Geetesh Bajaj, Microsoft PowerPoint MVP - Book Release!

Geetesh Bajaj, one of the most respected PowerPoint MVPs at Indezine.com and PPted.com has come out with a new book co-authored with Echo Swinford called PowerPoint 2007 Complete Makeover Kit.

It was just released last week.

Here's an excerpt from the book that you can read online.

Here is the full description of the book: Microsoft Office PowerPoint 2007 Complete Makeover KitThis book is not as much about reading as it is about seeing and doing! That’s why we call it a kit. Full-color pages show you exactly how your slides will look as you follow the makeover steps, and all presentations in various stages of the makeover are on the accompanying CD.

Each of the eight makeovers has been carefully chosen so it’s relevant to anyone who has ever used PowerPoint. And if you just upgraded to PowerPoint 2007, this book gives you a great introduction to the new version of the program, along with ample experience in using all the new features. There’s no better way of getting up to speed with PowerPoint 2007.

Learn the tricks used by the creators of award-winning presentations

Every makeover includes step-by-step instructions that are illustrated in full color

Separate chapters dedicated to the PowerPoint 2007 interface and galleries

Explore everything from choosing appropriate colors to visually representing data

Perfect presentations by incorporating high-impact animation and multimedia elements

It also comes with a CD!

ON THE CD

All sample presentations, plus all the files you need to do the makeovers

Royalty free pictures

Music tracks

Templates and Themes

This is a great buy for someone this Christmas who works on any kind of PowerPoint presentations!

Happy Holidays!
Nan @ brainybetty

Betty's Xmas Pack for 2007

Once a year, we like to do something very very special for the millions of visitors to our site as a way of saying Thank You! This year, we have made available a Xmas pack download that's chockfull of goodies you can use this season - and we are making it available for just $1.99!

30 megabytes of goodies including:

6 Christmas animations for use on blogs and web pages or in PowerPoint or other documents

1 beautiful and elegant customizable PowerPoint show greeting card already programmed with music and animations. - All you have to do is add your family picture or any other picture to it and send it on to others!

1 free penguin dancing flash animation

6 Christmas and Holiday themed postcard printables

6 Xmas themed PowerPoint backgrounds for PowerPoint 98 - 2003 version for your own year end presentations

2 Xmas themed backgrounds for PowerPoint 2007 version for your own year end presentations

1 printable vintage holiday clipart sheet with year long holiday art

2 Royalty Free Christmas mp3 files: Carol of the Bells and God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen for your use

Our very useful Advanced PowerPoint Masters course

You can get it here until December 24th. Happy Holidays!
With love from the BB family. :)

Did you ever want a moving video background for your PowerPoint presentations?

Here's a great opportunity to get the only software that allows moving video backgrounds behind the text in your presentations. It's only available for 4 days until Thursday, December 6th - so act fast.

It's only available here at 33% off for $198 for the combo deal. It's $149 each for the individual deals - see bottom of the page for details.

Happy Holidays,
Nan

PowerPoint to iPhone and iPod? Yup.

"Getting presentations from PowerPoint 2008 for Mac to your iPod or iPhone is easy. PowerPoint exports your presentation as a series of pictures directly to iPhoto, or saves those same slide images as pictures to your Pictures folder. From there, sync pictures to your iPod or iPhone through iTunes as usual, then use the built-in Photos or slide show program on your iPod or iPhone to show your presentation. No sweat!

“Presentations look great on the big wide screens of iPhone and iPod Touch, but they look even better on a big screen TV or projected. Plug your iPod into a television or projector using the Apple Component AV or Composite AV cable and leave your laptop in the case.”

- Announced today at Microsoft Mojo

Thanksgiving templates and creating montages in PowerPoint 2003

Happy November all!

You can find 35 Thanksgiving related templates here at Microsoft this month... from PowerPoint backgrounds to menu placecards you can print out from Word.

In addition, for some of you who love to play around with the graphics in PowerPoint, you can find a tutorial here by Geetesh Bajaj - a Microsoft MVP and owner of the Indezine site - about how to create Images with gradients for a montage look and feel. It's fascinating and useful to know - something new and cool to add to your skillset!

