Microsoft Windows

Sep 14 2008   11:26AM GMT

Look upon the Never Rivalry: Pushing Silverlight to Flash Presentation

Posted by: William Peterson
Business, community, Enterprise, Flash Video, Corporate, Web 2.0, YouTube, Adobe, Flash, Online Apps, Silverlight, Microsoft, Learning, Business presentations, IT professional, Review, RIA, Rich Media, Technology, Web, Web Presentation, Webcam

The NBC’s Olympic Games in Silverlight boomed Microsoft’s rich media technologies a lot, but it still stands outside the stage where Adobe Flash dances. Microsoft is not the god, neither is Adobe. Actually Silverlight did well in many specifications as newly developed kit for the Web, while Flash seemed old and out of some emerging developments. To fight the mainstream, let’s look around what Silverlight.

In the developer Niraj Swaminarayan’s Silverligh vs. Flash - An Analysis Report, we can see that some parts are not that crucial for most Web developers. So I take my hands to the opinion that, the so-called rivalry is really not that important like lots of observers said. YouTube can be a Silverlight based video sharing community as well as Flash offers.

I’m concerning about the impact on my favorite Webcasting industry where the Silverlight platform could not step in currently. If Silverlight lives better and better as expected, what’s the critical issues we’ll face when replacing with Silverlight? The IT infrastractures for a business do not require the value of emerging technologies. That’s why Windows Vista could not become the mainstream with its 2 years’ experiences. Certainly it’s not a bad idea to take Silverlight presentation in the future.

William Peterson
Presentation Veteran

Sep 9 2008   7:06AM GMT

Build Web Presentations with Presenter’s Video

Posted by: William Peterson
PowerPoint, Business presentations, IT professional, Review, Rich Media, Web, Web Presentation, Webcam, Business, Flash, Solutions

Are you suffering the high cost and continual repetition of live presentations?
“As a president, I always join many meetings and trade shows to present our products or corporation. There is no problem with the live presentation. But I’m stuck when I want to sharing the meeting with others after it. Because I need present the same presentation again and again even spend additional high costs on driving or flying. The boring continual repetition makes me crazy. Is there any way to take my live presentation to the web? – Mr. Cooper”

PowerPoint is still the most popular tool for presentations now. It could integrate images, movies, narrations, animations to make the presentation animated and interactive. But the PowerPoint file is big and hard to share on the web, hard to integrate with the presenter’s video and narration to live up the presentation.

How to distribute the live presentations to web to reduce the cost?
As everybody knows that, web presentation is a big cost and time saving solution. If we could run the presentation with the presenter’s video and narration online, it will be perfect. The difficulty of the web presentation is hard to integrate the presenter’s video and narration along with the PowerPoint presentation content. Is there any way to fix this problem?

A brand new service gives you an easy-to-use way to integrate the presenter’s video with PowerPoint slideshows, sharing the results online. This simple tool makes it a piece of cake to run the presenter’s video content side-by-side with PowerPoint presentations. So the audience could get the presentation running alongside with presenter’s video and narration in action, likes that the presenter stands by them. This really has the power to bring online presentations to life.

There are many tools such as Wondershare PPT2Flash Professional and services like Omnisio, Zentation to integrate the video along with the PowerPoint slideshows. Here is the comparability of the two ways.

PPT2Flash Professional converts the PowerPoint presentations to Flash with presenter’s video and narration in one click. It works as a PowerPoint add-in. Presenter could easily distribute the Flash presentations to their website or training center for sharing. The Flash format is safer and smaller for web distribution.

Omnisio and Zentation are simple online applications for the synchronization and sharing of the Slideshare-hosted PowerPoint decks and Google Video-hosted content. You could upload your video to Youtube and then upload the PowerPoint presentation to Slideshare, use Omnisio and Zentation to synchronization them together. They will generate one webpage for you. You could share the content with others on this webpage.

