In "The Presentation Secrets of Steve Jobs," Carmine Gallo provides a framework for you to deliver a keynote like Steve does. The book provides both an Al Michaels and John Madden perspective of Jobs's keynotes: a play-by-play account of events married with analytical insight.

While rich in detailing the stylistics of Jobs's presentations and the empirical evidence supporting it -- for example, limiting bullet points on slides, using simple language, and using the rule of threes to enhance a narrative -- the most captivating portion of the book is how it details Steve Jobs's preparation for his keynotes. Yes, even Steve Jobs, like the rest of us, must prepare for his preparations presentations.

And prepare he does, which is evident in the stories of Paul Vais. An executive at Jobs's former company NeXT (that Apple later acquired, which brought Jobs back into the Apple fold), Vais recalled that "every slide was written like a piece of poetry...[and that] Steve would labor over the presentation. We'd try to orchestrate and choreograph everything and make it more alive than it really is." However, Gallo says that "making your presentation 'more alive' takes practice. Once you accept this simple principle, your presentations will stand out in a sea of mediocrity."

Gallo's book follows many of the "Jobsian" presentation mantras he preaches. Like a Steve Jobs keynote, the book is simple to read and provides an easy-to-follow roadmap for a reference-minded reader. The one thing that most readers will walk away with is that Steve Jobs's on-stage presence evinces a style similar to that of Apple's products when they're on the stage of the showroom floor or marketed on Apple's website. As a result, as much as it serves as a Steve Jobs presentation guidebook, "The Presentation Secrets of Steve Jobs" in many ways is a Steve Jobs biography.

"The Presentation Secrets of Steve Jobs" is available at many booksellers, including Borders, Amazon, and Barnes and Noble.

In Keynote (and also in PowerPoint), a build refers to the appearance and/or disappearance of elements (such as text, bullets, images, audio and movies) within a given slide.

Working with builds is relatively straightforward. You select the item(s) that you want to create a build for and then choose the order to activate or deactivate each element. These controls are accessible via the Build Inspector pane, which you can get to by clicking on Inspector button or with the Command-Option-i keyboard shortcut. By default, builds are activated by a click with your mouse, or via the spacebar or right-arrow key on your keyboard.

There may be times when you want to add some creativity and more Steve-ness to your builds, and automated builds provide you this functionality.

In this picture, I have three elements that I want to "build in," or have appear, on the screen. I want "Who?" to show up first, "What?" to show up second, and "I don't know" to show up third

Using the Keynote defaults, these elements would show up in the order that I click: "Who?" after the first click, "What?" after the second click, and "I don't know" after the third click.

But let's say I wanted "What?" and "I don't know" to automatically appear in sequence after I click on "Who?" To do this, I just need to change the "Start Build" options of both elements. For the "What?" build, instead of choosing "On Click," I'm going to choose the "Automatically after Build 1." And for the "I don't know" build, I'm going to choose "Automatically after Build 2." Now, "What" and "I don't know" will automatically build in after "Who?" is clicked.

One neat thing about automatic builds is that they can apply to "actions" as well. So if, in this baseball example, we want the elements to move to different bases after a build, we would apply the same "Automatically after..." logic to them.

Got more Keynote tips (or want more)? Let us know in the comments.

Out of the box, Apple's Keynote is a gem. The app is intuitive and, like many Apple products, strikes a nice and delicate balance between ease-of-use for novice users and functionality for more advanced power users. While Keynote offers a nice set of built-in themes, there may be times when you want a more customized look -- be it a different resolution, font, background or element or graphic.

To begin, choose an existing theme. Here, I'm choosing to use the default "White" Keynote theme. Then, you'll want to modify the master slides, which is accessible by pulling down the divider adjacent to the "Slides" viewer, or by clicking "View" and selecting "Show Master Slides."

