October 18, 2004
Eric Meyer has released the slide-show tool S5. Hallelujah!
There are two things about which I'd like to die in complete ignorance: how to use PowerPoint beyond the absolute basics, and how to score bowling. I've get better things to do with my life than clutter my brain with that sort of trivia, thank-you-very-much.
The problem is that I do presentations a few times a year — not enough that it's worth taking time to learn more about PowerPoint, but enough that I care about creating effective slides. Since PowerPoint is geared toward doing truly mundane presentations, it was starting to look like I'd have to knuckle under and learn how to do more than the basics.
I've used Keynote and found it much more pleasant to work with than PowerPoint, but it still feels limiting, especially when I want to produce presentation notes (I object to putting slides on the web but am usually pressured to make handouts and notes available). Too, I know how to do things in XHTML and CSS that may be possible in PowerPoint but not without learning to use it well. Which, as already explained, goes against my goals in life.
S5 looks like it fits my needs. I'm eager to use it soon. My thanks to all involved.
