Apple, besides inventing great computing devices and operating systems, also develops a lot of software. I’ve already blogged about iLife and third-party iLife-enabled applications like Comic Book.
Apple also does iWork which contains two applications. The first one is a word-processor / desktop publishing program called Pages and the second one is a presentation software called Keynote. The next version of iWork will (if rumours are true) contain a spreadsheet.
For some profound reason[1], I decided to give Keynote a try today (I’ve installed the 30-day demo version) and I must say things look good.
In a nutshell, Keynote
- Read and writes Powerpoint files
- Integrates with iLife (photos, videos and music)
- Renders presentation beautifully
- Offers a number of Apple-designed themes
- Supports 3D transitions using OpenGL
- Exports presentations in Quicktime, PDF and Flash formats (the Flash export is particularly interesting because I want to have my presentations on the web)
I’ll use Keynote for some of my next presentations to see if it is good enough compared to OpenOffice Impress which I currently use.
One nice rule to follow when doing a presentation is the 10/20/30 rule by Guy Kawasaki. A fantantic website with lots of resources and insights on presentations is Presentation Zen by Garr Reynolds. This page is particularly relevant.
I’ll keep you updated.
[1] The profound reason is that I want to become a better teacher. Some of my students might have some difficulty with my style of teaching and I want to explore some new avenues…
well those pages are indeed relevant and might help us make our presentations event better
Thanks for the very interesting links. I have always been saying to myself that the corporate world tends to rely too heavily on PowerPoint and uses too many slides. I now have proof that I am right.
I read from one of the links that the reason why people tend to use a lot of slides with a lot of text is because they don’t really know their stuffs. I can only agree. At CCIM, I had a teacher (Eddy will know who he is) who said: “Si vous devez passer votre temps àlire vos notes, c’est que vous ne maîtrisez pas votre sujet.”
Just checked the links on presentation tips/rule…Very insightful indeed!
Like most things in life, the motto ‘Less is More’ prevails…
So when is Linux World Mauritius?!? I’m waiting for the Avinash’s Keynote!!! ;-)
I am currently thinking of organising a Linux workshop at the University of Mauritius. I’ll keep you posted.
he profound reason is that I want to become a better teacher. Some of my students might have some difficulty with my style of teaching and I want to explore some new avenues…
Now, i don’t like to flatter people .. specially someone called A.Meetoo, but, like Yan (lugm) once told me, “Avinash c un putain’d bon prof”, plz don’t change your teaching style.. its perfect, just don’t change anything.. tension sa gatE.. infact.. i told sundeep that there was a change in the way you explained today.. mais li dir li pann remarkE.
Anywayz, its good that you take feedback from student :p mr pascal also is cool like that.
Thanks for the presentation links, after my presentation with hurd in the OS class.. i have found a nice way to get my audience to have a better understanding of what i am talking and without me needing to get stressed, i make lots of simpler “caricatures” about what i am talking about and present it in a situation that occurs everyday.
Helped me in the webtech project.
Heureusement ki mo ti mal travay dans sa presentation hurd la.
ps. Sorry for the foul word.. but yan always speak in foul languages :p
+$3|v3n
Hey avinash, is there any apple store in mauritius?I’m planning to buy an iMac,I’m in india at the moment and the price here is abt $1800 for the cheapest iMac.I’d be glad if you could let me know about that.Thx
No.
But you do have Apple resellers like LCI (Leal) and Harrel Mallac… They provide some of the Apple products. Notably absent is anything AppleCare-related…
hi guys
Just invested in a netbook with linux running on it. I luv keynote as an app, as I have a mac mini.
Could I run Keynote on Linux or are their compatibility issues?