May 7, 3pm-4pm EDT, SmartSound’s Stephanie Joyce joins us to demonstrate the new features of Sonicfire Pro 5. This is the latest release as well as a new Final Cut plug-in just launched at NAB. Join us to discuss practical applications and basic copyright issues of custom music in the AV world. More about SmartSound here.
InfoComm 2009
Title: SmartSound Sonicfire Pro5 Demonstration
Date: Thursday, May 7, 2009
Time: 3:00 PM – 4:00 PM EDT
Space is limited.
Reserve your Webinar seat now at:
https://www2.gotomeeting.com/register/521459541
Posted by Todd Dunn, CTS at 10:39 AM .
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The public beta has been released. Many folks have asked about Producer since Office 07 came out and for a while the official word was…..not going to do it for PPT 2007. Read about it and find the beta download at The PowerPoint Team Blog.
…………TD
Posted by Todd Dunn, CTS at 10:13 AM .
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Can we have a president that does this? Looks like she, like so many others, can use our help! Is Rick just a Republican or are folks at the highest levels of the presentation world idiots?
http://betterppt.com/blog/
…………………TD
Posted by Todd Dunn, CTS at 3:44 PM .
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Toshiba threw in the towel a few days ago. I expect to see some nice sales on HD-DVD players. I’ve already seen the entry level Toshiba player way under $200 with 7 free movies for a couple of months now. That was the sign of the impending doom for sure. Check out the Reuters release in a PC Mag article here.
Posted by Todd Dunn, CTS at 10:32 PM .
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I’ve been impressed by an online video editing and archiving tool that lets you create a
“private label YouTube” – check it out.
http://members2.viditalk.com/view/?id=9DGHQ6GWTSYT34RF6B7S1
Posted by Tom Bunzel at 4:45 PM .
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One of the websites I poke around in is Dave Paradi’s “Think Outside The Slide.”
In addition to many excellent articles he has a very cool personalized assessment for PowerPoint based presenters. Take the assessment here.
……………TD
Posted by Todd Dunn, CTS at 2:48 PM .
1 Comment »
Check out their press release here.
…………….TD
Posted by Todd Dunn, CTS at 1:31 PM .
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From ZDNet:
Excerpt:
Microsoft officials confirmed first thing on November 6 that Office 2007 has gone gold. (The Softies aren’t saying exactly when the product was released to manufacturing, but word is it happened on November 3.)
Posted by Todd Dunn, CTS at 5:15 PM .
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Serious Magic, creators of Ovation, the popular PowerPoint enhancement software, has been acquired by Adobe. Adobe seems to be primarily interested in their video-related products. In the press release, Ovation isn’t even mentioned until the boilerplate verbiage at the end. They also say they will continue to sell the Serious Magic product line. However, as we’ve all seen in the past with acquisitions of this sort, there’s a big difference between selling and supporting/developing.
Posted by Lee Potts at 8:11 AM .
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See more info here:

Congrats to Ernie Bailey, CTS, for getting Arkansas to be the first state to recognize AV Week.
California and others to follow.
Arkansas recognizes AV Week Oct. 22-28, 2006
…………….TD
Posted by Todd Dunn, CTS at 9:58 PM .
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I’ve been using my Boom Bag for almost a year now with no problems. It’s a 21″ short trip suitcase like many others except for one thing. It’s also a portable sound system. The sound is decent and the volume will fill most small to medium sized hotel and meeting rooms. Forget lugging around sound dock solutions for your portable players. Just plug them into the Boom Bag and you’re set. It also has USB ports for charging anything able to charge via USB connection. I recently got the new rolling back pack version and was able to get almost everything out of my trusty Wenger bag and into the back pack. The new bag fit better in the smaller regional jet overhead compartments. All of these bags, or pieces of luggage, are great for the road warrior presenter with moderate presentation audio needs. Plug in your computer and you will have enough sound for a room of at least 50 people. There is a line out available to connect multiple bags for even more sound reinforcement. So far, I think it’s a great product. The luggage has a limited lifetime warranty and the sound system comes with a one year warranty. After the one year Boom Bags will replace a failed sound system for $50 for the lifetime of the bag. Is there anyone else making something like this?………….TD



Posted by Todd Dunn, CTS at 2:24 PM .
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If you want to pick up some tips about using PowerPoint with real bullets, read Fiasco: The American Military Adventure in Iraq, by Thomas E. Ricks, and/or visit Arms and Influence where the editors highlight the role played in the Iraq conflict by Microsoft’s infamous software. Bloggers at Crooked Timber add to the discussion with a long, lively and fascinating series of posts that are well worth reading. Of course, the core of the issue is more about flawed visual communication styles and techniques than about the warmongering tendencies of presentation software, but it is soberingly apparent from the citations and discussion that visual illiteracy is as rampant in the military as it is in business. The main difference being that in business when a project bombs no one dies (usually).
Posted by Robert L. Lindstrom at 2:06 PM .
1 Comment »
I’ve struggled with the dual-screen (multiple) monitor feature in Windows for the past year. After a coworker showed me this feature on a job I was working, I was anxious to learn how to do it because it looked so cool! Well I found out that it wasn’t such an easy task… Read the rest of this entry »
Posted by Mary Waldera at 9:40 AM .
6 Comments »
From “Top Ten Truths About the Digital Ecosystem“, a recent post on the Dealing with Darwin blog:
“10. Images are king. Verbal content, by virtue of its sheer volume, is increasingly perceived as noise. We are entering a new era of collage, where the mind of the viewer is the assembling artist. Verbalization happens post facto, the residue of headline skimming and subconscious synthesis. The esthetics of digitally enhanced images will become increasingly powerful as a vehicle for cutting through the clutter. Manipulating semantics or semiotics via images will become increasingly sophisticated, both in the private and public sectors. High-definition displays and portable form factors will be popular mass markets. Indexing and searching images, on the other hand, while technologically interesting, will be of peripheral impact.”
Posted by Lee Potts at 8:00 AM .
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