I use and have tested a ton of PowerPoint add-ins. I was recently sent a link to a company I have never seen (thanks Josh) and discovered they have a wide range of Microsoft Office add-ins.
Many are very project specific (ie. not useful outside their exact use), but definitely a resource to bookmark. Click here to check it out.
– Troy @ TLC
Here is another take on the ever-popular and very creative Animator vs. Animation! Check out all the action here.
– Troy @ TLC
In developing webcasts for companies I continuously explain many of the factors that affect people’s ability to view, fast-forward, zoom, etc. “The internet is the internet and I have a fast connection – right?”
The simple answer is no. There are factors of your connection speed, your computers power, the server connection, the amount of traffic and geography. Yes, geography can have an impact on the connection speed. To illustrate, let’s look at a quick example.
I live in San Diego, CA (the red star in the lower left of the country). But if I connect to servers in different parts of the country I have different connection speeds; from 14.5MB down to 7MB.
Connection 1: San Diego to Los Angeles
Connection 2: San Diego to Seattle
Connection 3: San Diego to Chicago
Connection 4: San Diego to Atlanta
Note: For viewing a streaming movie, or webcast, the Download speed is the important number.
Note 2: Just noticed my ‘Atlanta’ circle is not over Atlanta…
All of these connection tests were done within 5 minutes. I used the connection test at Speakeasy.net (see 12/14/06 post for more info). Last, I am on a Fiber Optic connection, so your results may not reflect these numbers.
A few weeks ago I mentioned the iFilm PowerPoint contest. The went through all the entries and came up with the finalists for everyone to see and vote on. Well, today is the final day to cast your vote – click here to see the finalists and cast your vote.
I cannot say any of these presentations really jump out and wow me… My personal favorite, primarily because it made good use of many of the PPT 2007 effects (like the opening text) and lots of good animation (always something I look for!) is the “My Best Life Achievement” entry (and it got my vote).
– Troy @ TLC
Ran across this well written article about PowerPoint and sales presentations. The content really applies to any speaker support presentation.
I have never heard of Reliable Planet, but they definitely allowed one of their writers to hit the mark with an accurate and well written piece. Worth reading and bookmarking.
– Troy @ TLC
I often run PowerPoint with an extended desktop setup with PowerPoint in the design or slide sorter view on the local monitor and presentation/slideshow on the external monitor. One of the downsides of this setup is that if I cannot see the external monitor/projector I do have an indicator of what slide I am actually on.
Windows Vista has some neat features, and some frustrations. Everyone has seen how Vista provides live thumbnails of all open applications and windows. Here is one example:
I can also use these active thumbnails to show me exactly what slide is active on an external monitor! By rolling over the ‘Slide Show’ tab it pops up a live thumbnail of the current slide. What’s even more hip is that the thumbnail will also show the animations in real time.
– Troy @ TLC
iFilm.com is hosting a Microsoft PowerPoint 2007 contest. Rules are simple, submission is simple, deadline in June 24th – so hurry!
Click here to get all the details.
– Troy @ TLC
I received an announcement about a new PowerPoint book recently that I felt was newsworthy. I have known the author, Rick Altman, and believe this will not only be informative but very fun read (much as the title implies).
“The problem exists, not because PowerPoint is hard,” Altman says, “but because it is easy. Most people learn PowerPoint in one day and then rarely seek further training. They know enough to get into trouble but not enough to get out of it, or avoid it in the first place.”
More info can be found at the books website, betterppt.com
– Troy @ TLC
Jeff Koke of PointClips recently emailed me a few samples of their PowerPoint images. Pointclips offers “hand-crafted artwork and icons, built in PowerPoint.”
What impressed me was that not only did I see good quality, but that all were made of grouped vector images (autoshapes) and could be resized and even re-colored as needed! Sure you could (maybe) create all of these images yourself, but why spend hours doing so…
The left image is from PointClips free downloadable sample. On the right is a number of the elements ungrouped – all editable autoshapes!
Individual images for $5 and collections of 50 images for $99. Check them out here.
– Troy @ TLC
Infocomm is doing a follow-up to last years survey where they collected input from presentation professionals. I entered my info, which took about 6 minutes and the best part is this year they are making the results available to all that participate (must enter an email address at end of survey).
Click here to go to the survey.
Note: All submissions due by May 19th.
– Troy @ TLC