Football season is over here in Kentucky and fall is in full force. I drove back home on the AA Highway yesterday and was simply amazed at the beauty of all the colors in the mountains and hills - oranges, reds, yellows, greens and pinks! Wow. Nature is bountiful and beautiful - and I am thankful.

Have a wonderful and warm Thanksgiving!

Nan @ brainybetty

P.S. If you are seeking out a way to generate some additional income - not a lot, but free money is always a good thing, huh? You can sign up for an account at Gomez Peer - they are a highly respected metric and web firm who need peer testers. You can find out more here. Basically, you get paid to get on the net - which is something all of us do every day anyway. Click below to learn more:

For all of you who want to put Flash in PowerPoint

I get questions about this all the time. For years, I studied how to use Macromedia Flash. I finally gave up on it because it was so complex. Around 2000, someone introduced me to Swish - the easy version of a program that creates Flash animations and man, was I ever glad.

Swish is much much more user friendly and intuitive than Flash was for me and I started creating lots of Flash movies and putting them in PowerPoint. (You can find the free flash movies here as well as some swish templates to play with as well.)

This is really the best time to start using Swish because they have just come out with a new version.

If you use swish you can modify some of the free templates on the brainybetty site with your own text and create fabulous moving animations with video, sound and more.

I love to play with the program and still do for my really special presentations where I am wanting to make a big impact visually.

Have a great weekend, and don't forget to buy candy for the 31st if you are in the U.S. for Halloween!

Nan @ brainybetty

PowerPlugs has over 120 new backgrounds

Energize PowerPoint Presentations with 3D, Flash, Templates, Backgrounds, Photos, Plugins, Charts & More
Energize PowerPoint with stunning 3D transition effects, cool Flash animations, sophisticated 3D charts, TV-style animated 3D titles, beautiful templates, inspiring photos and more! For more information, please visit www.CrystalGraphics.com.

One of my faves is the video backgrounds. I used to go to the huge seminars and the best speakers always had some subtly moving background - it always kept your attention and made you gaze at the content.

Lots of people have been writing me lately aso about adding music to presentations. CG's Music for PowerPoint is really easy to use and the libraries of music are fabulous for everything from corporate type of music to newsroom to educational. On this page scroll down and test out the PowerPlugs: Music item on the left. (You can preview music available there.

Oh! Be sure and sign up for the Brainy Betty newsletter here. We'll be coming out with our October End special with new free template sets - Fall, Halloween and Thanksgiving themed and much more!

Have a great week!
Nan

Crabby Office Lady

The Crabby Office Lady demystifies PowerPoint and PowerPoint terms on this Microsoft site. For me, the most useful information was on Themes in PowerPoint 2007. (20 come with the program).

Have a great week!
Nan @ brainybetty

Wow! You can do THAT with PowerPoint?

You won't believe your eyes when you see the things you can do in native PowerPoint. Take a look at what some visionary thinkers are doing at PowerPoint Heaven.

You'll find some true artistry - but just knowing that they used only the PowerPoint program to create these works - well, it gives me hope for the rest of us! It can be done. :)

Crystal Graphics has a new sale going on on their image library - they now have over 1,000,000 (whew) images and you can get a one year subscription for just $99! A year subscription gets you 100 downloads over a 12 month period (NOTE: Each image bought separately is $7.95 - so this is a really great offer.)

But hurry - these sales don't last too long! And good grief, I know I have seen enough stock free stuff in presentations over and over again. $99 is worth it to get new content. Get it here soon before the sale is over.

How to share PowerPoint presentations with Gmail

Here's a great how-to article from PC Advisor about using PowerPoint and Gmail for those of us with mac friends or on other platforms...

Webinar: Cliff Atkinson's Webcast - Watch, Listen and Learn

Most people would agree that you have to capture an audience's attention in the first moments of delivery, or else you have already lost them. Yet when it comes to Microsoft Office PowerPoint presentations, the first slides usually have titles like, “Overview,” “Our Company,” “Our Services,” etc. Attend this webcast to learn tips and tricks for starting strong with PowerPoint every time by using the Beyond Bullet Points approach. Discover how you can use classical story elements to create dramatic suspense and to ensure that the beginning of your story sets the stage for an engaging presentation to come.

