Embedding Flash Inside of a Powerpoint Presentation

Whenever people talk about "jazzing up" some of the Microsoft Office tools, PowerPoint always rises to the top of the list (but you can use this technique for any Office applications). We've all seen the presentations with that pat clip-art, the checkered fades, and those bullets that slide. Why not add some interactivity and exciting animation? Thanks to Microsoft's ActiveX technology we can.

Flashgeek.com (2006). Articles>Presentations>Multimedia>Microsoft PowerPoint

Getting to Know Mic

For a presenter, a high-quality microphone, combined with the right sound system, will give your voice a rich sound that can be heard throughout a room. Here are some things to consider if you want to add a microphone to the company conference room or your presentation traveling kit. The basics A microphone is essentially an energy converter that takes in sound waves and converts them into electrical energy. Two main types of microphones are available: condenser and dynamic. A condenser mic uses a power supply to provide a charge that works with a thin diaphragm inside the unit to create a signal. A dynamic mic creates a signal when the sound pressure moves a coil or ribbon across a magnet. Because they usually produce a richer sound, condenser mics are the more popular of the two; however, they require batteries or a power supply and are more expensive and more fragile than dynamic models. Dynamic mics are usually considered less accurate in sound quality, but they are generally more rugged and can withstand varying temperatures, humidity levels and a lot of abuse. These qualities make dynamic mics ideal for use outdoors or on the road.

Hill, Julie. Presentations (2002). Articles>Presentations>Multimedia>Audio

An iDVD Slide Show

Hardware is easy to talk about, test, evaluate, review and sell. Software takes a little more study. Which is why we remain one of the very few imaging publications to review software in any depth. Most people find software is a solid that must be chewed to derive any nutritional benefits. And so they chew and chew and chew. But, no matter how much they chew, the stuff is still pretty hard to swallow.

Electric Escape (2003). Articles>Presentations>Multimedia>DVD

Looking to Cinema for Direction: Incorporating Motion into On-screen Presentations of Technical Information    

To help technical communicators become better informed producers of interactive new media productions, this article examines how motion can be used properly to create effective interactive information systems for the computer screen. This article provides a brief analysis of how cinema works and then demonstrates how a number of cinema techniques influence new media production. The article then concludes by offering suggestions for how to effectively apply a few basic cinema techniques directly to technical communication practice.

Gillette, David. Technical Communication Online (2005). Articles>Presentations>Multimedia

PowerPoint Is Evil

Imagine a widely used and expensive prescription drug that promised to make us beautiful but didn't. Instead the drug had frequent, serious side effects: It induced stupidity, turned everyone into bores, wasted time, and degraded the quality and credibility of communication. These side effects would rightly lead to a worldwide product recall. Yet slideware--computer programs for presentations--is everywhere.

Tufte, Edward. Wired (2003). Articles>Presentations>Multimedia>Microsoft PowerPoint

Recordable DVD: Worth the Wait or Worth Waiting For?

It may be a bit hasty to declare the end of the CD-ROM era, but the signposts are pointing in that direction. Although the CD provides a convenient way for presenters to store multimedia, distribute data and back up hard drives, the medium's space limits in the coming era of 100GB and larger hard drives and ever more ambitious multimedia projects will become increasingly evident. Indeed, many see the recordable DVD as the next killer app in computing – the one that makes the most compelling use of all that digital horsepower sitting idle on desktops everywhere, at home and at the office. More than a million recordable-DVD drives were sold in 2001, and the market research firm International Data Corp. (IDC) predicts that number will grow to more than 30 million by 2005. Apple, Compaq, Dell, Hewlett-Packard, Sony and other major computer manufacturers already ship recordable-DVD drives with their top-of-the-line models. Drives supporting the highly anticipated DVD+RW format (a format presenters should like because of its greater flexibility and superior write speed) have finally hit the market. And, as with almost all digital technology, recordable-DVD drives and media, not to mention video camcorders and software, are getting cheaper and more widely available by the day.

Kawamoto, Wayne. Presentations (2003). Articles>Presentations>Multimedia>DVD

Requirements for Embedding Macromedia Flash Movies in Microsoft Powerpoint Presentations

Embedding is based on the Shockwave Flash Microsoft ActiveX component, an ActiveX component created by Macromedia that allows its content to run in Microsoft Internet Explorer.

Flashgeek.com (2005). Articles>Presentations>Multimedia>Flash

Storyboarding PowerPoint 2003 Presentations to Video and DVD

More and more people are asking how to burn their Microsoft Office PowerPoint 2003 presentations to DVD. Using PowerPoint and a DVD, you have an easy method of getting your message out, whether as a training video or a digital business card promoting your products or services. And your audience can view your material at home as well as in their offices.

Microsoft (2006). Articles>Presentations>Multimedia>DVD

Have Demo, Will Travel: Presenting Demos Outside the Studio

When I was asked to write about the process in which I show demos of my company’s work, I initially thought of what I used several years ago to show clients my samples—a time when DVDs didn't even exist and my home office setup was not such that I could do demos effectively there. Those were days when I had to travel to a meeting with a VCR deck, a tube-style TV, a bunch of cables, a cart to carry everything on, and, of course, VHS tapes, all properly rewound to the correct starting points.

Levy, Marshall. Event DV (2008). Articles>Presentations>Multimedia>Video

Challenges of Multimedia Self-Presentation: Taking, and Mistaking, the Show on the Road    

One privilege enjoyed by new-media authors is the opportunity to realize representations of Self that are rich textual worlds in themselves and also to engage the wider world, with a voice, a smile, imagery, and sound. Still, closer investigation of multimedia composition practices reveals levels of complexity with which the verbal virtuoso is unconcerned. This article argues that while technology-afforded multimedia tools make it comparatively easy to author a vivid text, it is a multiplicatively more complicated matter to vividly realize and publicize an authorial intention. Based on analysis of the digital story creation process of a youth named 'Steven,' the authors attempt to demonstrate the operation of two forces upon which the successful multimodal realization of the author's intention may hinge: 'fixity' and 'fluidity.' The authors show how, within the process of digital self-representation, these forces can intersect to influence multimodal meaning making, and an author's life, in consequential ways.

Nelson, Mark Evan, Glynda A. Hull and Jeeva Roche-Smith. Written Communication (2008). Articles>Presentations>Education>Multimedia