Recent headlines quote Army Gen. Stanley McChrystal, who heads U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan, criticizing PowerPoint presentations for creating “the illusion of understanding and the illusion of control. Some problems in the world are not bullet-izable.” When I looked a bit further I found this is the slide being referenced as not providing clear information.

hmmm...... I think action should be taken - and it has nothing to do with PowerPoint as an application, but against the company that decided this was worthy of being included in a presentation.

The offending "slide" was sourced from MSNBC. And I am confident it was not created in PPT, but by another application and imported as a graphic. Last, here is a really good webpage with a lot of people's comments in defense of PPT. Among my favorites are:

"This tool is highly misused and abused by presenters, secretaries and supposed PowerPoint ‘experts.’"

"It's not the tool on the computer, it's the tool AT the computer"

"I think a good strategy is to drop old PowerPoint slides from military briefings behind enemy lines. This should really confuse them..."

- Troy @ TLC

Here is a quick interview I did at the Microsoft MVP Summit. We talked about video options in PPT 2010 and I used samples slides from my Winter Olympic presentations. See it here.

- Troy @ TLC

After installing Office 2010 one of the items I noticed is at launch it lists the add-ins being loaded (previous versions did not display this information).

This is most noticeable the first time the application is launched as each addin is recognized and setup. Subsequent launches go much faster, which is very good.

- Troy @ TLC

Here is a quick video interview with Sandra Johnson, PowerPoint MVP, on Sections in PowerPoint 2010.

See it here.

- Troy @ TLC

Well it has happened. The first application I have seen that takes advantage of the new Microsoft Office 2010 Web Apps launched Wednesday. Docs.com lets you upload Office docs (PowerPoint, Word, Excel) either on your computer or using the MS Web Apps and then share them with your Facebook friends.

It was easy to start using. I opened Facebook and logged in. Then opened a new tab and went to docs.com and was automatically setup with the Facebook connector. It is a beta, so get on the waiting list.

And if you have not seen the MS Web Apps in action, just click on any of the available docs and it will open in the MS Web App. Here is one of the PowerPoint decks viewed in the MS Web App on Docs.com

- Troy @ TLC

Here is a link to PDFs of all the Office 2010 Product Guides which give a good overview of what's new.

Every "2010" product is avaiable:

Here are a few pages from the Web Applications guide I downloaded:

- Troy @ TLC

For a recent presentation I decided to develop this text in PPT using the text style options (vs. creating in Photoshop using preset filters). The result was liked by client and being able to edit text quickly within the presentation vs. adjusting in Photoshop and updating image was great.

Download sample slide here.

- Troy @ TLC

Selective use of the reflection tool for text can make slide layouts very dynamic. But why does the upper text have a gap and the lower text does not?

There are 3 preset gap options, but both samples here have the same setting (zero gap).

The answer is the line spacing is different. The larger the line spacing the larger the reflection gap - even when set to zero gap option. The top sample has a line spacing of 2.0, which creates a gap:

The lower text is setup with a .95 line spacing (note: 1.0, or single spacing, is the zero point for refections):

- Troy @ TLC

If you are viewing this post, you may have some of these other blogs already bookmarked. Here is a list (aka 'Roll Call') of blogs by Microsoft teams:
Microsoft Access 2010 Team Blog
Microsoft Excel 2010 Team Blog
Microsoft Office 2010 Engineering
PowerPivot Team Blog
Microsoft Outlook 2010 Team blog
Microsoft PowerPoint Team Blog
Microsoft Word 2010 Team Blog
Office Web Apps
Microsoft Project Team Blog
Microsoft Publisher 2010 Team Blog
Microsoft SharePoint Team Blog
SharePoint Workspace Team Blog
SharePoint Designer Team Blog
SharePoint for End Users Blog
PerformancePoint Services
Microsoft Visio 2010 Team Blog
Microsoft InfoPath Team Blog
OneNote
The Office Blog

Microsoft announced a program last month that allows you to purchase Office 2007 (full version, not upgrade) and be eligible to download and register Office 2010 when it is available this June for Free. Details are at the Microsoft Technology Guarantee page:

Office 2010 Technology Guarantee – is the following:
• Purchase Office 2007, or a new PC with Office 2007, and activate it between March 5, 2010 and September 30, 2010.
• Have, or create a Windows Live ID.
• Redeem your Tech Guarantee before October 31, 2010.
• The Office 2010 Technology Guarantee will be fulfilled online, via download, at no additional cost.

- Troy @ TLC