presentations

Ashampoo Presentations 2008 provides all the necessary tools to create a PowerPoint-like slideshow. Its simple controls mimic the more popular program all the way down to its surprising feature.

Since we had previously created slideshows with Microsoft's PowerPoint, Ashampoo's interface felt instantly familiar. Most of the controls are in similar locations, and they perform every action that PowerPoint does. We quickly created a series of slides that incorporated text, images, sounds, and shapes, and we combined them in a customized slideshow in a matter of minutes. Ashampoo delivered a professional-looking multimedia presentation. Just like in PowerPoint, we were … Read more

Spreadsheet Presenter is an add-on for customizing Microsoft Excel spreadsheets. It contains tools designed to give your Excel spreadsheets more panache. It adds color, takes screenshots, and automates formatting tasks.

Spreadsheet Presenter appears in Excel as several small windows with tool bars that you can click on to access their full menus. You can select palettes of colors to use to color-code data columns of your spreadsheet or just to give it more visual appeal. You can also move and arrange the windows so that they don't get in the way of your data. The Copy and Save Selection … Read more

PPT to Video Scout provides a simple tool for quickly converting slideshows into video files. With quite a basic layout, it's easy to use. It does a fine job of producing high-quality video that can add visual appeal and a professional touch to your presentations and projects.

The interface is a breeze to navigate, thanks to a Wizard-like layout and simple commands. We were never confused, nor did we feel the need to visit the Help file for further instructions. We were able to choose one PowerPoint file at a time to convert, which kept us focused on the … Read more

Desktop Author allows users to create and publish electronic books. Although it's not the most intuitive program we've ever seen, it was fairly easy to use once we spent some time getting used to it.

The program's interface contains a toolbar with the familiar desktop publishing functions: adding and formatting text and images, inserting and deleting pages, and so on. Most of this was straightforward, although some of the features related to managing pages were a bit confusing. For the most part, though, we were able to add content to our book without too much trouble. The … Read more

Timeline Maker Professional creates clear, impressive scheduling charts in minutes.

The program's interface is professional and welcoming, starting with some helpful tutorials and moving on to an intuitive layout at every turn. The program feels like operating a calendar system, like the one found on Microsoft Outlook, but its results look very different. After entering in event information like start and stop times, you see a clear timeline of your event. Each step is shown in a highly readable text bubble along a timeline. It is easy to see when each step was happening thanks to the color-coded system. … Read more

Carmine Gallo joins the show to unveil some of the Steve Jobs secrets from his book "The Presentation Secrets of Steve Jobs"

I recently talked to execs from two companies that do exactly the same thing but in completely different ways. In one corner, Yammer, the 2008 TechCrunch50 darling. It's a Twitter-for-the-enterprise service that's hosted by Yammer. Any company can get its employees on to the service, but all the data is run through, and hosted by, Yammer itself.

In the other corner, Presently (found at Present.ly), another Twitter-for-the-enterprise product. Customers can use Presently in the cloud, just like Yammer, but the company makes its money from, and has most of its users on, its software that customers can … Read more

FILEminimizer Office - Compact Edition offers to take large files and shrink them into a smaller package, while maintaining the original's integrity. With simple navigation and fast results, this program more than lives up to its promise.

We were slightly challenged by the program's interface, but luckily most of the commands are intuitively labeled. The online Help file didn't walk us through anything and should have been skipped. However a little experimenting was all that was necessary to fully understand adjustments that could be made. We were impressed at the clever utilization of a search engine to … Read more

PicturePlayer is a basic program that allows users to create slideshows of their digital photos. The program is easy to use and allows some customizations without becoming overwhelming.

The program's interface is fairly intuitive, although some things could be a little clearer. When the program asks users if they want to create a new show in the current folder or in a new folder, is it asking where to save the show or where to find the images to use in the show? It turns out that it's the latter. Some other menus contain similarly unclear options. Although … Read more