As an aside, I’d love to see you write about Tinderbox or post some good links. I’ve made a couple of separate trips through their website and while Tinderbox looks interesting, I still can’t figure out what it does.

As for presentations, the job I held as a student mostly involved videotaping classes and presentations. One of the most widespread presentation topics was how to give a presentation. Quality of these varied widely. The best were in the Haas School of Business.

The bedrock essential the Haas people stressed was knowing your material backwards and forwards. Stop thinking about how you stand, what your hands are doing, and even whether or not you say “um.” Know your shit backwards and forwards— not just the presentation itself, but the background. And get a good night’s sleep.

Edward Tufte’s presentation advice is also most excellent. If you Google around you can find various versions of it. Here is one transcription: http://www.cgl.uwaterloo.ca/~csk/presentations.html