PowerPoint Blog
Labels: powerpoint_flash, wildform
After they put on a similar sale last week, I convinced our friends at Wildform to offer the same great deal to Indezine subscribers -- and they agreed!
So, for the next 2 days you'll get 50% off on everything in the Wildform store. This offer ends at midnight on Wednesday, December 9th. At the store you'll find the Flair Deluxe Bundle, which includes everything you need to create Flash movies from your PowerPoint presentations (including controlling each individual aspect of the PowerPoint to Flash conversion!)
More info here...
Categories: powerpoint_flash, wildform
Labels: add-in, online_presentations, powerpoint, powerpoint_flash
Adobe Presenter 7 is a PowerPoint add-in that allows you to create high-impact Adobe Flash presentations and eLearning courses from PowerPoint. In addition, you can also create high fidelity PDFs using this add-in. You can add narration, edit audio, add multimedia capture video, animations, interactivity, quizzes, surveys, and software simulations to eLearning courses created using Adobe Presenter -- all inside PowerPoint. Output can be customized as presentations published to Flash, PDF or Adobe Connect Server.
Read the Indezine review here...
Categories: add-in, online_presentations, powerpoint, powerpoint_flash
Labels: interviews, powerpoint, powerpoint_flash, slideboom 
Yury Uskov is a founder and CEO of iSpring Solutions Inc., an innovative software company with the development center in Russia. Yury has a Masters degree in Software Engineering and since 2001 have been working in rich media industry inspired with the idea of making the best solution for online presentation sharing. iSpring Solutions has already launched several Flash technology projects including iSpring, a PowerPoint to Flash converter, and SlideBoom, an online service for presentations sharing. In this conversation, Yury discusses the new SlideBoom Pro account.
Geetesh: Tell us more about how the SlideBoom Pro account evolved, and how it differs from the free account.
Yury: As you know SlideBoom is a professional solution for sharing PowerPoint presentations which offers a full set of services for publishing presentations on the web. Sharing and distributing PowerPoint presentations on the web was normally quite difficult as PowerPoint PPT files are usually large to send, they require the proper version of PowerPoint installed, etc.
SlideBoom makes presentation sharing as easy as never before. It takes just a few clicks: upload a presentation to SlideBoom, and send a link to anybody. SlideBoom has become extremely popular due to the rich set of features, and excellent presentation quality. Plus it’s available for free.
Those who use PowerPoint presentations on a daily basis require additional capabilities for online presentation delivery. We are happy to supply them with advanced features available under the Pro account now.
Professional service cannot be free, but the pricing is quite moderate: The Pro account is available for $99 per year including SlideBoom technical support.
SlideBoom service can be a perfect online companion to iSpring desktop products for PowerPoint to Flash conversion. While free SlideBoom Basic accounts are targeted to users of the non-commercial iSpring CONVERTER freeware, SlideBoom PRO accounts are primarily designed for customers of the advanced iSpring PRESENTER product, widely used in a business sphere.
SlideBoom PRO account adds a number of advantages essential for professional work with presentations:
Geetesh: What sort of branding options do you allow in the Pro account -- and how is that a convincing reason to upgrade to the Pro account?
Yury: Branding options are available for Slidelog and customizable players.
You can customize your Slidelog, posting your company logo and choosing a color scheme that matches your company colors. It’s easy to set up a custom appearance for your Slidelog by changing navigation elements and sidebar blocks.
The players also change their colors according to a color scheme, and display your company logo over your content if needed. For example, you may want to include company logo in a presentation when it appears at third-party sites and blogs or only into its offline versions that should be delivered on CD/DVD.
If you’d like to have personal web page at SlideBoom, brand your presentations, and require advanced sharing experience -- then Pro accounts are the right choice. For $99/year you get the maximum from SlideBoom.
Categories: interviews, powerpoint, powerpoint_flash, slideboom
Labels: interviews, powerpoint, powerpoint_flash, wildform
Colby Devitt is the president and co-founder of Wildform, a multimedia software company based out of Los Angeles, USA. In this conversation, Colby discusses Flair, their Flash authoring product that includes a dedicated PowerPoint to Flash converting component.
Geetesh: Tell us more about Flair, and its PowerPoint to Flash converting capabilities.
Colby: Flair is a fantastic all-round program for people who want to author in Flash, but don’t want to take the time to learn or pay for Flash. (That said, we also have plenty of customers who are Flash developers who use Flair to supplement their work in Flash.) Flair is primarily designed for people who want to create multimedia and e-learning presentations. It includes a top of the line PowerPoint to Flash converter which consistently creates high quality conversions with small files sizes. Plus, you can edit your converted PowerPoint files within the Flair editing environment, which is a huge advantage.
