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Share a PowerPoint story, win a custom MacBook Pro
PowerPoint stories are like belly buttons: everybody's got one, but some are more interesting than others. The team at Microsoft's Mac BU wants to hear your exciting, engaging and unique PPT adventures, and they're willing to reward you: the best story might win a major prize. Unlike the "forward this email, Bill Gates will send you money" chain emails that never seem to die, Microsoft's contest is legit. There are a couple of custom-colored MacBook Pros in the pot, delivered to winners selected from those who participate by commenting on the Mac Mojo blog or responding to questions tweeted by the @officeformac account. The computers will be loaded up with Office 2008, and winners will also receive a copy of Office 2011 when it ships. Full details and rules are downloadable (as a PDF, interestingly enough -- remember, Apple's TextEdit can also open Word's .doc format) and the Mac BU will be posting updates on Twitter and on the Mac Mojo blog. Good luck!
Office Mobile 2010 released, free upgrade for WinMo 6.5 users (update)
After having gone to public beta late last year, Office Mobile 2010 is now available in conjunction with the retail release of the full desktop version of Office 2010, bringing comprehensive Word, Excel, and PowerPoint editing capabilities to the pocket -- on Windows Mobile 6.5, that is. Yes, granted, Windows Phone 7 is Microsoft's biggest mobile news this year, but there'll be a huge legacy base of 6.5 users out there for a long time to come, and they're pretty much the core audience for the sorts of features that Office Mobile 2010 is offering: SharePoint integration for grabbing documents from the office, a nifty Bluetooth controller mode for PowerPoint presentations, and so on... you know, suit-and-tie stuff. The download is available today from Windows Marketplace for users of 6.5 devices with an older version of Office Mobile installed -- so go on, Tiger, whip up the hottest quarterly reports the world has ever seen. We know you have it in you. Follow the break for Redmond's full Office 2010 press release. Update: Curious what Office 2010 will look like on Windows Phone 7? Get a glimpse into the not-so-distant-future in Microsoft's video presentation, and fast forward to 52:45 for the good stuff. [Thanks, Kamara B.]
Integrate SMS polling into Keynote with Poll Everywhere
There's market prominence, and then there's sheer ubiquity. Even though it's been called a drain on our nation's military prowess, in the business world, you really can't get away from PowerPoint. Microsoft's presentation station within Office is a core participant in meetings large and small, and there's an enormous ecosystem of add-ons, plug-ins, and collaborative apps that extend the basic product. Most of these enhancements are Windows-only affairs, and some of them are downright useful (I'm thinking of Articulate Studio in particular, which would be plain awesome on the Mac). If you want to do audience response measurement within a meeting, for instance -- letting attendees vote or answer questions on the fly -- you're pretty much locked in to displaying those results within PowerPoint. There's hope on the horizon for Keynote, though. The SMS-centric Poll Everywhere service, which allows an audience to quickly answer questions using their cellphones, has introduced beta support for Keynote and PowerPoint 2008 that gracefully displays the response percentages on multiple choice questions. You can try it out yourself with a free Poll Everywhere account; the unpaid plan allows you to collect up to 30 answers per poll, while paid plans go way higher. The tool requires Snow Leopard and Keynote '09 to work. Instead of the embedded Flash SWF playback widget that Poll Everywhere uses to display results in PowerPoint 2003/07/10 on Windows, the Mac approach leverages a helper app and on-demand downloads of QuickTime movies to handle the answers. It's pretty sneaky, and pretty effective. If you need to collect feedback from a roomful of drowsy colleagues, try out these tools and see if things get spiced up a bit.
Found Footage: How to fake an iPhone in PowerPoint
You might think you've got some PowerPoint skills, but check out what Screenr user slhice of Ice Ltd. has created. With some graphics work that might impress even a veteran Photoshop user, she's assembled a great-looking iPhone template from scratch on a PowerPoint slide (she's working in PPT 2007 on Windows, but you can probably replicate her steps in PPT 2008). This could be very useful if you're giving a proof-of-concept presentation to a group, teaching an "iPhone 101" course, or running any other slide deck that needs some iPhone love. We haven't tried to mimic the procedure in Keynote, but it sure would be fun. In the meantime, use slhice's method to wow the next group you lecture about the iPhone.
