Will Woz revolutionize ‘Dancing with the Stars’ as a cast member of Season 8? Only time will tell, however I’m hoping he does well.

Photo source: Yahoo! – Dancing with the Stars Season 8

I’ve never used this product, but the idea is great. According to Google:

Google Earth Enterprise lets customers build globes with their own data that can be accessed with the same fast, easy-to-use technology as Google Earth. Previously, Google Earth Enterprise customers could only access their private Google Earth globes when connected to the network. Sometimes, when working in the field, limited or no network connectivity prevented our customers from accessing the full potential of the geospatial data.

The portable version of Google Earth Enterprise allows organizations to distribute geospatial data to their employees where bandwidth is limited or unavailable — such as emergency workers responding to a disaster. Customers can deploy the portable solution for a single individual, or for a multiperson team.

This version is also appropriate for situations when users are away from their desks and need to access an organization’s geospatial data. Data collected in the field can also be transferred to the primary system when network connectivity is available.

I can imagine many uses of this product on the enterprise level. Think about your field force workers, or emergency response teams. For those who travel regular routes, or need to take down survey data or need access to other geospecific information, having remote access to this tool can be highly beneficial.

Google says that the software is loaded on a customer-supplied USB drive or a large partition on a user’s laptop using VMware. In this case, mobile means accessible via a laptop, and not a mobile phone. Google didn’t say that Google Earth Enterprise will be available on any mobile platforms, but that would be the pinnacle of mobility.

The consumer version of Google Earth is available for the Apple iPhone.

For those who haven’t seen it, here is Apple’s 1984 “Big Brother” Macintosh Commercial:

Enjoy while you can as I’m sure YouTube will pull down the parody video any day now.

Looking at a recently-granted patent, looks like Apple may be taking a page from Microsoft’s playbook.

The “today” screen in Windows Mobile is one of the better features of the OS, especially in the 6.1 version of Windows Mobile.

At a glance, you can see what you’ve missed while you weren’t minding your phone, and what you might still have to accomplish in a given day.

MacRumors saw a patent that was granted to Apple, and the drawings accompanying the patent clearly show an “at a glance” style screen on the iPhone. MacRumors reports:

“The proposed screen would allow users to quickly jump to the desired notification simply by pressing on the corresponding notification. At present, the iPhone’s notification lists is a list that disappears when the phone is unlocked. This sort of notification system may become more important once 3rd party ‘push’ notifications are activated, as the number and variety of these notifications will likely increase significantly.”

The idea of being able to see a list of all your missed calls and messages is not privy to just Windows Mobile. Nokia’s S60 platform can be set up to provide a similar display of notifications.

I think this would be a welcome addition to the iPhone’s software. If and when it will ever be included in a future firmware update is unknown.

Jobs resigned as chairman of Apple Computer on September 16, 1985, after losing a boardroom battle for control of the company with then-CEO John Sculley.

Jobs had co-founded Apple about eight years earlier with his hacker friend Steve Wozniak.

A pair of teenagers, the two Steves had little idea how to grow the hot company at the dawn of the soon-to-be-giant PC industry.

Jobs helped recruit Sculley from Pepsi-Cola, where Sculley had shown a genius for lifestyle advertising. The pair ran Apple as co-CEOs but fell out and took their differences to the board. Though a visionary, the board decided Jobs was too volatile for the lead role. So he quit.

On the same day he resigned, Jobs submitted incorporation papers to the California secretary of state for the name of his new company, NeXT Computer.

NeXT was Jobs’ revenge. Jobs founded NeXT with the express purpose of running Apple into the ground. NeXT would develop computers that were far better than anything Apple could offer, and Apple would soon be out of business.

NeXT never did put Apple out of business, and for the next 10 years just barely survived itself. It did, however, produce a fantastic operating system, NeXTStep, which many praised as ahead of its time.

In December 1996, Apple bought NeXT for $400 million. It wanted NeXTStep to form the basis of a new, modern operating system, one that didn’t crash every time Netscape Navigator was launched.

Jobs came on board as an informal adviser to then-CEO Gil Amelio. But within months, the board fired Amelio after Apple suffered one of the biggest quarterly losses in Silicon Valley history.

Jobs was initially reluctant to take a role at Apple. His other company, Pixar, had just released its first movie, Toy Story, to great acclaim. But he soon found himself putting in more time at Apple, working hard to whip it into shape.

On September 16, 1997, Apple announced that Jobs had officially been named interim CEO, or — as the company cleverly put it — iCEO.

The latest casualty is an application that, well, I probably shouldn’t publish what it does here in the first paragraph, but Beavis and Butt-head would have loved it.

The rejected application is called iFartz. I think you can figure out for yourself what the application does. The rejection letter was sent to the application’s developer by an Apple employee named Victor Wang.

