I ended up getting some great, up close pics of Tiger, Phil Mickelson, Sergio Garcia, John Daly and a few others. I can only imagine how big the crowds will be today – Sunday. I’m heading to 2nd round action Friday and plan to follow Phil in the morning and Tiger in the afternoon. Hopefully it’s not too hot.

Phil already has 7 WSOP bracelets with two coming this year in earlier events and with the main event title in sight could solidify himself as the games best overall player ever.

Mostly known for his high stakes online play at Full Tilt Poker and his ultra high stakes play in the “Big Game” at the Bellagio in Las Vegas, Phil has made a name for himself as one of the most feared, but also most respected players in the game of poker.

Phil’s best finish in the main event came back in 2003 when he lost a heartbreaker of a hand to eventual winner Chris Moneymaker and finished 10th just one shy of the final table.

With only 9 players remaining Phil currently sits in 7th place in chips and although he’s somewhat shortstacked Phil’s aggressive style will definitely be out in force in November when ESPN airs coverage of the final table. Who knows what will happen at the final table, but one thing for sure is ESPN exec’s are probably jumping around the offices as they finally get who most consider the best player in the world at the final table of the biggest championship in poker.

Note: As of just minutes after the field fell to 9 final players, the term Phil Ivey had already become a trending topic on Twitter.

Congrats Phil!

Read more about Phil at his website PhilIvey.com or the Phil Ivey wikipedia page.

While there’s still plenty of work to be done on the site I’ve initially launched with 4 of the best theme developers/designers. WP Theme Store currently features themes from Brian Gardner’s StudioPress series, Jason Schuller’s Press75 series, Cory Miller’s iThemes series and Adii Rockstar’s WooThemes series. We will also be adding new themes daily so if you’re a theme developer and want another distribution point, please contact me.

The theme store will not only feature reviews of premium WordPress themes, but also will report on the latest WordPress news and offer text and video tutorials on themes and general WordPress practices.

So if you’re a blogger or small business owner and you’re looking for a great WordPress theme for a site, please check out the all new WordPress Theme Store.

You can also follow us on Twitter @wpthemestore or on our Facebook page.

Please follow this StudioPress Coupon Code link to use promo code WPTS25 at checkout to receive your 25% discount. You must follow that link to use the promo code!

In advance of the launch I’d like to extend an invitation to any WordPress theme developer, designer or blogger to see if they’d be interested in writing a weekly column about all things WordPress? The article can be about pretty much anything to do with WordPress, but some examples might be on subjects like theme development, theme hacks, invaluable plugins, personal opinions on recent WordPress news and just anything interesting about the world of WordPress. Although I don’t mind people plugging certain upcoming features or projects I’d like the main point of the article to be informative. If you throw in how one of your products does a good job at something or give details on an upcoming product/project will benefit the main point of the article I’m cool with that as well. Basically informative and not spammy!

So the next question you’re probably asking is what am I offering in return? Well, each writer will receive automatic inclusion into the WP Theme Store review directory along with screenshots, pricing info, detailed descriptions of each theme, special promotions you’re offering and the ability to interact with potential customers through the rating/review/comment area. Along with that you’ll also have a 125×125 and 468×60 banner added to our ad rotator that appears on every page of the site. You’ll also receive three links at the bottom of each article. One to your themes review page on WP Theme Store, one directly to your premium theme site (using WP Theme Store affiliate link) and a direct link to your personal site/blog. The example I just mentioned would primarily work for premium theme developers/designers, but I’m open to working out something similar for WordPress bloggers etc…

Another great benefit to being involved with WP Theme Store is you’ll reach a broad audience of WordPress customers and be involved in a community of the top WordPress developers/designers/bloggers that are not only competitors, but part of a larger community that watches out for each other to help fight fraud and better the community and available products as a whole. Most importantly it helps create another distribution point for your WordPress business and clearly helps WP Theme Store create a community along with great content. I’m not looking for a large amount of time, just an article a week in exchange for sending more customers to your sites.

