Rick Broida

As I’m sure you know, hassles often extend beyond the PC.

For example, if you have young kids, it’s a sure bet they’re always clamoring to use your Android smartphone.

You already know how to punch up your PowerPoint slide decks, but what about punching up yourself? Do you have the skills to really inspire your audience, to make your presentation not only valuable but memorable? Most importantly, can you use it to close the deal?

There’s an ebook for that. In Presenting to Win: The Art of Telling Your Story, presentation consultant Jerry Weissman teaches you to move beyond the slide deck and really engage with your audience.

The book normally sells for $26.99, but for a limited time, Amazon is offering the Kindle edition free of charge. (How limited? I’m not sure, but these freebies rarely last more than a few days. If you’re interested in this title, grab it now.)

Don’t have a Kindle? No problem: You can read the ebook on your PC, smartphone, tablet, or just about any other device.

So, what kind of information can you hope to glean from Presenting to Win? Weissman starts off by noting that most presenters fail to tell a story, which is the key ingredient in a persuasive presentation:

“The overwhelming majority of business presentations merely serve to convey data, not to persuade,” he says, adding: “In business, when the point is not crystal clear, and when the benefit to the audience is not vividly evident, the investment is declined, the sale is not made, the approval is not granted; the presentation fails.”

That reminds me of my days in sales, when a very smart boss taught me the importance of stressing benefits over features. I think the same can apply to presentations: It’s critical to let the audience know how this information will benefit them, using real-world examples.

Presenting to Win is itself chock-full of benefits, so I’d say it’s a must-read for anyone who spends time in front of groups. Even if you miss out on the giveaway, it’s $27 very well spent.

Have you found a better resource for presentation advice? Or do you have your own tips to share? Let’s hear them in the comments.

Here's how to use Plex, a free tool for streaming media from a PC to a Roku set-top box. And if your PC seems to be too sluggish to play media promptly, I'll give you some tips to decide when it's time to reinstall Windows.

My tiny Roku set-top delivers everything I could possibly want to my TV: Amazon (both Prime and Instant), Netflix, Hulu, HBO, and Pandora.

Well, okay, not quite everything: The Roku can't stream my personal library of music, photos, and videos without a little help from Plex, anyway. Plex works like a charm, though it can be tricky to set up. Here's how to get started:

1. Add the Plex channel to your Roku.

2. Download and install the Plex Media Server utility for Windows. This is the software that'll link your media library to your box.

3. Right-click the Plex Media Server icon in your System Tray, then choose Media Manager. That should open a new tab in your browser, which is where you'll set up the media you want to share with your Roku. It may take a minute or two before any options appear, so be patient.

4. Eventually you'll see five options for adding media to your library. The process is the same for all, so click one (say, Photos), then click Add and navigate to the folder containing the photos you want to add. Click Add again if you want to include additional folders.

5. When you've finished making your selections, click Add Section. Again, it may take a minute or two for your media to appear in the browser tab.

6. Now head to your TV, fire up the Roku, and choose the Plex channel. You should see your selected media channels, which you can now browse and view as you like.

If you have trouble navigating your media owning to filename confusion, check out Plex's Naming Guide, which is a bit confusing but can ultimately be of some help.

Also, if you have trouble with pixelation, grab the latest version of Plex Media Server directly from Plex.

The other day I received a lengthy contract via e-mail. The document, delivered in business-ubiquitous PDF, was essentially one long form that needed to be filled out. (Or is that filled in? Oh, English language, you so crazy!)

Just one problem: The document was created with certain administrative limitations, meaning I couldn't perform any editing on it. My only recourse was to print the document, complete it by hand, and then scan it back in.

To borrow from Woody Allen, love is too weak a word to describe how I feel about my Roku box. I lurve it.

Email groups are an important part of business life, yet Apple's iOS offers no support for them.

So what happens if you want to send a message to, say, everyone in the marketing department, or a select batch of customers? If you're using an iPhone or iPad, you have little choice but to manually select their email addresses, one after another.

Chrome has some handy ways to keep your myriad bookmarks just a click away, and for Facebook junkies to keep status updates front and center.

Chrome's Bookmarks Bar puts my most frequently visited sites across the top of the browser, just one click away.

It's been almost a year to the day since I adopted an Acer desktop replacement (i.e. a big honking laptop) as my primary PC.

It's a powerhouse, stocked with a Core i7 processor, 8GB of RAM, a Blu-ray drive, and loads of other goodies. For the most part, it's been great.

There are many ways you can use Twitter to help build your business. For example, you can track trending topics, leverage Web analytics, and tap some 50 million daily users.

Of course, let's not ignore the basics. What if you're simply trying to wrangle multiple Twitter accounts? Do you really have to sign out from one and sign into another every time you want to tweet across them?

Are you a Facebook junkie? If so, you probably find yourself hopping back and forth between a Facebook tab and whatever else you happen to be doing in your browser. That's not terribly productive.

Should businesses be interested in Pinterest? On the surface, you might not think so: the service would appear to be little more than a showcase for cool jewelry and favorite recipes.

However, it's also a great way to drive traffic to your site. That's according to a new HubSpot e-book: "How to Use Pinterest for Business".

Knowledge is power, especially for anyone looking to start a new business or boost an existing one. Docstoc, home to hundreds of documents and resources for business folk, packs an awful lot of knowledge into its 30 small-business apps for iPhone and iPad.

The apps cover just about every topic under the business sun, starting with finding a job or developing an idea: