PowerPoint

Microsoft Powerpoint is really a great program. Unfortunately, some people (myself included) can make really bad Powerpoint presentations! The most common problems seem to stem from the tendency to overthink or over-"beautify" the slides. Using the custom fill effects for each and every slide makes it look like a kindergartner's cardboard paper cutout catastrophe. A simple custom or preset theme is much preferable for consistency. Same goes for overusing custom animations. It is not necessary to include ever possible intro and outro Powerpoint provides. Irony can most of the time be lost upon the audience. In high school, I thought it would be funny to cut out a picture of my teacher's head and make it move around the slide near the end of the Powerpoint. Even though it totally worked because the teacher's back was turned when I clicked the button, I may have gotten points taken away had he seen it! A Powerpoint presentation should have a clear beginning, middle, and end. Too many slides with too much information can muddle a project. Too little information on slides can leave the presenter with too little to go off of and can and has resulted in many "um"'s and "uh"'s and "errrrrrrr"'s. This leads to the last major pitfall, which is not knowing what is on the slide until it is clicked! The whole presentation falls apart when something should be somewhere else or an animation doesn't fall into place with what is being talked about.

A good presentation, on the other hand, does not have any or has very few or minute variations of the problems listed and described above. I prefer a presentation with a common theme representative of the tone of the subject matter. The animations don't vary too much. The audience is engaged with the speaker. Most importantly, everything should flow together. The speech should go hand in hand with the slides. Ideally, the whole thing should be timed so that no clicks are needed and the presenter doesn't have to look at but can still refer to the slides at any point. In this manner, successful presentations for work or school related projects may be formed.

The Wonders of CLT

Last week, our class took a tour of the facilities in the AT&T Center for Learning and Technology located on the first floor of the Library at Trinity University. When my professor told us we were going down there I thought "Great! A field trip to somewhere I've been before!" and my mind started going to fishing trips or whatever. We went down to the basement-that-I've-seen-so-many-times-lost-in-the-library (last year was confusing, to say the least) and walked into the Video Conference Center. This, my friends, really cleared up a lot of things. One thing, in particular, became clear. As Robert Chapman gave his little speech about the wonders of CLT, I realized that THIS is where all my money was going! They have 26 powerful computers (albeit there are only 12 PCs for the 14 computers-which-must-not-be-named) and 11 scanners; they have the Digital Audio Lab, where students and faculty can use the synthesizer, digital audio importing and editing software including expensive stuff like Photoshop, Dreamweaver, Flash, and even Pro Tools (the last one I was especially excited about); they have a Media Presentation Lab and a place to learn the wonders of TLEARN and the like. Very exciting stuff if I do say so myself...and I do. I will most definitely take advantage of the AT&TCLT for presentations, making music and video, and anything else that my relatively low-end laptop is quite incapable of doing. It is a magical place.





<--Check out my beautiful scan from the wonderous scanning device at the Center.

Photo Manipulation

I chose this picture on the left of OJ Simpson comparing the two mugshots from Newsweek and Time. This photo stood out to me because, while it is manipulated, it is clear to me that it is an obvious manipulation. OJ Simpson has an old-time photo outside and the photo was darkened. Most noticeably (and most commented upon) is his darkened skin color. It was most likely manipulated in this way to make him seem more menacing. Some view this photo as "racist" because it implies that a darker skin color means a more ominous interpretation of the person in question. Do I think Time is racist? No, not really. Since the picture is clearly doctored and the entire picture is darkened, the racism is in the mind of the viewer, not the editor. Therefore, I do not view it as a harmful manipulation, just an artistic representation. I found this picture at http://news.cnet.com/2300-1026_3-6033210-13.html?tag=mncol.



This video shows a woman being taken from her normal state into a more "socially acceptable" state. It is a demonstration and perhaps even an explanation of why and how our perception of modern beauty is so skewed.