Alamo PC Organization: HOME > PC Alamode Magazine > Product Reviews

cat

 

Review of:
Visual Thunder Ver 1.2 
by Morris Johnston
If you already have PowerPoint release 7 or 8, this add-on software has hundreds of new templates to help highlight your presentation. This software is not an intuitively easy program to use but it offers a collection of templates; clipart; buttons; backgrounds; photos; and sound files that can jazz up any material you want to present to the world. Having said this about Visual Thunder, let's get down to it. 

It is very simple to install. The major drawback I find with it is that it requires I keep the CD in my CD-ROM and PowerPoint must be running to be able to use any of the graphic elements. The one thing I like about this program is that whether you want to use a template; background; texture; or clipart they are all transferred to PowerPoint in the same way. This is done from the Viewing Gallery — which has thumbnail size images of all the graphic elements in it. You select the category of graphic or template you seek and it is loaded into a Viewing Gallery. Once there you can browse the images and select one. From the File menu choose transfer or type the CTRL and T key at the same time and your graphic element will be transferred to PowerPoint. 
 
 

Templates

The templates are accessible from the main menu button bars. They separate the templates into several categories as follows: 
     
  • Fusion: Offers an assortment of colors with variations in lighting and graphic detail. 
  • Silhouettes: These are silhouettes and photo real slide templates which capture the spirit of winning team, strategy, partnership, etc. 
  • Cutting Edge: Captures items that have an edge with backgrounds that span from steel to paper. 
  • Elements: Wood, Tree Bark, Cork, Marble, Rock and Stone with a little leather and silk thrown in for fun. 
  • Man Made: Wild painted backgrounds and soft noise. 
  • This & That: Things from soft watercolor templates to coffee bean textures.

Textures

The textures are good to add a slice of color or splash of interest to otherwise dry material or simply to highlight a point you want everyone to take home with them. This program has approximately 100 textures that are easy to view in the View Gallery. To use a texture — you add an auto-shape on your slide and then transfer your selected texture from the Gallery into your shape. 

Clipart

There are many, many useable clip art images/objects to help you demonstrate your point. Simply select the clipart you want from The Viewing Gallery and transfer it to your PowerPoint presentation. 
 
 

Shapes

The category Shapes includes: 
     
  • Buttons: Use these to move to the next slide, bring in test lines or cue a sound effect. 
  • Backgrounds: These are built without title bars or text boxes - and they are worth checking out. 
  • Pieces: These are small portions of the templates that can be added to a slide to spice it up graphically without having to create your own. 
All of these are transferred to PowerPoint the same way as the templates and textures. 
 
 

Headers

These are selected words and phrases that were captured graphically. They are offered in three different styles or options: 
     
  • Plain Jane - simply black text ( different font styles and arrangements) 
  • Shadows - colored text with shadows 
  • SheBang - different fill effects and textures make the text stand out. 
Headers come in handy when you need to build a presentation in a hurry and still make it look like it took you hours of blood, sweat and tears. 
 
 

Photos

There are more than 55 photographic images that can make a great addition to a business presentation. They were of good quality and easily resizable. 
 
 

Sounds

The sound files were also broken down into three categories as follows: 
  • Transitions: mostly bells, whistles, and techno sounds. 
  • Events: sounds that relate to events like scissors cutting, fax machines faxing, you get the picture. 
  • Voices: some of these are great, for example the one that say's "absolutely not" was one of my favorites.
This is a very useful piece of software if you create/make a lot of presentations to groups or individuals. It can spice up an old presentation with a new look and/or sound. 

 I called to order a copy for my company and ran into a small problem with their ordering service however that was quickly ironed out via e-mail, so I would highly recommend this software to anyone who is using PowerPoint for presentations. Street price is $89.95 which is a good value for all the features that it includes. 

 Muddy Shoes Software, LLC, 342 Lageschulte St., Barrington, IL 60010, Phone 847/381-3695, www.muddyshoes.com

 Morris Johnston is a Gas Leak Technician with Souther Cross, of Norcross Georgia, presently living and working here in San Antonio with the local City Public Service. He and his wife Juanita represent Hands Technology as Technology Consultants, helping people buy and learn their computer. They can be reached online at JPUB@AOL.COM.