[Hidden-tech] Microsoft Office suite vs. other options

[ussailis at shaysnet.com]

And that's the reason why I write everything in WordPerfect, and generally
"send the file to a pdf."

All edits, what I may have thought, how I might have structured a proposal,
etc are gonzo.

----

Another H-techie said something about presenters over forty being stuffy.
Well, three weeks ago I gave a presentation, not SRO because the group
increased the room size, only six folks taking notes though. And I am well
over 40.

And I will never use PowerPoint... 

I use overhead transparencies for several reasons: easy to back-up, easy to
include hand drawn cartoons, no fussing with a computer, and I can write on
them if asked a question requiring it. Yes I do drag my own overhead
machine (and a spare bulb)with me.

Giving a talk is a form of teaching, but at lower level than the classroom.
One cannot teach pointing a crutch around. PowderPuff would be OK if it
were as flexible as overheads. Simply it is not. Not even close.

My experience has been that overheads are a poor form of teaching in the
classroom. A blackboard is much better because it paces the discussion. It
slows down the teacher, simply it takes time.

I don't for a moment think that the problem is with using Microsoft
product, it is with a total lack of understanding how to prepare an
interesting talk. That's something that takes time. Perhaps the 'problem'
is folks that might be expected to give a presentation are never taught how
to in school.

Remember the rule that it takes three hours to prep an hour presentation?
Bah! I find that two days are necessary to do it reasonably well. I also
find the second time it is given it gets better. It also helps if you
really believe in, and really understand, your subject.

I would think PP as useless to teach in the classroom. But my experience is
with what most perceive as a dry subject, so I look for when the students
"get it," watch for the glazing of the eyes, then go on to solving
problems. 


Jim Ussailis
jim at nationalwireless.com


Original Message:
-----------------
From: Chris Hoogendyk hoogendyk at bio.umass.edu
Date: Sat, 12 Dec 2009 16:31:11 -0500
To: charlemontwebworks at yahoo.com, Hidden-discuss at lists.hidden-tech.net
Subject: Re: [Hidden-tech] Microsoft Office suite vs. other options


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Cheryl Handsaker wrote:
> Philosophy aside, I stopped using PowerPoint when the size of the 
> generated file exceeded my capacity to share it with the people who 
> needed access. Both Word and PowerPoint have become so "feature-rich" 
> that they are just too resource intensive to be useful to me, as an 
> occasional user.
>
>

That's an interesting point. The thing is that feature rich doesn't have 
to mean bloated. Bloated comes from a failure in the overall design 
effort as additional features are added. Worse is that the file 
structure becomes a rats nest that is many times larger than what is 
needed to store your document. Attaching Microsoft Office documents to 
emails that go out to the whole department is a mail manger's nightmare, 
as the document is overly large to begin with and then is replicated to 
every account that it was sent to, eating up space on the server needlessly.

If you open up a Word or Excel document in a text editor, you will see 
that the whole history of the document is there. All the edits, deleted 
text, everything. If you start with a document and re-edit it endlessly 
as you tailor it to each subsequent use, it becomes more and more 
bloated. But, what's worse, is that a subsequent client might open the 
document and see what you wrote to a previous client. I knew of an 
instance where someone got a quotation for something. They opened the 
Excel document in a text editor and saw that a lower quote had been 
given to a previous customer. They confronted the sales person with the 
lower price. The sales person was totally surprised and taken back. He 
had no idea how he had been found out, but had little choice but to cave 
in on the price.


-- 
---------------

Chris Hoogendyk

-
   O__  ---- Systems Administrator
  c/ /'_ --- Biology & Geology Departments
 (*) \(*) -- 140 Morrill Science Center
~~~~~~~~~~ - University of Massachusetts, Amherst 

<hoogendyk at bio.umass.edu>

--------------- 

Erdös 4


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