Keynote

Keynote Remote: Easier iPhone Presentation via Wi-Fi

I talked about “Ideas about Showing PowerPoint Presentations on iPhone” days ago to make our PowerPoint slides over the iPhone. Sadly, as a Mac dummy, I totally forget Apple’s own presentation software, Keynote in iWork ‘09. And the latest Keynote already supports a feature to use iPhone to control the presentations remotely. Here’s the official description:

Keynote Remote lets you use your iPhone or iPod touch to control your presentation from anywhere in the room using Wi-Fi. See your slide with notes or both the current slide and the next slide in the palm of your hand. Just swipe to advance.

All we need is a tiny app for iPhone called Keynote Remote (¢99 on App Store). Now your iPhone can control your Keynote slides by going previous/next slide remotely via Wi-Fi network. It’s really simple to use, and its Note mode is greatly handy to help presenters recall any keynote points when presenting.

Such advanced feature is nice anyway, however, it could be better if the remote control is based on Bluetooth not Wi-Fi, as we know Wi-Fi is not easily available anywhere. Good luck!

William Peterson
Presentation Veteran

No News is Good News for Microsoft PowerPoint in Office 14

PowerPoint 2007 offers a lot of surprises to us when she made her debut with ribbon coat and SmartArt accessories years ago, however, those tremendous changes lead a lot of problems, such as incompatibility. Since Office 14 is going its way from alpha to beta at Microsoft labs, my only expectation on potential PowerPoint 14 is the full-featured Web presentation.

Among those leaked Office 14 “alpha” screenshots and new feature rumors, I can’t find too much information about our PowerPoint baby. So how will Microsoft treat the leading presentation software in the world? Frankly speaking, Microsoft’s PowerPoint has changed little over the years, while competitor Apple’s Keynote coming with more improvements like “cinematic transitions”.

Right, SmartArt in PowerPoint 2007 is just sort of luxury accessories for a presentation. Microsoft should focus more classic elements like transitions, animations, since the ribbon and SmartArt are already well done. Hopefully Microsoft is working on kinda this, so no news about PowerPoint 14 yet.

The selection of presentation software is important, because we can easily tell the difference between PowerPoint and Keynote presentations. Intriguingly Microsoft shows a little interest in Web apps recently, and we can see these Web PowerPoint fantasies from last PDC weeks ago. Get all elements done in online editing of Web PowerPoint, better than those free services online to reveal your power, okay? This is my another request on our estimated PowerPoint 14 to Microsoft.

William Peterson
Presentation Veteran

Ideas about Showing PowerPoint Presentations on iPhone

These days I was totally hooked with Apple iPhone from a friend. Certainly it’s not that fancy touch screen abuse, but those more and more interesting iPhone Applications from various innovative developers. Then I became wondering, how could I make my PowerPoint presentations displayed on iPhone, since it doesn’t like Windows Mobile to install such applications. After a little research, I got these ideas as below:

1. Export as a Series of Pictures to iPhoto on Mac
As Microsoft announced Microsoft PowerPoint 2008 for Mac last year, getting presentations from Mac to iPhone is relatively easy. PowerPoint exports your presentation as a series of pictures directly to iPhoto, or saves those same slide images as pictures to your Pictures folder. From there, sync pictures to your iPhone through iTunes as usual, then use the built-in Photos or slide show program on your iPhone to show your presentation.

It’s really easy to go and try this way. However, the presentation on iPhone becomes kinda picture slideshow, not with all animations along.

2. Convert as Supported MPEG-4 Video Formats
Since iPhone support MPEG-4 video in .mp4, .m4v, .mov formats, some software vendor offers the idea of presentation to video conversion. You can just convert your PowerPoint presentations to MPEG-4 video first, then import or sync the video to iPhone with iTunes.

This method sounds reasonable, and all animations are here. But please see, video presentation is not slideshow anymore, because you can’t control them easily slide by slide. Right?

3. Remote Control PowerPoint from Computers
So some iPhone application developers find this way to connect PowerPoint with computer via Wi-Fi network. Then you can remote control your PowerPoint presentations wirelessly from your iPhone, with a realtime view of your slides. Show your slides on your PC and use your iPhone or iPod Touch as a clicker.

I haven’t tried this app yet, but the idea seems not bad. If everything goes fine in presentation, that’s the best way so far, if you have a reliable Wi-Fi connection on your iPhone.

