One of the unavoidable things about college, and increasingly work life, is PowerPoint. Most of us have, at one point or another, had to slap some slides together and give a presentation to our friends, family, class, co-workers, or boss.

Good PowerPoint presentations are more fun, more impactful, and more impressive to listen to. And all they do differently is follow a few simple guidelines.

The New 10 Commandments of PowerPoint Presentations

1. Thou shall be seen.

Ensure your text is large enough to be read easily by those sitting in the back of thy presentation room, suggesting 36 point font as your minimum. Use text, graphics, and colors that have high contrast with the background that are appropriate, complementary, and visually pleasing.

2. Thou shall make points, not paragraphs.

There is no reason to ever have more than a few words per slide.  Follow the 6 by 6 rule, which is using no more than six words per line and no more than six lines/bullet points per slide. Or, think of it like Twitter: If you can’t get your point across briefly, you need to further narrow your point.

3. Thou shall not only use text.

Pictures say a thousand words and videos are usually more interesting than you are.  Images, video clips, and sound bites vary the tempo and feel of the presentation. However, limit video and audio to no longer than 10-20% of your total presentation time.

4. Thou shall not bullet.

A bulleted list looks like something I’m not going to want to read.  Think like a graphic designer and use colors, fonts, and spacing to make your presentation more appealing to the eye.  Organize your content well and try to avoid using the big black dots.

5. Thou shall not over-clutter.

Generally speaking, an audience wants one or two things to focus on per slide, whether it’s a point of text or an image.  You need to balance your content with white space to ensure an uncluttered, aesthetic composition and a logic to your arrangement that audiences can easily follow.

6. Thou shall not use transitions.

Transitions are the optional animations between slides and really should be deleted from PowerPoint entirely!  No transitions ever, ever, ever. Keep it simple. But, do use “black-out” slides in your presentation at times when you want the audience to focus exclusively on you without distraction.

7. Thou shall cite thy work.

You must cite sources for any image, graphic, or text on the slide in which that material is presented.  Also, your presentation should include a works cited slide(s) visible immediately after your conclusion.

8. Thou shall not read the slides.

Your slides are a visual aid to enhance your speech, not replace it. Use slides as a jumping-off point for other things. Establish and maintain eye contact with your audience, not the screen.  You are the presenter, not PowerPoint.

9. Thou shall rehearse.

Things can go wrong sometimes.  You may easily find a typographical error on a slide or some slides may be in the wrong order than what you thought. Rehearse your presentation at least once — it’ll automatically make your speech better-sounding and better-timed when you do it for real.

10. Thou shall know less is more.

The key to a good presentation is how short it is.  Try not to ramble or add unnecessary information. Design presentations that are visually interesting, integrate well with your message, and engage the audience.  A great presentation should leave your audience wanting more!

Copyright 2009 Matt Rygelski. May be reprinted for educational/instructional use with appropriate citation.

Why invest in an expensive PBX phone system when everything you need can be found in phones that simply plug right into your existing telephone jacks?

Most business telephone systems require all the phones in an office to be connected, individually, to a central control box or key service unit (KSU). The disadvantage is that the KSU and unique wiring require professional installation and programming, raising the cost and complexity of the system.

But, “non-KSU” phone systems do not require a central cabinet. Instead, each phone contains the circuitry necessary for features such as conferencing, intercom, and transfer. Installation is as easy as plugging in the phones.

Overview: Simple to install and use, this affordable multi-line speakerphone features Caller ID/Call Waiting when you subscribe to these services from your local telephone service provider. It also offers a convenient speakerphone, headset jack, 32-number speed-dial, and 3-way conferencing.

As your business expands, you can add additional telephones from within this AT&T series which can be networked into a system of up to 16 phones. Additional features include all-station paging, intercom, hold, call transfers between stations, four lighted line indicators, 16 intercom one-touch keys, two data ports, Centrex compatibility, and power failure protection.

The setup: For this review, we purchased one new ATT 1070 speakerphone (as well as an ATT 1080, which was necessary for testing features only available when using 2 or more phones of this phone system series). We connected each phone’s first two lines together, in a star topology, to distribute both lines of a two-line SIP adapter by Sipura using G.711u audio compression to our Asterisk 1.4 voice server.

