In the final blog post of Chris Ratcliff’s series about speaking at a security conference, it’s SteelCon 2016 and the day of the presentation itself. Read on for a presenters-eye-view of standing up and giving a talk – and why, if you haven’t already, you should give it a go. So far in these blog posts I’ve gone from never having set foot in a security con, to doing my first talk to preparing my latest one. This post is the talk itself…Oh, what a day. Steelcon is a fantastic event, with great talks and a great atmosphere. Since it started I’ve been taking photos for the event. That means bouncing from hall to hall, taking photos, chatting with folk, Tweeting photos and generally keeping an eye on everything going on. The downside of this is that I never really get a chance to sit down and watch a full talk live, but on the upside I don’t have time to worry about my presentation. About half an hour before my slot I go into presentation mode. Boot the laptop, check my clicker is working, make sure the presentation is there and quickly run through the slides.

I start pacing and I’ve got about 10 mins before I need to go up. How To Lose Weight Overnight For Weigh InI’m making idle chit chat with people, but mostly I’m thinking about the talk.4 Oz Plastic Jars With Lids WholesaleOnce I’d resolved an AV issue getting my laptop hooked up to both the room and recording equipment, I could begin. Inexpensive Bathroom CurtainsThis really is the easy bit, because the slides can’t be changed now, you’ve rehearsed (hopefully) the talking bit, it’s now just a case of doing it. The one piece of advice I was given very early on was “know your opening”. If you know the first thing you’re going to say when you open your mouth, then the rest will flow from there.

And I fluffed the first thing I had to say. The important thing is not to dwell on your mistakes. They’ve happened, and they can’t be changed. Just keep moving on. I knew the next bit, and off I went. I made a few mistakes as I went through, especially getting myself horribly confused on the Fight Club reference about the cost of a safety recall vs the cost of the fines or compensation. I also knew going in I was struggling with the name of the airbag manufacturer. Takata, simply pronounced ta-cat-a. I can do it now, takatatakatatakatatakatatakatatakatatakatatakatatakatatakata, but I knew I’d struggled with it going into the talk and sure enough I saw it looming and tripped again. I had to remember that at a friendly event, filled with likeminded people, the room is one of the most supportive you’ll ever get as a presenter. Everyone there wants to enjoy the talk, and wants you to do well. There’s also no harm in being vulnerable, being open, being honest. When I forgot one of the important researcher’s names I was citing and someone called it out, I had to say something so I was honest about why I kept forgetting.

I was lucky this year that Steelcon had video recording running, and running reliably, across all the talks so I could watch my talk back. It’s weird, it’s a bit uncomfortable, but it’s crucial in being able to identify what went well, and what you can improve. I discovered errors I’d made and not even noticed – such as mixing up a clutch and throttle pedal – while others were not having planned out a slide properly and instead of making the point I wanted, I’d ended up making a different one. I was pleased with the response I received both at the event straight after the talk, and subsequently on social media. If you can, however, solicit feedback and critique. While it’s nice to get praise, constructive feedback will give you a different perspective on how things went and areas to work on next time. Thinking back to my crisis of confidence I remembered the thing I worried about most; the lack of technical depth. The truth is that I’d laid my stall out well in my CFP so it was clear that my talk was going to be high level.

On top of that I only really had 45 minutes or so, and a lot of ground to cover – 60 slides in fact! Those who knew the subject took away something new, but what I came to realise was that many people came in with little or no knowledge of the subject. What’s obvious or basic to me is only that because I’ve been dabbling in car systems for three or four years. The field of computer security is so huge that no one knows everything about everything, and what’s basic for one person is enlightening for another. If you have a desire to talk at a security con (or anywhere!) then I hope this has been useful, or at the very least shown what it’s like from behind the microphone. It can be daunting to stand up and ask people to listen to you, but it’s a thrilling challenge, and one I would recommend anyone tries at least once.Has this happened to you? You connect your laptop to the data projector, fire it up and sure enough the image is displayed on the screen … but … it doesn’t look very good.

