Freaky People Productions

I’ve just purchased my version of Powerpoint 2011 for Mac, so this article will continue to be a work in progress.

Unfortunately the ribbon interface has migrated completely over to the Mac edition (goodbye sidebar!).
Fortunately, the ribbon doesn’t suck as much as it did in Windows Powerpoint 2007, and is starting to be usable.

Big plus:

• In the Picture menu, there is now a Compress option, that allows you to crop out unnecessary image sizes, automagically! If the presentation is to be used primarily for presenting on LCD screens, select Compress >  Best for viewing on screen (150ppi), and watch the file size disappear, especially mining professionals who use massive high-res core samples or doctors with x-ray charts.

It a common issue with Powerpoint: you want to play a video inside your presentation. No sweat, simply

'Insert' > 'Movie' > 'Movie from File',

and lo and behold you have a movie playing from within Powerpoint. Well, assuming it’s compatible. But I digress.

My issue has always been the terminology of the command. You’ve selected Insert, and yet nothing has actually been inserted. Instead, a link has been made between that specific slide and the movie file. This is a hard link, and will break if you change the relationship of the PPT file and the MOVIE file.

The reliable workaround for those in the know has always been to place the PPT and the Movie together in the same folder before linking, and always carrying them together as a package.

This hasn’t stopped people from arriving at my Speaker Ready Room with a weenie 300 kB PPT file insisting that the movie is embedded (read: inserted) in their presentation and that it “worked at the office”.

I blame Microsoft for their misleading menus names. However, they have recently redeemed themselves on two fronts:

1. Microsoft Powerpoint 2010 now actually embeds the movie into the PPTX file. This is the default behaviour.
2. A Powerpoint 2010 PPTX file, with an embedded movie, is backwards compatible to Powerpoint 2007.

This is great news, since we will be in transition from 2007 for a while, and it will also encourage more adoption to use the current PPTX format.

I’m still waiting for an opportunity to try out some of the other video features of Powerpoint 2010 (masking, in/out times and other effects), and will report back after some experimentation.

If you have a Mac at your conference or event and need a quick recording solution, consider QuickTime. To ensure that the recording is the best quality possible, there are a few extra steps you should take before hitting ‘record’. First we’ll review what you need to get started. Next we’ll look as setting levels, and finally we investigate export options.
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UPDATE: Since meeting with Benoit Lamy at Analog Way I’ve been shown that it is possible to avoid this problem, without additional external devices. As of firmware version 5, it is possible to disable HDCP individually on each digital input of the Diventix II.

If you’re using a Apple Macintosh computer with a DVI or HDMI output, simply turn off the HDCP (in the Diventix: INPUT -> DHCP -> DISABLE.

If you’re using a Blu-ray player (or similar) that will not function without HDCP confirmation, ENABLE it. Be warned though, your ENTIRE workflow then needs to be HDCP compliant.

I’ve experienced this problem on and off since the DisplayPort MacBooks first came out. Plug in a DP to VGA adapter, and you’re off to the races. Try using a DP to DVI adapter, and many commercial devices (Analog Way DiVentix for one) will not receive the signal.

I knew it was due to the HDCP protocols (the same copy-protection used to keep you from making digital copies directly from your Blu-Ray player), but never really understood some of the peculiarities of when it does and doesn’t work.

Then I stumbled upon Steve Wylie’s blog Serial Digital. Not only does it explain the phenomenon, but in the comments you’ll see useful workarounds to the issue.

Essentially they boil down to three:

1. Don’t use a HDCP enabled output. So stick with the VGA/XGA you’ve loved for so long. But then you miss living in full digital glory.
2. Use a cheap Cat-5 to DVI tranceiver pair to trick the Apple machine into thinking no HDCP is required.
3. Use a Gefen DVI Detective or similar EDID-locking device, as long as it doesn’t pass through HDCP information.

What I’d like to know is why there isn’t a better way for Apple to protect it’s precious content, without protecting MY regular ol’ boring content. I own it! Let me display it without protection. Please.

Jan Schultink, the blogger behind Slides that Stick er… Sticky Slides has a very short post showing how Powerpoint can be told to play multimedia that might normally choke it.

It’s mostly pictures, but here’s a written summary for reference:

1. Open the Control Toolbox. It will float over your document.

View -> Toolbars -> Control Toolbox

2. The bottom-right icon (looks like the web designers hammer and sickle motif, with an ellipsis) opens, and you can select ‘Shockwave Flash Object’
3. An empty placeholder box will appear. Right-click and select ‘Properties’



4. A long, vertical properties widow will appear. Key fields to update are:
   • EmbedMovie = True
   • Movie = [the movie name] Keep the flash file in the same directory of the presentation to avoid certain death!
   • Playing = True
5. That’s it! It may be flaky still, so it’s best to use this method when you’ll be the one presenting the deck

Since becoming a Blackberry last August, I’ve let my computer inbox overwhelm me. The biggest problem with BIS email on the Blackberry (or so I thought at the time), was that there were no folders for sorting. Your options were three-fold:

1. keep in the inbox
2. delete the sucker
3. save it in the saved folder

Once I got used to reading the message and ignoring it, I missed my folders less and less. Problem is, I did need to keep project emails on my computer for reference, email addresses not in my address book, etc.

They need sorting, or tagging, or something! Badly.

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<This article is still in progress> Read the rest of this entry »

You decide to take the plunge and embed a sales video into your Powerpoint presentation. It looks good, and plays well on your own computer at work, but when you get to the conference to test it, you see nothing but a black (or white) square where your video used to be.

Here are a few places to start your troubleshooting if you don’t have the benefit of a technician to help you. Read the rest of this entry »

Need to run a sponsor loop for a reception, but also need a specific slide or two during some brief remarks? You can do both from within the same presentation. No jumping to the desktop!

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If you’ve sat through many Powerpoint presentations recently, you’ll have noticed they are more multimedia than ever before. Embedded movies, youtube links, audio files… they can liven up a presentation, but also require more preparation for both the presenter and the technician.

I strongly recommend to event and conference managers to provide an audio connection for all laptops, and ensure the show computers have been tested with multimedia. Whether you’ve offered it or not, presenters today assume that they can walk in with a flash drive full of video clips, audio files and external web links.

How do you properly prepare for this? Read on for common pitfalls and manageable solutions.

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