Fujitsu's Air Command Plus guides PowerPoint, not B-52s (video)
Multitouch is great and all, but what if you can't reach the screen? What if you could touch without touching? That's the idea behind Fujitsu's Air Command Plus, a device that promises a Minority Report-like experience but, after watching the video below, it sure seems like pretty standard gesture control. You can browse through pictures by flicking left or right, adjust a volume dial by rotating, and navigate PowerPoint slides as if you were a master of the black arts. But there's nothing metaphysical about it, and it's destined to get a lot more real in March when Fujitsu is actually pledging to ship the thing. Eat your heart out, Tom Cruise. [Thanks, Hanco]
3M's MPro150 pico projector now shipping to highly-mobile presenters everywhere (update: not quite yet!)
We caught a quick glimpse of 3M's MPro150 at CES a few weeks back, and while the performance of this pico projector didn't exactly blow our minds, we were quite intrigued by its ability to give PowerPoint presentations without a laptop or, indeed, any wires at all -- assuming your speech will be through before the thing's 90 minute battery is. It has 1GB of internal memory, plenty for slideshows filled with the most tacky of sound effects, and 3M even includes a 2GB microSD card to boot. But, for the $395 asking price, we're thinking that was the least it could do. Update: Seems someone jumped the gun a bit, and 3M has clarified that shipments have yet to begin. Should be soon, though.
RIM's BlackBerry Presenter makes mobile PowerPoint all too sexy
BlackBerry users tend to fancy themselves true road warriors -- you know, the kinds of road warriors that live and die most days by a four-shot latte and a copy of Office. It's exactly for these types of folks that RIM seems to have designed the new BlackBerry Presenter, a slick little module measuring 86 x 60 x 23mm that connects to your compatible handset wirelessly and lets you beam up a PowerPoint preso via VGA or S-Video connection. As you mesmerize your crowd with the 24 supported animations and 55 transition styles, you can read your notes right from the comfort of your BlackBerry's display, controlling the whole show without a single laptop in sight. The Presenter hits this month online for $199 and follows up in stores in February, and if you're interested, you can start things off by upgrading from your Pearl 8200 or Curve 8300 -- those puppies won't be supported.
iriver Story reviewed, incites rebellion over price
If you didn't feel you got the whole Story yesterday, here's a pleasing helping of seconds, this time in the form of a full-on review. The PC Pro team rates iriver's Kindle emulator as a "serious contender," and places its readability on par with Sony's touch-less Readers. While congratulations are also meted out for a decent integrated MP3 player, 3.5mm headphone jack, and the wide variety of supported formats, two issues stood out for the reviewers. One was that the support for Word, Excel and Powerpoint files was somewhat hit-and-miss, with zooming sometimes not working and rendering some files unreadable. But the major gripe related to the asking price of £230 including taxes (around $380), which the Story was not considered capable of justifying. Hit the link below for more -- even if your interest is purely academic.
GoSpeak! Pro fold-out speakers give on-the-go presenters plenty of joy
NXT's flat-panel speaker technology doesn't get an awful lot of love these days in the high-end audio realm, but that's not to say some outfits aren't putting it to good use. Take SMK-Link Electronics, for instance, who just pushed out the most spectacular must-have product ever for the traveling salesperson in your life. The five-pound GoSpeak! Pro is little more than a fold-out speaker system, which is slim enough to slide easily into any briefcase yet potent enough to project PowerPoint audio to some 200 listeners (yes, 201 actually is impossible). As expected, you can also hook up a wireless microphone to let your voice project through it as well, but with a base price of $399, you might consider just yelling really, really loudly.
How to create Keynote themes
Out of the box, Apple's Keynote is a gem. The app is intuitive and, like many Apple products, strikes a nice and delicate balance between ease-of-use for novice users and functionality for more advanced power users. While Keynote offers a nice set of built-in themes, there may be times when you want a more customized look -- be it a different resolution, font, background or element or graphic. To begin, choose an existing theme. Here, I'm choosing to use the default "White" Keynote theme. Then, you'll want to modify the master slides, which is accessible by pulling down the divider adjacent to the "Slides" viewer, or by clicking "View" and selecting "Show Master Slides."
