Movies from PowerPoint
I have just added a project write-up and movie that was ‘authored’ in PowerPoint. It is a good example of how PowerPoint is moving beyond PowerPoint and evolving into much more than slides for a presentation. Check it out here.
Troy @ TLC
Work Can Have Its Perks
We all have some perks from our profession. For me one recently occurred. I was asked to clean up the presentations for a corporate event and optimize the 40+ movie files so they would actually play when needed. All the work went great, but the producer called and requested I be there one evening to pick up some additional files – a bit of an inconvenience, but I agreed. When I arrived I was treated to a very cool, very candid Lance Armstrong speaking to a small group – A VERY COOL PERK!
Troy @ TLC
Online Demo: Color Picker Add-In
It can be a slow process to select custom colors for text or for an object’s fill, line, drop shadow. I have made good use of PPTXtreme’s Color Picker add-in to make custom color fills fast and easy! This is the first in a series of online demos planned. Click HERE to see the demonstration video of this add-in in action.
Troy @ TLC
Jensen Harris on Office 12 User Interface (Ribbon)
I have been fortunate to have behind-the-scenes interaction with Microsoft’s PowerPoint development team. And I am admitting that the new “Ribbon” toolbar has some incredible ideas, innovation and research. But I also have a few reservations, so I am anxious to see what the final version ends up with customization capabilities (the developers at MS are revising it nearly daily).
If you are curious about the new ribbon and want some behind-the-scenes info and sneak peaks, visit Microsoft’s Jensen Harris’ Blog. I have been checking it for the past several weeks and some of the items I personally had concerns about have been covered (and resolved!). Check it out here.
Troy @ TLC
Get World Wide Stereotypes from the WWW for Your Next Presentation…?
For your presentation you want to show how the world views a country, city or anything. Makes sense that the WORLD Wide Web could provide a world consensus on how something is viewed – right… While I am not going to recommend this for your next presentation, it does prove interesting (and I am sure a bit skewed).
Here is the resulting ‘Prejudice Map‘ that is subtitled “According to Google, people in the world are known for…” that Google Blogoscoped created.
Here is an example google search that was used to create the ‘German’ stereotype.
Troy @ TLC
Resize Images Instantly!
Placing oversized images into a presentation only makes the presentation file oversized. I could suggest everyone go through my process; open each image in PhotoShop, crop, resize, optimize color, save as a .jpg or .png (as appropriate). But that is a lot of effort, and not the fastest process for a general use presentation.
Or, thanks to my brother-in-law who introduced me to Microsoft PowerToys, you could use Image Resizer. Once installed, simply right-click the image file in Windows Explorer, choose Resize Pictures and from the simple dialog choose a size and you are done! This free Microsfot application is somewhat limited in what it can accomplish, but it makes the process nearly instantaneous – produces good quality images – and works with .jpg and transparent .png images. Check out the details here.
Troy @ TLC
Disaster at the Server Level
Today has proven to have its challenges… Yesterday my web hosting server crashed. After many hours dealing with tech support it became obvious that the only item I would not be able to get back online was this blog.
So today I have started from scratch – reinstalling the blog software, building a new database, and uploading/re-creating as many of the posts as possble. I am sure to be missing a few posts, but the extended effort has the blog up and running again. I guess the only upside is that I did upgrade a few features and fix a couple of bugs from my first round of installs. Sometime technology makes for a big headache!
Troy @ TLC