Lifehacker: Erase permanent marker from your dry erase board, part 2
Never would of thought of that.
(tags: technology tips tools whiteboards)

Mother Tongue Annoyances: How to Lose the ‘ums’ and ‘ahs’ from Your Speech
Not a quick fix.
(tags: presentations speaking speech tips)

Posted by Lee Potts at 6:51 PM .

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Cool Presenters University article by TechSmith’s Betsy Weber.

Screencasting Tips for Beginners

Posted by Todd Dunn, CTS at 11:31 PM .

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Heads up:

From BetaNews.com:

“Symantec on Wednesday issued an advisory about a new trojan that takes advantage of an undocumented vulnerability in PowerPoint to infect a victim’s computer with a backdoor. The malware, dubbed Trojan.PPDropper.B, uses a malformed string to execute code and modify EXPLORER.EXE.

“While Symantec only gives PPDropper.B a risk level of “Very Low,” Sunbelt Software CEO Alex Eckelberry notes that the attack looks more intended for corporate espionage than causing widespread damage. The trojan is currently being spread via e-mail, with a subject containing Chinese characters.”

Posted by Lee Potts at 4:01 PM .

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The PowerPoint® Blog: Troy’s Pre-Show Checklist
“…because nothing is worse than getting up to speak and having a technical issue…”
(tags: meetings powerpoint presentation technology tips)

Bad Language Blog: How to concentrate on writing
Although written about the process of writing, this list can apply to just about any work that needs to be accomplished in front of a computer.
(tags: howto productivity psychology tips)

Posted by Lee Potts at 6:51 PM .

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For those of you considering a move to HD video in your presentations check out a short and sweet piece in PC Mag “Are You Ready for HD?”  Besides the Sony HD camcorder referred to in the article, I also suggest a look at some offerings from JVC.  Ulead software has a plug in to work with HD content on your desktop but the article mentions the big problems using these gigantic files.  Those who worked with digital video years ago will think they’ve been down this road before.

Posted by Tom Bunzel at 1:18 PM .

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Safe spots for an Edward Tufte Vacation 

Well, as PPT-free as one can reasonably assume based on Google searches by country domains anyway. It all started like this:

I was doing a little research for the PPT Use Survey that we at Presentation Facts have been working on. I was pondering the question of how many PPT files are out there and wondered what a Google search would reveal. So I searched all PPT files connected with any Web page that had been updated in the last year. 18,200,000 PPT files. An interesting number, but not really all that useful. It did get me thinking though about PPT files connected to different types of domains, so I began limiting the search and came up with:

.edu=4,720,000
.org=2,560,000
.com=1,940,000
.gov=576,000
.net=326,000.

Looking for the other 8,078,000 PPT files, I started searching by country domains. Then I started wondering which countries have absolutely NO PPT files linked to Web pages on their domains.

Having just ordered and read the second edition of Edward Tufte’s PowerPoint article, I figured that any location reasonably free of PPT files would be a safe vacation spot for Professor Tufte. Here is what I found.

Iraq appears to be PPT-free. So is North Korea (but South Korea is infested with 213,000 PPT presentations). Somalia, Yemen, Chad and Liberia could all be Tufte vacation spots without a linked PPT file between them. The Palestinian Territories would be much better with 47 PPT files than Israel with its 99,900. The Sudan would be nice also, but Tufte would have to watch out for that 1 PPT file hanging off a Website somewhere. Haiti and Antarctica appear PPT-safe and therefore good vacation options.

My advice to Professor Tufte and others who have strong negative reactions to PPT presentations… stay away from typical vacation spots in Italy (438,000) except for Vatican City itself which seems to be a PPT-free zone; France (299,000) except for the French Southern Territories which appear safe from PPT; Spain (159,000); Australia (186,000); Norway (163,000), the Netherlands (195,000) or New Zealand (35,000).

Some think Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie chose Namibia to have their baby in order to avoid the paparazzi, I think it was because Namibia’s measley 16 PPT files are pretty easy to avoid.

Posted by Robert Befus at 5:01 PM .

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