Play it again, Macworld!

Haven't been to Macworld Expo in January, or did not invest in a Conference pass? No problem: a wide selection of presentations from the Users Conference, MacIT Conference, and Specialty Programs tracks from this year's Macworld Expo San Francisco are now available online at Macworld Encore.

Each of the presentations combines the audio from the session with the speaker's presentation slides and live demos into 640x480 QuickTime videos. If you have QuickTime Pro on your machine, you can also download these videos to your computer for offline viewing or for, say, watching them via your AppleTV. (In fact, the audio and video quality of these presentations is so good that you painfully realize just how crappy Flash video really is.)

My personal favorites so far:

Living with data
by Merlin Mann

Although was held at a Mac show, Mann's talk was hardly about technology, but all about technique. Being confronted with ever more "Attention Sinks & Time Bandits" (the sub-title of this presentation) in our daily lives, it is becoming increasingly harder to manage our personal resources of time, attention, and mindshare, and Mann shows us some novel ways for tackling this.

Don't let Mann's entertaining and relaxed presentation style fool you, though: what you'll learn in this presentation is deep, and if you're going to watch just one presentation from the Macworld Encore site, I humbly suggest you make it this one, because what Merlin has to say applies to so many more aspects of our lives than just using a computer.

If this presentation clicks with you, have a look at Mann's Web site 43folders.com, which is chock full of similar advice. For a selection of links related to the "Living with data" talk, check out this post.

Keeping safe on the Internet
by Marshall Clow and Alan Oppenheimer

Us Mac users have had it pretty good so far when it comes to the intrinsic "internet safety" of our computer platform of choice. Then again, for some people, peace of mind and carelessness are two sides of the same coin. Hence, it makes sense to, every now and then, review the steps we take to keep our machine secure, and to remain aware of potential security threats.

Clow and Oppenheimer have compiled an expansive, yet concise top ten of these threats plus related protective measures you should take. Despite the name of the presentation, it also addresses aspects like physical security (theft, fire, ...), backing up your data, etc. Whether you're new to the Mac or a seasoned Mac-head, don't miss this so that coin mentioned above won't show "carelessness up" for you.

Using Automator to Reduce Repetitive Tasks - Best Practices for Using Automator
by Charles Heizer

Judging from what you'll hear from "the" average Mac user, AppleScript and Automator still are among the most under-valued and under-utilized features of OS X.

Using Automator in a system administration setting, Charles Heizer gives a great overview over just how powerful and useful that little tool really is. If you're somewhat familiar with using the command line, you should have a look at this presentation. I'd be surprised if you would not want to delegate the repetitive computing tasks you encounter in your daily computing routine to Automator afterwards.

Disagree with my selection and prefer other presentations from the site? Share your suggestions in the comments!