Presenter: Cliff Atkinson, Communications Consultant, Sociable Media

Cliff Atkinson is a leading authority on how to improve communications across organizations. He is a popular keynote speaker, writer, and independent management consultant whose clients include companies ranking in the top five of the Fortune 500. Cliff is not only the president of Sociable Media in Los Angeles, but also a teacher at UCLA Extension, a senior contributor for the MarketingProfs newsletter, and writer of the Beyond Bullets blog. Cliff is also the author of Beyond Bullet Points: Using Microsoft PowerPoint to Create Presentations That Inform, Motivate, and Inspire (Microsoft Press, 2005).

PowerPoint Users: Get the magic back with Transitions and 3D Titles and Marcia Martin - Speaker/Coach Extraordinaire!

There's nothing I hate more than a boring presentation - content is king, but I have seen so many corporate presentations with slide after slide of text and standard graphics, it's quite painful to sit through these - especially in a live environment.

One way to keep your audience engaged while you are presenting is to use transitions in PowerPoint - not the standard ones, PowerPoint comes with - but some they are not used to seeing in SlideShow mode. Seeing something new and exciting always tends to keep people "awake" during a presentation - especially if it is a presentation that is technical in nature.

You can see examples of what I am talking about here and here.

But even before you create the presentation, learning how to present is an art. Some speakers command your attention, easily persuade, build rapport with the audience and seem to magnetically attract success whereever they go. In the coming month, I will be talking more about learning the "ART" of presenting with the help of my friend and mentor, Marcia Martin of powerspeak.com and the Vice President of the Transformational Leadership Council.

A little about Marcia:
Marcia Martin has been a Teacher of Success for over 30 years in the Transformational Training Business. She is renowned internationally for being one of the leading Life & Executive Coaches, and Transformational Trainers in the World today.

Marcia is considered to be one of the original pioneers of the Human Potential Movement, and was instrumental in training many of the executives and managers of the leading transformational training companies, including Esalen Institute, Landmark Forum, Technico, Life Spring, Insight, Actualizations, International Federation of Coaches (IFC), Sports Mind, Self Esteem Seminars, Tony Robbins Seminars, Human Potential Project, Money & You, Accelerated Learning, and Delfin International.

She is the Executive Vice President and a Board Member of The Transformational Leadership Council (TLC), a not-for-profit association she helped co-found in 2004 with Jack Canfield, the famed author of the Chicken Soup for the Soul book series. As the Executive Vice President of TLC she is responsible for Program Development, Event Production, Media, and Communication.

In July of 2005, she was selected by Rhonda Byrne, the Executive Producer of the world phenomena DVD and Book, The Secret, to be one of the TLC Teachers to be interviewed for the film, and is a recognized expert in teaching the Law of Attraction. She is also the Associate Producer and a regular guest host of the international television series, Positive Living TV, to be shown in over 100 countries by the end of 2008.

In 1971, Marcia was one of the original founding members of est, Erhard Seminars Training, the largest human potential training and educational company in the World. As the Senior Vice President of est, Marcia was responsible for training the trainers, graduate and guest seminar leaders in the arena of enrollment, sales, and presentation skills. She managed the Communication Registration Division and created the Guest Seminar Leaders Training Program (GSLP). Her responsibilities for the est organization included marketing, public relations, sales, promotional campaigns, production and filling of all est events & programs, the opening of new centers, registration systems, and managing the Creative Department.

In 1980, Marcia became the COO and Vice President of Marketing of Tsuru, an international design and marketing corporation, which manufactured and marketed fashion jewelry designs by world acclaimed designer, Laurel Burch. Marcia managed marketing, operations, and staff training, and had offices in Los Angeles, San Francisco, New York, Hong Kong and Beijing.

In 1985, Marcia founded her own consulting and transformational training company, MM Productions, (also known as Power Speaking Seminars). As the CEO and President, Marcia currently delivers corporate and public trainings, seminars, and courses that teach people to be successful, and how to create the results they want in their lives and in their organizations. Marcia’s clients include: Inter-Continental Hotels International, Loews Hotels International, Capital One Financial Services Inc, Chase Manhattan Bank, and Warner Brothers. She has personally trained and coached over 150,000 people worldwide to be more effective in their lives and communication.

