Stupid question

[zdas04]

I need a 40 minute (and a 30 minute, and a 10 minute) countdown timer for a PowerPoint presentation. When you do a Google for "PowerPoint Timers" you get a whole bunch of timers that were written (horribly) in PowerPoint (not the best way use of space, one slide per second). My presentation already has hundreds of slides, don't want 2400 more.

So I went into AutoCad 2013 and built 2400 rectangles (a 40 X 60 grid) with numbers from 40:00 to 00:00. What a tedious undertaking, but I got it done in under an hour. Then I built a layout with a rectangle with the same aspect ratio as my boxes and copied the layout 60 times (40:00 to 39:01). Now I can (and did) print all the layouts into a .pdf. I can go into PhotoShop and extract the layouts into layers that I can then animate into a .gif that comes into PowerPoint clean, easy, reliable, and small. An incredible amount of computing horsepower and time to do a trivial thing.

Anyone got an idea of a less stupid way to do this?

David Simpson, PE
MuleShoe Engineering

"Belief" is the acceptance of an hypotheses in the absence of data.
"Prejudice" is having an opinion not supported by the preponderance of the data.
"Knowledge" is only found through the accumulation and analysis of data.
The plural of anecdote is not "data"

 

[MikeHalloran]

Rube would be proud.


Mike Halloran
Pembroke Pines, FL, USA

 

[DRWeig]

This one sure is easy to use:

http://www.janusec.com/product/4/janus+powerpoint+countdown+timer

It's not exactly like what you want (it's a floating window / not part of your slideshow).

For the effort, though, I'd choose this one.

I'm sure your Rube method looks better...

Best to you,

Goober Dave

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[zdas04]

I wish I had read your post closer. I bought it. I need it to countdown lunch 5 times, 35 breaks and the test. It is a bit awkward for that. They wanted me to wait until my PayPal check cleared in 3-4 workdays before they'd give me the registration code, but I convinced them I was good for $10. It doesn't look like it will work at all.

David Simpson, PE
MuleShoe Engineering

"Belief" is the acceptance of an hypotheses in the absence of data.
"Prejudice" is having an opinion not supported by the preponderance of the data.
"Knowledge" is only found through the accumulation and analysis of data.
The plural of anecdote is not "data"

 

[DRWeig]

Aw, sorry David!

I was thinking from some of your earlier posts that your presentations are generally more formal than what I do. My audience doesn't mind watching me fiddle with setting the timer.

Best to you,

Goober Dave

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[zdas04]

I find that when the "Break" slide comes up with a countdown timer already counting down that people believe that I'm serious about a 10 minute break without having to be as much of a jerk. I start talking again when the timer runs out. Early in the week I'm talking to one or two people. By the end of the week most everyone is in their seats when the timer runs out. Time management becomes really important when you're trying to cram 60 hours of material into 40 hours. I'm toying with making it a two week course, but people find it impossible to break away for 5 days, 6 would be over the top.

As I started building the timer in PhotoShop with the first 60 AutoCAD layers I realized that PhotoShop can handle it just fine without the (fairly large) AutoCAD file. I got it built and PhotoShop failed because of an unpublished 500 frame limitation in their gif converter. I deleted 80% of the frames (leave 30:00 up for 5 seconds and then ticks over to 29:55, etc.) and it worked fine. I've attached the 30 minute version in case anyone needs it. It works well in PowerPoint and is pretty small.

David Simpson, PE
MuleShoe Engineering

"Belief" is the acceptance of an hypotheses in the absence of data.
"Prejudice" is having an opinion not supported by the preponderance of the data.
"Knowledge" is only found through the accumulation and analysis of data.
The plural of anecdote is not "data"

 

[DRWeig]

Nice gif!

Best to you,

Goober Dave

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[zdas04]

At my charge rate it only cost $4k to create. Too bad I couldn't charge the time. The one you pointed me to was $10. I bought a 15 minute AVI a couple months back that also cost $10 (but it was almost 2 MB and my file was getting too big to load).

David Simpson, PE
MuleShoe Engineering

"Belief" is the acceptance of an hypotheses in the absence of data.
"Prejudice" is having an opinion not supported by the preponderance of the data.
"Knowledge" is only found through the accumulation and analysis of data.
The plural of anecdote is not "data"

 

[DRWeig]

Yeesh, no good solution always bites.

Sounds like there might be a small market for an actual PowerPoint add-on countdown timer. I'm going to tip off a guy I know who can do that sort of Microsoft wizardry.

Best to you,

Goober Dave

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[zdas04]

From the number of forums where people are looking for something decent that doesn't involve adding 60 slides/minute to your presentation I'd say there is a real market. Rather than integrating it with PowerPoint (and having to do version control), a program that writes gif files on the fly would really satisfy the need.

David Simpson, PE
MuleShoe Engineering

"Belief" is the acceptance of an hypotheses in the absence of data.
"Prejudice" is having an opinion not supported by the preponderance of the data.
"Knowledge" is only found through the accumulation and analysis of data.
The plural of anecdote is not "data"

 

[DRWeig]

Even better. The guy I know who can do that is my son. I'll put him on it if he's not too busy.

DW

Best to you,

Goober Dave

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