Looking for a good Mini - Panels tutorial There are lots of good to tutorials for view and panels, but I'm having trouble finding specific information on how to properly use mini panels. Does anyone know of a good tutorial or explanation of how it works? again I've seen to referenced a bunch of times as a possible solution to certain problems, but never really understood how to use it.

(D7 panels 3 would be ideal)
I have not found a tutorial specifically for mini-panels, but it works similarly to page panels.  nodeone.se has an excellent tutorial on using Page Panels (Page Manager &amp; Panels modules enabled).

Mini Panels are closely related , but behave more like blocks.  When you define a mini-panel it will be available in the panels UI for placement as well as in the admin/structures/blocks form.  The major difference from blocks is that mini-panels are smart.  They can take context from the node, user and other sources and display accordingly.  They also connect to a View.

There is one thing to observe when defining a mini-panel.  The UI is slightly different from Page Panels and the first time I used them, I could not figure out how to add content to one.  To access the "content" and other setting forms select the Panels breadcrumb  menu at the top.