Look for me at Booth 302! Come by and say hello...

I'll be at the Podcasting and New Media Conference in Ontario, California this week and I hope to meet some of you who are going to be attending. Our new business division, intellipodcast will be exhibiting in Booth 302. We have a lot of giveaways and a lot of good information about podcasting for corporations and universities as well as a lot of fun planned! So, if you stop by, say Hi! You can find more information about the Expo here.

And if you are just getting into podcasting in your own company - (either audio or video) - you may want to start by reading my new book: Podcasting for Trainers and Educators : A digital shortcut. It was recently published by Prentice-hall Professional and can be found at Safari/O'Reilly as well as InformIT.

Here's the introduction...

In many ways, trainers, educators, professors, teachers, instructors, SMEs or course developers — whatever your title may be, if you are responsible for any knowledge transfer process — you are the people leading the way for corporations and educational institutions to forge into the new century. By learning about new technologies and learning and adapting them to our workplaces and our personal lives, we change the mindset, not to mention the productivity of the lives of those around us.

At one time, it was the IT Department who were considered "First Tier Adopters" when it came to technology. Now, educators of all types have stepped into this role as well — we must learn it before we can teach it. It is our belief that podcasting is the next wave of technology that corporations and educational institutions can immediately use to solve a host of training and business problems. This book aims to show you, the educator — whatever your title may be, how.

You'll learn

· what podcasting is

· how to use it

· what tools you'll need (free or inexpensive tools as well)

· how to leverage podcasts in your own place of work

· and much more in easy to understand, non-technical terms

You'll also find in this book

· simulation tutorials and demos

· free resources

· free templates

· sample communications for buy-in at your place of work

· video testimonials from existing trainers, teachers and professors

Dave and I have been involved in the areas of teaching, training and knowledge management for many years. Dave has taught at the university level and both of us have much experience with instructor led training, e-learning and a wide variety of tools from Macromedia Breeze and Captivate to Microsoft SharePoint and Live Meeting. We are excited about the possibilities that podcasting brings and we invite you to join us in exploring this new technology.

Have a great hump day!

Nan @ brainybetty

CG 75% off offer ends September 30th, guys.

I can't remember the last time I got 75% off on something I knew was coming to my company - specifically, PowerPoint 2007, or really, the LATEST version of Office... I have worked in the corporate arena for a long time but, this means you can be ahead of the curve, and pay less than you may in the future - 75% less. Man, 75%. I wish I got that in the sales at Kohl's.

You can get this now. Go play with it. Go learn it. And benefit from it as a teacher or practitioner OF IT.

Let me tell you from experience, PPT 2007 is HUGELY different from the previous versions. But gosh, you get so much from this bundle:

• Video Backgrounds Player - New version! (Have ya ever envisioned playing a video background - something really COOL and ELEGANT behind your presenation?) TRY IT - it's awesome...
• Templates Subscription - More templates! Hundreds of templates!
• Pictures Subscription - More photos! Royalty free stuff -
• Transitions volumes I-VII - New version! These really COOL transitions make your presentations POP
• 3D Titles volumes I&II - New version! REal NICE. Try it.
• Video Backgrounds Subscription
• Animator
• FlashReady (the coolest.. and we get the MOST questions about this one at BB)
• Presentations To Go
• Music volumes I&II GORGEOUS MUSIC TO ADD TO YOUR PRESENTATION SO VERY EASILY.

Get it here. Ya got 5 days.
Nan @ brainybetty

Inserting Flash into PowerPoint 2007

Sameshow has an excellent tutorial that walks you step by step through how to insert Flash in Powerpoint 2007.

It's a little different than PowerPoint 2003 and there are a few additional steps as well.

If you are using an earlier version of PowerPoint , you can view Brainy Betty's original tutorial.

If you want the easiest option, you could always get this software to do it for you (and it has additional tools to convert entire large presentations to Flash for use on the web or to send by email!) A big plus if you know how big those PowerPoint decks get for larger presentations!

Have a great week!

Nan @ brainybetty

Excel Macros.

EWWWWWWWWWWWWW.