According to The Unofficial Apple Weblog, Mr. Wang is “a near legend for his rejection letters, usually long, delayed, and for aesthetic reasons that leave developers blinking with surprise.”

But, really. Is anyone surprised that an application called iFartz, which has what Apple called “limited utility,” wasn’t approved? I’m not surprised. Much.

TUAW writer Erica Sadun calls iFartz “a simple, stupid joke app … but it’s the kind of simple, stupid joke app that a lot of people would download and use because people like simple, stupid joke apps.”

The author of iFartz has taken his case online. He set up a Web page begging (and scolding) Apple. On that page, he wrote:

“Sure, the App Store makes it nice and easy to find, purchase, and install iPhone applications, but is it worth the cost of a single authority telling us what they think adds utility? Ironically, if ‘limited utility’ was a factor by which we judged all software development, Mac OS probably would have died in the ’90s. At the very least, we can show Apple they’re wrong, that there’s a demand for Pull My Finger. Join this campaign pledging to spend up to $0.99 cents if PMF is accepted to the iTunes store.”

But Sadun says it better. She writes:

“Until Apple offers developers a firm set of guidelines, developers will continue to be ticked off by seemingly arbitrary rejections like this one. Apple needs to step forward, and do so soon, with a clear set of guidelines that explain to developers exactly what to expect when they press that ‘submit’ button for their new app. Developers shouldn’t be wasting Apple’s time with unpublishable software. Apple should not be wasting Developers’ time with a secretive and arbitrary review process.”

Until Apple does send out a usable set of guidelines for developers, we’ll have to abide by its sense of what’s good and what isn’t, rather than let us determine for ourselves.

Apple, can’t you let the free market decide?

The stability of iPhone firmware 2.0 has already been properly beat severely by the media and users alike. Application crashes, keyboard lag, and other issues made the new firmware less than a joy to use. In fact, quite the opposite, it was often infuriating. Apple heard our pleas, and issued a firmware update for the device less than 30 days after its release.

The firmware download was a whopping 250 MB. It took a few moments to download, but the install process took far less time than I imagined it would. It was up and running with the new software in less than 30 minutes.

Lo and behold, the darn bug fixes appear to have worked. I haven’t had any applications crash since updating the firmware. Crashes were pretty consistent prior to updating. I opened every application, played with it for a few moments, and then closed it. Everything worked as it should.

I also tested out sending some text messages and emails. The annoying keyboard lag is mostly taken care of, though I noticed a few short lags here and there. They definitely weren’t as bad as previously.

Lastly, switching between pages of the home screens appears to be faster and more fluid.

So far, no new functionality has been reported. But that’s fine with me. As long as the darned thing is more stable, that’s all I needed for now.

I am glad Google took this step to speed up the time it takes to reach certain Google services. Previously, you had to open a link to Google.com. Once that page loaded, you could use the tabs at the top of the page to jump to the Calendar, Gmail, Reader and More screens.

Now, if you want to go straight to Google Reader — or any over the others — you can jump there from your iPhone’s home screen. As long as you are signed in to your account, it will bring up your information right away. Google writes:

“We’ve created cool new icons for all the applications. Simply go to www.google.com in your browser, tap on any of the application tabs, click the ‘+’ button, and select ‘Add to Home Screen.’ The icons will appear on your iPhone Home Screen allowing you to go directly to the application with a tap of your finger.”

It’s simple to set up, but I am still disappointed that Google has not created on-board applications for the iPhone that provide more robust features than those that are available via the online versions.

Google also says it has sped up page load times for the main search site:

“At Google, improving the speed of our applications and user experience is a top priority. The new Google.com for the iPhone browser now loads twice as fast as before — and not just over 3G or Wi-Fi but also EDGE. We’ve optimized the page for fast searching, while still providing easy access to other Google applications. We also improved the user interface so that there’s more room on the page for search results.”

I timed it. The home screen loads in 6 seconds via EDGE, 4 seconds via 3G, and 3 seconds via Wi-Fi. The expanded real estate on the the search results page is also nice to have, as you can view more results at one time.

Source: Google Mobile Blog

In order to snag the file to update your Apple iPhone’s firmware, go to MacRumors for the download.

MacRumors reports:

“In order to install the firmware, you will have to do it manually by pressing the Option key when pressing the ‘Check for Update’ button in iTunes. Then select the .ipsw file manually. If for some reason your download is a ‘.zip’ file, rename it to ‘.ipsw’ before proceeding.”

The Apple iPhone firmware update is a 225 MB file, so it’s going to take a while. You can also grab the iPhone1,2_2.0_5A347_Restore.ipsw firmware from here. Enjoy.