Need to give a presentation?

[Griffen]

I lecture upto 4 times a year to students & adults about the history of papermaking. About three years ago I found a brilliant alternative to using slides or Microsoft Powerpoint.

It is called Slide Rocket.Very easy to put together & you can add audio & use images without worry from Flickr accessed directly via Slide Rocket.

There is a free version & a professional version which costs.However you can trial the professional for free for a while. Essentially the difference between the two is with the free version you access the presentation via the internet whilst the pro version enables you to download to your computer or USB stick.

This is useful if there is
1.a question mark about internet access where you are giving the talk.
2.Internet speed is slow or variable.

If, like me, you sometimes need to give a talk to a group that hasn't got the equipment to throw an image from a laptop onto a larger screen just ask the organiser to get someone to bring a Tv with a SCARTcable connection so you can hook up your laptop. To throw the image onto the TV you need to press the Fn & F8 keys on the laptop simultaneously.

I'm in no way connected with Slide Rocket and I thought I'd pass it on as a tip. Here is a presentation I made this year. Turn up the sound.

http://portal.sliderocket.com/AEEZH/Strawberry-Hill-Wallpaper

http://www.sliderocket.com

[Ivan]

Thanks for the tip!

On some laptops you might need a different function key. I think F5 on some makes or some versions of windows or some keyboard drivers (never worked out which)

[wookey]

I just see a blank square box. Looks like more flash-based cr*p that doesn't work with Free Software.

Move along, nothing to see here.

[MarkB]

I just see a blank square box. Looks like more flash-based cr*p that doesn't work with Free Software.

Move along, nothing to see here.

Yep, Flash.

I would never rely on having an internet connection for material presentation. Turning up to make a presentation only to find you can't show the slides is a disaster. I usually have a copy on my laptop and a copy on a memory stick and have emailed a copy to someone at the venue. I may be paranoid, but I always have slides.

Alternatively there a presentation tool in OpenOffice called Impress. At first glance it looks like a PowerPoint clone but I've never used it so don't know how good it is.

[wookey]

Sensible presentation tools produce PDFs. You can display a PDF on any machine reliably. A variant of this approach is to put out HTML on the same basis - there is always a browser available. I've also seen some recent ones which put out SVG with funky transitional effects.

I've used all of these over the years. I mostly use latex-beamer these days, which can produce both a presentation and a proceedings article or handouts from the same source file (all PDFs), but it is quite nerdy and verbose. For simple presentations (pics and bulletpoints), S5/pandoc is quite handy (produces HTML).(I used to use magicpoint which let you scribble on the slides and was amazingly fast to write, but it's not really maintained anymore.)

Sozi and Jessyink both provide fancy SVG-based transitions. Great if you like bling. Presented via the browser.

( I'm surprised the first post here didn't set off Martin's famous spam-sensors: new member, touting online service.)

[martin]

"I'm surprised the first post here didn't set off Martin's famous spam-sensors" - I hadn't noticed Navitron stocking software - it doesn't appear to be deliberate spamming for commercial advantage or of rival companies' products (unlike some who have blatantly spammed other company's solar panels for instance) ........

Personally, I think all of these aids are a waste of time, and often detract badly from "getting the message across" - whenever I give talks they're with the aid of a "crib sheet" for each person, and use of a black or whiteboard when necessary.........