I know. i know. You look at the word macros and think oh dang, I have no CLUE what that means.

It's really easy - so take a minute and learn, ok? I promise it is NOT as painful as a root canal and definitely way more beneficial. You learn how to AUTOMATE tasks with macros so you aren't spending time doing things over and over and OVER again. You will be programming! You go girl! (ok, or Guy!)

Go learn. Seriously, take a 20 minute lunch at your desk and do this. It will be SO worth it.

Oh, and BTW, my friend Dennis at CG sent me this: Do you know that for $99 BUCKS a year you can have access to THOUSANDS of professional templates that will so make your presentations POP? And more are added [FREE] monthly to your library. Hey, if you are a speaker, a person who needs to persuade or teach or sell ideas, a person who relies on presentations to make a living, please do go and invest in this. You will be able to make gorgeous presentations and create something that people remember and ACT upon.

Seriously, $99 bucks a year is nothing. It's like 27 cents a day. Can you invest that in improving you, your business, your organization or church or university or department? Your message? Ok, yeah. go do it now then.

Google Presentations?

This was interesting news I came about recently. Google has acquired Tonic Systems -who have a Java based presentation software I believe comparable to PowerPoint.

Google Docs and Spreadsheets as you may know has been around for a while now and has had a good deal of success - and rightly so. Google's online editing system allows people to collaborate on documents very easily without the expense of a shared server or other special program.

Now, the ability to collaborate on presentations as well looks like it may be coming down the pike very soon. I, for one, will be interested in seeing what it looks like!

My PowerPoint 2007 tip of the week is this:

If you are a little confused with the new "Ribbon" menu and trying to find the Help button in PowerPoint, you may get flustered. In previous versions, you simply clicked on the Help menu, right? Surprise, it's no longer there!

So, in PowerPoint 2007, press your F1 key or in the program itself...The Help button is a small "question mark" graphic in the top right corner of the program window -- just below the X that you use to close the program.

Have a great week!
nan @ brainybetty

Crystal Graphics releases new bundle!

Ok, Vista users - you are in for a treat.

CG announced today the NEW PowerPlugs: Ultimate Combo 2007 version 3.0 for PowerPoint! Now fully Vista compatible and with a new streamlined installer, it has everything you need to energize your PowerPoint presentations including:

• Video Backgrounds Player - New version!
• Templates Subscription - More templates!
• Pictures Subscription - More photos!
• Transitions volumes I-VII - New version!
• 3D Titles volumes I&II - New version!
• Video Backgrounds Subscription
• Animator
• FlashReady
• Presentations To Go
• Music volumes I&II

This is pretty awesome stuff for making gorgeous, knock-your-audience's-socks-off presentations. I love playing with this program!

You can get it here. LOOK AT THE BOTTOM OF THE PAGE FOR THE DEAL.

Oh, and did I mention that it's over 75% OFF the price of buying these items separately? Act quick, guys - it's only valid until the end of the month.

Cool New Site for PowerPoint Graphics!

Hi All!

Steamy week in July in Kentucky! I wanted to tell you about a great new Powerpoint graphics site called PointClips.com.

Not just your average PowerPoint graphics, but these are made in native PowerPoint, so they are completely scalable, and completely editable. They have 5 free downloads for you "I like my trial first" users and costs for individual graphcis and full graphics packages are very affordable!

I personally recommend the Business Basics package - which I use. When I mean they are editable, I mean you can ungroup the individual objects that make up the pictures and change them to your personal preference.

For example, suppose your company colors are red and grey... you can customize the business person's outfit to have her wearing a red shirt and grey pants! This itself makes it worth the price because you can match your template colors or put in graphics and modify them to create a better flowing presentation without "jarring" graphics.

Try them!

Happy July,
Nan @ brainybetty

The PowerPoint FAQ List: A must bookmark link!

The PowerPoint FAQ List

If you have never visited this site, it's brilliant. Make sure you check it out and bookmark the link.

If you love creating art, graphics and animation in PowerPoint, make sure and check out PowerPoint Heaven. You'll even find downloadable tutorials to create your own masterpieces!

Have a great week!
Nan @ brainybetty

Revisiting an oldie but a goodie

Lots of people don't know that we have a great free course online here. This is the Brainy Betty Course: Advanced PowerPoint Masters and Graphics Manipulation.

