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Welcome to all the new subscribers! (Information on how
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Communicating Using Technology
Vol. 3 Issue 8 April 13, 2004
Published and Copyright by Dave Paradi
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In this issue:
1. Making Smaller PowerPoint files
2. Disabling Internet access to reduce Spam
3. Useful Resource - www.webopedia.com
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Privacy Policy: I will never sell or distribute your
e-mail or information to anyone.
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If you have received this as a forward from a friend, sign up
for your own copy at:
http://www.communicateusingtechnology.com/newsletter.htm
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1. Making Smaller PowerPoint files
Recently I have been working with a couple of clients to prepare
better PowerPoint presentations and in both cases they were
including graphics. What happens far too often is that including
graphic files, such as digital photographs or scanned art, will
increase the PowerPoint file size dramatically because the
graphic file is so large. So much in some cases that the file
cannot be e-mailed because it is too large. Let me share two
techniques that can help reduce the PowerPoint file size when
including graphics. The first is to reduce the size of the
graphic files before you even import them into PowerPoint. You
should resample them and resize them down to 72 or 96 dpi
resolution and about 300-400 pixels wide in most cases. You can
do this with the great utility at http://www.irfanview.com (I
have written about this great utility in a previous version of
the newsletter - if you don't already have it, get it, you will
love it). If you have already imported the higher resolution
graphics and now realize that you should have resampled and
resized them, all is not lost. Resample and resize the graphics,
then delete the high resolution ones in PowerPoint and replace
them with the adjusted graphics. Unfortunately this will not
make your file smaller because PowerPoint keeps space for the
original graphics in the file (don't ask why, noone has quite
understood this one). To reduce the file size, you need to
import the slides into a new PowerPoint file (use the Insert
Slides from File menu option under the Insert menu and use the
keep formatting option when doing this in PowerPoint XP/2002 or
higher) and then save the new file. I recently helped a client
reduce their file size from 6.1MB to 4.4MB with this technique.
The other technique is to use the built-it graphic compression
routine in PowerPoint. If you right-click on any of the graphics
in your PowerPoint show, select the Format Picture option from
the popup menu. On the Picture tab of the dialog box, click on
the Compress button in the lower left of that tab. You can now
select to compress all of the pictures down to Web/Screen
resolution of 96 dpi. I had one client experience an almost 75%
reduction in file size when doing this! When would you choose
one technique over the other? I prefer to get the graphics
prepared before I insert them simply because I tend to reuse the
graphics in other ways, such as a document or on a web site. But
either technique should help you reduce the size of your
PowerPoint files.
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2. Disabling Internet access to reduce Spam
Will I get less junk mail if I disconnect from the Internet? Of
course Dave, but I won't get any e-mail because I am disconnected
- what sort of silly advice is that! Well just hold on now.
That's not what I had in mind. What I am talking about is
selecting to disconnect at certain times to prevent more junk
mail coming your way. Let me back up and explain. One of the
tricks that these junk mailers use is to embed small bits of HTML
code into their e-mails which, when you open the e-mail, sends
them a quick notice that your e-mail address is real (since you
opened the e-mail). This tells them that they have an address
that should receive a whole lot more of this junk. And the part
that most people don't know is that this trigger even happens
when you use the Preview pane in Outlook. You haven't even
opened the e-mail and simply by displaying it in the preview
pane, it has triggered a flood of junk. How do you stop this.
Well, first, turn off the Preview pane in Outlook. To do this,
click on The View menu item and click on Preview Pane. If you
like seeing a small preview of the e-mail, an alternative is the
few line preview offered by the AutoPreview option. This is
safer because the AutoPreview does not read HTML, it only
displays text. To turn the AutoPreview on, click on the View
menu, click on Current View and select Messages with AutoPreview.
Second, when you are not sure about whether an e-mail may be
legitimate and you feel you need to open it to find out,
disconnect from the Internet temporarily, then open the e-mail.
When you are disconnected, the HTML trigger will go nowhere
because you do not have a connection any more. To disconnect,
click on the Start button, click on the Control Panel and click
on Network Connections and select the connection you have. Then
you will see a button to disable the connection. Click on that
button and wait for about 15-20 seconds until it is disabled.
Then open the suspicious e-mail. To enable the connection again
after checking out that e-mail, go back to the connection through
the Control Panel as described above and click on the Enable
button (these instructions are for Windows XP, it may be slightly
different for your operating system). Hopefully this will help
reduce the amount of junk e-mail you get.
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Check out "The 20% You REALLY Need to Know About":
PowerPoint 2000 or 2002
Structuring a Presentation
Creating Effective PowerPoint Slides
Using Presentation Equipment
Creating Presentation Handouts
at http://www.communicateusingtechnology.com/tools.htm
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3. Useful Resource - www.webopedia.com
Do you sometimes get baffled by all these technical terms that
people throw around? I know I do sometimes, even though I work
in the technology field. One of the resources I use is a
reference site for these technology terms. It allows you to type
in any technical term and it gives you links to more information
on that term. It ranks the results by relevance, so it is best
to always start with the most relevant ones. It does display ads
for products related to that term, but you should expect that to
some extent these days on a site with such great resources.
Check it out at:
http://www.webopedia.com
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Tools I use to sell my products:
KickStartCart shopping cart system:
http://www.kickstartcart.com/app/default.asp?pr=31&id=42487
Credit Card Processor 2checkout.com:
http://www.2checkout.com/cgi-bin/aff.2c?affid=90267
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Would you like me to speak to your professional association
or chapter event? I am always looking for opportunities to
share my information with others and would consider speaking
to your group if you are in or near the following areas:
Rochester, NY, Buffalo NY, Detroit, MI, Cleveland, OH,
Pittsburgh, PA or Toronto, ON. Just e-mail me at:
dave@communicateusingtechnology.com for more info.
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Check out the books, e-books and other learning tools at:
http://www.communicateusingtechnology.com/tools.htm
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If you want to read back issues of this newsletter, click on
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http://tinyurl.com/nhgl
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