Please contact me with any questions you might have. I’m looking to lock in a few people right away so please get a hold of me asap if you’re interested.

For more information on myself or on WP Theme Store, please follow me on Twitter @bryanhauer or @wpthemestore or simply check WP Theme Store on Wednesday, July 8th, 2009 at 10AM PDT.

Thanks,

Bryan Hauer

Here’s my breakdown of what I think will be covered today…
Mac OS X Snow Leopard – 40%
iPhone Hardware and 3.0 Update – 50%
Steve Jobs – 2%
Stats on growth – 5%
Miscellaneous stuff – 3%
Multi Touch Tablet – 0%

Steve Jobs
I’ll start out my stating I don’t expect to see Steve Jobs unless it’s part of the “One More Thing” piece. Apple has reiterated Steve is recovering well from a protein deficiency illness and that he’ll be back healthy as the acting CEO at the end of June. I also think it’s a positive for Apple to still be doing so well while Steve’s been gone.

Mac OS X Snow Leopard
My gut feeling is that about 40% of the show will be dedicated to the new features in Snow Leopard like going 64 bit, the new OpenCL technology, the new Quicktime X and of course some shiny new graphics user interfaces. With them releasing a final build to developers today I’m guessing they’ll set a launch date for sometime in August.

New iPhone Hardware
It’s all but guaranteed we’re going to see new iPhone hardware today. The question is how much of a visual change can they really make. I mean after all it’s just a shiny case with a glass screen. I suspect the phone will remain generally the same with a few changes. They may change the shiny back to more of a matte finish. Otherwise I think it pretty much remains the same.

The real changes will come from the inside. A new 3.2 megapixel camera with auto focus technology along with video (some video editing functions), a front facing iChat video camera, faster processor, more RAM, 802.11 N wireless technology, some enhancements to help with turn by turn directions and a few other bells and whistles.

I expect the new iPhone to be announced today with a launch date of July 10th. This gives Apple a full month to build the hype and test the iPhone 3.0 software. Expect even longer lines for this launch.

On the software side I think we’ll see the features talked about at Mac World 2009 when they introduced the 3.0 update along with a few new ones that were kept secret.

Some of the most popular ones announced were landscape keyboard across most applications, copy and paste, tethering, MMS messaging, ability to edit documents, peer to peer connectivity, push notification for apps and many more.

I also fully expect Apple to launch the 3.0 update today or tonight. This gives them a more steady launch compared to last years iPhone 3G launch that was plagued with iTunes outages, MobileMe problems and more. This would be the smartest thing to do since this would give them a full month before what I think the hardware launch date will be which I previously said would be July 10th.

Multi Touch Tablet “Netbook”
Don’t expect Apple to jump into the Netbook market quite yet. Although I think they’ve clearly been working on a touch screen “Netbook” offering I don’t think it’s probably quite there yet. I’d suspect an announcement early next year after Snow Leopard’s been out for a few months and the Netbook market is a little more mature.

So what do you think will be announced today? What launch days do you think make the most sense? Leave a text or video comment below as I’d love to hear what you think.

Show notes:

Article on new string of code found in latest iPhone firmware update that gives clues to new iPhone.

My iPhone feature wish list.

Apple and Adobe working together to get flash on the iPhone.

Btw… I plan to upload another version of the video to Viddler as the quality just isn’t what I want. They are supposed to be able to encode HD now, but clearly this isn’t HD so I’m going to try a different setting for higher quality to test it. Stay tuned!

What an incredible day in history we had today in the United States of America. While some may not agree with President Barack Obama’s political views, one can’t help but notice his ability to inspire masses of people and the way he gets people excited about making their own lives better though hard work and volunteering.

There’s obviously a lot of hard work ahead, but I’m clearly optimistic that President Obama can get the job done. Here are some reasons why I think Barack Obama makes a great Commander and Chief.