In a nutshell, for inner continual presentations, PPT2Flash Professional seems a better solution; for external one time presentation, Omnisio and Zentation are better solutions.

 

 

By William Peterson, Partnered with Sabrina F.

Sep 6 2008   7:43AM GMT

The Mashup Show in Social Web Presentations 2.0

Posted by: William Peterson
Business, community, Online Apps, PowerPoint, Learning, Business presentations, IT professional, Review, RIA, Rich Media, Slidecast, SlideShare, Technology, Web, Web 2.0, Web Presentation, Webcam

Yep, you can see that I’m really hooked by that kinda video presentation services in the Social Web 2.0 times. Hot star Ominisio married Google, and old Zentation continued his beta as semi-pro. They don’t just bet on the mashup of video and slides, as they really want to engage a stage of our social Web. More than sharing all on Web apps, the mashup culture is one big point in Web 2.0 community life. So as to my personal interests in presentations, I can’t ignore the dying of PowerPoint and the power of Web 2.0. The module of Ominisio shock’d me on the development of presentations. Now the traditional presentation gradually become a part of the lifetime show, not only among slides and words.

Above all, I admit that the video content enrich’d the plain slides as expantory, but some skills are necessary as the catchwords “Content is King”. To show the best presentation, we need exceptional ideas, and some practice knowledge about Instructional Design. That’s the real mashup in the better Social Web Presentation 2.0. We learn from others in social community, so the winner presentations from SlideShare’s recent The World’s Best Presentation Contest could be good examples.

William Peterson
Presentation Veteran

Sep 4 2008   12:09PM GMT

Bad or Not: The Pre-Release Business Trick on Google’s Chrome Browser

Posted by: William Peterson
Business presentations, IT professional, Review, Web, Web 2.0, Web Presentation, Comic, Browsers, Google Chrome, Google, Google Apps, Learning

Everyone is talking about Google’s Chrome yesterday and today. I waited, downloaded, and tried the nice gadget webkit, but I really don’t understand why Google make such business tricks from the browser itself to the pre-release comic. Whatever the Google webkit was bad or not in practice, I realized that the whole show was a definitely successful case as business presentation: the new model from industrial top player.

We can imagine that how many users read the comic book before the official release to know a little more about the veiled gadget. For business, the show has completely influence the future users. We usually think that presentation is built on the systemic introduction with words and images. Comic the way perfectly combines the words and images as presentation to pull the idea on the stage simply and effectively. I deeply appreciate Google’s efforts on providing such great product and creative launching.

William Peterson
Presentation Veteran

Aug 30 2008   12:25AM GMT

Kick Off the Keynote: Brief Launch, Rich Presentation

Posted by: William Peterson
Business, community, PowerPoint, PowerPoint 2007, Keynote, Learning, Business presentations, IT professional, Solutions, Technology, Tips, Web 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

Aug 27 2008   1:23PM GMT

YouTube’d Everything, That’s Our Web 2.0 World, Right?

Posted by: William Peterson
Web 2.0, Scribd, SlideShare, Slidecast, YouTube, Flash, Online Apps, PowerPoint, Business presentations, IT professional, Review, Rich Media, Technology, Web, Web Presentation, Webcam

We know, YouTube has been an icon of Web 2.0 community for long time, and making everything YouTube is what we’re doing currently. Actually, we cannot put anything but video clips on YouTube. But we can visit his brothers and sisters. SlideShare and Scribd are the well-known ones among them.

SlideShare - YouTube of Presentations
It’s the most mature community to share our PowerPoint slides from one-time use to slidecasts. As I ever criticized Web presentations, SlideShare community is really popular upon its well-done construction and promotion. Currently it is the standard de facto and the icon as Web presentation in our Web 2.0 world.

Scribd - YouTube of Documents
I introduced it before when it was just launched: Meet Scribd’s iPaper: Flash-based Viewer Platform Built for All Web Documents - PDF, Word, PowerPoint, Excel and More . Certainly we cannot refuse such a great offer to store and share your various documents, from text and image files to PDF and Microsoft Office 2007 files. That’s almost everything in our Web 2.0 world.

