This post has two presentations for the price of one. Lucky you, dear reader.
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The Up Experience is based on TED – Technology Entertainment Design conference/gathering. You can see past TED presentations on the web.
The Up Experience will bring big thinkers to Houston to share their knowledge of the world. It sounds cool and enlightening. It is $1000 for the day. They are keeping the speakers under wraps, but Ernie did say that Steve Wosniak is one of the speakers and they will have Eric Mongrain there as an entertainer. It is possible that there will be scholarships, so if you feel you deserve one, let them know.
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Sasha is presenting on his startup called Spresent that creates flash presentation that runs in a browser. You can export a .swf file onto your desktop with an application that lives on your desktop with the paid version. The desktop version also has the ability to add audio to the presentation. With the free version, you can create and publish your presentations on the web. [I think this is a good tool, but I do not see how it is very different from Zoho Show or Slideshare.] I asked Sasha how his tool was different and he said that this tool is based on Flash, not Ajax and HTML. Sasha said that Ajax is a crappy tool for graphics. [I do not know enough about the differences between these two tools to know if Ajax is a bad graphic tool.] Spresent will eventually have a pro version which is more robust.
Sasha thinks Power Point does not meet people’s needs on the web and for presentation. [I do agree, even though I still use PPT. I try to make my PPT presentations graphic based, so that text is not the real anchor. I think that text beyond a headline to often too much.]
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The presentations have been interesting and pithy. I like that people only have a short time to talk. It forces presenters to get to the point, fast. The people I have meet so far are chatty about technology and very nice. Most of them are web guys and gals who do freelance work or own their own company.
It is almost time for lunch. I will be glad of the time to stretch my legs and walk around.
–Jane, i <3 geeks