- He wants the best out of us: He clearly has made it a point to say he can’t do this alone and that we all should do our part to help make the US a better place in this world. The difference between past Presidents and Barack is that he’s already organizing and doing something to make this happen through volunteering.

- He’s organized, focused and determined: He’s already held numerous briefings with the public/press weekly since being elected, met with local and world leaders and already had his team working on many projects so that they’re ready come the morning of Wednesday, January 21, 2009.

- He’s a visionary and ideas guy: He might not have all the answers immediately or have already laid out every plan in detail, but he’s definitely already hard at work with his staff on how best to solve the issues at hand.

- He’s smart, fairly young and well spoken: He’s taken speech writing to another level. His youthfulness and playful attitude has definitely hit a chord with Americans young and old and has for the first time in my life created a connection between the average person and the most powerful person in the world. He’s also quite polished and calm for a man who’s only 47 years old which is a key trait for someone running one of the most envied and hated countries in the world.

- He’s athletic: While being young and athletic doesn’t necessarily qualify as being a Presidential trait, I do think that the average person can relate to his love for sports (basketball in particular) and his energetic youthfulness. I’ve heard him quote ESPN Sports Center many, many times.

- He embraces technology: This is probably my favorite trait of the new President. Barack used technology to not only win the election, but is now using it to spread his message to more people in more places. He used Twitter, Facebook and MySpace among others during the election and also has plans to use technology to further advance our health care system, education system and also to hopefully rid our dependence on foreign oil.

So those are my reason… What are yours? Leave a text or video comment below and tell me why you think or maybe don’t think Barack Obama will be a successful President of the United States of America.

Important official links for President Barack Obama:

BarackObama.com

USA Service Organization

Whitehouse.gov

Barack Obama Facebook Fan Page

Barack Obama MySpace Page

Follow Barack Obama on Twitter

I also decided for fun to post the video of Beyonce serenading President Obama and his wife Michelle for the first dance at the Neighborhood Ball inauguration party simply because it was so good, plus it’s always nice to see two people so in love and excited about the future.

These unanswered questions sent Apple’s stock (aapl) free falling and at one point was down as much as 8%.

So was Apple and Steve Jobs for that matter not truthful last week when Steve put out a letter explaining his rapid weight loss or is everyone too nosey and should just mind their own business?

Well, when it comes to a publicly traded company the CEO (especially in the case of Steve Jobs as he’s so hands on) has a responsibility to the shareholders to inform them of any possible reason he may need to leave his role in the company. Steve and Apple have maintained for months now that his health is not an issue… then all of a sudden it’s an issue. In my mind both he and Apple handled it poorly. If Steve was as sick as has been reported and as bad as some supposed friends had been telling people then by all means do what you have to do to get better, but don’t withhold that info from the public when you’re considered the most important CEO in the world to a publicly traded company.

While I respect ones privacy especially when it comes to health issues, it simply doesn’t fly in this instance considering how important Steve’s role is at Apple.

I myself am a happy Apple fanboy and although I love most of Apple’s products my allegiance only goes so far and in the end am still a thoughtful consumer. While I think the company and it’s ideas are more than one man’s… I also feel that so much importance is placed publicly on one guys ideas that I’m not quite certain Apple’s growth can sustain itself going forward if Steve’s symbolic role isn’t there.

Over the next 6 months Apple has a big challenge stock price wise, but more importantly leadership wise to publicly set a path for what happens beyond Steve. They really need to show everyone that Apple is an extremely healthy, smart company, with lots of cash on hand and that most importantly is made up of thousands of very smart hard working individuals that care just as much as Steve Jobs about the path the company takes. If not, we’ll see the same thing that happened to Apple in the early 90′s and in this economic environment… say goodbye to Apple as we know it.

Whatever happens my thoughts and prayers are with Steve and his family and I really hope he gets the proper diagnosis and that they can figure out a way to get him healthy and back to doing what he loves most.