Geetesh: Flair is much more than a PowerPoint to Flash conversion program. However, can you highlight how Flair differs from other PowerPoint to Flash converting solutions.
Colby: You’re right -- Flair is much more than a PowerPoint to Flash converter. Flair has multiple essential presentation capabilities in one program. It’s a Flash authoring tool, a video, image and audio converter, a text effects animator, a quiz creator, and a full video and screen recorder (like Camtasia), in addition to being a full PowerPoint to Flash converter. Each of these capabilities in Flair could be a full program in itself.
The PowerPoint to Flash converter by itself is considered to be the best on the market. It creates high quality conversions with small file sizes, and is the only converter that I know of that lets you edit your PowerPoint files after you import them into Flair. This is a huge convenience for people working with multiple PowerPoint files because it lets you combine pieces from different PowerPoint files, or edit the content of your inherited PowerPoint files before converting them to Flash. It also lets you use your existing PowerPoint templates and designs in Flair projects.
One of the reasons we created this all-in-one program called Flair, was that our customers not only wanted to convert PowerPoint to Flash, they also wanted to add multimedia elements and interactivity to their presentations. Flair is unique because it lets you create a lot of things you either cannot make at all, or can’t make easily in PowerPoint. For example, Flair has a wizard that lets you combine, and synchronize your video and PowerPoint files in three steps! People love this feature. Again, no other product on the market does this.
Categories: interviews, powerpoint, powerpoint_flash, wildform
Labels: online_presentations, powerpoint, powerpoint_flash, slidesix 
Todd Sharp (pictured to the right) is the creator of SlideSix.com, an online presentation sharing community site. He has been programming in ColdFusion since mid 2004 and blogs regularly about ColdFusion and Ajax at his site cfsilence. Todd provides ColdFusion/Ajax development and consulting services through his company Sharp Interactive, LLC.
In this discussion, Todd discusses his SlideSix site.
Geetesh: Tell us more about SlideSix, and how it evolved.
Todd: Just over a year ago, in December of 2007 I decided to experiment with ColdFusion's dynamic presentation capabilities by integrating them with a well known Java API called Apache POI which allows you to read and extract text and objects from PowerPoint 97/2000/XP files. Using the Java API was extremely simple by leveraging ColdFusion's ability to easily integrate with Java.
I created a few test cases and was very excited about the potential for creating dynamic, Flash based presentations. So through that experimentation the idea for SlideSix was born. Over the next six months I set out to create a presentation sharing community and finally launched it on May 1, 2008.
The initial launch lead to the realization that Apache POI wasn't quite 'ready for prime time'. It was fun to experiment with, but the presentation conversion simply would not be sufficent to handle anything more then a simple presentation with very little formatting. I quickly realized that I would need to utilize a different conversion engine and switched to utilizing OpenOffice to convert the presentations. Using OpenOffice gave me the added advantage of being able to support a wider array of presentation formats like the OpenOffice format (ODP, SXI) as well as MS PowerPoint (PPT, PPS). There are other techniques I use to support the conversion of additional formats such as Adobe Acrobat (PDF), QuickTime (MOV) and PowerPoint 2007 (PPTX).
In addition to the conversion engine, there have been numerous enhancements to the user interface. For example, our presentation viewer and user management console are both newer additions that are build with Adobe Flex.
Since the launch I have been constantly looking to improve and enhance the site to become one of the world's premier online presentation sharing communities.
Geetesh: How is SlideSix different from other online slide and presentation sharing sites, and what is SlideSix's best feature according to you?
Todd: SlideSix has many features that differentiate it from other presentation sharing communities. First and foremost we try to keep our site extremely simple. Some other sites put too much focus on being a social network. We focus on being a mutlitmedia enabled presentation sharing community. In other words, we realize the focus of the site is our users' presentations, and we try to empower our users to create a unique identity for themselves. The most powerful feature that we offer to help our users create that identity is the ability to record video or audio directly within our management console. Once recorded, the media becomes embedded directly within the presentation. We also offer the ability to embed supporting documentation directly within your presentation (by uploading data in ZIP format), and embedded slide notes. Other familiar features are also available such as RSS feeds, groups, favorites, tagging, ranking and much more.
Our About page contains a comprehensive overview of our features and even has a sample multimedia presentation.
Categories: online_presentations, powerpoint, powerpoint_flash, slidesix
Labels: delivery, online_presentations, powerpoint, powerpoint_flash, slideboom
SlideBoom, an online presentation viewing and sharing site announced the availability of Pro accounts that add more options than what are available to existing Free accounts.
