General Books

Presentation Zen: Simple Ideas on Presentation Design and Delivery (Voices That Matter)

Garr Reynolds

Amazon Price: $19.79 List Price: $29.99 Usually ships in 24 hours By: New Riders Press Amazon Marketplace: 63 new & used starting at $8.92

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 90 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Excellent advice 4 out of 5 stars.
1 of 1 people found this review helpful.

The book is its own best review. It is engaging, persuasive and memorable practicing what it preaches and giving a good presentation. The advice is a bit esoteric if you are looking for liniar, rational, step-by-step methodology and is obviously based much more on intuitive thought and art, but this is exactly what the author promised. The book does have sufficient building blocks and practical instructions to get started in the presentation process, but goes far beyond that in scope. The author does seem to capture the true intent of a presentation as being an opportunity to influence and persuade an audience rather than death by power point with data saturated slides. This is not a hold your hand, step-by-step guide to great presentaions. You can not be led to that level of performance. This book however does clearly point the way and encourage you to walk the path to giving great presentaions, but the reader still needs to do the walking.

Editorial Review:

Presentation designer and internationally acclaimed communications expert Garr Reynolds, creator of the most popular Web site on presentation design and delivery on the net -- presentationzen.com -- shares his experience in a provocative mix of illumination, inspiration, education, and guidance that will change the way you think about making presentations with PowerPoint or Keynote. Presentation Zen challenges the conventional wisdom of making "slide presentations" in today's world and encourages you to think differently and more creatively about the preparation, design, and delivery of your presentations. Garr shares lessons and perspectives that draw upon practical advice from the fields of communication and business. Combining solid principles of design with the tenets of Zen simplicity, this book will help you along the path to simpler, more effective presentations.

slide:ology: The Art and Science of Creating Great Presentations

Nancy Duarte

Amazon Price: $23.09 List Price: $34.99 Usually ships in 24 hours By: O'Reilly Media, Inc. Amazon Marketplace: 41 new & used starting at $20.76

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 40 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

No matter where you are on the organizational ladder, the odds are high that you've delivered a high-stakes presentation to your peers, your boss, your customers, or the general public. Presentation software is one of the few tools that requires professionals to think visually on an almost daily basis. But unlike verbal skills, effective visual expression is not easy, natural, or actively taught in schools or business training programs. slide:ology fills that void.

Written by Nancy Duarte, President and CEO of Duarte Design, the firm that created the presentation for Al Gore's Oscar-winning film, An Inconvenient Truth, this book is full of practical approaches to visual story development that can be applied by anyone. The book combines conceptual thinking and inspirational design, with insightful case studies from the world's leading brands. With slide:ology you'll learn to:

• Connect with specific audiences
• Turn ideas into informative graphics
• Use sketching and diagramming techniques effectively
• Create graphics that enable audiences to process information easily
• Develop truly influential presentations
• Utilize presentation technology to your advantage

Millions of presentations and billions of slides have been produced -- and most of them miss the mark. slide:ology will challenge your traditional approach to creating slides by teaching you how to be a visual thinker. And it will help your career by creating momentum for your cause.

Information Dashboard Design: The Effective Visual Communication of Data

Stephen Few

Amazon Price: $23.09 List Price: $34.99 Usually ships in 24 hours By: O'Reilly Media, Inc. Amazon Marketplace: 54 new & used starting at $21.18

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 42 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

Dashboards have become popular in recent years as uniquely powerful tools for communicating important information at a glance. Although dashboards are potentially powerful, this potential is rarely realized. The greatest display technology in the world won't solve this if you fail to use effective visual design. And if a dashboard fails to tell you precisely what you need to know in an instant, you'll never use it, even if it's filled with cute gauges, meters, and traffic lights. Don't let your investment in dashboard technology go to waste.

This book will teach you the visual design skills you need to create dashboards that communicate clearly, rapidly, and compellingly. "Information Dashboard Design" will explain how to:

Avoid the thirteen mistakes common to dashboard design

Provide viewers with the information they need quickly and clearly

Apply what we now know about visual perception to the visual presentation of information

Minimize distractions, cliches, and unnecessary embellishments that create confusion

Organize business information to support meaning and usability

Create an aesthetically pleasing viewing experience

Maintain consistency of design to provide accurate interpretation

Optimize the power of dashboard technology by pairing it with visual effectiveness

Stephen Few has over 20 years of experience as an IT innovator, consultant, and educator. As Principal of the consultancy Perceptual Edge, Stephen focuses on data visualization for analyzing and communicating quantitative business information. He provides consulting and training services, speaks frequently at conferences, and teaches in the MBA program at the University ofCalifornia in Berkeley. He is also the author of "Show Me the Numbers: Designing Tables and Graphs to Enlighten," Visit his website at www.perceptualedge.com.

