"Did you ever wonder how almost overnight the whole universe of Web sites suddenly started blinking and burping with animations, flashing and flipping with banner advertisements, and filling every blank spot of screen space with interactive animations?

Where did all of the slick computer programmers, artists, writers and animation choreographers come from to suddenly create and post online what may be millions of these sophisticated Web page add-ons?

If you've ever taken a stab at setting up a Web page or establishing a blog from Yahoo/Google/My Space/etc. you know that nothing you can do even begins to match the verve and vigor or the animated elements that grace the Web sites of well-heeled outfits.

We know vaguely that these bells and whistles are mostly created by trained people using expensive software from Adobe Systems Inc. and a few other players in the high-end graphics world. Folks tend to call them Flash animations or SWFs (Shockwave Flash) or FLVs (Flash Video Files).

But how does a small business, not to mention just an ordinary Web player, even approach this stuff that Internet users take for granted and come to expect?

For that matter how can you hope that your own PowerPoint pitches will have any street cred when it's so lame compared to the stuff your audience sees every time they hop onto YouTube.com?

With thoughts like these gnawing away somewhere behind my eye sockets, I was a sucker in waiting when the geniuses behind a moderately costly ($299) program called Wildform WildPresenter Pro, at Wildform.com, came calling with a review sample."

"I agreed to take on a review of this program. Several weeks later I can tell you that it works absolute wonders..."

"...if you're willing to spend a couple of hours daily for a few days, you will get the hang of this powerhouse and you will no longer wonder how the big guys work their Web magic. You'll work your own wonders. WildPresenter Pro will let you come very close to the big guys with far less cost and far less learning time.

The basic idea behind the software is to let users import just about any type of graphics file to be had into a single program that will then mix it with other files and then slice and dice the lot of them for output as a new file in the Internet standard SWF or FLV formats.

Way high up in the bragging rights is that Wildform can take presentations put together in Microsoft PowerPoint and convert them into SWFs or FLVs for use everywhere, from Web sites and blogs to corporate boardrooms.

I'm betting that there are a lot of high-powered executive types and scholars who would find $299 a cheap price to pay for turning their carefully cobbled PowerPoints into the SWF format that is used by storied Adobe's Shockwave and Macromedia suite of programs that fill the Web with moving graphics.

Furthermore, the PowerPoints can then be combined with other files that PowerPoint can't handle, like Apple's QuickTime movies and other SWF and FLVs and combined into a single production.

These mongrelized menageries of files are imported into a workspace that looks a lot like Microsoft's PowerPoint display with individual slides listed down a skinny column to the left and a big work space to the right.

I wish I could tell you there was a magic wand to create the miracles without human intervention, but the reality is a user must manage a fairly large number of tools to handle the issues involved in turning a pile of multimedia marble into a programmer's Pieta.

The heavy lifting starts with using WildPresenter's own set of tools for text, shapes, titles and such to handle the continuity chores so the mixed up stuff that you import makes sense when exported.

Other big issues are associated with things like frame rates and the bit rates for sound quality that must be reconciled to produce a unified whole. The software is powerful in these areas, letting you hone down frame by frame, sound bit by sound bit in a timeline display familiar to all computer movie hobbyists."

"... I loved working with it, and if I ever need a job writing Web sites, Wildform Presenter Pro will be my ace in the hole."