Free iPhone Keynote and PowerPoint templates help get you from thought to finish
Mockapp.com has created both Keynote and PowerPoint templates of iPhone UI elements, and has made them available as free downloads. Say you had a dream in the middle of the night about the most awesome iPhone app that, to your surprise, no one has thought of yet. Instead of waking up in a deep sweat and scribbling said ideas on paper, you could dream them up on Keynote. After mapping out your concept on Keynote, you could then pitch it to others in a Keynote presentation. The Keynote and PowerPoint templates include alerts, the iPhone keyboard, arrow icons, buttons, as well as a host of other UI elements.
Patch for Microsoft Office 2008 XML issues now available
As promised, Microsoft has released a patch (dubbed version 12.2.1) to address issues that some Microsoft Office 2008 users have had with opening XML-based documents. When attempting to open a document in Microsoft Office 2008, some users have been presented with an error message that resembles the following: "Microsoft Excel cannot open the file. You may have to download the latest updates for Office for Mac. Do you want to visit the Microsoft Web site for more information?" For those who held off on the Service Pack 2 update, guess what? Surprise! Service Pack 2 is required to install the patch. Unlike many Mac apps, where update checks are found in an app's namesake menu, in Microsoft Office 2008 it's in the "help" menu. So, click on "help," and "check for updates" and you're all set. Well, you're all set if you already had Service Pack 2 installed. You're only halfway there if you didn't have it installed. If this is the case, simply do this again. And there you go. Opening XML on Microsoft Office 2008 is no longer XM-hell. (You can also download the patch from the Mactopia web site.)
Open XML compatiblity issues spring up in Service Pack 2 update for Office 2008
A few weeks back, Microsoft released its Service Pack 2 update for Microsoft Office 2008 for the Mac. While adding a host of features and refinements (such as Custom Path Animation in PowerPoint and increased speed and load times in Word and Excel), the service pack apparently packed too much of a punch. The update has prevented some Open XML files from opening, for which Microsoft provides the following suggestions, and I've done a bit of MS-to-English translation (with apologies to DF)... read on to get the gist.
Engadget HD's recession antidote: win a pair of THIEL PowerPoint speakers
This whole global economic crisis, and its resulting massive loss of jobs got us thinking. We here at Engadget HD didn't want to stand helplessly by, announcing every new round of misery without giving anything back -- so we decided to take the opportunity to spread a little positivity. Today we've got a pair of THIEL PowerPoint (model 1.0) wall/ceiling-mountable speakers up for grabs. Yes, these cousins of the THIEL SCS4s we raved over aren't the latest version, but they are some of the best wall/ceiling mount speakers you're likely to hear. Read the rules below (no skimming -- we're omniscient and can tell when you've skimmed) and get commenting! Hooray for free stuff! Big thanks to THIEL for tracking these down and making them available to a good home!The rules: Leave a comment below. Any comment will do, but if you want to share your proposal for "fixing" the world economy, that'd be sweet too. You may only enter this specific giveaway once. If you enter this giveaway more than once you'll be automatically disqualified, etc. (Yes, we have robots that thoroughly check to ensure fairness.) If you enter more than once, only activate one comment. This is pretty self explanatory. Just be careful and you'll be fine. Contest is open to anyone in the 50 States, 18 or older! Sorry, we don't make this rule (we hate excluding anyone), so be mad at our lawyers and contest laws if you have to be mad. Winner will be chosen randomly. The winner will receive two (2) THIEL PowerPoint speakers, version 1.0. Approximate value is $2,600. If you are chosen, you will be notified by email. Winners must respond within three days of the end of the contest. If you do not respond within that period, another winner will be chosen. Entries can be submitted until July, 24th, at 11:59PM ET. Good luck! Full rules can be found here.
Microsoft releases Office 2008 Service Pack 2
Today, Microsoft released the Office 2008 Service Pack 2 update. This update brings many improvements and fixes to Office 2008, including improved speed and stability to Word and Excel, new features in PowerPoint, as well as improvements to connecting to SharePoint servers. A brief list of fixes follows below: Two new features in PowerPoint 2008: Custom Path Animation, which adds the ability to author motion-path animations and Default Theme, which lets users define their default theme, including fonts, color scheme and slide layouts. Increased speed in Word 2008 (launch and scroll times) as well as Excel 2008 with features such as calculation performance. Expanded Mac browser support in Microsoft Office Live Workspace to include Safari 4. Microsoft Document Connection. Document Connection is a new application that improves the SharePoint experience for Mac users, allowing for easier collaboration within a SharePoint environment by simplifying how users can browse, access and manage files online and offline. For a complete lists of changes and fixes, visit this description page. To download this update, run the Microsoft AutoUpdate application on your Mac or go to the Microsoft Mac Downloads page. This update weighs in at 182.6 MB and is available right now.