Beyond Bullet Points: Using Microsoft® Office PowerPoint® 2007 to Create Presentations That Inform, Motivate, and Inspire

Cliff Atkinson

Amazon Price: $19.79 List Price: $29.99 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Microsoft Press Amazon Marketplace: 51 new & used starting at $15.75

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 21 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

Unlock the amazing story buried in your presentation and forget boring bullet points forever! Now updated for Microsoft Office PowerPoint 2007, this widely-acclaimed book includes seven new examples of compelling presentations from board room to classroom. Communications expert Cliff Atkinson guides you, step by step, through his revolutionary three-step method for increasing the impact of your presentations. You ll discover how to combine classic storytelling techniques with the power of visual media to create a rich, engaging experience. Transform the way you create and deliver your critical message and quickly bring your ideas to life! FOCUS Learn how to distill and shape your best ideas into a crisp and compelling narrative. CLARIFY Use a storyboard to illustrate your ideas, creating the right blend of message and media. ENGAGE Move from merely reading your slides to creating a rich, connected experience with your audience and increase your impact! CD includes: Cliff s custom templates build your story! Quick reference checklists for compelling presentations Complete eBook plus bonus content!

Office 2008 for Macintosh: The Missing Manual

Jim Elferdink

Amazon Price: $23.09 List Price: $34.99 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Pogue Press Amazon Marketplace: 45 new & used starting at $20.59

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 8 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

Still the top-selling software suite for Mac users, Microsoft Office has been improved and enhanced to take advantage of the latest Mac OS X features. You'll find lots of new features in Office 2008 for Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Entourage, but not a page of printed instructions to guide you through the changes. Office 2008 for Macintosh: The Missing Manual gives you the friendly, thorough introduction you need, whether you're a beginner who can't do more than point and click, or a power user who's ready to tackle a few advanced techniques.

To cover Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Entourage, this guide gives you four superb books in one -- a separate section each for program! You can manage your day and create professional-looking documents, spreadsheets, and presentations in no time. Office 2008 has been redesigned so that the windows, toolbars, and icons blend in better with your other Mac applications. But there are still plenty of oddities. That's why this Missing Manual isn't shy about pointing out which features are gems in the rough -- and which are duds. With it, you'll learn how to:

• Navigate the new user interface with its bigger and more graphic toolbars
• Use Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Entourage separately or together
• Keep track of appointments and manage daily priorities with the My Day feature
• Create newsletters, flyers, brochures, and more with Word's Publishing Layout View
• Build financial documents like budgets and invoices with Excel's Ledger Sheets
• Get quick access to all document templates and graphics with the Elements Gallery
• Organize all of your Office projects using Entourage's Project Center
• Scan or import digital camera images directly into any of the programs
• Customize each program with power-user techniques

With Office 2008 for Macintosh: The Missing Manual, you get objective and entertaining instruction to help you tap into all of the features of this powerful suite, so you can get more done in less time.

Why Should I Upgrade to Office 2008 for Macintosh?

Author Jim Elferdink talks about what’s new in Office 2008 for Macintosh. If you’re still using Office 2004, you’ll find some great reasons to upgrade. Jim also fills you in on some cool features that Office for Windows can’t match, and why you may not need to invest in iWork!

