presentations

Atomi's ActivePresenter captures and saves onscreen video and images and audio narration, but that's just the start of what it does. Another way to describe it is as a free tool for creating e-learning materials, manuals, presentations, screencasts, and demonstrations for training, education, business presentations, customer support, and similar applications. It's compatible with SCORM and handles a wide range of file types. ActivePresenter's free version is fully functional. It's also available in Standard and Pro editions that add features such as export capability, definable events, and Office compatibility. We tried the free edition.

ActivePresenter's … Read more

Anyone who needs lightweight screen-capturing and editing software will love Skitch for Mac. Although it lacks some of the tools -- such as mask and layer -- that you find in a high-end image editor such as Photoshop, its well-designed, intuitive interface guides you all the way through the quick and effective editing actions, and the result speaks for itself.

The app launches in a gray window with a white canvas in the center, while the outer borders contain all the available options, allowing you to perform a long list of actions. But since Skitch is centered around screenshots, you … Read more

PowerPoint Viewer 2007 is free software you can use to view your presentations from Microsoft PowerPoint 97 and beyond without opening the program. It's a quick and convenient way to view PowerPoint files on your computer.

There isn't much to be said about the interface, since there is almost nothing there: as soon as you open the program, it opens a window to select the file you want to view. It's just like viewing a presentation in Microsoft PowerPoint except you can't alter or edit anything. You can print the presentations, which is a bonus. PowerPoint … Read more

If you've managed to get your hands on Mountain Lion for Mac, there's a really cool feature called AirPlay Mirroring where you can show your desktop and more on a big screen hooked up to an Apple TV. AirPlay Mirroring is something you might use when you want to show your work at a meeting, show your photos to your family, watch video, and so on, but on an Apple TV-connected big screen. Here's how to do it.

Editors' note:Unfortunately, AirPlay Mirroring only works on Macs made in 2011 or later. For those on older machines … Read more

Apple will not only be at this week's Black Hat security confab, but also offer a presentation there too.

Bloomberg today notes that Dallas De Atley, Apple's manager of the platform security team, will be on the scene in Las Vegas to host a security briefing on the company's mobile operating system.

"Apple designed the iOS platform with security at its core," the description reads. "In this talk, Dallas De Atley, manager of the Platform Security team at Apple, will discuss key security technologies in iOS."

An Apple spokesperson declined to provide further … Read more

As you've no doubt heard by now, Microsoft just announced Office 2013 and The New Microsoft Office suite.

Not announced: pricing.

Call it a hunch, but I suspect Microsoft will charge at least as much for Office 2013 as it does for Office 2010. After all, the new suite is chock-full of new features, giving Microsoft ample justification for keeping prices the same -- or even raising them.

Currently, Office 2010 Home and Student and Office 2010 Home and Business sell for $119.99 and $199.99, respectively. That's for a single-user license. The three-user version of Home … Read more

Apple's Keynote application is a popular alternative to Microsoft's PowerPoint presentation software for OS X users, and was initially distributed as part of Apple's iWork suite but now is available for download from the Mac App Store. As with most presentation software packages, Keynote supports a number of transitions for presentation objects like shapes, text boxes, and pictures. While these transitions can be used in unique and clever ways when demonstrating points on slides, sometimes they may be difficult to organize.

In order to move shapes around on a slide, you can select them and then choose … Read more

Camtasia for Mac makes it easy to create professional screencasts (capturing all actions on screen) for demonstration videos, instructional videos, and other screen-recording projects.

The interface is fairly easy to understand right away with your media, transitions, animations, and effects on the left side, the work area (what they call the Canvas) on the right, and a video timeline on the bottom. You can quickly create a screencast at launch by first selecting sound and Webcam preferences, then hitting the red record button. The Webcam feature lets you personally "present" your screencast in a picture-in-picture window and you … Read more

When it comes to producing professional-looking movies and demos from your computer screen, TechSmith's Camtasia Studio is known for striking the right balance between a powerful toolset and ease of use. Version 8, released today, adds even more useful features that encourage end-user interactivity without making the app any more complex to use.

The feature-packed screencast app, which includes HD production settings, does have a learning curve, but the user-friendly interface and front-and-center icons for most-used tools go a long way toward lowering the intimidation factor a notch. Plus, TechSmith provides a useful online help center that includes several … Read more