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Presentation Remotes for OpenOffice Impress?

Posted by Cliff on from the freedom-of-movement dept.

saintlupus asks: "I'm going to be teaching an introductory Computer Science class in the fall, and I'm using OpenOffice Impress on my Debian Powerbook for a lot of the lecture material. Does anyone know of a brand of wireless remote that works with this presentation software? I'd rather not be locked behind the podium while I'm teaching, so the idea of a remote is appealing, but nobody lists Linux compatibility for these things."

4 of 34 comments (clear)

  1. Some wireless Trackballs by Omega1045 · · Score: 4, Informative
    Didn't include any links in my previous post. Here is wireless trackball I mentioned:

    Wireless Trackball

    Here is Another

    They specifically mentioned they are good for presentations. Do I get an A, Prof?

    --

    Great ideas often receive violent opposition from mediocre minds. - Albert Einstein

  2. Presentation mouse by RustyTaco · · Score: 4, Informative

    That's what you really want, a presentation mouse, like this one:. Shows up as a USB mouse to the system, so it "Just Works(tm)" on any USB-friendly system (Win9X doesn't count). Doubly so with your powerbook, as you should already have X configured to talk to the input-core mouse mux (/dev/input/mice), where as PC saps might have to add the /dev/input/mice to their X config.

    - RustyTaco

  3. Easy... ATI All-In-Wonder remote by Kevin+Burtch · · Score: 3, Informative


    You can get ATI All-In-Wonder remotes fairly cheaply online (ebay, for example) without the card.

    They are supported in the stock 2.6 kernels, and if you're running 2.4, there's an external module you can compile.

    From the system's standpoint, it's a HID device that functions as both a mouse (with the joypad and a couple buttons) and a keyboard (the rest of the buttons... so there's no interfacing involved.

    The best thing about this remote is it is NOT IR, it is in fact RF, so the range is MUCH better (you can walk around the room) and you don't have to point it at the machine every time you want to do anything with it (you can even have it in your pocket if you want, though you'd have to wear loose clothes).

    --
    - Preferences: Solaris 10 (servers), Ubuntu (desktops), Solaris 11 (personal servers) -
  4. Mice are nice, but Keyspan is better by Shiblon · · Score: 4, Informative

    I have a Keyspan presentation remote, and it acts like both a mouse and a keyboard. The key combo it uses is Page Up and Page Down for slides so it should work fine with Impress, but you can also use left and right mouse clicks. It works in Linux and on the Mac.

    I use mine to click through my LaTeX Beamer slides in Acrobat, and it works like a charm.

    The benefit of using a presentation remote over a wireless mouse is that you also get a laser pointer. While some people use them very poorly (follow the moving dot -- through the entire presentation!), they are very handy when used correctly.