What are the best new features that will make folks want to upgrade to Office 2008?
Publishing Layout view. If you use Word to create formatted documents like letters and brochures, you’ll find it so much easier to do now in the new Publishing Layout view than in the old Page Layout view. Publishing Layout view is actually quite similar to Pages; both are very usable. It’s a huge boon for Word people—if you haven’t bought Pages, now you won’t have to!
MyDay. I really enjoy Entourage’s MyDay feature. Assuming you’re not working on a laptop that doesn’t have screen space to spare, I recommend keeping MyDay open in the corner of your screen. That’s what I do! It helps me keep track of my appointments and schedule. If you’ve got appointments every 20 minutes or just a lot going on in your day, it’s great to have it all at a glance. It also helps you remember to go pick up the kids. (And you can feel superior to your Windows friends. There’s nothing resembling MyDay in Office for Windows.) Project Center. Entourage’s Project Center has been streamlined and beautified for 2008, but it’s still very underutilized. It takes a little extra effort to learn, but once you’ve got it up and running, if you’re doing any kind of a project that involves Office documents or even files from other programs, it’s a great timesaver. It lets you keep shortcuts to all these documents, plus email related to the project, in one window. The Project Center makes it easy to categorize email, contacts, notes, and documents. Things don’t get lost, and you don’t have to worry about Mac OS X labels and other ways to categorize things. (Office for Windows also has nothing like the Project Center.)
Formula Builder. In Excel, one of the greatest new features is the formula builder. If you use Excel much for formulas at all, especially more complicated ones, it’s really a timesaver. It helps you get those things created and working much faster than you could do before.
Elements Gallery. The Elements Gallery concept is really great because it carries over from one program to the other, gives the programs a consistent feel. If you’re using a lot of templates or AutoShapes, you’ll find it a quick way to get at all that stuff. You could do all these things before, but it was a lot harder to find what you were looking for.

So, are there any disadvantages to upgrading to Office 2008?
Publishing Layout view can be frustratingly slow on G4 Macs, especially when you’re trying to move layout elements around onscreen. I would only use it on an Intel Mac. The same caveat holds true for PowerPoint; it’s hard to move things around. But the rest of the suite works great on faster G4 machines.
Office 2008 uses the same new, XML-based file format as Office 2007 for Windows. It’s great not to have to worry when someone with Office 2007 on a PC sends you something. Office 2008 can open those documents right up. But now when you send documents to Mac folks who haven’t upgraded, they won’t be able to open them! Once you upgrade to Office 2008, you’ve got to be aware that not everyone else has, and (unless you have a real need to use the XML format) set your Save options (in Preferences) to the older format so there won’t be problems with your attachments.
Then there’s the macro problem. Any macros you wrote in earlier versions of Office use the Visual Basic programming language (VBA), and they won’t work in Office 2008! If you’ve written a lot of macros for yourself, you’ll have to stick with Office 2004 until you have time to rewrite them in AppleScript.

What do you like best about "Office 2008 for Macintosh: The Missing Manual?"
I’m happy with the way this book turned out. I think it covers everything you need to use this really powerful suite of programs for all your work. One chapter I’m particularly fond of, and which I think is missing from every other PowerPoint book I’ve looked at, is Chapter 15—Planning Great Presentations. It helps you prepare for your presentation and shows you how to use PowerPoint for its true purpose. PowerPoint isn’t doing the presentation—you are. You’re the star of the show! Unfortunately, too many people think it’s the other way around.

Microsoft SharePoint 2007 For Dummies (For Dummies (Computer/Tech))

Vanessa L. Williams

Amazon Price: $16.49 List Price: $24.99 Usually ships in 24 hours By: For Dummies Amazon Marketplace: 64 new & used starting at $4.41

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 13 Average rating: 3.5 of 5

CAVEAT *** NOT for end users 3 out of 5 stars.
3 of 3 people found this review helpful.

This book matches the clear, concise, and practical style of all the "Dummies" books and might be very good for those who are installing, configuring, or developing SharePoint sites. However, it was not until I reached page 4 that I finally was advised that "This book isn't really intended for end users." That advisory should have appeared on page 1, or better yet, on the book's front cover. If you are an end user who is merely trying to learn how to use SharePoint's various functions, you might want to look for an actual "user's guide," e.g., Essential SharePoint 2007: A Practical Guide for Users ... (etc).

Editorial Review:

• Microsoft SharePoint now has a 10 percent share of the portal market, and the new release, which features enhanced integration with Office 2007, is sure to give SharePoint a boost
• Offers clear instructions and soup-to-nuts coverage of this complex product, focusing instead on practical solutions to real-world SharePoint challenges
• Features tips, tricks, and techniques for administrators who need to install and configure a SharePoint portal as well as ordinary users who need to populate and maintain the portal and use it for collaborative projects
• Topics covered include setting up a SharePoint portal, matching SharePoint to business needs, managing portal content, branding, collaborating on SharePoint sites, using a portal to improve employee relations and marketing, putting expense reports and other interactive forms on a portal, and monitoring and backing up SharePoint

Total Workday Control Using Microsoft Outlook, 2nd Ed.

