Logitech Revue with Google TV unboxing

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AkQugsneVRw&feature=player_embedded

Apple Passes RIM in Global Smartphone Share

Despite Steve Job’s obvious distaste for the company, Research in Motion (RIM) has long remained ahead of Apple in the global smartphone market. Not any longer, according to research firm Strategy Analytics, which reported yesterday that the iPhone shipped more units than did BlackBerry during 2010′s third quarter.

However, it wasn’t really a terrible loss for RIM, as the entire smartphone market grew 78 percent overall. Though Apple did surpass RIM in sales volume (and seems poised to ship even more in the future, since supply constraints provided a choke point in 2010), it still has a long way to go before it approaches Nokia, the reigning king of the smartphone hill.

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Has Apple Given Up on iWeb?

iLife ’11, unveiled at the latest Apple event, brings no update for iWeb. Users should rightly wonder what the fate of the app will be. It’s a shame iWeb is being ignored, because it made web design accessible to all levels of Mac users, but maybe it’s just time for a new model.

iWeb’s Origins

The design philosophy behind iWeb is summed up best in the Keynote slide pictured below, from Macworld 2006. According to Steve Jobs, software was either too simple for producing web sites that looked good, or too complex for the average consumer. Instead of HTML editing, iWeb used customizable themes and a WYSIWYG interface.

It was easy to use, and things looked good, but cross-browser compatibility proved to be difficult. iWeb’s solution caused immediate problems, most notably the creation of multi-megabyte webpages that substituted .png images for elements like text to ensure iWeb designs looked the same in all browsers. Even then, there were issues with compatibility, and the HTML iWeb generated was pretty ugly.

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Google Apps Now Offers Business Process Automation on Google Sites with Scripts

Google announced today that Google Apps Scripts, a "JavaScript cloud scripting language" for automating tasks in Google products, can now be embedded on any Google Sites page. Google Apps Script has been around for a while, but the ability to create custom pages with the scripts is new.

Google Apps Scripts can be used to automate tasks such as "sending emails, scheduling calendar events, creating and updating site pages using data from other systems, and more."

You can create a script in Google Sites by clicking "More actions" > "Manage site" > "Apps Scripts." Once created scripts can be embedded on any Google Sites page.

Google has several guides for getting started, with the aim of helping non-developers get started automating processes.

We've written before about the popularity of point-and-click app creation in the enterprise. Tools like JackBe Presto enable non-developers to create simple custom apps.

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