As you can see by the picture on the right (click to zoom), all of the external telephone lines in your home or office must be wired to all phones. It is actually very common for homes and small offices to already have this wiring plan, so these new phones simply plug in where the old phones were once connected! Optionally, Line 4 can be shared by all phones, or unique as a “private line” exclusive to one phone, or a group of phones that might need a dedicated telephone number for external callers to reach them directly.

First thoughts: Unlike recent AT&T 4-line phones that looked more like a cheap, plastic, consumer-grade, home telephone trying to survive the daily abuse of an office environment, the telephones in this new series of “non-KSU” intercom phones (ATT 1040, ATT 1070, and ATT 1080) look and feel like professional business phones. It’s two-tone silver brushed metal and hard black plastic design fondly references back to the popular AT&T Merlin® KSU phone system of several decades ago.

The included manuals are outstanding! You receive a Quick Setup Guide, a Users Guide, and an Installation Guide. But these aren’t some tiny little pamphlet! Each of these books are about 50-150 pages, every page written in plain English, covering every single feature in a very clear and concise way to make sure you get your money’s worth out of everything this phone has to offer. (I have never been more impressed by documentation!) I found no typographical errors or confusing descriptions. The manuals really add some confidence to AT&T and the future of this new phone series!

The good: The four-way directional button and center “Enter” button become your primary tool to quickly and easily select features without the need to remember codes or special key sequences. In fact, all too often, these “non-KSU” phones will have buttons with two or more functions — not this new AT&T series! The buttons on the phone are self-explanatory and only serve the one function for which they are labeled. All related feature options appear on the blue backlit LCD screen when you are in a particular mode that offers more options. For example, when you lift the handset and press the Intercom button, the top half of the screen prompts “Intercom No.?” while the bottom half of the screen presents you to optionally “Page” a single extension (instead of simply ringing it) or to “Page All” and broadcast your announcement on all the phones in your home or office simultaneously.

Another improvement, which is why I suspect these phones aren’t backwards compatible with earlier AT&T “non-KSU” phones other than the 1000-series: the Intercom audio is digital, crystal clear. No longer will your Intercom calls be subjected to interference from a nearby radio station transmitter or other nuisance! With two phones side-by-side, you can detect a slight millisecond or so delay as an Intercom page is encoded on your phone to be then decoded on the destination phone. The sound quality is truly impressive and worthwhile. If you are currently experiencing any issues with your Intercom on older non-KSU phones, you might want to give a pair of these a test run.

The bad: If you transfer a call from one phone to the next, the caller hears nothing. No music-on-hold, no tones — nothing but silence. If they had offered an option to play a soft double-beep tone to the caller every couple of seconds, that would have been a worthwhile improvement over dead-air. (However, the ATT 1080 does play a “Please hold” recorded announcement every few seconds when a caller is transferring to an extension by way of the built-in auto attendent included on that ATT 1080 phone. But even that phone leaves the caller with dead air if they are put on hold or transferred by a human instead.)

UPDATE: We recommend adding the On Hold Plus Music On Hold 6500 system to play music-on-hold to your callers, which will solve the biggest problem in this otherwise perfect phone system.

One slight disappointment was with regards to the telephone recognizing when a caller on-hold had disconnected. I tried everything in my “toolkit” of test equipment, but it seems these phones just don’t recognize (or don’t care) when a caller that you’ve placed on-hold chooses to hang up before you return to the call. The system will continue to keep that line blinking on-hold until you retrieve it — often to the frustration of loud dialtone in your ear. Not a deal-breaker, just annoying.

It also would have been nice if the Hold button had a red-colored key for quick access. I realize its a minor complaint, but when you take a lot of calls it helps to have that button easy to find. I would suggest the purchase of a red permanent marker so you could do it yourself — you’ll thank me later!

The ugly: When integrated with an ATT 1080 with the “SYS EXT” voice messaging feature enabled, trying to figure out how to listen to your messages on any phone except the ATT 1080 is a huge headache! For a phone system that is so “menu-driven” by that directional navigation and “enter” button arrangement near the LCD screen, it is irritating to have to dig out a reference card to use this ATT 1070 phone to listen to your messages in the mailbox reserved exclusively for your extension but actually recorded and stored on the ATT 1080 voicemail/answering system. It just seems to me this could have been better thought out!

