Presentation Fanatic
My Presentation Life in the Gentle Breeze, and the Research of Learning and Teaching Technologies in Education as eLearning Specialist.
Thursday 28 February 2008, 8:27 AM
How Do You Pick the Right Internet Technology for Enterprise Presentations?
To know some technologies for further activities on Internet as it’s worth the effort.
We are entering an era of online business, and many enterprise managers are facing the dilemma - which way to go - remain with tried and true applications or experiment with such newcomers as Google Apps. While the Internet brings a lot of noise where “it’s cool” is the most popular definition for Ajax or Flash widgets, we need to make an overview of what’s out there on the rich Internet applications for enterprises. Various techniques and technologies are used for the development of the front end for complex distributed systems in enterprise. Regarding tons of business presentation to share and manage, managers need integrated Internet applications built on existing system.
From the development end, Web application industry is still in the early stages with benefits and shortcomings. However, those titans have started building the framework and market up. Adobe constructs the base using its cross-platform Flash technology, with the advanced support from Adobe Flex and AIR. This solution is really powerful on the root of Flash popularity. Google, the leading Internet competitor, makes the JavaScript way from open source Ajax Frameworks. This combination of JavaScript and DHTML techniques and has recently been used most prominently by Google for its successful projects such as Gmail and Google Maps. But creating a large application in this framework is very difficult to work in developing. Google released the Google Web Toolkit to capture the industry. Recently, Microsoft Silverlight by Microsoft, which can be considered a subset of Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF), likes to attract the developers with previous development experiences in the field of .NET Framework 3.0 and XAML. Besides, there’re other weaker technologies such as Java applets, ActiveX controls, etc. in the RIA market.
Maybe you’ve heard of these technologies, but for presentations management. Flash development still is the king currently as it could be optimized for general Internet access without too many hassles. As a Flash developer, I clearly know the defects such as loss of visibility to search engines, or Internet connection failure. I cannot tell who will win finally; however, Flash technology seems more friendly for most Internet users.
William Peterson
Presentation Veteran
We are entering an era of online business, and many enterprise managers are facing the dilemma - which way to go - remain with tried and true applications or experiment with such newcomers as Google Apps. While the Internet brings a lot of noise where “it’s cool” is the most popular definition for Ajax or Flash widgets, we need to make an overview of what’s out there on the rich Internet applications for enterprises. Various techniques and technologies are used for the development of the front end for complex distributed systems in enterprise. Regarding tons of business presentation to share and manage, managers need integrated Internet applications built on existing system.
From the development end, Web application industry is still in the early stages with benefits and shortcomings. However, those titans have started building the framework and market up. Adobe constructs the base using its cross-platform Flash technology, with the advanced support from Adobe Flex and AIR. This solution is really powerful on the root of Flash popularity. Google, the leading Internet competitor, makes the JavaScript way from open source Ajax Frameworks. This combination of JavaScript and DHTML techniques and has recently been used most prominently by Google for its successful projects such as Gmail and Google Maps. But creating a large application in this framework is very difficult to work in developing. Google released the Google Web Toolkit to capture the industry. Recently, Microsoft Silverlight by Microsoft, which can be considered a subset of Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF), likes to attract the developers with previous development experiences in the field of .NET Framework 3.0 and XAML. Besides, there’re other weaker technologies such as Java applets, ActiveX controls, etc. in the RIA market.
Maybe you’ve heard of these technologies, but for presentations management. Flash development still is the king currently as it could be optimized for general Internet access without too many hassles. As a Flash developer, I clearly know the defects such as loss of visibility to search engines, or Internet connection failure. I cannot tell who will win finally; however, Flash technology seems more friendly for most Internet users.
William Peterson
Presentation Veteran
Saturday 16 February 2008, 11:56 AM
Best Practices for Playing and Controlling More in PowerPoint Presentations
You ever want to insert, control and play Word documents, Excel spreadsheets, Flash movies, PDF documents or anything in PowerPoint to enhance your excellent presentations. Here you get the chance.
As we've already known, Microsoft PowerPoint is an incredibly powerful and popular tool for helping anyone create and conduct rich presentations. PowerPoint even allows you to integrate rich media, video and documents into the slides.
