Archive for January, 2009

DIY Stock Photography

January 31, 2009
By Mike
DIY Stock Photography

Have you run into a situation where you need a photo for a slide and you either can’t find one that works and looks just right on services such as iStockPhoto or for a shot like this, you can’t justify paying for a photo of some Sharpies?  You can try the Creative Commons route...
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The Scourge of Arial

January 23, 2009
By Mike
The Scourge of Arial

   Can you tell which is which? I was reading this article by Mark Simonson where he writes a brief history of Helvetica and its Frankenstein-like relative, Arial.  It’s, in my opinion, a very interesting read, covering areas like font studios, companies’ different strategies dealing with font licenses, and how a simple desire not to license...
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SlideRocket: A Review

January 18, 2009
By Mike
SlideRocket:  A Review

A while back, when Googling for a PowerPoint alternative (competition is good for consumers, and Microsoft too), I stumbled upon SlideRocket.  The concept was intriguing.  An online service that provided an alternative to PowerPoint and even Keynote, allows you to share your slide decks online, and even deliver them remotely in a meeting.  What’s...
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Interesting Talk On Color

January 16, 2009
By Mike

In my early morning routine of online-comic reading, I stumbled across this really interesting talk on color, how to use it, and tools that can be used to help with choosing the right colors and color scheme.   The show notes, including links to the tools and resources can be found at: SAP #17 Show Notes
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What I’d Like To See In Slide Design In 2009

January 10, 2009
By Mike
What I’d Like To See In Slide Design In 2009

Over on the Speaking about Presenting blog, Olivia Mitchell asked what everyone else would like to see this year in slide design.  I’ve got a really long list of things I’d like to see this year, but I’ll focus on the top 3 on my list: Less Organizational Inertia Quite often, one of the reasons why...
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My Thoughts On the MacWorld Keynote

January 8, 2009
By Mike

In this post, I’m not going to focus on the products that were announced.  Granted I can’t wait to see the changes to Keynote beyond what was discussed, but I’m more interested at this moment in Phil Shiller’s delivery of the keynote itself. Early on in his pitch, it was clear that he was nervous....
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Cross-platform PowerPoint

January 4, 2009
By Mike

If there’s one thing that’s certain about presenting, it’s that we can expect the unexpected.  This is especially true when presenting our slide deck on someone else’s equipment.  There’s the potential for breakdown and all sorts of mishaps.  One such risk that we face is the host computer not using the same version of...
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