Yeah, it’s common sense to take your valuables with you when you park. Online police blotters make it seem, however, that a parked car is a virtual shopping mall for thieves.

A few recent examples:

— An iPod was reported stolen from a vehicle broken into in the 3100 block of Ebano Drive. (Walnut Creek, Ca.)

— Complainant reported that his car was broken into and an iPod and a stereo faceplate were stolen early Wednesday morning.  The in-dash stereo was damaged in an attempt to steal it as well. (Lufkin, Texas.)

— Apple iPod stolen  from unlocked vehicle, Snowden Ave., July 21. A vehicle window was smashed and Apple iPod stolen, first block of Karen Way, July 19. (Both in Atherton, Ca.)

— A vehicle parked at 31 River St. was burglarized on July 19 at 11:30 p.m. A window was smashed and an 8-gig iPod touch, a purse and an orange-and-black Tony Hawk BMX were taken. (Lewiston, Maine).

In at least one area, Arlington County, Virginia, police report thefts are up 20 percent this year — attributing the increase to gadgets nicked from cars.

“Most are larcenies from vehicles to include valuables left in cars, including GPS’s, MP3 players, purses, wallets,” said Kraig Troxell, spokesman for the Loudoun County Sheriff’s Office.

“People walk by and see an iPod and a GPS on a car seat and just smash and grab,” Jody Donaldson, spokesman for Alexandria police told the Washington Post. “You’d be surprised how many people leave their car unlocked with that stuff out.”

Police advise if you leave your iPod in the car — at least put it out of sight — but warn that these thefts are bound to increase as more people use them.

“A lot of people have these items that used to not have them — BlackBerrys, iPods, iPhones, tiny cameras,” Donaldson said. “Think about how many people have this technology who didn’t a year ago.”

The celebrity website TMZ has bagged the first photograph of Steve Jobs back at work on Apple’s campus. Appropriately, the picture was taken with an iPhone.

“It’s the first time we’ve seen Jobs back in action since January, when he took a leave of absence for a liver transplant,” says TMZ. “Jobs has reportedly been back at work for about a month.”

The picture was taken at 3PM on Wednesday at Apple’s campus in Cupertino. Jobs looks very thin — but, hey, he’s back at work!

Jobs is crossing the road that loops around the campus — Infinite Loop. He’s walking towards one of the car parks that surround the buildings. The photo was taken from inside a vehicle as Jobs crossed in front of it.

The person walking in front of Jobs is likely a bodyguard, but one that looks remarkably like Jonathan Ive, Apple’s head designer. Jobs is reportedly guarded these days, and is driven around in a big black SUV.

The bodyguard is pretty burly, so he’s not the best person to be photographed with if you’ve lost a lot of weight.

Via 9to5Mac.

The iPhone jailbreak community, famous for stepping into the breach when Apple’s incomprehensible App Store approval process fails to give users what they want, now offers GV Mobile on Cydia, just one day after Apple thumbed its nose at Google Voice apps for the iPhone.

While some outlets remain comfortable blaming AT&T for Apple’s rejection of Google Voice apps, despite the fact that it’s demonstrably wrong to do so, the jailbreak community was pleased to offer up developer Sean Kovacs’ GV Mobile app, which had been available on the App Store before being yanked in the larger decision to separate Apple from Google with respect to voice services.

Google itself has a Voice app, presently in beta and available by invitation only, but Kovacs’ GV Mobile brings the power of Google’s revolutionary voice product to the iPhone, allowing users to:

* dial numbers via the iPhone address book or typing on the keypad
* Full SMS support (view historic, reply, send new)
* retrieve and delete recent call history
* playback and delete voicemails
* take calls from different phones other than your iPhone
* enable or disable the phones that Google Voice forwards calls to
* add or delete phones that Google Voice forwards call to.

Users must already have a Google Voice account and a working wireless phone plan in order to take advantage of the app’s features, but it seems clear – with millions of numbers in reserve and broad interest in the convenience and configurability of Google’s Voice product – some may find access to GV Mobile something worth jailbreaking their phone for.

I tried to write this article seriously. After all I’m an executive management consultant and an analyst; this is what I do for a living.

