Here are two tools I recently stumbled across. Each might prove useful when putting together a presention.
OmniGraphSketcher
Omnigroup made news a few weeks ago by releasing OmniWeb, OmniDiskSweeper and OmniDazzle into the wild as free software. A short entry on the Omnigroup’s blog said it was done so they could concentrate their efforts on other products.
Earlier today I got a copy of one of their new ideas: OmniGraphSketcher. Wow. I spent about 3 minutes with their screencast and sent in my personal registration. This is a brilliantly simple but essential piece of software.
Say you need a quick graph for a presentation you’re doing. You have a couple of options: use the graphing function built into your presentation software or fire up Excel or Numbers or Calc and build your graph then cut and paste it into your presentation. Either way you face the tedious task of entering the quantitative data needed to build the graph. Then there’s the headache of labeling each axis and scaling and getting the ‘tic’ marks right and on and on. Wouldn’t it be nice to have a graphic tool and just draw the damn thing? Yes, and that’s why there’s OmniGraphSketcher.
A niche program to be sure but if you want a quick but professional-looking graph for a presentation I can’t think of an easier or better-looking way to get it done. You can export the graphs as jpg’s, png’s or pdfs. Currently in beta but registration is still required to use it for more than a few days. $29 for a single-user license but educational users can pick up a license for $19.95.
Prezi
This has been around a bit longer but I just noticed it last week when following a link to someone’s web-based presentation. Still in private beta (they sent me a login within a couple days of asking), Prezi is a web-based flash presentation tool that lets you zoom in and out across unstructured content to tell your story. A product of Zui Labs in Hungary (and no, I don’t think prezi is Hungarian for vertigo) the easiest way to get a sense of what Prezi can do is to view a Prezi presentation: