You may have experienced or witnessed a presentation beset with technical difficulties (I did a couple of weeks ago).  It is a horrible experience to be on the stage when this happens, but it is always good to know that you are not alone.  It happens to everyone!  In her latest blog post Athene Donald (Professor of Experimental Physics at the University of Cambridge) discusses her latest experience –

‘Technical glitches during talks are all too common, but never easy to cope with. Recently I had a simple talk to give, one which could safely be brought along on a memory stick to the event: I was giving a brief talk to a CUSPE meeting on ‘Effective Policy to Bridge the STEM Skills Gap’ in which I had only a handful of slides with some relevant data on, plus a few striking images of the sorts of things that deter girls from sticking with subjects like physics at schools. I couldn’t imagine a problem.  How wrong can one be? I have never seen a computer manage to mangle ten simple Powerpoint slides so comprehensively! Even had I checked beforehand I’m not sure what could have been done. It began with……………..’