Check it out when you have a break or a half hour having lunch at your desk. It's filled with a LOT of cool tips and tricks and tutorials to make your presentations shine!

Have a great week!
Nan

eComExpo 2007

Hi all!

I'll be one of the university presenters at eComExpo this year (March 20th - 22nd). The event is free and online as well - no Travel & Expense! Lots of good learning.

My free presentation is about Using New Media to Grow Your Audience and Grow Your Site! Generally speaking it is about the sheer simplicity of creating new media - audio shows or video shows on your website and really building some content with some KICK!

I hope each of you will go and check it out. You really can make an impact with this learning... This is the future of the web.

Have a great week!
Nan

Coolest PowerPoint Feature in Office 2007!

Demo: Spice up your text with SmartArt graphics SmartArt graphics add color, shape, and emphasis to your text and data, and they're a snap to use. You can easily try out a variety of SmartArt graphics to see which one works best for getting your point across. An organization chart? A time line? A process with sequential tasks? Non-sequential items? With SmartArt graphics, you can experiment as much as you want with different formats and styles. You can preview styles before choosing one, so you don't have to apply styles over and over again to find the one you want. And after you apply a style you can customize it with colors, animation, effects such as shadows, bevels, and glows, and more. Watch the demo to see how easy it is to add dimension and impact to your text.

Extreme Makeover: The PowerPoint Edition

A nicely done presentation well worth sharing:

Presidential Candidates Using PowerPoint!

Feb 26, 2007
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

(US News) Mitt Romney, the former Bay State guv now running third in the GOP presidential sweepstakes, doesn't use a BlackBerry or even carry a cellphone. But that's not to say he's not a techie geek. In fact, he's proving to be just the kind of wonk that would make Microsoft's Bill Gates giddy at an issues lunch.

Here's the deal: Romney is the first-ever presidential candidate to haul out a PowerPoint presentation at campaign events. He did it recently while addressing the Detroit Economic Club, and the audience went nuts for it. "It was amazing," an auto exec tells us. "I mean he didn't just make claims. He had the graphs to back him up!"

The idea was the candidate's and was a textbook presentation outlined in classic fashion: It opened with the "Intro," wrapped up under the title "Close," and finished with an "End" on Page 21. In between were graphs that Romney tried to soften with descriptions of lines like "squiggle."

PowerPoints, says spokesman Kevin Madden, "speak to the competency that [Romney] exudes and the authoritative nature of his understanding of the issues." Plus, he says, the boss just digs them-and is a great presenter. "He's the PowerPoint president. Very few people could pull this off and not look wonkish." And the Mitt-tech doesn't end there: He's started Mitt TV and raises cash on ComMitt, a computer fundraising program.

HEY!

http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/outlook/HA010970221033.aspx

Ok, go look at that link. These are the TOP Tips from Microsoft to improve productivity....

cheers, nan

P.S. Remember: If you aren't having FUN everyday and joyous in what you are doing - hey email me. ceo@brainybetty.com - there's something more to experience. you just need to know how!

THANK Somebody Already!

Would you like to know my personal secret for getting all the referrals or new business you can handle without even asking?

From personal experience, I can tell you that the #1 way I get business is from referrals. One of my secrets for doing that, is by building customer relationships.

Did you know that a greeting card is opened 11 times more than any other piece of mail? The top lady in Mary Kay sends out 3 handwritten cards a day! And in the Corporate world, 90% of the top earners in any company send out thank you cards and other cards daily.

That’s why I am such a huge fan of thank you notes. Makes sense folks. Give gratitude for the people who helped you learn something or showcase something or for simply helping you.

Jack Canfield in his new book : The Principles of Success points out a fairly logical question you should ask to everyone you come into contact with - here it is: On a scale of 1 - 10, how would you rate me (as a teacher, as a presenter, as a manager, as an employee etc.) and then ask WHY? That way, you learn what your shortcomings are and can begin to improve.

Learning to become something better ALWAYS feels wonderful.

I know this wasn't about PowserPoint, so forgive me - just an important lesson I wanted to share with you!

