I just logged into my iStockphoto.com account and found this picture as picture of the year on the main page. Title is "Late for the Trash," and the photographer  is Trent Bell. I don’t know what presentation I’ll use it for yet, but I couldn’t resist. It’s a really good visual.

I’ve been a happy customer of iStockphoto for two or three years now. They have a great inventory of stock photos, with a very serviceable keyword search, and I can download immediately when I’m working on a presentation. It’s not expensive. This one (it’s smallest size, 447 x 268 pixels, which is fine for blog purposes) cost me one credit, and I can buy 10 credits for $14, or 50 for $65. It used to be 30 credits for $25, so maybe I shouldn’t be posting this. The pictures come in four sizes, from extra small to large, and the large, in this case, would have been 3000 x 1804, which would have been 10 credits.

This is what I do nowadays for presentations. Nobody wants to read bullets anyhow, so I use a photo to highlight, a title, and I pretty much know what I want to say. I hate PowerPoint as a teleprompter.

And, by the way, gulp, I don’t take money to plug sites or products. I pay iStockphoto, for example, they don’t pay me. I was about to publish this post when I realized some people, especially newcomers to this blog, might think I’m just hidden advertising. I’d hate for you to think that. I do recommend books, and occasionally software, and especially books and software I’ve written and helped to develop; but you know which they are. My bias on my own books and software is out there and I hope very open.

I make that addition for newcomers. I think if you’ve been with me for a while you’ve already figured that out.