ProfCast 75% off until January 24
Humble Daisy's ProfCast is a well-respected tool for turning PowerPoint and Keynote slideshows into podcasts, among many other features (including the ability to record live presentations). The software was recently updated to version 2.3.0 and if you haven't been motivated to try it before, it is definitely worth a look now.Humble Daisy is currently offering the software for 75% off its retail price from today until January 24 to celebrate the Mac's 25th birthday. ProfCast normally retails for $59.95USD, and education discounts are available, but the sale brings the price down to $14.99. ProfCast requires OS X 10.4 and later.And for the confused, myself included, ProfCast's Web site does say that the discount is for 25% off rather than 75%. However, by clicking on the coupon for a single-seat license, you can see that the price really is $14.99.
Ladies and gentlemen, start your lectures: ProfCast 2.3.0 arrives
Educators and professionals who need to record and podcast lectures often turn to Humble Daisy's ProfCast, a tool for adding enhancements to PowerPoint or Keynote slideshows to create powerful podcasts. ProfCast today received a major update to version 2.3. The original app allows recording of live presentations, syncing slides with an audio track, and full RSS feed generation and publishing support. The new version incorporates several improvements, the most significant being support for PowerPoint 2008. The app now automatically detects whether Keynote or PowerPoint is being used for a presentation, and then begins the process of recording and publishing the lecture with all slide timing and voice narration. Humble Daisy also killed a number of bugs from the previous version of ProfCast, and version 2.3.0 is a free upgrade to existing owners of the application. The program is $59.95 for first-time buyers, and educational discounts are available. ProfCast can be purchased from the online store.
Free Stuff: Keynote Objects
iPresentee, a small company providing themes and objects for Apple's iLife and iWeb software suites, is offering a free download of Keynote Objects. Keynote Objects is a package of 100 attractive icon-like objects that can be used not only with Keynote, but also with Microsoft PowerPoint and Word. All of the objects have a transparent background, and are easily resized, rotated, made more or less transparent, or shadowed.I'm actually going to use several of the objects as icons for a new web site that I'm designing, simply because they offer an attractive and cohesive set of art objects. What will you use your free Keynote Objects for?
Mysterious Asus laptop with projector spotted at Computex
What's this? An Asus laptop with built-in projector above the monitor? This curious computer was spotted plopped unceremoniously in a corner at Computex by PC Perspective. They report that the unlabeled machine's camera -- installed right at the top of the monitor bezel -- rotates and that the projector's performance is uncertain given the show's bright conditions. If this is something other than a floor prototype, we're awfully curious about battery life. Until then, we'll just have to fantasize about portable PowerPoints of doom. Hit the read link to see a closeup.
OpenOffice.org 3 for Mac Beta is available
If you've been cursing the big price tag and lack of VBA support in Microsoft Office 2008 for Mac, OpenOffice.org is coming to your rescue. Last September, the OpenOffice.org dev team announced that they would be porting the suite to run natively on the Mac. Previous versions ran under the X11 environment, which not only hogged resources, but didn't have the Aqua look and feel we all love. OpenOffice.org 3.0 is still beta, but a quick test-drive of the application showed that it is almost ready for prime time. OOo is a full-featured office suite, complete with word processor (Writer), spreadsheet (Calc), presentation package (Impress), drawing app (Draw), as well as database tools (Base) that are sadly lacking in other office suites. The feature set of OpenOffice.org 3 is impressive: Imports Microsoft Office binary (.doc, .ppt, .xls) and Office 2007/Office 2008 for Mac (.docx, .xlsx, .pptx) files A solver component for solving optimization problems, something lacking in Microsoft Office 2008 for Mac Spreadsheet workbook sharing Display of multiple Writer pages while editing MS Office-like comments in Writer Limited VBA macro support -- which is still better than no support Extensibility with Mozilla Thunderbird and Lightning, Sun Wiki Publisher and Report Builder The price of OpenOffice.org 3 is, as always, free! If you're up to test-driving beta ware that may not necessarily be as stable or fast as your other office suite(s), click here to be transported to the beta site.