We shouldn’t ignore the other parts of Web 2.0, such as social bookmarks; however, YouTube has led us start Web 2.0 in a rich format, which is the everything in our Web world.

William Peterson
Presentation Veteran

Aug 25 2008   11:08AM GMT

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

Posted by: William Peterson
Business, Corporate, Microsoft, PowerPoint, PowerPoint 2007, Keynote, Learning, Business presentations, IT professional

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

Aug 21 2008   2:47PM GMT

Experience the Office Enhancements Directly from the Labs, Not Bill’s Shows Any More

Posted by: William Peterson
Business, Google, YouTube, Microsoft, Office, Office 14, PowerPoint, PowerPoint 2007, SharePoint, Business presentations, IT professional, Review, Solutions, Technology

Like all Gfans can reach Google’s technology playground at Google Labs, we the guys who’re usually working on Microsoft’s Office suites have the opportunity to explore the productivity horizon as well. Microsoft^® Office Labs is such the community directly from its technical labs for the fans to try, experience, and discuss.

Here I recommend two great artworks from the so-called labs.

pptPlex
http://www.officelabs.com/projects/pptPlex
An amazing PowerPoint 2007 add-on. It makes your PowerPoint 2007 presentations showing on an Interactive Canvas. You and all audience will be really inspired by the new thinking of presentation performance in PowerPoint 2007. You may check a video guide at YouTube at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YvsdRFRBxhA.

Search Commands
http://www.officelabs.com/projects/searchcommands
Totally handy tools for Office users. Search Commands helps you find commands, options, wizards, and galleries in Microsoft Office 2007 Word, Excel and PowerPoint. Just type what you’re looking for in your own words and click the command you need.

William Peterson
Presentation Veteran

Aug 17 2008   6:24AM GMT

Not Bad to Live, Easy to Show Your Web Pages Real-Time in PowerPoint Presentations

Posted by: William Peterson
Business, ActiveX, PowerPoint, PowerPoint 2007, Live, Business presentations, IT professional, Solutions, Technology, Tips, Web

Yes, I think we’ll prefer this way of living Web pages real-time in PowerPoint presentations, not pause the slide show and open the Web pages in Internet Explorer. I’ve introduced the step-by-step guide to use ActiveX control to do the live Web page in PowerPoint slides (refer to my previous post Make Your Live Homepage in PowerPoint Slides. Now I just find the right PowerPoint add-in to simplify that complicated PowerPoint macro way from one of these nice PowerPoint MVPs (what’s MVP? refer to the post Know Those PowerPoint MVPs to Help Yourself). And the VBA tool is totally free for everyone, and compatible with PowerPoint 2007 and PowerPoint 97-2003. That’s maybe why a 5 stars editor’s rating in PC Magazine (refer to LiveWeb review by PC Magazine).

LiveWeb - insert and view web pages real-time. - by Shyam Pillai

William Peterson
Presentation Veteran

Aug 11 2008   3:38AM GMT

Your Office at Work: Fresh Resource Center inside Microsoft Office

Posted by: William Peterson
Business, CIO, Microsoft, Office, Office Live, Learning, Business presentations, Technology, Tips

Not only you, I’m engaged to Microsoft’s Office at Work, which is far more than some hints and tips for those office applications. Because the contents there are really helpful in our daily office life. We can not miss those great ideas to stuff:

• A popular article from Office Hours on ninja tricks you can perform
• An introduction to readability stats
• A review of phishing and other email warnings
• Updated Excel tips (the most popular program folks are looking for hints on this page)
• Most e-mailed templates (based on email this link data)
• A link to our own comic, Office OFFline
• Plus keeping last month’s most popular article, PowerPoint without bullets

The best part here is, you’ll find the resources you want to see on different prospects, such as Office at Home, Office at School, Office at a Small Business.

William Peterson
Presentation Veteran