I’ve been reading Presentation Zen lately, and various related resources. I’ll credit Stanford Law School Professor, Larry Lessig, with exposing me to “alternate” styles of presentation when he gave a talk at Google last Summer.

Some interesting quotes and links I picked up along the way, with credits.

“If someone that did not attend to [sic] my presentation can understand anything if I mail them my slides, I have made a really bad set of slides. Really bad.” — eirikso.com.

“What a computer is to me is it’s the most remarkable tool that we’ve ever come up with, and it’s the equivalent of a bicycle for our minds.” — Steve Jobs.

An excellent presentation from Seth Godin at the Gel Conference, on all things broken!

Jonathan Shewchuk’s tips for academic talks.

“Start-up a PowerPoint presentation and the average IQ of the room drops by 10 points.” – Anon

A suicide PowerPoint presentation featured on The Onion.

I’m installing Windows XP on a Mac. Well, a lot of folks are doing that today thanks to BootCamp, but there’s a difference: I own a PowerBook, not a MacIntel. (For the non-technologists, the PowerBook uses a PowerPC processor, not an Intel x86 processor.) I came across a qemu port for Mac OS X named Q that emulates an x86 very, very, slowly. So I’m installing Windows, well, because you can.

Apart from the performance, the other thing that’s been bothering me is Microsoft’s counter: there’s a little counter by the side which has been saying “Setup will complete in approximately 23 minutes” for the last couple of hours. I mean, if you’re gonna put a counter there, shouldn’t it accurately reflect the time remaining, based on the speed of the processor you’re running on? Right now, it seems to me like the timestamps have been hardcoded, and even if it takes days to install, it will still maintain a cheery-faced “23 minutes to completion.”

Here’s a preview of Windows Vista. The soundtrack seems to be a Microsoft original; the operating system on the other hand, ahem. This is an interesting followup to a previous post by me.

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This is a pretty interesting (and sadly true) parody of the iPod packaging.

Reminds me of Antoine de Saint Exupéry’s comment on design: "Perfection in engineering is achieved not when there is nothing left to add, but when there is nothing left to take away." This reflects the important distinction between Apple and Microsoft …

Michael Desmond has a piece in PC World, titled, Ten Reasons to Buy Windows Vista. Frankly, after reading his article, it seemed to me like, “Ten Features that Windows Vista borrowed from Mac OS X Tiger”. And even on the PC platform, there are free (as in beer or as in freedom) third-party utilities that give you everything. If you’re running Windows XP, the only reason to upgrade seems to be a shiny new Aqua-inspired UI called Aero, and that too, if your graphics card can handle it.

Here’s what I mean:

1. Security, security, security: Mac OS is based on OpenBSD, has only had one virus worthy of mention so far (which, BTW, spreads by relying on the user clicking it and then wilfully giving it the administrator password. Vista is only now getting User Account Protection (and it’s a Microsoft version-one feature, we all know what that means). On Mac OS X, it’s been like that ever since the switch to OpenBSD, so administrator privileges are not required for regular use (like running programs, you know.)
2. Internet Explorer 7, a Firefox-inspired makeover: (Those are Desmond’s words, not mine.) Mac OS has Safari, that is better than either Firefox or IE. It’s the only browser to pass the ACID-2 test; even Firefox cannot boast of that much standards compliance. I’m still not sure why buying a new operating system to get a browser makes more sense than downloading the better browser for free on your current OS.
3. Righteous eye candy: Windows plays catch-up to Mac OS. Yet again. Yawwwnn.
4. Desktop search: Spotlight has been here for how long now? And on Windows, trust it to the guys who know search: Google. Google Desktop is a free download for Windows 2000/XP. (Disclaimer: I worked on Google Desktop.)
5. Better updates: Good thing they corrected yet another mistake. And yet another feature that has been the right way on Mac OS. Why was checking for operating system updates ever a feature accessed by a web browser?
6. More media: Desmond boasts Windows’ new media player, dvd creation software and photo manager. Hmm, that sounds like iTunes, iDVD and iPhoto to me. And now, iWeb, since 2006. Available free with every Mac.
7. Parental controls: Seen that, but never had to use it. So I don’t know how good it is on Mac OS X, but it exists.
8. Better backups: Copy and Paste. Because your data isn’t stored in C:\Documents and Settings\Username\Application Data\Company\Program\somewhere. Pick up your home directory, and put it where you want to back it up. Your documents and settings go with it. For more power, get the free Apple Backup.
9. Peer-to-peer collaboration: Bon jour, mes amis.
10. Quick setup: This is one where I can’t compare Windows and Mac OS. Mac OS came preinstalled on my PowerBook (obviously), and I haven’t ever had to reinstall it. Windows, on the other hand, has stolen precious days out of my life, because the only way to make my system faster was to reinstall it. Of course, the 15-minute installation time is only for the OS itself … (but even that is a huge help to those have to live with it).

I must add that (most of) these features have existed on Mac OS for quite a long time, so they have been better tested and exercised. I’ve never been able to rely on first-generation Microsoft products, so I have my reservations there. The only reason to stay with Windows is if you have Windows-only applications. Then again, they work fine on your machine today, so why upgrade?

I switched from being a heavy Windows user (and developer; check out the Projects section on my website) to a Mac user last year. The transition has been smooth and painless, and I’m still discovering features and applications that make me go wow. If you’re in the market for a new computer, do seriously consider a Mac. You’ll thank yourself for it for years to come.

Update: This comic sums it up nicely.