tl;dr : Besides practice, there's nothing else that will help your presentation more than a rock-solid, handy, simple remote. And this one shoots out LASER BEAMS!

I've been giving presentations here and there for the past few years, and in the past, I've been tethered to my computer as I've needed to present slides, play videos in slideshows, and generally control things.

This year's Catholic New Media Conference (held in Arlington, TX), came by so fast I didn't really have time to prepare any blog posts before hand, post pictures during the conference, or summarize individual sessions.

In years past ( 2011 and 2010 ), I've tried to dump pretty much everything I learned on my blog... but this year's CNMC was so much more broad-reaching that there was no way I could keep up

tl;dr : Likely the best interface for the iPhone headset jack, especially when considering the price. Hardware could use some improvement, but it works pretty well.

When I first heard about the Tascam iXZ , I was excited to try it out; it has a two-in-one input jack, with both XLR and 1/4" plugs, a stereo headphone jack, input level adjustment, an off/guitar/mic-level selector, and even built

I recently became aware (thanks, @ppadley !) of a pretty awesome little AppleScript that pulls tweets out of your Keynote presentation's Presenters Notes and posts them to your Twitter timeline. Unfortunately, though, the simple way it used to work was broken when Twitter switched to using oAuth instead of 'basic' (username and password) authentication for using its API.

Luckily, the project, Keynote Tweet , was updated and posted to GitHub, and works in tandem with twurl , a simple Ruby-based command

Elizabeth Westhoff, the Archdiocese of St. Louis' Director of Marketing, wrote an excellent article summarizing the many ways she and others in St. Louis are using iPhones and a shoestring budget to promote the faith through video, pictures, social media, etc.

I love this section:

The production of each of these videos is something unseen in most other archdioceses across the country and for those of us who have been involved in their production; it has been a complete labor of love with an understanding that it is yet

This is somewhat of a PSA: There have been many high-profile hacking cases lately where millions of user account passwords have been exposed. If you're anything like the majority of the population, and you're using one password for more than one website, you should stop doing that as soon as possible and switch to a more secure password strategy.

I've outlined what I do on Midwestern Mac's website: My Password Management Strategy .

You can't blame me for one of your accounts

In light of the many high-profile hacking cases that have recently exposed millions and millions of user passwords (LinkedIn, Sony, etc.), I thought I would write down my password management practices, and some practical thoughts for others looking to secure their access to various online services.

Shared Passwords (major no-no)

For a long time, I had three passwords: a weak, eight-character password that I'd use on forums and places I didn't really care about. I had