First of all let’s start by asking what is PowerPoint and why would I want to use it?  PowerPoint is a software program that lets you create professional looking presentations to enhance your oral speech.  A slide show presentation will keep the audience focused on the subject you are explaining.

Slides - Each page in PowerPoint is called a Slide.  To add a new slide just click on New Slide Button on the Toolbar on the top right corner or select Insert / New Slide.  There are many different slide layouts you can choose from on the right hand panel depending on the content of the slide.  Each time you add a new slide a mini version of the slide will appear on the left hand side of the window.  You can easily switch and edit slides by clicking on the slide you want to edit.  

Design - To add a design to your presentation, click on the Design Button on the top right corner.  You will have from many design and color choices to choose from on the right hand panel.  

Font – Once you change the design and/or color of the slides, you want the font to be readable.  To change the font size and/or color first select the text that you want to change.  Then on the Toolbar there is drop-down menu with all of the different texts available.  There is also a drop down menu for the text size.  PowerPoint’s default text size is 44 point text for titles and 32 point text for subtitles and bullets.

Pictures and Clip Art – Pictures are a big part of a presentation.  To add a picture to your slide select Insert / Picture.  You can add a picture from Clip Art or from a file you have stored in your computer.  Once you insert the picture you can resize the image and edit it.

Transitions – Transitions are the movements you see when changing from one slide to another.  To add transitions to your presentation select Slide Show / Slide Transition.  A slide transition panel will open on the right hand side.  Each time you select a transition you will see a preview on the slide that is currently selected.  Once you know which transition to use click on Apply to All Slides.  If you want different transitions on different slides, first select the slide then select the transition.  Repeat this process with the remaining slides.  You can choose if you want to advance to the next slide on a mouse click or automatically after your choice of seconds.

Finally, to see the slide show simply hit F5.  You will see a full screen slide show of your presentation.  To exit the presentation hit the Esc key.

Hopefully this introduction to PowerPoint will help you get started in creating a professional slide show presentation.

If you are one of those people who shops online, interacts with people online on social networks, and signs up for newsletters, your inbox is probably very crowded.  OtherInbox.com will move the emails clogging your inbox until you have time to look at them.    OtherInbox works with your Gmail account and it will separate all of your shopping, social networking, and newsletter emails and organize them into folders automatically.  

OtherInbox will create a domain name for each user.  For example, instead of having just one email address johndoe@google.com, you’ll get an assigned domain name like johndoe.otherinbox.com.  Any address that goes to @johndoe.otherinbox.com will automatically go to your OtherInbox.  For example, twitter will get twitter@johndoe.otherinbox.com and Amazon will get amazon@johndoe.otherinbox.com.  All of these e-mails will go to your Otherinbox.  Without setting up any rules, you inbox is now organized.

If you would like to learn more or sign up go to www.otherinbox.com.

Do you make international calls and get charged a fortune?  Jaxter.com is a free service that lets you talk for free internationally using your cell phone.  The way it works is actually really simple.  Go to www.jaxter.com and enter your cell phone number and your international friend’s cell phone number.  Jaxter will give you a local number to call which in turn will send a SMS message to your friend containing a local number to call and get connected to you.  Stay on the phone and wait for your friend to call in, once he or she calls you can talk for as long as you want for free.  Note that the regular charges from your cell phone company still apply.  If your friend doesn’t get text messages, then you need to inform them of the number and the time to call.  

Visit www.jaxter.com if you would like to start talking for free internationally.

With Constant Contact your business can easily and effectively create high-impact professional emails.  If your business wants to send Email Newsletters, Email Promotions, Email Cards, Email Event Invitations, or Online Surveys, Constant Contact can help you accomplish it.

Email Marketing

• Sending Email Newsletters is a great way for your business to stay in touch with members, customers, or clients on a regular basis.  By keeping in touch with them they’ll think of you first when they need the product or service your business offers.  

• If you need to let your customers know about new products, discounts, or last minutes sales you can use Constant Contact Email Promotions to get your message out.  

• Your business can share warm wishes through email cards.  Constant Contacts Cards include business announcements, holiday themes, and more.  

• Spike up your event attendance by emailing Event Invitations.  By using email invitations, you can automatically see who has opened them and sent last minute reminders and updates.

Online Surveys

• With Online Surveys from Constant Contact you can create a survey and get feedback from your customers or clients.

You can choose from over 300 email marketing templates and 40 online survey templates.  With all of these choices, you’ll be sure to find one that suits your business.  And by using Constant Contacts you can manage your email list and get reports of who got your email, who opened it, who opted out, who clicked on a link, etc.

To learn more about Constant Contact or to start using just click on the button below.

Trusted Email Marketing

Picasa Web Albums are a great and free way to organize and share your digital photos online.  Google’s Picasa has many features and capabilities that allow you to easily organize, edit, and share your pictures.  Once you install Picasa on your computer, it will scan your computer for photos and organize them in seconds.  You can create beautiful web albums to organize you photos and view full-screen slide shows of your photos.  With Picasa you can get creative and design collages or add text to pictures.  Editing your pictures is one click away, and you can fix common problems like red-eye, color, and lighting.  Another interesting feature is that you can put name tags on the people that are on your pictures.  After you’ve put the name tags, you can sort your photos according to the people on the photos.  You can easily share your photos with your friends and family or publish them for the whole world to see.   Picasa is a free download, and it provides 1 gigabyte of free space to store your photos.  From Picasa, you can order photos and gifts online or print your photos at home.  When ordering online, you choose from major retail services.

If you would like to start using Picasa, click here to download.