My guess is that AT&T would probably “recommend” that you purchase an ATT 1080 phone for every person who needs a voicemail/answering system, instead of using one ATT 1080 to serve voicemail for multiple ATT 1070 phone users as their advertising suggests.

Conclusion: Overall, this is the best four-line telephone AT&T has ever made! If you’ve ever experienced issues with any of the earlier four-line models, such as the ATT984, ATT974, ATT964, ATT955, ATT945, or ATT944. The 1040, 1070, and 1080 have been redesigned from the ground-up and the attention to quality really shows!! All advertised features worked beautifully, each button pressed produced the expected result — press the Transfer button while on a call, the LCD prompts “Transfer line to ?”. By keeping one function per button, and also utilizing the navigation menu-driven options through the phone’s display, anyone can easily figure out how to do anything on these phones without ever needing to read any of the documentation.

The speakerphone sounds nice, although the volume of the speaker could’ve been louder (in my opinion). Each phone allows you to control the ringing tone, volume, and delay ringing options for each line individually. Believe it or not, that level of control of line ringing assignments are usually reserved for KSU systems only! Intercom calling worked flawlessly. All-Page was loud and very practical for a busy home with an office, small business, or retail shop.

With a cost of about $100 per phone, these are an outstanding value for any large home or growing business with 2 or more phone lines looking for the simplicity of replacing their old phones with something more serious, flexible, and functional.

Ben Blakley
CEO, CANFONE.COM
http://www.canfone.com

Keith Tessler
Chief Operations Officer, The Pros Entertainment Services, Inc.
http://www.thepros.com/

John Cureton
Urban Harvest Partnership / UHP Wireless Networks
http://www.uhpwireless.com

John Greer
Owner at AeroMarine Products, Inc.
http://www.jgreer.com/

Paul Hirst
Principal at Oldham Hirst Design, PC
http://www.ohdesignpc.com/

Michael L. Newman
Vocational Consulting Group, LLC
http://www.vcgroup1.com/

The way a candidate dresses for an interview is very important because research shows that it only takes six seconds or less for someone to make a decision about what type of person you are, and if you could be a good fit for their company/organization.  This decision can be made before you even speak!  It is for this reason that your attire needs to be considered a crucial part of the interviewing process.

It is always best to be formally and conservatively dressed for an interview, even if the business is normally “business casual” dress, because you will feel more confident about your appearance, and as a result will be more confident when answering questions about yourself.  You always want to dress up, not dress down!  Below are guidelines for appropriate attire, accessories, and grooming habits when interviewing for a professional job.  Please remember, your resume has already got you this far and now its your turn to dress to impress!

MEN

Suits – A suit should be worn for all interviews.  The suit should be a dark color, such as black, pinstripe, navy blue, or dark gray, and should be conservative instead of trendy.  A suit makes a much better impression than a dress shirt and pants, and is something that will last well into your career.  Make sure that the suit fits properly; for example, the sleeves should come to the top of your wrist, the material should fit properly in the shoulders and around the neck, and the pants should just touch the top of your dress shoes.

Ties – Conservative is the key word.  Do not wear anything with bright colors or wild patterns on them.  A tie with a small print or conservative stripes that matches the suit is ideal.

Shirts - A long-sleeved white shirt should be worn under the suit, and should fit properly in the shoulders and neck.

Shoes, Socks, and Belts – Shoes should be a dark color, depending on the color of the suit, and should also be conservative.  Trendy shoes should be avoided, such as ones with buckles on them and ones made out of suede.  Shoes should be freshly shined and not scuffed! Socks should be dark in color, and should match the suit.  These include colors such as black, navy blue, and dark gray.  White socks should never be worn!  A black or brown belt should be worn, depending on the suit color.

Jewelry – Earrings, bracelets, neck chains, or any type of body rings such as tongue rings or eyebrow rings should not be worn.  Men can wear a wedding band and class ring, as long as it is limited to one ring per hand.  A nice watch is also acceptable.

Grooming – Hair, facial hair, and nails should be short, clean, and neatly trimmed.

