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Can Google Kill PowerPoint?
theodp writes "Far from a PowerPoint killer, Slate's Paul Boutin finds Google's online presentation tool Preso more like a PowerPoint commercial — a half-baked app that shows how powerful Microsoft's program really is. But if you have your druthers, Boutin suggests ditching both and opting for Apple's Keynote, which helped snag an Oscar for Al Gore and inspired this Dear-PPT-Letter. 'The first hurdle ... You can't use it on a plane. Google Preso only works if you've got a live, high-bandwidth Internet connection. You can save the finished product to an HTML presentation on your laptop, but you can't edit the saved version or upload it back. The Splunkers would need to finalize their presos early in the morning in a rented conference room, where both Wi-Fi and Verizon wireless cards have been known to fail. That would kill the presentation.'"
Wasn't Google getting ready to use its Google Gears plugin to allow offline access to its apps? That includes features like offline storage and resource loading and works cross-platform.
It doesn't sound like this would be a barrier for much longer.
I guess I fall into the dumb category described above. I did use Google docs for a presentation at a conference. A few points in my defense however. You typically check out the machinery ..before.. you give the presentation. Also, if you save the presentation (unzipped) to a pen drive (as I did) the presentation works fine disconnected. You can have a backup plan.
I think the original article was building a straw man. Neither Google nor anyone using the software for a few minutes would confuse it with a "Powerpoint Killer". If you are in marketing don't even look at it. But if I am trying convey information, then I prefer simple themes. There are some features that are compelling. My collaborator on the presentation lived 6 time zones away. Because of Google Docs there was never a problem for either one of us determining the state of the presentation at any time before a "drop-dead" date. The publishing, sharing and chat facilities can probably be used to good effect in different situations. That being said, there are things that would be appreciated for even information-oriented presentations, like primitive drawing capabilities.
So what do you do if the power goes out? Your laptop runs on batteries; does the projector?
What do you do if your laptop's hard drive dies? Or your RAM slowly starts to go bad?
Hell, what if your video card does this thing my old ATI started to do -- as it overheats, slowly start having a random checkerboard effect in various onscreen elements?
You even seem to admit this yourself:
I realize that, in many places, you're going to need an offline version. That's in TFS -- while you can't edit it, you can download a copy to play. While you may have to make last-minute corrections, you really shouldn't be in that situation anyway -- and let's look at TFS:
Keep in mind, you can always save one copy when you think you're done, then, if you get a chance to make last-minute changes, you can download a new version. If not, you still have the old one.
This actually sounds a lot like how I've seen many people do PowerPoint -- they'll always have some old version burned on a CD somewhere, or saved on a flash drive, just in case they have to borrow a computer.
I'll acknowledge that most Internet is less reliable than a given hard drive, but I think it's gotten to where it's reliable enough. After all, if you wanted the best possible reliability, you'd use a dedicated device with a video out, a couple USB ports, and some flash, not a full computer.
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
> So what do you do if the power goes out? Your laptop runs on batteries; does the projector?
The liklihood of power going completely out such that a projector cannot be powered are quite a bit less than an Internet going dead. Or worse just slow. Ever tried giving a presentation when the network requires say 10 secs to load a slide? That's dead time.
>What do you do if your laptop's hard drive dies? Or your RAM slowly starts to go bad?
Been there done that, have a backup pen USB device. And if that dies have backup materials on a second drive.
If my computer goes dead the conference ALWAYS, and I mean ALWAYS has a second computer that you can use on a temporary basis. And if the computer dies you buy another computer. I have had a computer die and I went to a super store and bought a new one. The conference was nice in that they drove and helped me get everything I needed. Some speakers even carry around two notebooks.
>Hell, what if your video card does this thing my old ATI started to do -- as it overheats, slowly start having a random checkerboard effect in various onscreen elements?
If it is a slow dying of the device then you don't take the device. I am not kidding here. If my notebook shows any signs of flakiness it's gone! I don't ever take it, and buy a new notebook.
>I'll acknowledge that most Internet is less reliable than a given hard drive, but I think it's gotten to where it's reliable enough. After all, if you wanted the best possible reliability, you'd use a dedicated device with a video out, a couple USB ports, and some flash, not a full computer.
No the Internet at conferences and places is not reliable! It is flaky, and what is even WORSE is that it is often slow... When you are giving a talk in a room of people many will be using their notebooks and at that time the network is often the slowest in the room where you are giving the talk.
This reliablity problem does not need to be. Conferences could fork over more money for more bandwidth and conference halls can charge less for Internet access. Internet access costs are outrageous! And the thing is that the conference must use the facilities of the conference hall. They cannot bring in their own pipe, or use their own external Wireless. Part of this problem is because these days everybody carries notebooks with WiFi. As a speaker it is actually more reliable (slightly) to use a cellular network.
"You can't make a race horse of a pig"
"No," said Samuel, "but you can make very fast pig"
When I switched to Keynote, I found I was putting a lot less content on my slides as a result, and a lot more of my content into what I said.
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