For want of Part Number 09330-4945-NAIL
Went along to the nice folks at Hotwire PR to give a talk on what journalists want from PR people, and the changes coming down the track for both sets of people. (Title: “What makes a good new story - or, what’s Max Clifford got that you haven’t?”)
So: presentation, written in Keynote. Lot of thought gone into the content, and then into doing the twiddles, such as the self-typing bullet points, and the cube flips between slides.
Arrived there in plenty of time. Get out computer. (”Oh, I’ve got one of those,” said Narelle, to my astonishment. I didn’t know PR people were allowed to own Apple gear. And she’s got a Powerbook and a G4 - both at home, of course.)
Opened computer; presentation was ready, projector was there, plugged VGA plug into adaptor cable, plugged adaptor cable into Powe…. hang on, this plug doesn’t match. Um, where’s the projector cable plug go? WHERE’S IT GO?
Gah! I’d brought the old adaptor cable, which connects an iBook video output to a VGA input, instead of the new one which does a Powerbook DVI output to VGA input. Exactly how stupid is that? Else I could have just plugged it in and we’d have been underway. Thus is £1,500 computer rendered useless by absence of £ cable.
Instead I had to export to Keynote, then transfer it via USB memory stick to a Toshiba Portege. Which was amazingly thin, and remarkably slow, despite being just a year old. The nice thing: the exported file worked fine, though Powerpoint on Windows doesn’t have the cubic flip transition that Powerpoint 2004 on OSX does. Tch.
And to get the Portege to display through the project only required two IT people, and one or two restarts. Apparently this is standard.
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June 30th, 2005 at 12:05 am
And PC World, the only resort in these situations usually, don’t stock DVI to VGA adapters; not enough demand apparently. They’d probably charge 15 quid for them, too, just like their USB cables.
June 30th, 2005 at 9:16 am
>new one which does a Powerbook DVI output to VGA input
Ah, but it’s getting more complicated than this, as some projectors support DVI inputs now. So what cable SHOULD you take with you? With the Mac mini apple ship a clever little device that plugs into the DVI port on the mini and accepts a VGA cable to be used to a VGA device. I imagine if you could get hold of one of those you’d be prepared for most situations - if the projector is DVI, then a DVI-DVI cable would probably be available (not forgetting of course that there is DVI-D, DVI-I and DVI-A). If VGA, then use your adapter and the (presumably present) VGA cable. I couldn’t see this on the apple store - just a cable.
>And to get the Portege to display through the project only required two IT people, and one or two restarts. Apparently this is standard.
Yes, I have always been amazed at this. My Powerbook(s) have always connected first time to ANY projector I’ve ever used. Yet, I see people with Windoze machines - even with XP - faffing around for ages. So much for plug’n'play. This alone is a good reason for the average presentation-giving person to use a Powerbook (cable notwithstanding), not to mention the immediate return from sleep and the observation that I’ve never seen a windoze presenter use their laptop WITHOUT being plugged into a power socket.
Ian
June 30th, 2005 at 10:05 am
Ah, you’ve always gotta bring all the cables. Always.
June 30th, 2005 at 4:43 pm
Reminds me of one time my husband’s colleague (they are doctors) called him for help. My husband is known as a Mac guy in our small town, and his friend got an eMac to bring to Central America with him for presentations (we told him to get an ibook, but who knows what goes on in the heads of these doctors).
The problem was, they (our friend had a “Windows/Computer Expert” helping him) had no idea how to connect the emac to a projector. They had spent hours puzzling over it, when finally they called my husband for help. They told him that they’re having “display problems” with an eMac and would he please go over and see what he can do?
My sneaky husband, who is not a dummy, already had an inkling of what the problem was all about, so he brought that little video cable that comes with the ibooks in his right coat pocket, and went to his friend’s office. My husband later told me (in the midst of a lot of snickering) that they must have had 20 or so cables lying on the table with the computer, none of which worked. He listened patiently to his friend describe the situation, and how they’ve been at this for hours, and that they’re at a complete loss. Dear husband then put his hand in his coat pocket, pulled out the tiny cable, and said, “Let’s see.”
And that’s how he earns his (sometimes undeserved) reputation as some sort of magician/genius.