designed PowerPoint templates, animated clips, video backgrounds, and presentation clip art. We specialize in unique 3D imagery, much of which is animated for increased impact.

Geetesh: We noticed a cool recoloring option on your site that lets you change colors, sizes, and even file formats for any clip. Please tell us more about how this evolved.

Art: One very unique aspect of our library is that nearly all of our media can be customized in one way or another. As an example, all of our clip art can be adjusted to match the color theme of your presentation before you download it. So, if your presentation is built with a cool blue theme, you can match the clip art you download to the blue hues of your presentation.

This has become a popular feature on PresenterMedia and we are adding several exciting new customization features in the near future.

You May Also Like: PresenterMedia: Conversation with Art Holden | PresenterMedia on Indezine

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: Art Holden, Clip Media, Design, Interviews, PowerPoint, PresenterMedia

Learn PowerPoint 2011 for Mac: Guides

Like rulers, guides in PowerPoint allow you to position and snap your slide objects in place. When you enable guides in PowerPoint 2011 for Mac, you see one horizontal and one vertical guide. Typically, these guides are blue in color. To enable these guides, you choose the View | Guides | Static Guides option.

Learn about viewing and hiding guides in PowerPoint 2011 for Mac.

Filed Under: PowerPoint 2011
Tagged as: Office for Mac, PowerPoint 2011, Tutorials

Indezine News Released

All of last week, I attended multiple sessions at an international conference. Most of these sessions had slides — and each slide was emotive, in some way or the other. Some slides were captivating, some held attention, and some evoked curiosity. There were other slides that evoked curiosity of another kind — of why the text on the slides was so tiny that the audience could not read, some slides had white text on a yellow background — that again could not be read. Slides do evoke emotions, but all emotions may not be fired by the program used to create the slides. In many ways, projector technology may have improved by leaps and bounds, but it still does not come close to the capabilities of today’s LED screens. Thus white text on a deep yellow background may actually be completely readable on an LED screen, but washed out when projected. This washed out result does evoke an emotion as far as the audience is concerned, and that emotion is rarely positive.

Read the newsletter here.

Filed Under: Ezine
Tagged as: Ezine, Indezine, News, PowerPoint