Category: Technology

Powerpoint and video

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Successfully incorporating video clips into powerpoint isn’t hard, but the process will go more smoothly if you consider how the presentation will be delivered before inserting the video file. This tutorial is mainly oriented toward the PC version of powerpoint, and Windows Media Player, although I may add notes on the Mac version and Quicktime soon.

Let’s go over some possible scenarios:

Scenario 1. You create and present the powerpoint presentation on your own laptop.

If the .ppt file is not going to be moved from its current position on the laptop, you only have to ensure that the video clip actually resides on your laptop, so that it will be available when you are giving the presentation.

So before inserting the video file, make sure that it is indeed on the C drive, or more simply, in whatever folder the powerpoint presentation is in, and not on a networked drive somewhere. This may seem obvious, but I’ve found that many users are not at all clear on what drives they are using.

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Powerpoint Narration Does Not Play Automatically

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Sometimes, even if you set a narration or sound file to play automatically when you first add it, it will not play until you click the speaker icon on each slide. When you look at the Custom Animation settings, it may look like it they are set correctly as Start with Previous but there is a second setting which also must be correct for this to function properly.

To fix this setting: click the speaker icon for your sound file. Select Custom Animation. Click on the downward-pointing arrow to the right of the listing for the audio file (“Media_4″ in the screenshot below”).

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Can’t install OS X on a newly partitioned firewire drive

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Since upgrading to 10.3.5 and Final Cut Pro 4.5 HD I have been having no end of problems with Final Cut crashing on launch (solved that one here) and with “log and capture” freezing toward the end of a tape.

I decided to revert to using OS X 10.3.4, and attempted to install it on a new 200 GB Firewire drive I had laying around.

I started up using the Panther install disk, then opened Disk Utility, and partitioned the drive. Then I opened the installer and attempted to install OS X onto it. However the three partition icons for that drive all had the little red “stop” sign over them, and selecting any of those icons got me this message:

“You cannot install Mac OS X on this volume. You cannot startup your computer using this volume.”

Quitting the installer and then restarting it made it recognize the partitions as bootable, and the problem was solved.

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