William Peterson
Presentation Veteran

Office’s Running Hour: Sketching Out Your PowerPoint Presentations in Ten Minutes

Well, every Friday I’ll attend some weekly meetings in the company. I think most office people get the same as me. Have you ever found yourself decompressing in true leisure one minute and scrambling to meet any deadline the next? So I teach people to survive with making conference presentations effortlessly.

VideoJug’s “How to Write A PowerPoint Presentation In 5 Minutes” is a great tutorial for most staffs. However, there’s kinda funny elements in it. And I think an real enough briefing-like PowerPoint presentation could be made perfectly in 10 minutes. Besides these tips in that video, I have something else to recommend:

1. To make excellent presentation with professional-looking slides, you need some good PowerPoint template resources on your pocket. See one of my previous post about this here.

2. Getting used to these intuitive features in PowerPoint 2007 will make your creation better and faster. Just learn something like SmartArt, shortcuts, etc. Quick Tips for PowerPoint 2007 on my previous post | PowerPoint 2007 - Get up to speed from Microsoft

3. Attach more. When you’re too busy to summary something in the slides, why not just attach and show the original files within your presentation? Check out some previous posts from me about “attaching documents or objects“, “recording narrations“, “Adding YouTube video clips“, or “embedding real-time Web pages“.

Assuming you’ve got the 10-minute-presentation talent, you got enough breathing space in office, aren’t you?

William Peterson
Presentation Veteran

Kick Off the Keynote: Brief Launch, Rich Presentation

Okay that a lot of my friends ever complained that their audience were so unprofessional when they addressed something logical and theoretical. The fact is, your presentation is so good, without the best approach to audience’s logic.

Like Mark Twain said, “I didn’t have time to write a short letter, so I wrote a long one instead.” If we’re not the presentation expert, or need presentations to keep walking, we might ignore the true feelings from potential audience when planning the keynote. long or short is not the important elements in the planning. When the part with complicated theory comes, just enrich the experiences, such as playing relaxing background music, or throwing out the key sentences like thundering.

Your presentation can be as long as it should be, but it can not be poorly developed without brief launching and rich contents. The starting part couldn’t be tedious, as well as the main contents couldn’t be too simple without your professional insight. There’s no requirement to make everyone a presentation expert, so that’s why I usually recommend such improvements on PowerPoint 2007 to level up our efficiency at work.

We don’t blame the logic of audience, because everyone can master presentations like a pro.

My Past Posts about PowerPoint 2007:
Quick Tips to Enhance Your Presentation in PowerPoint 2007
The Presentation Outlook: Microsoft PowerPoint 2007 Review with Recommendations

William Peterson
Presentation Veteran

To Make Perfect PowerPoint Presentation for Business Success, You Need a Good Template

Why we need business presentation? Of course for the business success. And now essentially speaking, I recommend the helper for your business presentation, the good resources of PowerPoint templates to build your next success. It’s the sharing of my favorites, not advertising.

PowerPoint Templates from Indezine
Yes, believe this PowerPoint MVP, as I introduced him before (refer to New Presentation Technology in Review: Thank MVP Geetesh on FlashPPT). His free PowerPoint templates won’t let you down in any occasions. It’s so great, and everyone will love this best-ever big treasure.

Presentation Helper’s Resource
A sweet presentation helper from UK. Its selected PowerPoint templates are really elegant for the business uses; you and your audience will rapidly like the presentation made with them. More than that, any essential presentation skills and keynote tips have the same help for everyone.

Are these PowerPoint templates really what I’m looking for? Definitely yes. Whatever any conferences or business tradeshows, the content of presentations is the king to catch any attendances foward to your topic. Good templates make the first step to the success. It’s not killing your creativeness. It creates more on your business.

William Peterson
Presentation Veteran

PowerPoint 2008 for Mac Than iWork Keynote ‘08, You Think That?

As not a loyal Apple fan, I just ever tested PowerPoint 2008 for Mac and iWork Keynote ‘08 for gadgets when Microsoft made its campaign, and found no significance on their comparison. Yet months later I solemnly read the details of Macworld’s article of PowerPoint 2008 vs. Keynote ‘08: The Office Suite Smackdown by Franklin N. Tessler, I realized that this was really a good point. Because there’s no clear winner in the rivalry, and PowerPoint 2008 may have surpassed in several areas; however, Keynote ‘08 caught the favor from Mac users upon Apple’s reputation. Is this what you think so?

Read that interesting article on the Macworld’s site …

William Peterson
Presentation Veteran