These extra options include:
More info can be found on the SlideBoom site...
Categories: delivery, online_presentations, powerpoint, powerpoint_flash, slideboom
Labels: interviews, powerpoint_flash 
Ellen Finkelstein is author of several PowerPoint, Flash, and AutoCAD books, including the bestselling Flash CS4 For Dummies.
Her company, Ellen Finkelstein, Inc. helps clients create presentations and designs that communicate clearly and achieve their goals. She maintains a web site that offers PowerPoint and Flash related tips, and a selection of free backgrounds.
In this discussion, Ellen discusses her Flash CS4 For Dummies book.
Geetesh: You work with both PowerPoint and Flash -- can you tell us more about which program works best in a given scenario, and also how do you use them together.
Ellen: For advanced animation, especially programmable animation, Flash reigns supreme. And you can morph shapes in Flash, a feature that I'd love to see in PowerPoint. Also, Flash is created for the Web; it creates small, fast SWF files that almost everyone can play.
PowerPoint is much easier to use and doesn't require programming to add interactivity. Its strong point is in delivering presentations. PowerPoint is focused towards displaying from the software itself; to distribute on a Web site, you almost have to convert a PowerPoint presentation to SWF format.
There is an area of overlap, for self-running presentations. For a high-end result, you could use Flash, but you could also use PowerPoint. There are animators that can create amazing, Flash-like results in PowerPoint. I have several tips on my site that explain how to duplicate in PowerPoint an animation technique that I originally saw or created in Flash. Some examples are a bouncing ball, magnifying an image, dissolving one image into another, a revolving earth, a line drawing itself, and cutouts (transparent areas through which you see another image).
Of course, you can insert a Flash movie into PowerPoint. I explain how to do so. This allows you to take advantage of the advanced animation features of Flash within PowerPoint.
Geetesh: Tell us about your new book Flash CS4 For Dummies -- can PowerPoint users benefit from this book, and how?
Ellen: Flash CS4 For Dummies is our latest edition -- and it's finally in color!
CS4 has some fantastic new features. Perhaps the most well-known is Inverse Kinematics, which makes it easy to animate people or animals walking. Pattern fills and the spray brush are other great, new graphics tools. This book has always been a best seller, because it explains Flash is a clear, simple way. PowerPoint users who want to bring their animation skills up to another level will benefit from this book, because they can create their own SWF files to insert into PowerPoint.
Categories: interviews, powerpoint_flash
Labels: add-in, powerpoint_flash
With the plethora of options available for PowerPoint to Flash conversion, it's no longer an easy decision to decide upon one particular product. In the midst of this scenario, we were invited to review another product of this genre -- this one is called PowerFlashPoint -- let's see how it fares.
Read the review here...
Categories: add-in, powerpoint_flash
Labels: authorstream, online_presentations, powerpoint, powerpoint_flash, presentation_samples
Parts of a Shoe: This is a sample presentation we created in-house at Indezine so that we could create a presentation that had lots of internal hyperlinks to other slides in the presentation. And yes, it was a good topic -- we haven't found any visual representation of a shoe that shows its various parts -- anywhere on the net!
We uploaded this to authorSTREAM, and their Flash conversion is awesome -- it retained all the hyperlinks in the presentation.
Uploaded on authorSTREAM by indezine_powerpoint
Categories: authorstream, online_presentations, powerpoint, powerpoint_2007, presentation_samples
Labels: delivery, powerpoint_flash
If you have the time, and if you are familiar with Adobe Flash -- then there's this way of doing the PowerPoint to Flash conversion -- that's doing it manually! This approach lets you tweak, change, and edit the content as you deem fit. There's tons of stuff you can do with any slide object within the Adobe Flash interface -- and this is not really a tutorial on how to go into any such advanced stuff. However this tutorial will get you started!
Learn more here...
Categories: delivery, powerpoint_flash
Labels: online_presentations, powerpoint, powerpoint_flash, slideboom
You already learned how you can upload your presentations to SlideBoom -- but do you know that unless you enable the option, all downloads of the original PowerPoint presentation (PPT or PPTX) are disabled when you share the URL of your online presentation. Most of the time, you might be happy with this default behavior, but it is good to know that this can be changed on a presentation-to-presentation basis.
This and other similar options can be found within the Privacy options values within the Uploading your presentation screen within the SlideBoom site. If these options are only visible as a thin strip that you can see in Figure 1, click the downward pointing chevron to see all the options, as shown in Figure 2.
Figure 1: The Privacy options strip shows you options
Figure 2: Click the chevron, and you can edit the privacy options.
