If you're a regular reader of my blog, you're probably a spam bot. :P In any case, you might've noticed that certain parts of the site have been neglected a bit. I haven't posted on the blog much, and the EGS statistics are horribly out of date.

The reason for this is that I've been busy on my master's thesis. Today, I did a presentation about my work, which went pretty well I think (I don't have the results yet so I can't know for sure). I've been sick for the past week and still hadn't recovered completely, but it still went well regardless.

Now the presentation's done and my thesis pretty much complete, which means that finally, after more than six years, the end is in sight. If all goes well (and I don't see why it wouldn't at this point) I will receive my master's degree on November 24th, a day before my birthday. In a way it's almost scary; I've been a student for six years, then suddenly I won't be anymore. There's also some practical concerns. Students can get a creditcard regardless, but once I stop being a student I'll need an income to keep it. Since I'm still waiting for the final word on my scholarship for Japan, I'm not sure how that's going to work. I'll also lose my 100Mbps Internet connection, which is for students only. But, c'est la vie.

I've been writing my thesis in Office 2007, and I must say, I'm really impressed. MS managed to make Office more powerful, yet far easier to use. Of course there's still some bugs (it's only Beta 2 TR after all), but I have very high expectations of the release version.

Today's presentation in particular I gave using my laptop, running Windows Vista RC2 (build 5744) and PowerPoint 2007. I was pleased to see that my favourite (but very underused) PowerPoint feature, presenter view, hasn't been neglected in the new version. With presenter view, you get the regular presentation on the VGA out (attached to a beamer usually) and a special view on the LCD screen that shows the current slide, a thumbnail list of slides, the duration of the presentation, and (most importantly) the notes you added to the current slide. Far more useful than just mirroring the LCD and VGA displays, since it allows me to get a better idea of where I'm at, and I can keep notes without having to use cards or put too much information on the slide itself.

In PowerPoint 2007, presenter view has been reorganised a little. In previous versions, the slide thumbnails were on the left, and the notes on the bottom. Now, the slide thumbnails are on the bottom, and the notes on the right. This means there's more room for the notes. Besides showing the presentation duration, it also shows the current time, which is also new.

Considering I'm studying computer science, I'm surprised there's not more students who know about this very useful feature.

And by the way, if you're curious about what my thesis is about exactly, I'll have to keep you in suspense for a bit longer; it's simply too complicated for me to effectively explain in a blog post. But rest assured that once my thesis is officially finished, I'll put it up here so you can read it for yourself.

Categories: University
Posted on: 2006-10-26 19:34 UTC.