The PowerPoint Ezine - 21
by Geetesh Bajaj
Introduction
We first discuss Macromedia Breeze followed
by a look at DzSoft's Slide Show product. A listing of Quick
News is followed by a focus on Wildform's new Wild
Fx product. Atek's Tote-Remote is our next story -
this is succeeded by some info about a great offer from CrystalGraphics.
We finally look at Dave Paradi's excellent site.
Macromedia Breeze
Macromedia Breeze is a great solution that converts existing
PowerPoint content into rich media presentations that can be viewed
online using the firewall friendly Flash SWF format.
Breeze isn't a boxed product - it's a combination of a PowerPoint
add-in and a server based solution that make it easy to deliver
online content to audiences along with several niceties like password
protection, reporting, search, quizzes, etc. All put together,
Breeze informs, educates and trains anyone - be it your partner,
colleague, client, customer or student.
I just finished a review on Macromedia Breeze - read
it here...
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DzSoft Slide Show
DzSoft Slide Show from DzSoft, an Ukraine based
company is a Windows shell extension that can create slide shows
from a group of images. Such slide shows can also be output as
standalone EXE files that can be distributed.
Alexander Dzyubenko of DzSoft has put up an excellent tutorial
on his site that explains how to create such standalone EXEs from
images that are exported from PowerPoint presentations. I stumbled
on the site while searching for something else on Google - Alexander
has allowed me to link to his site from here:
Turn
PowerPoint presentations into standalone slide shows
Not surprisingly, such slideshows would lose all of PowerPoint's
own custom animations although you can recreate the transitions
within DzSoft Slide Show itself.
All put together, DzSoft's program is a very viable option for
those who want their distributed presentations to remain uneditable.
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Quick News
PowerPoint Live, being held at Tucson AZ from
October 12 to 15, 2003 is a three-day event that includes seminars,
workshops, hands-on technical support and keynote addresses covering
virtually every topic of interest to the PowerPoint user community.
The organizers have announced the PPTLive Sweepstakes to
provide you a chance to win a free pass to the conference - a $795
value. Entries close July 1 and winners will be contacted one week
later. Enter
your name here...
Chirag Dalal, a Microsoft PowerPoint MVP has announced
a new add-in for PowerPoint 2002 - the Kiosk Assistant is
a free addin that gets the kiosk reset feature back into Microsoft
PowerPoint 2002. It enhances it further and allows you to set the
reset interval and also the choose the slide where the kiosk slide
show should reset to. More
info...
Macromedia has announced Authorware 7 - a new version
of their multimedia authoring and CBT creation product that now
includes a PowerPoint import feature. More
info...
More PowerPoint news include Inspiration Technology
2003, a convention for pastors and church officials that
discusses use of PowerPoint
in the church. On the other hand, Unplug that Projector by
Jimmy Guterman on the Business
2.0 site discusses how PowerPoint may ruin business presentations.
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Wildform Announces Wild Fx
 Wildform has
announced Wild fx 3.0, a major upgrade to their Flash text
animation software, previously marketed under the name SWfX.
Colby Devitt of Wildform says: Wild fx 3.0 comes with
over 400 built in effects that work with a user’s installed
fonts. Creating a text animation is as easy as entering text
and selecting an effect.
Among the major new features of Wild fx 3.0 are:
- More than 100 new effects.
- 45 inifinitely customizable effects.
- Ability to generate new effects templates without requiring
any programming knowledge.
- Ability to add background images, add text fills, gradients
and strokes.
- Automatic text justification.
- An expanded HTML export option that includes the ability to
automatically generate pop-up javascript code.
- A host of automated Flash functions such as links, custom variables,
looping, on-click actions, etc.
- Support for double-byte characters such as Japanese and Chinese.
All SWF output from Wild Fx can be used within PowerPoint.
Wild fx is priced at US$39 and is available for Windows and Mac.
Current SWfX users can upgrade to Wild fx 3.0 for US$25. More
info...
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Atek Tote-Remote
Atek sent me their Tote-Remote product the other
day - this great hardware remote controller and laser pointer is
easy to set up and requires no drivers. I just inserted the included
battery within the device and inserted the receiver into an available
USB port. The product functioned immediately thereafter.
The Tote-Remote is made for PowerPoint users - functions
like starting and stopping slideshows and going back to the previous
and next slide are as easy as pressing or wheeling a button. In
addition, you also get a laser pointer.
The product is priced at US$79.95 although prices vary widely
across vendors. The retail product package includes the Tote-Remote,
a 'dongle' type USB RF receiver, a padded travel pouch, and a coin
cell battery. The Tote-Remote is cross platform and works on both
Windows and the Macintosh.
More
info at the Atek site...
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CrystalGraphics Announces SuperSaver Combo 3
 CrystalGraphics
Inc. has announced the PowerPlugs SuperSaver Combo 3 - this suite
of add-ins for PowerPoint includes several best sellers from their
stable of award winning products:
- PowerPlugs Transitions Volume I, II, III and IV
- PowerPlugs 3D Titles Volume I and II
- PowerPlugs Templates Volume I and II
- PowerPlugs Charts
Until June9th, you can buy the SuperSaver Combo 3 for just US$299
- that's a saving of 45% against the regular retail pricing of
all the 9 products individually. More
info...
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Dave Paradi's Site
Dave Paradi's Communicate Using Technology site has so much info
on PowerPoint and other presentation related technology. As Dave
says: "My site is focused on helping people quickly and easily
leverage the technology they already own to save time and money.
I have a focus on PowerPoint, with my three books and seminar on
CD"
Dave also issues a bi-weekly newsletter - in addition you can
read some articles on his site. Visit
Dave's site...
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Events & Seminars
PowerPoint Live
October 12 to 15, 2003
Tucson, Arizona, USA
Rick Altman, R Altman Digital Consulting
http://www.pptlive.com/
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Credits
During the preparation of this issue of
the PowerPoint Ezine, I received assistance and feedback from
Aaron Wessels, Alexander Dzyubenko, Colby Devitt, Dan Rothman,
Dave Paradi, Echo Swinford, Eric Vidal, Keith Kitani and Nicole
Ha (all in alphabetical order). I would like to use this platform
to thank them for their help.
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