Thereafter, click the Submit button, and you are done.
Categories: online_presentations, powerpoint, powerpoint_flash, slideboom
Labels: interviews, online_presentations, powerpoint, powerpoint_flash, slideboom Yury Uskov is a founder and CEO of iSpring Solutions Inc., an innovative software company with their development center in Russia. Yury has a Masters degree in Software Engineering and since 2001 have been working in rich media industry inspired with the idea of making the best solution for online presentation sharing. iSpring Solutions has already launched several Flash technology projects including iSpring, a PowerPoint to Flash converter, and SlideBoom, an online service for presentations sharing.
Geetesh: Tell us more about SlideBoom -- did you look at this as a natural evolution process after iSpring?
Yury: I’d rather mention two aspects. First is that iSpring users needed such a site to share their great presentations converted by desktop products. From this point of view SlideBoom is just a great companion to iSpring.
Secondly, it is not a secret that people use online services more and more each day. This growing tendency inspired us to build SlideBoom as an online alternative to iSpring. From this point of view, SlideBoom looks like a result of iSpring evolution process.
Geetesh: What sets SlideBoom apart from similar slide sharing sites?
Yury: Thanks for the good question. Other similar sites are usually good for sharing static presentations only, and this kills some advantages of PowerPoint presentations. SlideBoom is designed for sharing rich video-like presentations with animations, embedded Flash movies, audio narrations and video clips. The unique feature of SlideBoom is graphical annotations over presentation content, which could be saved with a presentation on the portal.
I can say that SlideBoom leads the second generation of PowerPoint sharing facilities (PowerPoint to Web 2.0) and I know that our competitors also work on similar solutions. We have developed iSpring technology since 2004, and have an advantage over competitors at least for 2-3 years.
We get feedback from people that use SlideBoom and most of them tell that SlideBoom is the service that they were looking for a long time. And I am sure there is a room for SlideBoom at the market, and it will have a great future.
Categories: interviews, online_presentations, powerpoint, powerpoint_flash, slideboom
Labels: online_presentations, powerpoint, powerpoint_flash, slideboom
You already learned how you can join SlideBoom and upload your presentations as part of this SlideBoom series. In this post, I'll go beyond the basics and show you how you can share your uploaded presentations with others:
Figure 1: Your account page at SlideBoom
Figure 2: Your presentation page at SlideBoom
Figure 3: Share options at SlideBoom
I'll explain all the options you can see in Figure 3 here:
Next time, I'll show you how you can make changes to your SlideBoom profile.
Categories: online_presentations, powerpoint, powerpoint_flash, slideboom
Labels: online_presentations, powerpoint, powerpoint_flash, slideboom
I already introduced you to SlideBoom and showed you how you can join as part of the SlideBoom series, I provided a brief introduction to this slide sharing site. In today's post, you'll learn how you can upload your first presentation to this site.
In the next post in this series, I'll show you how you can share your SlideBoom presentations.
Figure 1: Sign in to upload presentations
Figure 2: Upload presentations
Figure 3: Uploading process
Figure 4: Add meta info at this stage
Categories: online_presentations, powerpoint, powerpoint_flash, slideboom
Labels: online_presentations, powerpoint, powerpoint_flash, slideboom
In the last post in the SlideBoom series, I provided a brief introduction to this slide sharing site. In today's post, you'll learn how you can become a member of the SlideBoom site. Remember -- SlideBoom in its present form is a free service.
Follow these steps to join SlideBoom:
In the next post in this series, I'll show you how you can sign in, and upload your presentations to the SlideBoom site.
Figure 1: Join Now button
Figure 2: Sign Up form
Figure 3: Activate your SlideBoom account
Categories: online_presentations, powerpoint, powerpoint_flash, slideboom
Labels: online_presentations, powerpoint, powerpoint_flash, slideboom
SlideBoom is a web site where you can upload your PowerPoint presentations -- at the back-end, a PowerPoint to Flash converting engines makes Flash movies of all your PowerPoint slides. Each uploaded presentation is provided a page URL that you can share with others who want to see your presentation.
That was an easy introduction to SlideBoom. In a series of subsequent posts, we will look at several options that SlideBoom provides including how you can join SlideBoom, upload your presentations, share your uploaded presentations, etc. You can keep track of all these posts here...
Figure 1 shows you the SlideBoom homepage (click on it to see a larger preview) -- to get to this page, you need to visit the SlideBoom link in your web browser.
Figure 1: The SlideBoom homepageSlideBoom is from iSpring Solutions, Inc -- the same folks who create the iSpring range of PowerPoint to Flash conversion software. Read our review on iSpring Pro 3.5 here...
