Comments on: Brown outs from Powerpoint (and our Microsoft deliverance)

By: Oskar Shapley

Oskar Shapley — Tue, 17 Oct 2006 12:32:32 +0000

Just print it to PDF with PDFCreator. Most PCs will have a PDF reader even if there is no MS PPT. I’ve seen a lot of academic presentations like that.

The only downside you will have is that you won’t edit it in an emergency case immediately, but will have to print-to-pdf it again.

By: Auto

Auto — Mon, 25 Sep 2006 10:48:21 +0000

Grant, what you’re experiencing is God’s way of telling you not to live a life where you have to do PowerPoint presentations.

I think the comparisons of crappy products from Bill G. to crappy cars is off the mark. Cars have been around more or less for the last century but it’s been only in the last decade or so that they’ve gotten so reliable that breakdowns are a thing of the past.

Give Microsoft a century and they too will deliver something as reliable as a Toyota.

True, Steve J. seems to be able to do it today, but his stuff comes with its own set of issues and shortcomings.

By: Ja Rule

Ja Rule — Tue, 19 Sep 2006 23:55:53 +0000

Macs rule!

By: Chas. Porter

Chas. Porter — Tue, 19 Sep 2006 01:21:32 +0000

You work for yourself, right? Then the answer is simple: get a new Mac laptop and ditch everything Microsoft.

By: Tom Asacker

Tom Asacker — Mon, 18 Sep 2006 18:44:55 +0000

Are you using a Mac, Grant? I think Jobs put that code in!

By: Ennis

Ennis — Mon, 18 Sep 2006 16:38:55 +0000

That’s probably not quite powerpoints fault, but more of windows fault. If you just inserted a large file, or if there is something else slowing down the system, you might get such behavior.

You could always try open office’s powerpoint clone (but it’s not as good), and then open it up and finalize it in powerpoint.

I’m surprised, actually, PP has been one of the more reliable Office products out there for me.

Oh, lastly, you can have pp import from word (in outline form), so if you really have to get something up and going, you could write it all out in word.

Or heck, write it in anything else, like word, and present it in word.

By: Carol Gee

Carol Gee — Mon, 18 Sep 2006 13:00:12 +0000

Grant, good luck with all your presentations. Before I retired I was a media specialist for a university, and remember the particular pungency of Murphy’s Law on crucial days. With new software it need not be inevitable. I just discovered Mozilla Firefox and love it-love it!