Michael Linenberger

Amazon Price: $14.93 List Price: $21.95 Usually ships in 24 hours By: New Academy Publishers Amazon Marketplace: 22 new & used starting at $12.64

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 64 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

The system actually works! 5 out of 5 stars.
4 of 4 people found this review helpful.

It took me about 3 hours of reading the philosphy behind the system (this is important - don't skip it) and another 2 hours of setting up and tweaking Outlook. The first day or two afterwards were strange as I tried to get accustomed to the system, but now, after a few weeks, I couldn't live without it. It's not all about email management (that's a minor concern for me, although having a perfectly empty inbox is wonderful for your stress level) - it's really a great tool for managing the dozens of tasks that pop in and out of your head all day long along with the medium and long-term projects that have been staring at you from your task list for the last year or so.

Before this book, I really, really, really tried to like and use GTD, but I could never internalize the methodolgy and use it effectively. In contrast, TWC/Manage-your-NOW just makes sense to me.

Bottom line - it's a good book with a good system - definitely worth your time to try it.

Editorial Review:

Total Workday Control Using Microsoft Outlook is a book for the over-extended office worker whose workday feels out of control. It shows how to regain command of an over-committed workday and an overflowing, unmanaged e-mail in box. It does this by teaching the author's system of time, task, and e-mail management, and it shows how to implement the system in Microsoft Outlook.

Microsoft® Office PowerPoint® 2007 Step by Step (Step By Step (Microsoft))

Joyce Cox, Joan Preppernau

Amazon Price: $16.49 List Price: $24.99 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Microsoft Press - Model: 9780735623019 Amazon Marketplace: 57 new & used starting at $9.99

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Subjects -> Computers & Internet -> Microsoft -> Applications -> PowerPoint

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 2 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Outstanding Guidance! 5 out of 5 stars.
4 of 4 people found this review helpful.

In fact, I thoroughly enjoyed the entire Step-By-Step series covering MS Office. I strongly suggest any student, curious George or researcher to pick up a copy and read it. I recently purchased MS 2007 Access, Excel, Power Point and Word set in the Step-By-Step series. The authors are concise in their descriptions without being boring and the information is invaluable.

Editorial Review:

The smart way to learn Office PowerPoint 2007--one step at a time! Work at your own pace through the easy numbered steps, practice files on CD, helpful hints, and troubleshooting help to master the fundamentals of working with the latest version of PowerPoint, including how to navigate the new, easy-to-use user interface. You will discover how to create presentation outlines, work with slide masters and slide designs, add graphics and drawings, and publish your presentations to the Web. You'll even learn how to add narrations and custom animations--and more! With STEP BY STEP, you can take just the lessons you need or work from cover to cover. Either way, you drive the instruction--building and practicing the skills you need, just when you need them! Includes a companion CD with hands-on practice files.

PowerPoint 2007 For Dummies (For Dummies (Computer/Tech))

Doug Lowe

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 1 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Speeds the transition from older versions 4 out of 5 stars.
18 of 18 people found this review helpful.

I have used Powerpoint extensively since the first edition and know it better than most -- and I have alwasy been able to easilly adapt to the latest version. This one is DIFFERENT -- and that's an understatement. Most will think, as did I, that MS screwed up a good program. But there is genius to the new "ribbon approach" - once you get used to it. You will need focus, patience and a helper, like the "Dummies" guide. I wish they had better titles, because having it sitting next to your desk makes YOU feel like a Dummy ... bet get over it, get the book and it will speed up your transition to the new version significantly. Could have had a bit more on the "power-features" but definitely worth the money.

Editorial Review:

• New and inexperienced PowerPoint users will discover how to use the latest enhancements to PowerPoint 2007 quickly and efficiently so that they can produce unique and informative presentations
• PowerPoint continues to be the world's most popular presentation software
• This updated For Dummies guide shows users different ways to create powerful and effective slideshow presentations that incorporate data from other applications in the form of charts, clip art, sound, and video
• Shares the key features of PowerPoint 2007 including creating and editing slides, working with hyperlinks and action buttons, and preparing presentations for the Web