I recently noted the image-editing functionality of Preview.app, which can act as a "good enough" image editor for many that don't have access to Photoshop. While it's difficult to argue with the free price tag, Preview is not without its limitations. Fortunately, many of these limitations are unlocked if you happen to own Apple's iWork suite, which in its own right can serve as an image editor for the budget-minded.Read on to see how to use iWork in this unconventional way.

Mockapp.com has created both Keynote and PowerPoint templates of iPhone UI elements, and has made them available as free downloads. Say you had a dream in the middle of the night about the most awesome iPhone app that, to your surprise, no one has thought of yet. Instead of waking up in a deep sweat and scribbling said ideas on paper, you could dream them up on Keynote.

After mapping out your concept on Keynote, you could then pitch it to others in a Keynote presentation. The Keynote and PowerPoint templates include alerts, the iPhone keyboard, arrow icons, buttons, as well as a host of other UI elements.

Update: More debunking of the Apple-to-exhibit report, from Peter Cohen and Chris Nuttall of MacUser and the Financial Times, respectively.

According to the Wall Street Journal, Gary Shapiro, head of the Consumer Electronics Association, asked Apple CEO Steve Jobs to keynote the 2010 Consumer Electronics Show. Given Apple's departure from Macworld, and the likely void that will be left at the event, it's no surprise that the CEA plans to capitalize on this and expand the Apple-related footprint at CES. 25,000 square feet of floor space will be dedicated to Apple-centric vendors at CES 2010, compared to the 4,000 square feet at this past year's event.

Not surprisingly, Jobs, who has just returned from medical leave following a liver transplant, has yet to respond to Shapiro's requests -- and neither have Apple representatives.

Speculation also persists that Apple will be making an official appearance at CES this upcoming year -- while the WSJ's Digits blog says Apple will have an official presence, our veteran former colleague Ryan Block & Engadget say "no way." If Macworld's January date (now February) proved an unnatural fit for the Apple product cycle, then surely CES is no major improvement. It, too, is held in January. Even if Apple tries to downplay its CES appearance (assuming it attends the show) by saying that it won't have any new products to introduce, or that it doesn't talk about unreleased products -- as it usually does -- will anyone really believe it? And if CES fails to bring anything new or surprising from Apple, the event will merely serve as a showcase of the company's current lineup. Said product offering, while far ahead of its competition in both form and function, is within an earshot distance of a drive for viewing at your local Apple store.

What separates Apple events from those of its competitors is that, with a few notable exceptions (such as the iPhone and Apple TV), the company doesn't announce products -- it ships them. Which makes you eagerly await, speculate, and save that hard earned cash in anticipation for what will likely be hitting Apple retail shelves in a short moment's time. It's the promise of tomorrow's innovations that will likely be available tomorrow: instant gratification at its finest. Contrast this with CES, where many manufacturers showcase tomorrow's products and innovations that won't be available for several months, if not longer.

Who knows, I may be wrong. Perhaps CES is the event where Apple unveils that much rumored 10-inch touchscreen tablet. In any case, it certainly would be an interesting sight to see Apple amongst the CES crowd, if indeed it chooses to make an appearance there. But, just as the first couple of seasons of interleague baseball took some time to get accustomed to, so too will seeing Apple participating at CES.

Readers, what do you think? Should Apple and Steve Jobs participate at CES 2010?

I consider myself a power Keynote user, and overwhelmingly prefer the app over PowerPoint (on both the Mac and PC) -- even though though I'm just as well-versed at PowerPoint. Only on rare occasions do I start my presentation workflow in PowerPoint (if the deck is going to be chart-centric, to avoid the limited axis and error bar support in pre-09 versions of Keynote).

While both Keynote and Powerpoint get you from Point A to Point B, it's the "little things," such as alignment guides and better graphics support (i.e., native support for Photoshop PSDs and Illustrator AIs), that make the presentation journey that much more enjoyable and more presentable.

One of these little things is Presenter View. Although PowerPoint has a similar feature (in both Mac and PC versions) it lacks the polish and ease-of-use found in Keynote. Presenter View allows you to look at your slide's notes, and upcoming slides and builds, without your audience's knowledge.

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