To insert Word, Excel and PDF files, you must have Microsoft Word, Excel and Adobe Acrobat Reader installed in your computer, and go to PowerPoint menus: Insert -> Object, then you can insert these files as objects into your presentation.
If you use ActiveX controls in PowerPoint, which can be as simple as a text box, as complex as an entire dialog, and in some cases as complex as a small application, you can insert and control more such as Flash movies as you want. Click the More Controls tool
in the toolbox (you need to Show Developer tab in the Ribbon at PowerPoint Options -> Popular -> Top options for working with PowerPoint), and then click the control you want in the list (e.g. Shockwave Flash Object). Just place and resize the control in the slide as you like.
To make full use of the control, you have to set the properties. Make sure the control is selected, and then click Properties
on the toolbar. Complete the source path to link your Flash movie or other files to the controls, and now you get ready to play it as well.
Certainly a good presentation cannot depend on text and pictures only, try to grab more items to power up your presentations in PowerPoint.
William Peterson
Presentation Veteran
As we've already known, Microsoft PowerPoint is an incredibly powerful and popular tool for helping anyone create and conduct rich presentations. PowerPoint even allows you to integrate rich media, video and documents into the slides.
To insert Word, Excel and PDF files, you must have Microsoft Word, Excel and Adobe Acrobat Reader installed in your computer, and go to PowerPoint menus: Insert -> Object, then you can insert these files as objects into your presentation.
If you use ActiveX controls in PowerPoint, which can be as simple as a text box, as complex as an entire dialog, and in some cases as complex as a small application, you can insert and control more such as Flash movies as you want. Click the More Controls tool
in the toolbox (you need to Show Developer tab in the Ribbon at PowerPoint Options -> Popular -> Top options for working with PowerPoint), and then click the control you want in the list (e.g. Shockwave Flash Object). Just place and resize the control in the slide as you like. To make full use of the control, you have to set the properties. Make sure the control is selected, and then click Properties
on the toolbar. Complete the source path to link your Flash movie or other files to the controls, and now you get ready to play it as well. Certainly a good presentation cannot depend on text and pictures only, try to grab more items to power up your presentations in PowerPoint.
William Peterson
Presentation Veteran
Friday 8 February 2008, 2:16 AM
Live Workshop Rivalry: Build Your Presentation Mind On the Road
Not a great presentation can be just made by an impulse on an office desktop. You probably catch an excellent idea to strengthen your presentation on the road home or far far away from your workspace. Turn your car back in the highway long queue? Internet is born to help people build the virtual bridge anywhere anytime. Microsoft Office Live revealed its Workspace Beta months ago to response the challengers, especially Google Docs.
As a part of Office Live, the Workspace is just an online companion to Microsoft Office or a free SharePoint Lite for everyone. Besides its only 250 MB storage, the Workspace doesn't offer an online presentation editor within a Web page like Google Docs but launching your installed Microsoft PowerPoint to do the editing. I really don't prefer this idea. Actually the only flashpoint of the Workspace to me, is the official support of PowerPoint 2007 documents, while Google Docs cannot make that. Despite ThinkFree Office also supports Office 2007 X files, its Java Applet application seems unfriendly to explore.
Referring to the article Five Reasons Google Docs Beats Office Live Workspace (believe me, it's not Google's promotion essay), we can know that, Google really helps, while Microsoft just takes the popular Web 2.0 to promote Microsoft Office:
1. Office Live Workspace Does Not Allow You To Create And Edit Documents Within A Web Page. Google Docs Does;
2. Microsoft Office Live Workspace Has A 250 MB 1,000 Average Office Documents Limitation. Google Docs Does Not;
3. Microsoft's Office Live WorkSpace Is VaporWare. Google Docs is Real;
4. You're Better Off Trusting Google Than Microsoft When It Comes To Web 2.0 Security Issues;
5. Office Live Workspace Is Optimized For Microsoft Office Word, Excel and PowerPoint Data. Google Is Optimized For Web 2.0.
