Flypaper, a desktop program that creates online presentations

Flypaper is a cool, new presentation creation program that lets you create Flash presentations that you can instantly upload to sites like YouTube, MySpace,a nd Facebook. In its present beta incarnation, it has some rough edges and any comparison with PowerPoint would be probably like comparing apples and oranges since Flypaper seems to provide a very different concept altogether.



Flypaper is a free application that runs on Windows XP and Windows Vista only (no Mac yet) -- it's a large download at 89 mb whereabouts, but it's fun to play with and may evolve into something very useful. The screenshot above shows the interface -- click on the screenshot to see a larger preview.

Flypaper does get into new terminology though: slide layouts/designs are called 'models'! Here's a quick one slide pres that I created in Flypaper, and then uploaded to Youtube.

Labels: flash video, flypaper, online_presentations, powerpoint, youtube

posted by Geetesh @ 4:14 AM 0 Comments

Mix and Mash Online Video Clips with Omnisio

Omnisio, a new startup allows you to mix and mash videos from several online video sites like YouTube, Google, and Blip.tv to create new videos. You can choose start and end points to trim the existing video clips, combine them in a sequence you want, and create a new online video clip that you can share.



These shared clips are entirely embeddable -- and you can have comments that actually hover over the video on these shared clips (see screenshot above). Many users find this distracting, so it's nice that you can turn them off.

More importantly Omnisio is about to introduce new features soon that will allow you to synchronize PowerPoint slides with video -- this will take Omnisio to the professional league.

Membership is free and very quick -- and you don't even need to be a member to view some sample clips. The clips are great -- and can allow you to get hours of fun.

Learn more at the Omnisio site...

Labels: mashup, movie, powerpoint, video, youtube

posted by Geetesh @ 11:11 PM 0 Comments

Every Makeover is Different

Doing makeovers of slides is such a satisfying task – maybe that is because removing the ugly and replacing it with near perfection is a reward in itself. Over the years, I have understood that the approach required to do any actual makeover is never the same – in the same way as the fingerprints of two humans don’t match, the approaches required to do various makeovers are dissimilar.

Suggesting makeover approaches is a large part of my work – that’s why I find it amusing to hear new schools of thought in the presentation sphere that promise to be a solution to all slide problems. These beliefs range from the no-bullet approach for slides to the total denouncement of slideware. Then there are opinions about keeping things simple and clean – and of providing more visual content. And there’s another school of thought that looks at creating diagrams, charts, and other info-graphic content in a way that’s more effective as is the debate between linear and linked presentations. Each of these approaches is unique and very useful in their own way – and properly applied, each of them may make a difference. But in the same way that a physician will not prescribe a drug for common cold to a patient suffering from body pain, the makeover artist will first examine the slides and then suggest an approach that may use, discard, or combine these approaches.

Read more of this post on the SlideShare blog...

Labels: makeovers, powerpoint, presentations

posted by Geetesh @ 4:04 AM 0 Comments

authorSTREAM Provides YouTube Output

authorSTREAM, a site that lets you upload and share your PowerPoint presentations upped the ante today by offering a slew of new options:

Download original presentations: You can now download the original PowerPoint presentation (or other file) if the author of the content enables the relevant option (see figure below).


For your existing presentations uploaded to authorSTREAM, this option is turned off by default. You can however edit your presentation properties and check the option (see figure below).



Share on YouTube: You can also share your presentations on YouTube. This option is now available for presentations that include narration or rehearsed timings -- these presentations would automatically be available in a video format (MP4) that you can upload and share on YouTube.



Share on iPods: Again this option is only available for presentations that include narration or rehearsed timings.

Labels: authorstream, ipod, online_presentations, powerpoint, youtube

posted by Geetesh @ 3:57 AM 0 Comments

PowerPoint to DVD Software

I discussed whether and why you should create a DVD from your PowerPoint presentation a while ago...

And now let's take this to the next logical level: do you need a separate PowerPoint to DVD conversion software? The answer is not yes or no, it depends on your expertise level.

For starters, I haven't found a foolproof program that does it very well. And if you search for a PowerPoint to DVD program, it looks like the results are engineered by people who just want to sell their products! (they seem to be outsmarting Google for now). So I'm not going to recommend any of those programs. But to be fair -- most of them have trial versions, do check them out for yourself, and they might even work for you.

Essentially, creating a DVD from PowerPoint is a two step process:

1. Creating a movie from your PowerPoint
2. Creating a DVD from that movie

There are many good programs for the second process, and one of them may have been bundled with your DVD writer. As for converting your PowerPoint to a movie is concerned, you can follow my PowerPoint to YouTube tutorial (just skip the step where I ask you to upload the movie to YouTube).

This is not my last post on this subject -- expect to hear much more!

Labels: dvd, movie, powerpoint

posted by Geetesh @ 9:37 AM 2 Comments

Why Should You Create a DVD from PowerPoint?

Yes, it's the next big thing, and hordes of people want to do this. And since we live in a world with the mentality of a herd, everyone else wants to do this. But why? Ask them and many are confused. They might answer that there must be advantages using this approach since so many others want to do it!

So am I asking you to abandon the very idea of creating a shining DVD disc from your PowerPoint presentation that you can play on your TV via the DVD player? Not really. So why I am putting up such a layer of skepticism right at the beginning of this article? Well, actually this is not skepticism for the idea, it's more related to not being aware of how to do it, and of learning if better solutions exist for you.

I'll certainly go into the finer details of this issue, but for now let us look at the advantages and disadvantages of this approach:

Advantages:

Since I don't want you feeling gloomy, let's first list the advantages of creating these DVDs:

1. DVDs are easily played by anyone -- even by great grandmothers who don't know how they can use a computer. Did you notice I did not say grandmothers? That's because today's grandmothers are smarter!
   
   
2. DVDs containing PowerPoint presentations don't contain the actual presentation, just a movie of the presentation -- that means no one can copy your slides and pass them as their own, or even edit them to change a spelling (even if you made a typo).
   
   
3. Creating your own DVD sounds much more impressive than creating a mere PowerPoint presentation.

Disadvantages:

1. It's not too easy an task -- and you need the right software and hardware (and that's not always cheap).
   
   
2. It's not easy to email a DVD! It's so much simpler to send a PowerPoint presentation by email.
   
   
3. Editing DVDs can be time-consuming and expensive.

That's for now -- I'll discuss more PowerPoint-DVD nuances sometime soon.

Labels: dvd, powerpoint

posted by Geetesh @ 9:19 AM 2 Comments