In my next post on SlideBoom, I'll show you how you can join as a member -- membership is free and allows you to upload your own PowerPoint presentations to the SlideBoom site.
Categories: online_presentations, powerpoint, powerpoint_flash, slideboom
Labels: add-in, powerpoint_flash
iSpring Pro is a PowerPoint add-in that allows you to convert your PowerPoint presentations into Flash SWF movies with all the animations, slide transitions, audio and video clips, and inserted Flash SWF files intact. It works with all PowerPoint for Windows versions from 2000 to 2007.
iSpring Pro is from iSpring Solutions, Inc., a software development company based in Virginia, USA. You can learn more about of iSpring Pro from their site. Apart from iSpring Pro, they also provide a considerably adequate free version of iSpring -- this review however only explores the Pro version.
Read the full review here...
Categories: add-in, powerpoint_flash
Labels: add-in, online_presentations, powerpoint, powerpoint_flash
Gabe Anderson (pictured to the left) takes care of support and community initiatives at Articulate, a provider of rich media products used for e-learning.
In this conversation, Gabe discusses Articulate Quizmaker, how you can create quizzes, and how Quizmaker integrates with Articulate's other products.
Geetesh: Tell us more about Articulate Quizmaker -- and how it makes it easy to create quizzes fast.
Gabe: Articulate Quizmaker 2.0 is a comprehensive yet easy-to-use quiz creator for making highly customized Flash-based quizzes, assessments and surveys without the need for difficult programming. It provides a form-based interface with one-click publishing to Flash so that anyone who can use PowerPoint can create attractive, Flash-based quizzes in no time -- no Flash development experience required. There are 21 different graded and survey question types, which can be published to a stand-alone quiz or survey for use in your own Learning Management System or Articulate Online -- with full tracking and reporting capabilities.
Geetesh: How does Articulate Quizmaker integrate with other Articulate programs.
Gabe: Quizmaker publishes seamlessly to Articulate Presenter so that you can embed your quizzes and surveys directly in your Presenter-powered courses. You can even choose to send the embedded quiz results directly to your own Learning Management System or Articulate Online. Publishing from Quizmaker to Articulate Online is simple - just plug in your account details once, then publish to your account in just one click.
You can see a demo of how easy it is to publish content from Quizmaker to Articulate Online in the tutorials section of our site. Look for the demo called Publishing from Quizmaker.
Categories: add-in, online_presentations, powerpoint, powerpoint_flash
Labels: add-in, powerpoint, powerpoint_flash
There are many advantages in converting a PowerPoint presentation into a Flash SWF movie since they tend to be smaller in size, cannot be edited, and can easily be viewed in almost any operating system or computer these days. And with dozens of PowerPoint-Flash converting applications available, it's easy to be spoilt for choices.
And with so many choices, every such application has to either do things better than others or add more capabilities. WildPresenter, the product we are reviewing tries to do both -- and in this review, we will explore if it succeeds or not.
Read the full review...
Categories: add-in, powerpoint, powerpoint_flash
Labels: interviews, powerpoint, powerpoint_flash, wildpresenter 
Colby Devitt is the president and co-founder of Wildform, a multimedia software company based out of Los Angeles, USA. In this conversation, Colby discusses Wildform Online, their new online service that lets you host surveys and quizzes.
Geetesh: Tell us more about Wildform Online, and how it can help users do simple tasks?
Colby: With Wildform Online people can upload their e-learning quizzes, tests, surveys and presentations to the web and track viewership and score results without the expense and labor typically associated with using an LMS (Learning Management System). For as low as $19.99 a month, we host and track how their employees, students, customers and prospects interact with their projects.
For example, if a teacher creates a quiz, she can post it online, invite her students to take the quiz, track the test scores of her students, and if she wants, send them their results. She can choose to publish her quiz for a general audience or restrict it to just her students. Wildform Online also creates detailed reports for her - she can see how many people viewed her quiz, who took it and how they did. Wildform Online is also a great way to conduct surveys and polls - just upload your survey, invite people to take it and view the results. It's also an effective way to host and track the results of interactive presentations and online courses.
Geetesh: How does Wildform Online integrate with other Wildform products?
Colby: Wildform Online works fantastically with our product WildPresenter Pro, which lets you create multimedia presentations, quizzes, tests, surveys, and product demos, as well as converting PowerPoint to Flash, and recording onscreen activity . It is because of WildPresenter's quiz and survey creation capabilities that we built Wildform Online. Many of our customers created quizzes and surveys and then wanted to know how to upload them to the web and track the results from people taking them. What they were asking for typically requires an expensive and complex LMS (Learning Management System) that frequently costs in the tens of thousands of dollars. We offer this service to our customers for only $19.99 a month.