Even Leander chimed in, “Leigh, you’re becoming a parody of yourself, a crank only hauled out to rant about stuff and then tucked back in the closet.”

I want you all to know I tried, I really did. But this notion of Microsoft opening up stores is so Dog-Damned Stupid, it makes my fricken head want to explode.

Follow me after the jump to find out why.

Microsoft will open its first two retail stores in ritzy malls in Scottsdale, Arizona, and at The Shops at Mission Viejo, California — two locations where Apple already has stores, CNet reports.

A few days ago, it was revealed that Microsoft is considering many of the same features that make Apple’s stores so successful, including a rival to the Genius Bar called the “Guru Bar.”

One of the key factors in Apple’s success is the location of its stores. Apple chooses upscale malls, or shopping streets in tony neighborhoods, with lots of foot traffic and easy freeway access.

Microsoft has obviously learned the same lesson. Its first two shops will be at the Scottsdale Fashion Square in the heart of Scottsdale, one of the richest satellite towns of Phoenix area. Apple opened an architecturally stunning store at the nearby Scottsdale Quarter mall in June.

Microsoft’s other store will be at The Shops at Mission Viejo, another rich town south of Los Angeles in the heart of Orange County. Apple already has a store in The Shops mall.

“Over a billion people use our products every day yet we don’t always have a way to directly connect with them,” Microsoft spokeswoman Kim Stocks told CNet. “We see the physical stores, as well as a consistent online experience, helping that.”

Like Apple, Microsoft also intends to take its shops global, the company told CNet, though declined to give details.

Microsoft has reportedly hired former Apple real estate chief George Blankenship as a consultant to help securing locations for its stores. The company has confirmed that it hired Wal-Mart veteran David Porter to head up its stores initiative.

The stores will open in the fall, just before Microsoft launches Windows 7 on October 22.

Today’s deals include a MacBook starting at $749, MacBook Pros, Mac Pro desktops and many more.

Details of these and other bargains can be found on the CoM Daily Deals page.

New pictures from a Chinese case manufacturer suggest that the next-gen iPod Touch and iPod Nano will get video recording.

Apple’s iTunes – the only online music distributor that matters, according to one well-placed music lawyer – may get additional competition before year-end, if an exclusive Wired report published Monday proves accurate.

Spotify, a music service boasting over 6 million songs that can be accessed on-demand and customized into personalized, editable, downloadable playlists, is currently available only in Europe but the company is feverishly working to sign distribution agreements with copyright holders and music labels to bring both a desktop and an iPhone application to American consumers as soon as possible, according to the report.

Spotify’s potential to compete with iTunes in the US remains speculative at this point, and the company understands that despite having created a slick iPhone app to which Wired writer Eliot Van Buskirk gives rave pre-release reviews, Apple could put the kibosh on the whole thing if it determines Spotify “replicates functionality” provided by Apple’s native iTunes application. “It’s going to be very interesting to see if Apple lets this through or sees us as competition — fingers crossed,” explained Spotify communications manager Jim Butcher.

Whether or not the iPhone app is approved, when the company gets its US distribution agreements in order it seems likely that many will check out some of the interesting features the desktop service will have to offer, such as the ability to stream playlists created by other Spotify members and to access an ad-free version of the service with a premium account.

It will be interesting, too, to see how Spotify differs from and compares with Lala, another iTunes competitor with great potential already available in the US.

The family of the Foxconn employee who reportedly committed suicide over a lost iPhone prototype has been compensated for his death, even though the company suspects him of industrial espionage, the New York Times reports.

The family of Sun Danyong, 25, received 300,000 renminbi, or more than $44,000, and his girlfriend got a new Apple laptop.

However, Foxconn, which makes iPods and iPhones under contract to Apple, says the employee had a history of suspiciously “losing” products, suggesting he might be involved in industrial espionage.

“The case also underscores the challenges that global companies face in trying to safeguard their designs and intellectual property in the hotly contested smartphone market, particularly here in the southern Chinese city of Shenzhen, an electronics manufacturing center known for piracy and counterfeiting,” the Times says.

Today’s deals include refurbished MacBook Air, starting at $999, refurbished 80GB iPod Video, new App Store freebies and many more.

Details and these and other bargains can be found on the CoM Daily Deals page.