Thought some of you might appreciate a "why Mac" story.
A conference I attend annually occurred last week. For the first time, it seemed like virtually all the speakers were presenting digitally -- mostly with PowerPoint on PC laptops. This conference is decidedly not technology-related, so possibly it's taken longer for this method to catch on with this group (and some of the traditionalists are still using a Carousel projector and slides). In order to minimalize AV disruptions, conference organizers were trying to get everyone to put their PowerPoint presentations on CDs so they could be loaded onto a PC laptop connected to the "PowerPoint projector" in the rooms. My partner and I were speakers and this was my first opportunity to try out Keynote on an audience, so I basically ignored that request -- we both assembled Keynote presentations, which I loaded onto my old Pismo.
Anyway, in general I'd say probably 75% of all the PowerPoint presentations in this conference experienced some sort of technical glitch, everything from slides that wouldn't advance to laptops that couldn't seem to generate a video signal the projector would recognize. In one session I attended, PowerPoint crashed and three different laptops had to be called in before one would work (as the distracted audience murmured).
Most of the rest of the PowerPoint presentations looked really, really ugly -- pixelated text, jerky transitions, etc. Par for the course, probably.
You have to know our Keynote presentations came off without a hitch and we were both complemented for the work afterwards. But that's not the best part of the story.
In my session, the presenter after me could not seem to get the PC laptop to work (some kind of login problem). I sat and watched the poking and prodding crowd gathering around the PC for a few minutes before I asked if I could borrow her CD. I slid the CD into my PowerBook and a minute later her presentation was imported into Keynote. We plugged the Pismo back into the video projector, and the show went on -- thanks to the Mac, and Keynote.
It occurs to me after this experience that for all of $1,100.00, a person could save themselves immeasurable grief and embarrassment in front of an audience by dumping the PC and PowerPoint for a reliable presentation package of Keynote and an iBook. It would be an excellent investment even if they never used the Mac for anything else.
So, Apple, are you listening?
A conference I attend annually occurred last week. For the first time, it seemed like virtually all the speakers were presenting digitally -- mostly with PowerPoint on PC laptops. This conference is decidedly not technology-related, so possibly it's taken longer for this method to catch on with this group (and some of the traditionalists are still using a Carousel projector and slides). In order to minimalize AV disruptions, conference organizers were trying to get everyone to put their PowerPoint presentations on CDs so they could be loaded onto a PC laptop connected to the "PowerPoint projector" in the rooms. My partner and I were speakers and this was my first opportunity to try out Keynote on an audience, so I basically ignored that request -- we both assembled Keynote presentations, which I loaded onto my old Pismo.
Anyway, in general I'd say probably 75% of all the PowerPoint presentations in this conference experienced some sort of technical glitch, everything from slides that wouldn't advance to laptops that couldn't seem to generate a video signal the projector would recognize. In one session I attended, PowerPoint crashed and three different laptops had to be called in before one would work (as the distracted audience murmured).
Most of the rest of the PowerPoint presentations looked really, really ugly -- pixelated text, jerky transitions, etc. Par for the course, probably.
You have to know our Keynote presentations came off without a hitch and we were both complemented for the work afterwards. But that's not the best part of the story.
In my session, the presenter after me could not seem to get the PC laptop to work (some kind of login problem). I sat and watched the poking and prodding crowd gathering around the PC for a few minutes before I asked if I could borrow her CD. I slid the CD into my PowerBook and a minute later her presentation was imported into Keynote. We plugged the Pismo back into the video projector, and the show went on -- thanks to the Mac, and Keynote.
It occurs to me after this experience that for all of $1,100.00, a person could save themselves immeasurable grief and embarrassment in front of an audience by dumping the PC and PowerPoint for a reliable presentation package of Keynote and an iBook. It would be an excellent investment even if they never used the Mac for anything else.
So, Apple, are you listening?