Categories: interviews, powerpoint, powerpoint_flash, wildpresenter
Labels: add-in, powerpoint, powerpoint_flash
It's hard to believe now, but there used to be a time when PowerPoint to Flash converters were so expensive, and few are far in between. Some of those products were in fact hosted on the servers of the program vendors, and you had to use your browser to upload and download content all the time.
Nowadays, this capability is available in products that range from free to a hundred dollars whereabouts. And these products work on your desktop, not on some remote server.
FlashPoint is one such application -- and in this review I am going to see how the application performs using our new PowerPoint to Flash benchmark presentation.
Read the review here...
Categories: add-in, powerpoint, powerpoint_flash
Labels: interviews, powerpoint, powerpoint_flash 
Rhys Jeremiah has been working in IT after graduating from Bristol University with a degree in mathematics. He started writing database applications for a large insurance company and quickly moved into web development, the largest site for a major international motor manufacturer. Although now teaching mathematics, he still manages some IT work. He currently lives in Cardiff, Wales with Sarah, his wife, and their children Lloyd and Carys.
Geetesh: Tell us more about your Extract Flash product, and what inspired you to create this.
Rhys: As is often common, the reason for creating the Extract Flash product was to solve a problem that could have easily been avoided. The company I was working for at the time was a major client of a marketing firm here in the UK. Last thing on a Friday afternoon, we were asked to update a flash file on a website and that the replacement file would be winging its way to us via email very soon. None of us in the office were quite prepared for the fact that the file had been placed into a PowerPoint presentation. It seemed that the last thing the marketing company did before the weekend was to send that file as numerous phone calls to get the original file failed. So we had a problem.
I noticed that it was possible to drag and drop the embedded Flash object between Office products and even drop it onto the desktop as a scrap file (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/138275). So I reasoned that the file must contain the Flash file that we were searching for. Hence it was worth digging a bit deeper. On opening the scrap file in a binary editor, I was able to locate the header block of the SWF file and without too much effort it was the possible to pull the binary data out and write it back to disk. The reason I wrote an application to do this is that I enjoy the challenge of trying something new, and also providing a useful tool to the community. In theory the scrap approach would work for any type of embedded object so long as the header block could be read and processed. With a small amount of knowledge it would be possible to change the file to search a binary file for any header block and extract the embedded data. From memory I think that SWF files are held in PowerPoint files without encryption so you don't necessarily need to mess about with the scrap file.
Geetesh: Many people believe that their embedded Flash content in a PowerPoint slide is secure -- so this does prove them wrong. How important is it for them to be aware of this, and would the scrap approach also work with any other embedded content in Microsoft Office documents.
Rhys: From my experience many people think that all embedded files in Office documents are secure. I can't count how many times someone has sent me a Word document containing loads of images. I've never really considered the people actually use this method to protect their files. It's certainly naive to approach security in this fashion. Personally I think that the only way to secure your sensitive data is not to give it away, as soon as you release any information you lose the ability to control the distribution. If you really want to secure your embedded content don't embed it.
Categories: interviews, powerpoint, powerpoint_flash
Labels: add-in, online_presentations, powerpoint, powerpoint_flash
FlashSpring Pro is a PowerPoint add-in which allows you to converts your PowerPoint presentations into Flash SWF movies with all the slide transitions, custom animations, audio and video clips, and inserted Flash SWF files intact.
Read the review here...
Categories: add-in, online_presentations, powerpoint, powerpoint_flash
Labels: powerpoint, powerpoint_flash, wildpresenter
Wildform announced an upgrade to their WildPresenter product that adds several new features:
More on the Wildform site...
Categories: powerpoint, powerpoint_flash, wildpresenter
Labels: add-in, online_presentations, powerpoint, powerpoint_flash
authorPOINT Lite, a free PowerPoint to Flash Converter has been released by authorGEN, a Raleigh, NC based company that creates e-learning and presentation software. This presentation creation tool is a small download, and works on your desktop to create compact Flash files from your PowerPoints. The tool can also perform batch conversion of multiple .PPS and .PPT files.
authorPOINT Lite retains most PowerPoint effects including animations and sounds without any loss in presentation quality in the Flash (.SWF) output. Flash presentations have a number of advantages over PowerPoint format as Flash files are lighter, more secure, multiple browser and operating system compatible.
More on the authorGEN site...