Miscellaneous - Clothes should be clean and neatly pressed.  Avoid heavy cologne or aftershave. Try to keep tattoos covered at all times.  Do not chew gum.

WOMEN

Suits – A conservative skirted suit is considered appropriate business attire for interviews.  Dark colors such as black, navy blue, dark brown, and dark gray are best.  The skirt length should be at or slightly above the knee, and one that is shorter is considered inappropriate as business interviewing attire.  We recommend that you do not wear a pants suit to an interview.  Many interviewers view them as acceptable attire, but there are many who believe they are unacceptable in the interview process.

Blouses – A blouse that is white, ivory, or a dark color that matches the suit is best.  Bright colors and stripes should be avoided.  Long sleeves are best and the blouse should have a modest neckline.

Shoes and Pantyhose – Shoes should be black, navy blue, or dark brown, and should match the suit.  Trendy shoes should be avoided, such as ones with chunky heels and buckles, and ones that are open-toed.  It is best to buy simple and classic looking shoes for an interview.  Flats should not be worn, but heels should not be longer than two-and-a-half inches.  Shoes should be freshly shined and not scuffed!  Pantyhose should closely match the color of your skin tone.

Accessories – Minimal jewelry should be worn.  One pair of earrings, a simple chain and bracelet, a nice watch, and one ring per hand are acceptable.  Any other type of body ring, such as a nose ring, eyebrow ring, or tongue ring, should not be worn!  A lapel pin or neck scarf can also be worn as long as it matches the suit and is a subtle color.  However, do not wear any accessory that will draw bad attention to you or make you look unprofessional.

Grooming – Hair should be clean and neatly trimmed; if you have long hair it is a good idea to neatly pull it back from your face.  Make certain not to over-do your makeup; avoid bright and dark colors, and do not apply heavy makeup that day.  Again, you do not want to draw bad attention to yourself.  Nails should also be clean and neatly trimmed; nail polish is acceptable as long as the polish is a subtle color and is not chipped.

Miscellaneous – Clothes should be clean and neatly pressed.  Avoid heavy perfume/cologne.  Try to keep tattoos covered at all times.  Do not chew gum!

… could become your new home phone — cancel your landline and save more than $240 a year!

… could be connected to multiple cordless telephones throughout your house?

… could be charging and placed in one location for best cell reception, while you carry on a cordless conversation?

Tired of Playing Hide-and-Seek?

So many people these days have canceled their home landline telephone service to, instead, use only their cellular telephone exclusively as their “home number”. But the problem is that once you get home and you set the cell phone down somewhere (and relax…), your cell phone starts to ring and you are dashing all over the house trying to find it before you lose the call to voicemail! Remember when you had a “home phone” and you had extensions all over the house, within reach no matter what room you were sitting?

With the new Panasonic KX-TH1212B cordless DECT 6.0 telephone “system”, your cell phone multiplies its inexpensive phone service cost and affordable minute plan to up to 6 much more comfortable, longer battery life DECT 6.0 cordless handsets conveniently placed throughout the home. Each handset has a built-in speakerphone, Caller ID and Caller ID Call Waiting, Dial-by-name Address Book, Handset-to-Handset intercom/paging, and interference-free 1.9GHz operation — frequencies that are not shared with Wi-Fi, baby monitors, or any other consumer devices.

• Panasonic Link-to-Cell built-in technology connects your cell calls to your home handset extensions.
• Features easy initial registration using the Bluetooth Auto-Link feature (then cell phone automatically links to base via Bluetooth everytime you enter your home).
• Your cell calls will ring through on your new Panasonic DECT Link-to-Cell handset(s), including Call Waiting calls!
• Charge your cell phone while talking on this cordless phone and speak on a crystal clear connection.
• Improve the range in your house and eliminate those dropped calls; you can also still use your cell plan minutes to make calls.

First Impressions?

Whether you’ve got a home phone line and a cell phone, or just a cell phone, this is an amazing cordless phone system that works very well! After all the reviews I read on this, I must say I was a bit questionable regarding this phone. But, I decided to take the plunge. I found the performance of this phone, on both the landline and Bluetooth connection, absolutely flawless! Setup only took less than 15 minutes, as easy as you can sync any Bluetooth device to your mobile phone — of which, the manual does any excellent job of guiding you through. Finally, plug in your home phone line (if you have one) and that’s it!