I have to state that I use and like Microsoft Office as well as Google Docs. Google Docs also has drawback, such as its online async due to Internet delay. And Live Workspace is not a white elephant because of its official development support. Everyone can benefit from the rivalry to keep your continuous inspiration efficiently over Internet.
William Peterson
Presentation Veteran
As a part of Office Live, the Workspace is just an online companion to Microsoft Office or a free SharePoint Lite for everyone. Besides its only 250 MB storage, the Workspace doesn't offer an online presentation editor within a Web page like Google Docs but launching your installed Microsoft PowerPoint to do the editing. I really don't prefer this idea. Actually the only flashpoint of the Workspace to me, is the official support of PowerPoint 2007 documents, while Google Docs cannot make that. Despite ThinkFree Office also supports Office 2007 X files, its Java Applet application seems unfriendly to explore.
Referring to the article Five Reasons Google Docs Beats Office Live Workspace (believe me, it's not Google's promotion essay), we can know that, Google really helps, while Microsoft just takes the popular Web 2.0 to promote Microsoft Office:
1. Office Live Workspace Does Not Allow You To Create And Edit Documents Within A Web Page. Google Docs Does;
2. Microsoft Office Live Workspace Has A 250 MB 1,000 Average Office Documents Limitation. Google Docs Does Not;
3. Microsoft's Office Live WorkSpace Is VaporWare. Google Docs is Real;
4. You're Better Off Trusting Google Than Microsoft When It Comes To Web 2.0 Security Issues;
5. Office Live Workspace Is Optimized For Microsoft Office Word, Excel and PowerPoint Data. Google Is Optimized For Web 2.0.
I have to state that I use and like Microsoft Office as well as Google Docs. Google Docs also has drawback, such as its online async due to Internet delay. And Live Workspace is not a white elephant because of its official development support. Everyone can benefit from the rivalry to keep your continuous inspiration efficiently over Internet.
William Peterson
Presentation Veteran
Friday 1 February 2008, 11:51 AM
Presentation Integration: Make It With Combined Voice Narration
As I usually provide support on public presentations at some conferences and seminars, I find that most presenters' voice narration in the speech would be recorded live for further references. Actually I recommend that the presenters should record narration by themselves with the microphone and PowerPoint's internal recorder. In this way, your speech will be perfectly matched with every slides of the presentation, and the narrated presentation could be better materials for more absent audiences. Read Virginia Tech's comprenhesive instructions for how to record narration during presentation.
If the voice narration has been recorded independently, or some content needs modification, you can also manage and split audio into segments related to each PowerPoint slide. Audacity (http://audacity.sourceforge.net) is the recommended audio editor for everyone. Please notice that all sounds need to be embedded in presentation for integration, refer to Office PowerPoint Help "Embedded and linked sound files in a presentation" at http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/powerpoint/HA012303071033.aspx
Someone may ask me, why not record live speech with presentation as video directly? Video can record everything in the conference, but your final presentation don't need all the things definitely. In most business occasions, visual slides and voice narration are the most important parts in the presentation, so narrated presentation is enough, besides video files usually face the encoding problems. How do you think about this?
Introduce an experiment presentation by Bill Conerly at Wichita State University's annual Economic Outlook Conference:
http://businomics.typepad.com/businomics_blog/2007/10/economic-outloo.html
William Peterson
Presentation Veteran
If the voice narration has been recorded independently, or some content needs modification, you can also manage and split audio into segments related to each PowerPoint slide. Audacity (http://audacity.sourceforge.net) is the recommended audio editor for everyone. Please notice that all sounds need to be embedded in presentation for integration, refer to Office PowerPoint Help "Embedded and linked sound files in a presentation" at http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/powerpoint/HA012303071033.aspx
Someone may ask me, why not record live speech with presentation as video directly? Video can record everything in the conference, but your final presentation don't need all the things definitely. In most business occasions, visual slides and voice narration are the most important parts in the presentation, so narrated presentation is enough, besides video files usually face the encoding problems. How do you think about this?
Introduce an experiment presentation by Bill Conerly at Wichita State University's annual Economic Outlook Conference:
http://businomics.typepad.com/businomics_blog/2007/10/economic-outloo.html
William Peterson
Presentation Veteran