Categories: add-in, online_presentations, powerpoint, powerpoint_flash
Labels: online_presentations, powerpoint, powerpoint_flash, slideshare
I love using SlideShare because it's a one-click process to upload and share my PowerPoints. However, SlideShare did lack the audio streams that make YouTube and iFilm so popular. And so people want to create YouTube movies from their PowerPoints. Not any more -- since SlideShare has added a cool new feature called SlideCasting.
SlideCasting is cool not just because it adds an audio stream to SlideShare's online presentations but because it does this in such a well implemented process:
Check out this walkthrough by Jonathan Boutelle...
Categories: online_presentations, powerpoint, powerpoint_flash, slideshare
Labels: add-in, online_presentations, powerpoint, powerpoint_flash
SWiSHzone creates a well known range of Flash output programs, and when they released their PowerPoint add-in that could create Flash output from a presentation, I really wanted to take a look at the product. Their PowerPoint add-in product is called SWiSH Presenter.
Read the review here...
Categories: add-in, online_presentations, powerpoint, powerpoint_flash
Labels: interviews, powerpoint, powerpoint_flash, wildpresenter Colby Devitt is the president and co-founder of Wildform, a multimedia software company based out of Los Angeles, USA. In this conversation, Colby discusses WildPresenter, their Flash authoring product that integrates so well with PowerPoint content.
Geetesh: Tell us more about yourself, Wildform, and WildPresenter.
Colby: I'm the president and co-founder of Wildform and one of my main responsibilities is to oversee the marketing at Wildform. I have a liberal arts background. I grew up studying ballet very seriously, got a BA in Classics from Barnard and a masters in religion from Harvard. I've spent many years writing and in theatre, exploring the intersection of art and technology. An installation project I was working on led me to learn advanced animation programs (Alias and Wavefront) and from there I immersed myself in technology. Before starting Wildform in 1999, I worked at www.nytimes.com and before that I was in charge of marketing for a document imaging company. I have tried to retain my sense of what it is like for someone to use our products who is not enamored with technology and views it as a tool. We have always tried to make our products as easy and fun to use as possible. We have also created products that we ourselves would have wanted to use.
In many ways, WildPresenter is the synthesis of all of the technology we have developed so far. It contains a media importer that converts all images, audio and video to Flash. The origin of this technology was our original Flash video converter called Flix, which we sold to ON2. WildPresenter also has a text effects tool, which is basically our standalone product, WildFX. The timeline in WildPresenter and the ability to combine any kind of SWF file together had its origins in a previous product called Linx. WildPresenter though is much more powerful than Linx because it now contains hundreds of built in shapes, objects, flowcharts, animations, slide transitions and a whole set of drawing tools, so that you can now build entire Flash web sites with the program. In addition to being a media converter, a text effects generator, and basic Flash site builder, WildPresenter contains an entire screen recording program, like Camtasia, a quiz creator, and last but not least for your readers, a PowerPoint to Flash converter, which creates very accurate conversions with the smallest possible file size.
So, really WildPresenter is like having six major programs in one. There is nothing like it on the market. It is exactly the program that I fantasized about having when I was producing for the web at the New York Times Digital -- an easy to use multimedia program that would let me quickly combine video, audio, images, and text, so that I could create something original and compelling and post it rapidly to the web, concentrate on producing great content and not get bogged down in struggling with the software.
Geetesh: What are the new PowerPoint specific features in WildPresenter 3.3 -- and can you give us case studies of end users who create outputs from their PowerPoint presentations with WildPresenter.
Colby: WildPresenter has been a powerful PowerPoint to Flash converter for awhile, generating accurate conversions and small file sizes. What's new in version 3.3 is that we have added a "Combine Your PowerPoint and Video" wizard. We added this because we have many customers who like to combine their PowerPoint files with video and convert their projects to web-friendly Flash. The wizard streamlines the process for them. They can now execute what is technologically a very complex process in three easy steps –- select a PowerPoint, select a video and click “Next”. Once they have completed the wizard, they can change the layout and design of their project if they like. WildPresenter also comes with other wizards and we will continue to add more based on what our customers tell us they most want. Wildform has a lot of fans and we like to honor them. You can read testimonials from our customers and we feature customer examples in the Customer Gallery section of our blog.
Categories: interviews, powerpoint, powerpoint_flash, wildpresenter
Labels: powerpoint, powerpoint_flash, wildpresenter
WildPresenter 3.3 has a great new feature that allows you to import a PowerPoint presentation and a video clip within three clicks -- and you don't have to do anything else. Just wait for the program to create an output that looks similar to the screenshot you can see in Figure 1:
Figure 1: A presentation and a movie side-by-side in one output
Wildform, the creators of WildPresenter have also put up a walkthrough of the entire process on their site. Look here...