Have a great week!
Nan

The Top 8 reviews are in on Office 2007 and here they are:

Ok, I know you are looking for early bird reviews of Office 2007 and here you are:

(Good reading for your Monday morning!) :)

1. ComputerWorld's Review
2. A Review from a Beta-Tester
3. CNET Editors' Review
4. ZDNet's Review
5. PC World's Review
6. PC Advisor (UK) Review
7. PC Magazine's Review
8. VNU Net (UK) Review

Lots of opinions but the general consensus is this - it's an awesome new game, y'all. You gotta experience it to see. Microsoft Office 2007 - upgrade your copy now!

Brand new program from Microsoft - absolutely FREE

Make sure and download your free copy of Microsoft Accounting Express here.

Office Accounting Express 2007 helps small business owners and bookkeepers save time on everyday tasks and build their business through online sales, invoicing, and payment processes.

Our templates are free in the new book!

Faith Wempen has done it again with the new PowerPoint 2007 Bible But you'll get an additional bonus when you purchase the book - 500 free professional templates - including many from Brainy Betty!.

From the Back Cover
Make an impact on your audience with PowerPoint 2007 To deliver a compelling presentation to your audience, you need to get the most out of PowerPoint's powerful features. In this comprehensive guide to PowerPoint 2007, experienced author and trainer Faithe Wempen shows you how to do both. You'll get up to speed on PowerPoint's new interface and the Ribbon—while you also find out what contributes to a good presentation, such as choosing the right amount and style of information for your audience.

• Format with Layouts, Themes, and Master slides
• Integrate drawings, charts, or data from a variety of sources
• Get beyond bullet points and reading slides full of text and learn to engage your audience during your presentation
• Add sound effects, music, animation, and video
• Present from multiple monitors and separate computers
• Design interactive or self-running kiosk shows
• Use SmartArt to quickly turn plain text into graphics
• Create professional-looking charts with a few mouse clicks
• Use any shape as a photo frame, and use WordArt for text effects

What's on the CD-ROM?

You'll find more than 500 professionally designed PowerPoint templates and backgrounds that you can use in your own PowerPoint presentations.

Please see Appendix C for details.

Also in the Book

Four special project labs highlight complete presentations that show a variety of ways to create content.

• Presenting Content Without Bulleted Lists
• Creating the Illusion of Movement with Static Graphics
• Designing a Menu-Based Navigational System
• Creating a Classroom Game

back from the office 2007 launch and I am frankly AMAZED.

wow. is all i have to say.

this new version is the shizznick.

so many cool new features and the graphical interface is simply awesome. some of the things I found MOST intriguing about Office 2007ad VISTA - the new operating system:

the search interface rocks. I really do believe i will shave off hours and hours this year trying to find stuff on my system -very smart.

the ribbon RULES. if you are a regular reader of my blog, you'll know that i was wary about this. however, when i saw it in action, i must say - it is indeed better than the old menu system.

the EXCEL graphs, tables and charts - this was too cool for words - the stuff you could do point and click. no longer is the need to be a number hound to understand your data!

the PowerPoint features: well, all I can say, is step OFF apple keynote - you have serious competition on your hands. you'll find GORGEOUS new presentations this year and the years to come thanks to the 2007 version.

OUTLOOK 2007 - simply rocks the darn ship altogether especially with business contact manager and microsoft accounting 2007. can ya tell i am excited? no punctuation in this entire blogpost! and.... integration with paypal and ebay and equifax? are ya kiddin me? can you say "lotsa stay-at-home entrepreneurs are going to flip over this??"

and VISTA - well, let's just say i am lookinf for once FORWARD to upgrading my system this year to accomodate this o/s. it's not only beautiful, but extremely functional as well.

kudos to microsoft. a lot of planning went into this. i can't wait to implement this new version.

If you are a corporate Microsoft Office user...prepare for change.

Microsoft Office 2007 is going to be somewhat of a shock to your system. I am looking forward to attending the Launch Event next Tuesday in Louisville (also taking place in many other cities around the nation). Being involved in the beta was an interesting thing in itself as was trying out the online version. (Read the blog posts below to "try out" the new Office 2007 yourself online.)

