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The PowerPoint Ezine - 40
by Geetesh Bajaj, March
18th, 2004
Get this ezine in your mailbox...
The 40th Issue
Is it true that life really begins at 40? I don't know, but that's
a good excuse to change some directions for this ezine.
I've been hearing from all of you who want the ezine to have less
content! When I first started this ezine, it was more of a list
of happenings in the world of PowerPoint and presentations. And
these days, so many things are happening! I end up up with an ezine
issue every two weeks that perhaps takes you more than an hour
to get through with all those links to explore.
It's time for change. I'll still cover happenings and news, but
in much less detail since those are available to you all through my
blog - and that's updated each day. This ezine itself will
now completely focus on PowerPoint tips and tricks and get you
all more freebies, giveaways and special offers. And yes, I'll
introduce you to PowerPoint personalities - many of you have mailed
to say that you enjoy all the interviews.
And now a word about my sponsors - I wish to thank them for supporting
this site and the ezine - it's only through their help that I can
get across quality content to all of you on a continuous basis.
Special Offers
Hemera has allowed me to provide you all with a 10% discount
on all their boxed products for just three days - March 29th, 30th
and 31st. Go
here to take advantage of this offer...
CrystalGraphics is offering you all the complete Ultimate
Combo suite of their PowerPoint add-ins at a much reduced cost
- the discount is 70%! Just use this insider promo code when you
place your order: 'Ultimate14' without the quotes. This
offer ends on March 31st - that's just three more days. Go
here to take advantage of this offer...
It's Raining Gifts Again
It's raining gifts again! By being subscribed to
this ezine, you are eligible to win!
Betsy Weber of TechSmith is providing two free copies of their
award winning SnagIt screen
capture tool. SnagIt is used by over 7 million people worldwide
and was recently awarded PC Magazine's coveted Best of the Year
title. Thank you, Betsy.
I'm including two copies of my own PowerPoint
Textures collection this time - you get over 800 textures
you can use anywhere! Download
a free multimedia demo that shows you the possibilities.
There are even more goodies -
they will be announced in the next issue!
Now for the winners - Mark
Pavone and Jim Carelas won the giveaways for a free copy of Neuxpower
NXPowerLite. Mark Semeneck and Lynn Hadfield won copies of Wildform
Wild FX. Congratulations to all of you.
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Indezine Interviews
 This
time I have a treat for all of you - an interview with Tad Simons, editor
of Presentations magazine.
Tad frequently writes about the effects of technological change
on communication, work and life, and reports on all aspects of
multimedia, projection and display, digital imaging and collaboration
technology. Whenever I get my copy of Presentations magazine, I
just have to read Tad's editorial before anything else - it's one
of the best editorial pages on the planet. Here'a an excerpt from
Tad's interview:
"I think PowerPoint is a fine program that gets horribly
misused millions of time every day. Where we went wrong, I think,
is in assuming that just because PowerPoint resides on everyone's
computer, everyone can and ought to create their own presentation
slides. That's the reason there are so many awful PowerPoint presentations
in the world - because people without a lick of design sense are
out there creating their own slides, inflicting their ineptness
on unsuspecting audiences everywhere." Don't
you want to read more...
 Richard
Mayer is a professor of psychology at the University of California,
Santa Barbara. Among the most prolific researchers in the sphere
of educational psychology, Richard has authored 18 books and
more than 250 articles and chapters. Among his most famous books
is Multimedia
Learning, an amazing treatise based on his findings that
explains how you can use multimedia learning to its full potential.
And that's something so relevant to PowerPoint creators and audiences
today.
I love Richard's answer to the criticism being meted out to the
use of bullet points in PowerPoint presentations. Richard responds: "Bullets
don't kill learning, but improper use of bullets kills learning.
In order to create effective PowerPoint presentations, it is important
to understand how people learn. In particular, cognitive scientists
have discovered three important features of the human information
processing system that are particularly relevant for PowerPoint
users..." You have
to read the rest of the interview...
 If
Richard's interview was thought provoking, Tom Bunzel provides
responses that are completely different since he looks at PowerPoint
as a multimedia tool for both corprate and non-corporate scenarios.
Here's an excerpt from Tom's interview:
"I agree that PowerPoint is venturing out of the business
world and into the living room, and in fact I try to describe other
uses for the features like PhotoAlbum, as you mention, for family
pictures. I also am a big believer in other creative uses of PowerPoint
to storyboard video projects and movies, to make inexpensive corporate
video (by using a video output graphics card), and I have sent
animated Valentine's Cards using PowerPoint." Read
more of this interview that brings back the fun in PowerPoint...
Music Span for PowerPoint
Sometime last month, I was again asking Shyam Pillai, a PowerPoint
VBA guru to create an add-in that allows users to span a sound
file across slides. Luckily, Shyam had some time to spare and he
created an add-in that did just that! After a few tests between
us, the add-in was created - and Shyam decided to release it as
freeware! The add-in is called Music Span. Thank you, Shyam.
To add icing to the cake, I put in a hundred MIDI background music
scores that I had created a few months ago into a zip file and
released that as freeware too. So, now you all can download a free
add-in with a hundred looping sound scores to use in your PowerPoint
presentations absolutely free.
Download
Music Span here...
Download
the free music here...
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News & Content
Read the
PowerPoint Blog here... The PowerPoint Blog now includes
the Atom syndication service so that you can use a Atom compatible
newsreader to read all postings.
Back
Events & Seminars
Great Graphics and Perfect Presentations
March 23-24 (Dallas/Ft. Worth); March 29-30 (New York/New Jersey); April 1-2
(Chicago); April 20-21 (Phoenix); April 27-28 (Calgary AB Canada); May 5-6
(San Jose)
Rick Altman, R Altman Digital Consulting
http://www.pptlive.com/
Winning Presentations Seminar
April 15 and 16, June10 and 11, 2004, Boston, USA
Claudyne Wilder, Wilder Presentations
http://www.wilderpresentations.com/
PowerPoint Live
October 10 to 13, 2004, San Diego, California, 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, content or feedback from Adam Schwartz,
Betsy Weber, Carolyn Dennis, Lin Sharon, Paul Lafreniere and Shyam
Pillai (all in alphabetical order). I would like to use this platform
to thank them for their help.
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