Whether you're looking to purchase a new Tablet PC, netbook, bag, or bluetooth headset, the TabletPC2.com's annual List for Santa Holiday Gift Guide has photos and product descriptions galore.

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International CES 2009 starts this week and as product announcements roll out it will be easy to get engulfed by products on the trade show floor. However, CES is much more than vendor exhibits. It is one of the largest networking events in the industry and a conference with sessions discussing the future of the industry.

You can find the session list at http://www.cesweb.org/sessions/search/default.asp. Here are a few sessions that I find particularly interesting because they focus on current trends, such as solid state drives with mini-notebooks / netbooks, and future concentrations, like kids & our environment.

Which sessions do you hope to attend?

Conference Sessions

Track: Kids@Play: Building a Smarter World

Disruptive Technologies in Kids' Education
Friday, January 9 at 11:05AM - 12:05PM
The Venetian Lando 4203
Moderated by Sue Tave Zelman, SVP Corporation for Public Broadcasting
Panelists: George Cigale, CEO Tutor.com; Rob Franek, VP Publishing at The Princeton Review; Cheryl Petty Garnette, Director Technology in Education Programs, US Department of Education; David Lord, CEO of Knowledge Adventure; Adam Masur, VP Marketing at Tutor.com

Intel: A Vision for Education
Friday, January 9 at 2:15PM - 2:20PM
The Venetian Lando 4203

Intel plans to unveil a new design, adding to its Intel-powered classmate PC family at CES this year. The company will show off this latest design targeting the education space during our Kids@Play Summit.

What's Dust and What's Magic
Friday, January 9 at 3:30PM - 4:00PM
The Venetian Lando 4203
Speaker: Warren Bucleitner, PhD., Editor, Children's Technology Review
A spirited look at the best and worst of 2008 and what we can learn from them in 2009.

Track: Technology & The Environment

Better Batteries and a Greener Charger
Thursday, January 8 at 10:30AM - 11:30AM
LVCC, North Hall N254
Moderator: Suzanne Kantra
Panelists: Jerry Hallmark at Morotola, Christina Lamp-Onnerud of Boston-Power, James Prueitt of MTI MicroFuel Cells

Going Green: More than a Label
Thursday, January 8 at 12:00PM - 1:00PM
LVCC, North Hall N254
Moderator: Ron Schneiderman of Electronic Design
Panelists: Jeremy Arditi of Greenzer; John Frey of HP; Robert Scaglione of Sharp; David Thompson of Electronic Manufacturers Recycling Management Company (MRM); Mike Trainor of Intel

Track: Flash Memory

Collaboration Successes in enabling SSDs in a Windows Environment
Thursday, January 8 at 2:00PM - 3:00PM
LVCC, South Hall S104-105
Presenter: James Borden, Senior Technical Strategist, Microsoft

Solid State Drive Standardization Activities
Thursday, January 8 at 3:30PM - 4:00PM
LVCC, South Hall S104-105
Presenter: Scott Graham, Sr. Manager, Micron Technology, Inc.

Track: Just the Facts: Research, Reports, and Revelations

The Millennials' Influence on CE Purchases
Thursday, January 8 at 3:00PM - 4:00PM
LVCC, North Hall N264
Presenter: Ben Bajarin, Director, Consumer, Creative Strategies, Inc.

The Future of Display Technology in Consumer Electronics
Saturday, January 10 at 10:30AM - 11:30AM
The Venetian Lando 4302
Presenter: Sweta Dash, Director LCD and Projection Research, iSuppli Corp

In flipping through feeds today, I've run across some very nice comments about Tablet PCs. Here are three from twitter.

OpinionatedGeek: @scribbl - I'm not sure how much serious work I could get done on my iPhone, but boy is it handy! I do love the Tablet PC interface though.

songsnchaos: @rasrasras I got tired of scanning. But I saved up and bought myself a tablet so I LOVE the PC now.

bmcbreen: @stephaniehayden Don't tell Uncle Steve, but I am enjoying my new tablet PC + MS OneNote combo; but if that pen works, it's got competition

I'm not being silent - I'm on Friendfeed and Twitter.

FriendFeed is a decent aggregator supplemented with community comments. Through friends of friends I'm exposed to more articles than I might read otherwise. Some I skim, some I "like." My FF is at  http://friendfeed.com/lora

From FF you can view my Twitter posts, if you're so inclined. It's a mix of family, travel, plus engaging the mobile PC community. Be warned - lots of comments about AJ, the treeing walker coonhound.

Are you on Friendfeed or Twitter? Let me know.