Categories: powerpoint, powerpoint_flash, wildpresenter
Labels: add-in, elearning, online_presentations, powerpoint, powerpoint_flash
Helius Inc. announced it has signed a definitive agreement to acquire PointeCast Corp., a leading global provider of rapid-communication and online training solutions. PointeCast's Publisher product allows users to enhance Microsoft PowerPoint presentations with real time quizzes, surveys, response tracking and other multimedia features and then instantly convert them into the Adobe Flash format for easy integration. PointeCast's robust learning management system (LMS) enables customers to administer and track e-learning and training courses.
More on DigitalSignageToday.com...
Categories: add-in, elearning, online_presentations, powerpoint, powerpoint_flash
Labels: powerpoint_flash
authorSTREAM is a new, content sharing social media networking site open to everyone to upload, share and view PowerPoint presentations. This free offering comes from authorGEN Technologies, who create authorPOINT, a multimedia e-learning presentation creator, which installs in PowerPoint and outputs to Flash.
PowerPoint files, when uploaded to authorSTREAM, get converted to Flash and can be accessed by anyone on the website; a unique code and URL is generated for every presentation to enable users to embed or share their presentation with anyone on their own blog or website.
More info on the authorSTREAM site...
Categories: powerpoint_flash
Labels: add-in, powerpoint, powerpoint_flash
authorGEN announced the release of authorPOINT 3.8 with several new features for rapid e-learning authoring.
authorPOINT is a rapid e-learning presentation creation tool, which installs within PowerPoint as a toolbar and captures PowerPoint presentations when an instructor is presenting. It comes with the option to embed presenters' video through a web cam as they present, or integrate video and audio as required.
Presentations created with authorPOINT can be saved in Flash or Windows Media formats. Further, the Flash file can be uploaded to a dedicated server on authorSTREAM which provides the presenter with a unique URL to deliver streaming Flash presentations.
More info on the authorGEN site...
Categories: powerpoint_flash, powerpoint, add-in
Labels: add-in, interviews, powerpoint, powerpoint_flashYury Uskov is Technical Director at CPS Labs, a software development company based out of Yoshkar-Ola, Russia. Yury has a Masters degree in Software Engineering and since 2001, he has been working in rich media industry as the co-founder of CPS Labs Ltd. CPS Labs has launched several Flash technology projects including FlashSpring, a PowerPoint to Flash converter that ships as an add-in for Microsoft PowerPoint.
Geetesh: Tell us more about the new FlashSpring 2, and how it is different from other similar products.
Yury: If you like to know more about the originality of FlashSpring 2.0, I can point out several major strong advantages of our product:
Geetesh: How does FlashSpring aid in the distribution of PowerPoint content?
Most of the other PowerPoint to Flash convertors actually cannot do this and produce some mixture of HTML and Flash files which represents the original PPT after conversion. It is possible to put this presentation on the web, but if you like to send such presentation via email, it can be delivered only as an archive.
Yury: Being converted to Flash, your PowerPoint presentation becomes more portable and distribution friendly, because almost anybody can play Flash content on most of platforms in most of browsers.
Additionally FlashSpring is enhanced with deployment options, and can help you to put your Flash presentation on your web site or send via email as easily as possible.
Categories: powerpoint_flash, powerpoint, add-in, interviews
Labels: add-in, camtasia, powerpoint, powerpoint_flash, techsmith
Capturing on screen activity to create a movie is so much easier these days with more powerful computers and software -- and it is also a more helpful way of explaining how a task can be done. Such a concept works great if you want to create tutorial movies, and TechSmith's Camtasia Studio is most certainly among the best products for this type of work.
Read the review here...
Categories: camtasia, powerpoint, add-in, powerpoint_flash, techsmith
Labels: charting, powerpoint_flash
Blue Pacific Software announced a completely free version of Rich Chart Live, their online charting program that lets you create and share your charts almost anywhere. You can also copy and paste some HTML code from within the online program to insert the charts in blogs and websites. The free version does place a small Rich Chart Live logo on the bottom-right corner of each generated chart.
Manuel Fernandes from Blue Pacific adds that "this new release of Rich Chart Live was specially designed for bloggers: it is very easy to embed a Rich Chart in any blog, not to mention that it is free. Posting a Rich Chart in a blog or website is as easy as copy & pasting HTML".
The paid version of Rich Chart Live is still available -- and there's a significant price reduction on the subscription charge for that service.
Check out more at the Rich Chart Live site...
Related Links:
Rich Chart Live review
Conversation with Manuel Fernandes
Categories: charting, powerpoint_flash
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