Top alternatives to PowerPoint

PowerPoints are overused. Schools force their students to use it when presenting any kind of material. And then those habits transfer over into the workforce. PowerPoints used to show how serious the presenter was by putting forth the effort to create an awesome looking visual to go along with his/her presentation. Now we live in a time where even children in elementary school can assemble a PowerPoint with little to no effort. And the other issue is PowerPoints are very lacking in visual effects. You might as well just write on a whiteboard. Here are our picks for a better presentation platform:

1. Prezi
Despite being cloud based, making all of your presentations public, and giving you limited cloud storage, Prezi is our top pick. Prezi allows editing slides just like you would edit a normal PowerPoint. But it includes powerful visual effects that can capture your audience's attention. It also includes the ability to embed videos, pictures, and sound. And it also supports multi-user editing in real time. It also has a feature similar to PowerPoint where you can share a link and others can watch your presentation on their devices in real time as well. You can check it out at prezi.com

2. Powtoon
If you are a fan of putting animations and lots of graphics on your presentations, Powtoon is for you. Powtoon includes a bunch of animations of cartoon-like characters that can make for a fun and attention-grabbing presentation. You can check it out at powtoon.com

3. Apple Slides
In all seriousness, we just ran out of ideas. But if you want to change things up for once, take a swing at Apple Slides. users with a free Apple ID can access it online from iCloud.com. If you own an Apple mobile device (iPad, iPhone, iPod Touch...) you can also access your presentations from the cloud (assuming you own the $15 USD app). You can check it out at icloud.com

4. Google Docs
Besides being almost the exact same thing as PowerPoint and Apple Slides, it does support cloud saves along with real-time collaboration. you can check it out at drive.google.com

So what presentation software are you going to use for your next big presentation? Let us know in the comments below.

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UPS power supplies - are they really worth it

It's 11:00 PM at night and you are at work finishing up a presentation for tomorrow. Suddenly, the power goes out. Now this is the part you have control over. You can choose to lose all of your work and leave the presenter (or you) hanging tomorrow. Or you can choose to have your work saved, for a thousand dollars or more out of your wallet. You may think "is my work really worth all of that money?" UPS power supplies can save your work (or game) when the power goes out, at the expense of your paycheck. UPS power supplies are basically like big batteries. When power is flowing it charges up. Then when disaster strikes, it switches to a battery and, in some higher end models, alerts you and your computer through USB that you are on battery power and you need to save and shutdown. UPS power supplies can be priceless for those who tend to forget to save their work every once in a while. But as with every helpful product, they come with disadvantages. Like all tech products, mixing and matching products and manufacturers can lead to headaches. One such example is some desktop product lines from Dell refuse to turn on when connected to certain power supplies that don't produce a 60-hertz sine wave signal. Another example is that most UPS power supplies don't support Linux. This means that if the power goes out and you are not physically close to your UPS unit to hear it beep, It will do you no good other than make you lose an extra 10 minutes of work. And OS X users are no better off. I'm not saying that UPS power supplies are bad, I'm saying that people need to carefully consider whether or not they really need a UPS. If you are already in the habit of saving every few minutes, a UPS may be more of a hassle to maintain. But if saving never crosses your mind until you finish, or you live on an unstable power grid, a UPS may be worth your consideration. UPS units are like insurance. Some people will invest in it, never need it, and their investment goes to waste. But others will get it, and the power will go out, and the work it saves may be worth tenfold the price of the UPS.