When I say prepare for a change - it's not a small thing.Generally speaking, all the ways you have become accustomed to doing things with the menus across the top of the screen - these are gone. Now, items change according to your actions - which is a little challenging at first to grasp and work with. Of course, my focus was on Microsoft PowerPoint 2007, as you can expect - but the changes have taken place across all the core Office programs - including Word, Excel, etc.

I think it is going to be a learning curve for many of you out especially in corporate America and educational institutions. And while I do not see immediate implementations - they are likely to occur further in the year for a lot of companies. (IT departments always tend to wait a bit on the side of caution to feel out if the program will work for other companies of their own size and what kind of problems to anticipate.

But, as far as preparing, I would suggest first understanding if your system is "ready" first for the change. Look at the system requirements and make sure that your processor and hard drive, RAM etc. is compatible before you run out and buy a copy.

We at Brainy Betty will be helping throughout the year - watch for new tutorials every week that will help you to navigate and use Office 2007 and achieve the most productivity without the frustration. Make sure to subscribe to this blog by entering your email on the right or add yourself to our newsletter list and we'll notify you when new content is being posted to the site that can help you.

Have a great week! Be creative! Be productive!
-Nan

Thank you.

I am so grateful to have such wonderful blog subscribers and to read the emails I get from people who have found solutions to their presentation problems. Please keep sending me emails or post replies here. I do read and respond to every one.

This week has been an eye opener for me in many ways.

As I learn to use Apple Keynote more on my new mac laptop I find that there are a lot of creative and unique aspects to that program. However, there are still many features I find that Keynote lacks that PowerPoint excels in. Keynote is for the highly visual user - makes sense that Apple tends to market more toward the creative community. It does have a simple beauty when presenting information in presentations, though. I suspect that the new PowerPoint 2007 will have a lot of Keynote users surprised - the new presentations and slide shows are just visually elegant as well.

Which got me thinking about presentations in general - we all do them and in some cases it has become a requirement in places we work or study to create presentations and display some learning or data or process or result in this format.

I think what a lot of us lack is the creative skill and the underatdning of design and spce and what works best to "display" data in a way that is persuasive but also pleasing to the eye. What I think I will start to do is to create a set of materials for visitors of the site to understand some basic design principles - including colors, layouts and the idea of schemes. If you think something like this may be useful for your particular situation, drop me a line and let me know.

Thanks and have a great week!

Nan @ brainybetty

A Great Way to Get the Office 2007 product for free (Shhhhh!)

All attendees (nationwide) who register and attend the Ready for a New Day Office 2007 launch event will receive a free copy of Microsoft Office Professional 2007. I'm not sure if this is limited to business owners or IT department executives, so please make sure and read the details here.

You register for the event by clicking on the Find an Event button (big orange on top of the page right hand side).... I totally missed that for some reason and spent about 10 minutes in frustration trying to figure out how to register.

Brainy Betty will be at the Louisville, KY event on January 30th, so if you see me, (Nan Shastry) please do come up and say hello!

Have a great week!

It' Heeeerrreee! Welcome to 2007!

Hi everyone! Welcome to 2007! I had a great holiday with my entire family - all assorted sisters, brother in laws, nieces and nephews. It was wonderful to be able to take some time off and relax, but... I'm glad to start a fresh new year!

Right off the bat, the new version of Microsoft Office 2007 is now ready to order. It becomes available on January 30th but you can preorder here. I've already ordered my copy and am pretty excited about getting it and upgrading. I've even taken a look at the new Windows Vista operating system as well. If you want a sneak peek to go and play in the new environment - go here.

I don't like resolutions - I never keep them - but here are my GOALS for this year:

1. To post more faithfully to this blog at least once a week.
2. To add at least 4 or 5 new items to Brainy Betty every month. I have 4 new things this month already:

• new sound files for your presentations
• new free smileys for email and other applications
• new flash that you can embed in your presentations (5 new that say "Welcome to 2007!) along with a tutorial about how to embed flash in PPT
• A new tutorial about how to create an animated PowerPoint background

3. to incorporate more video and audio and media into my site - and for your presentations

4. Oh, and the big one: to get my new business intellipodcast up and running before the end of January!

Have a great month and a prosperous new year, everyone!

- Nan