Please respond to the direct message I sent your Twitter account with your email address to claim your prize:

Attached you can download a copy of the Social Media Demystified for E-Learning presentation that was presented this afternoon. There are several great links in the presentation and I would love to learn more about how you might use the new tools and technologies. Please share your thoughts and experiences so we can all learn and grow from the community. If you were part of the webinar today, thanks for joining us.
 
As I mentioned in the webinar, the eLeariningDevcon.com conference, is one of my favorites. The attendees and presenters to a great job of sharing and discussing the latest tools and technology and I always come back ready to build the next generation of tools. Hope to see you there and please introduce yourself if we don't tweet before. I'll be presenting 3 sessions at the conference: Design 09 with Web 2.0, Introduction to Games & Simulations and Quick Prototyping Techniques.
 
Don't forget to join the online community http://community.elearningdevcon.com to start discussing sessions you are interested, questions you might have, or ideas that might inspire us!

Join me on Twitter: http://twitter.com/nickfloro

Download Presentation - Zip File: http://tr.im/jXEj

http://www.elearningdevcon.com/

If you find yourself making a couple presentations a year or a month, I would recommend purchasing the Logitech 2.4ghz Cordless Presenter. It run's under $45, Amazon: http://tr.im/iTm9, and frees you from being in front of or near your laptop. A USB connector, neatly pulls out of the back and plugs into your computer and sliding the on button on the remote to On allows you to connect with PowerPoint, Keynote or your favorite presentation tool. It allows for forward and backward movement as well as a built in laser pointer to assist in focusing the audience's attention and parts of your screen. There is also a built in timer, which you can preset for a time limit and the remote will buzz to make sure you know you are running low on time and its time to wrap-up. I've plugged it into Macs, PCs with XP and Vista and no software is installed for quick use in case you are presenting from a client site. The display also displays how much battery life is left and it lasts approx 6 months based on your usage.
 
I've tried several other remotes over the years and found this to be the perfect size, feature set and ease of use to be able to quickly use during daily presentations.

I've been using Apple based laptops for several years now and I migrated to the 17" model when they were originally announced by Apple. One thing I have noticed is that with the last 2 generations of the unit the high-res screen of 1920 x 1200 is a must have when working with several applications or windows. The extra real estate makes it easier to multi-task or move data around while brainstorming or wire framing. I ordered the new 17" when announced at the January Macworld and got my hands in early March. Shortly after getting the unit I added the 8 gigabytes of RAM, from http://www.transintl.com/, which cost about $750 but wow was it worth it. My previous units had 4 gb's which I always thought was enough but the 8 gb's has made for a smoother experience especially running VMWare. I can now easily have Windows XP Home and alternate open or even Vista open with XP. Now Vista is slow and goofy but it runs comfortably now while running several mac apps at the same time and dare I say its usable.

 So if you been debating adding more memory to your workstation or looking at a new laptop, check out the Apple MacBook Pro 17". The higher end MacBook Pro 15 also now supports 8 gb's of ram as well.

 Update, last week I got my hands on the 7200 rpm 500gb hard drive and its nice to have some breathing room on the hard drive again. Great drive, quiet, and have not notice any additional heat or hit in battery life. Now, just have to find the budget to upgrade my team's systems.

 Next on my wish list is a 30" monitor.

http://www.lasalle.edu/schools/cpcs/content.php?section=grad&group=it_manage&page=lunch

If you are using Twitter and looking for a desktop tool, take a look at TweetDeck. It's in beta, it's free and it's available for both mac and windows.

The interface can be used as a simple 1 column feed and tweeter or you can customize it to include groups of friends, Facebook Status, Direct Messages and include several columns of information based on the size of your monitor and your needs.

http://www.tweetdeck.com/
 
For a quick tutorial, check out this getting started video by Cali Lewis/Geekbrief.tv http://www.geekbrief.tv/gbtv-517-how-to-tweetdeck-like-a-pro.>

If you are looking for a tool that can help you track your web sites and alert you if your site is having a problem then you need to check out http://www.AlertMySites.com. The site offers several options, including a free service. Based on your needs they offer an iPhone app for monitoring as well as e-mail, Twitter and SMS support for getting an alert if your site goes down. You also get a follow-up alert once the site is back-up and running to confirm the service has returned. I had been running an older Mac based service which no longer is support and we had tested several web based solutions over the last several months and I loved the options, pricing and solution here. Monitoring can be setup to test a particular url or for a word on a particular page. You can also get warning if the site times out or does not respond.

A look at services:

 
 
 
If you need a quick site checker, try the Instant Site Checker at: http://aremysitesup.com/sitechecker