It is either fuzzy, hard to see, or missing some of the lines. Before you get that panicked feeling, check these five most common problems with the poor display of a computer presentation. Problem #1 – Resolution mismatch between projector and computer If your computer’s display resolution is higher than the native display resolution of the data projector, the image may seem to be of poor quality or even missing some of the image. This is caused when a data projector adjusts a higher resolution image down to a lower resolution that it can display. Most of the time the way it does the conversion is to drop lines out of the higher resolution display to come down to the lower resolution. This can result in the missing lines. To solve this problem, there are two choices. The first choice is to adjust the display resolution of the computer to match the resolution of the data projector. This can usually be done through the display settings in the operating system. The second choice is to get a data projector that has the same native resolution as the computer.

Problem #2 – Dual Display Mode on Laptop On some laptops, the video display circuits are unable to output a strong enough signal to the external video port if the internal display is also on. Toggle to the display mode where the video image is only sent out the external video port to see if this may solve the problem. To switch display modes in Windows 8 and above, press Windows+P (hold the Windows key and press the letter P). You can now use your arrow keys to select the mode you want and press Enter when done (or use your mouse to click on the desired mode). Many laptops also have a key combination that will allow you to rotate between the display modes. If you have Windows 7, this will be the method you use to change display modes. Look for a key (usually one of the function keys) that has a picture of a display on it. You usually have to hold a special Function key (usually labeled Fn) and press this key to switch between the different modes. After you press the key combination, wait at least five to ten seconds for the new setting to take effect before you toggle to the next setting.

Problem #3 – Poor Room Lighting The image you see displayed on the screen may look poor because the lighting in the room is washing out the image being projected. If there are lights directly above the screen or pointed towards the screen, this will contribute to a poor image. Turn off the lights directly above the screen. If this also turns off too many lights that it would not be comfortable for the audience, you will have to switch to plan B. If the lights can’t be turned off, you can try to unscrew the offending light bulbs in order to solve the problem. You may want to ask the maintenance staff at the site to do this for you so that it is done safely. Problem #4 – Weak Projector or Bulb The brightness of a data projector is measured in lumens, a measure of the light emitted by one candle. If you have a projector that has a brightness rating less than 800 lumens, you may not see a bright image until the lights are turned off because the brightness of the projector is too low.

If you have a projector that is rated as brighter than 800 lumens, the problem may be the projector bulb. The bulbs in data projectors generally do not pop and go out when they have reached the end of their life. They usually slowly lose power over a longer period of time. If the bulb in the projector is past half of it’s rated life, the image will become quite dim and hard to see. Each bulb has a rated life, usually measured in hours and most portable or boardroom projectors have rated lives of 1,000 to 2,000 hours. To check if this is a problem, ask the technical staff to check how many hours the projector bulb has been used. There is usually a bulb usage option on the projector menu that tracks how many hours the bulb has been used. If it is over half of the rated life, this may be your problem. If you cannot get a new data projector, the only way to solve this problem is to replace the bulb. This is harder because the bulbs are so expensive that replacement bulbs are not usually on site, and even if they are, you need to wait until the projector has cooled down enough to handle the old bulb.

The one thing you can do is to dim more of the lights in the room to make the image seem brighter. Problem #5 – Poor Choice of Slide Colors Sometimes when all other factors seem fine, our presentation still looks poor. It may be due to the colors you have chosen. In order to have a clear image, you need to pick background and text colors that have a lot of contrast. Data projectors tend to not display the colors exactly as they appear on your computer screen. This can lead to an image that looks great on your computer not looking very good when it gets displayed through the data projector. Try to pick colors with high contrast, such as dark backgrounds with yellow or white text, in order to make the image more readable. Backgrounds that contain images can sometimes cause problems as text seems to blend into the background instead of floating above it.  You can check the contrast of two colors using my free Color Contrast Calculator. The next time your image looks less than perfect, check to see if one of these problems is the cause.