Although the DECT 6.0 cordless phone system operates in a frequency range untouched by other consumer devices, Bluetooth operates in the same frequency range as Wi-Fi. If you put the cell phone too far from the Panasonic base unit, or you install the system right next to a Wi-Fi router, you will hear some obvious “clicking” in your conversation. Simply make sure you dock your cell phone in it’s charging station within 6-10 feet of the base unit, unobstructed if possible, as the instructions say to do, and you won’t have any problems. I have never had and issue with connectivity and I believe that is why.

Paring with your Bluetooth cell phone is very simple. I have mine connected with my Blackberry Curve, but this Panasonic system will allow up to two separate Bluetooth connections — so you and your signifant other can share the system. Simply leave your Bluetooth activated on your cell phone and, when you leave in the morning, it will automatically disconnect and when you come home it will automatically reconnect with your cell. It is completely transparent, just set it and forget it!

The cordless phones will ring if it is landline or cellular call, allowing you to answer either from any extension as well as allow you to make outgoing calls through your land or cell from any extension also. You can set different ringers for landline and each cell phone in order to tell if it is a landline call or cell call ringing in. It even gives one short ring when a text message is received, so you’ll know to check your cell phone for your text message.

Each handset can be set with its own ringer volumes and ringer tone choices for each call type: landline, cell 1, and cell 2. Three ringer-sounding rings are available, as well as 7 melody/musical rings. Because you are able to set different cordless extensions differently, you can place a cordless extension in a baby’s room or guest bedroom without disturbing them when an incoming call rings the rest of the house.

Save Money — Cancel your Landline!

If you plan to use the system without a landline, you’ll want to enter the programming code so the cordless handsets will automatically default to selecting the cell phone for making outbound calls. Simply pick up any handset, press the Menu button, then enter #157. It will beep to let you know the programming change has been accepted. When you enable cell-only mode, the landline is completely disabled and you will not be able to make (or receive) landline calls through the cordless even if you do connect a landline until you enter the same Menu #157 code again to re-enable the landline jack. You can toggle this feature back and forth at any time, if you ever need to change it.

Final Thoughts…

This system is absolutely great! No more running through the house to find my cell phone or missing a call all together. I simply reach over while watching TV and answer as you would any house phone regardless of which line or phone is calling in.

Pros:

Select a seperate tone for cell phone 1, cell phone 2, and your landline (if you’ve connected one), so you’ll know who is receiving the call by the type of ring tone. You can even choose an incoming call on cell phone 1 to ring only cordless handset 3, while incoming calls on cell phone 2 will ring all cordless handsets! Now that’s flexibility!

It has two bonus features that I absolutely love: First, each cordless handset has a verbal announcement feature that will speak the Caller ID information through the handset speakers so you don’t even need to look at the Caller ID to know who is calling! In addition, the system has a “Night mode” on each handset to temporarily (and automatically) turn off the ringer on the cordless extension during the times you program — without affecting the ringing on the other cordless extensions!

Adding additional handsets is super easy! The battery replacement (which you’ll likely to need in about two years or so) for other cordless telephones usually costs as much as a new phone! The Panasonic cordless handsets in this system use two, standard, rechargeable AAA batteries which can be purchased anywhere for well under $10 for a set of four! A+ to Panasonic for using an standard AAA battery, instead of some proprietary and expensive battery pack!

Cons:

If you are talking on a landline call and then your cell phone rings, you’ll hear only your cell phone ringing and you can’t answer it until you end your landline call. If you are on a cell phone call and the landline rings, you won’t even hear it ring — let alone be able to answer it! For people that have canceled their landline entirely, this won’t matter much anyway. Other than that small inconvenience, for those people who still use a landline, this system has many features for the very small price and certainly delivers what it promises!

Order Now!

For less $79, you’ll receive the Panasonic base unit plus two KX-TGA930T cordless handsets. Add additional cordless handsets, for up to 6 total, and have a phone within reach throughout the house for less than $35 each (and that price includes the batteries and charger)!