\documentclass[xcolor=dvipsnames]{beamer} % Before typesetting your file, make sure PCTeX or whatever LaTeX software you are using is set to output a .pdf rather than the usual .dvi file.  
  \mode<presentation>
  \usetheme{Rochester}
\definecolor{GARNET}{RGB}{168,12,53}
\usecolortheme[named=GARNET]{structure} % you can change GARNET to any other color listed at http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/LaTeX/Colors. Or you can ``define'' a color like I did for GARNET.




% Files needed are:
%    beamerposter.sty
%


%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
% The following commands affect the layout of the title bar.
\setbeamertemplate{headline}{  
  \leavevmode
  \begin{beamercolorbox}[wd=\paperwidth]{block title}
    \vspace{1cm}
        \center
        \usebeamercolor{title in headline}{\color{fg}{\Huge{\inserttitle}}\\[30pt]}
        \usebeamercolor{author in headline}{\color{fg}\Large{\insertauthor}\\[30pt]}
        \usebeamercolor{institute in headline}{\color{fg}\large{\insertinstitute}}     
    \vspace{1cm}
  \end{beamercolorbox}
  \begin{beamercolorbox}[wd=\paperwidth]{lower separation line head}
    \rule{0pt}{5pt}
  \end{beamercolorbox}
}
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%



\usepackage{times}
\usepackage{amsmath,amssymb}
\usepackage[english]{babel}
\usepackage[latin1]{inputenc}
\usepackage{url}
\usepackage[orientation=landscape,size=a0,scale=1.2,debug]{beamerposter}  


%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%




  \title{Title}
  \author{Authors}
  \institute{Bates College}

  
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%

\begin{document}
\begin{frame}{} 

This paragraph goes across the whole poster. This probably isn't easy to read, but I'm including it here so you can see a variety of things. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. 


  %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%

\begin{columns}[t]

  %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%



  \begin{column}{.3\linewidth} 
  
  \begin{block}{columns}
  Notice the command line above this text (in the tex file): $\backslash$begin\{column\}\{.3$\backslash$linewidth\}
  
  \bigskip

 This is one of the commands  that makes this poster have   three main columns each one-third the width of the poster. Changing the ``.3'' will allow you to make columns  different widths. 
\end{block}

	\vspace{1in}
    \begin{block}{blocks}
The ``block'' environment is only available in the ``beamer'' package. It can have a title and then some text. Anything can go inside a block.
    \end{block}

    \begin{block}{}
Here's a block without a title.
    \end{block}
Not everything needs to be in a block.



\vspace{1in}

Notice the commands that were used to put vertical space above and below this sentence. You can change how much space you want.

\vspace{1in}


    
        \begin{block}{Alerts}
If you want to \alert{highlight} a specific word, use the ``alert'' command.
    \end{block}
    
    \vspace{1in}
    
    \begin{block}{Colors}
This poster is set to print in GARNET. See the very top of the tex file for color options. Comment out the color lines at the beginning of the tex file to get a nice blue color.
\end{block}
    
  \end{column}
  %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
  %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
  \begin{column}{.3\linewidth}



    \begin{block}{Fontsizes}
      \centering
      {\tiny tiny}\par
      {\scriptsize scriptsize}\par
      {\footnotesize footnotesize}\par
      {\normalsize normalsize}\par
      {\large large}\par
      {\Large Large}\par
      {\LARGE LARGE}\par
       {\huge huge}\par
          {\Huge Huge}\par
      {\veryHuge veryHuge}\par
      {\VeryHuge VeryHuge}\par
      {\VERYHuge VERYHuge}\par
    \end{block}


\vspace{1in}





    \begin{block}{Lists}
        \begin{columns}[T]
          \begin{column}{.49\linewidth}
            \begin{itemize}
            \item \alert{bulleted lists}: not numbers
            \item xxxxxx
              \begin{itemize}
              \item a sub list item 1
              \item a sub list item 2
              \end{itemize}
            \item the quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog
            \end{itemize}
          \end{column}
          \begin{column}{.49\linewidth}
            \begin{enumerate}
            \item \alert{numbered list:} numbers
            \item yyyy
        
            \end{enumerate}
           
          \end{column}
        \end{columns}
      \end{block}


  \end{column}
  %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
  %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
  \begin{column}{.3\linewidth}
   


     %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
      \begin{columns}[t]
        
        \begin{column}{.5\linewidth}
          \begin{block}{Left column}   
               Stuff goes here.
          \end{block}
        \end{column}
        
        \begin{column}{.4\linewidth}
          \begin{block}{Right column}   
               More stuff goes here.
          \end{block}
        \end{column}
      \end{columns}


\vspace{1in}

\begin{block}{images}

inserting images isn't hard.



\end{block}

\includegraphics[scale=1.2]{xy1}

\includegraphics[scale=1.5]{ProdRule}



\vspace{1in}

{\LARGE Resources}

Here's how to typeset a website.
\url{http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/LaTeX/Colors}


  \end{column}
  
  %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
  %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%


\end{columns}


\vspace{2in}
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis aute irure dolor in reprehenderit in voluptate velit esse cillum dolore eu fugiat nulla pariatur. Excepteur sint occaecat cupidatat non proident, sunt in culpa qui officia deserunt mollit anim id est laborum.
\end{frame}
\end{document}