We’ve all heard the jokes and snickers about Microsoft’s infamous usability (ahem) in their tools. Today I have been working on my presentation for the NMC Symposium on Mashups that I am to give next week via Adobe Connect. I know Connect fairly weel as I use it here at PSU with some regularity and we have perhaps one of the best ACP for teaching and learning experts (I am a little biased) in the country sitting down the hall from me in Yvonne Clark. So when I need to know something I can feel certain I am getting a solid answer.

Anyway, I am working up my slides using PowerPoint instead of Keynote for the first time in four years or so just so I can load it into ACP and let it run the right way — I am even using the shiny new and very good looking PPT 2008 for my Mac. The software looks OK, but I have to admit it is slow and just doesn’t seem to work the way I want it to … not that solid usability starts and stops with my needs, it should at least not make me feel totally out on my own. At one point I was trying to use the new and improved transition feature and thanks to the perfect placement of the tooltip popup I couldn’t see what transitions were hiding beneath. Not a big deal, but an obvious opportunity for a screencap …

All I am going to say is that Alan, you owe me one … only b/c of the PPT lock in!