Would You Like a Mac Dongle With That?

Macs and PCs can sometimes get along, sometimes not get along. Mac users swear by the stability and operation of their notebooks and PC users say they have more choice in software. Whatever the case may be, there are a few things to consider when using a notebook to run a slide show from.

Firstly, I like PowerPoint and I use it for my own presentations. I lecture about ten times per week and many times I use a PowerPoint slide show, when I need to show information. I have a Dell Inspiron 700m and it is a great little PC. I plug a VGA cable in, hit my 'Fn CRT' buttons and it works (most of the time). The PowerPoint comes up and looks great. I must mention that I don't use transitions, I simply do sharp changes from one slide to the next. I use custom animation to illustrate things and I embed AV, but that's about it.

So, I'll back up a bit to the last conference I was at (Las Vegas), taking care of AV. There was a problem with a Mac-produced PDF turned into a PPT. It didn't work on the PC. When I asked three (3) Mac users if we could try a Mac to run the slides from, not one of them were able to do it because they didn't have their Mac VGA dongle with them! It's just one more item to add to a checklist, but often forgotten about. I've seen three versions of this dongle/adapter - DVI, Mini-DVI and Micro-DVI! Which do you have?*

I'll back up a couple of years to AV in Washington, DC. A presenter wanted to run a show from his Mac, but didn't supply the notebook until just before he was going to present (maybe a half hour or so before). I asked about the dongle and he didn't have one because he didn't realize he would need it. Off he went to the nearest Mac store in a nearby mall to buy one. The time slots changed and there was very little time to change over when he got back, but I had him up and running, even with the multimedia playback (on-the-fly audio level adjustment, resolution changeover, etc).

There were a few other times that this sort of thing happened as well, but those two situations got event coordinators and AV staff pretty nervous. I must mention that I like Keynote as a slide show program because of the slick transitions, and I am not saying the Mac is a bad choice, but one of the caveats of owning a Mac is the dongle situation.

I try to carry as many small connectors as I can, but I don't have everything ever invented at any given time. So, Mac users, you need to carry your accessories with you. PC users, you don't have to, but please find which 'unique' key combination you need to press in order to display your slide show. In Mac, it's 'detect display' and in PC, it can be 'Fn CRT' (F5 or F* or even F7, I've seen) and when that doesn't work, try to right click on the desktop to see the graphic output options. If that doesn't work, you may need to re-boot (in this day and age? Yes!)

The DVI vs VGA topic can be found in a google search (mini DVI - Mac, VGA - PC).

* "...it might make sense for Apple to standardize on fewer laptop display connectors." (from: http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=477977)

Cheerio! Stay tuned!
Buck Moore
Presentation AV Specialist
Public Speaker