Remember iPhone Bob? He was senior director of Apple’s worldwide product marketing for the iPhone, and the onscreen pitch man in 2008’s iPhone 3G Guided Tour videos. Bob Borchers worked on the iPod and iPhone for five years at Apple, while the company’s stock went up, up, down, and up again. He’s now a general partner of venture-capital firm Opus Capital.

Borchers is taking the plunge into venture capital even as the venture industry has been hit hard by the recession. Fund-raising is down, many startup investments have been hurt, and venture exits through IPOs and M&A are also hard to come by. Numerous venture capitalists have been let go or are retiring.

To move into an industry where more people are going than coming can only mean one thing. Borchers has the money to do what he wants. Bob, say, “Thank you, Apple.”

ComScore tracked e-commerce spending and traffic for November (through Black Friday). The result:

Five retail properties surpassed four million U.S. unique visitors (i.e. four million different people) on Black Friday, with each of these properties experiencing gains versus last year. Amazon Sites was the most visited retail property on Black Friday, growing 28 percent from the corresponding shopping day a year ago, followed closely by Walmart, which grew 22 percent. Apple.com Worldwide Sites (up 39 percent), Target Corporation (up 2 percent) and Best Buy Sites (up 24 percent) rounded out the top five.

That’s traffic. What about sales?

CNBC’s Jim Cramer on Tuesday’s election of Scott Brown in Massachusetts (from NewsBusters):

I think investors who are nervous about the dictatorship of the Pelosi proletariat will feel at ease, and we could have a gigantic rally off a Coakley loss and a Brown win. It will be a signal that a more pro-business, less pro-labor government could be in front of us.

Well, Brown won. Where’s the rally, Jim?

Isn’t this the same Jim Cramer who who said “Bear Stearns isn’t in trouble” just days before Bear Stearns collapsed?

I sure hope Cramer says absolutely nothing about AAPL.

Fake Steve does an analysis of Why Dell will not bounce back. Funny, self indulgent piece, but loaded with the ring of truth. From FSJ:

Bottom line is this: the only innovations worth making are the ones involving product ideas and product design. I mean, Duh. Right? It’s pretty obvious. What’s amazing to me is how few companies actually seem to realize it. To sustain an edge in any market you must make better products than your competitors, consistently, over and over and over again. Just making the same products as everyone else but taking a little friction out of the system can give you an advantage, but only a temporary one.

I finally got my hands on a Magic Mouse and don’t want to let go. It’s sweet. But, unlike Gizmodo’s Jason Chen, I won’t go so far as to say it’s the best mouse Apple’s made in years. Why? I don’t remember a better mouse.

The Magic Mouse is undoubtedly the best mouse Apple’s made in years. They’ve taken their knowledge in trackpad finger gestures and one-piece manufacturing and made this delicate, yet sturdy, bridge-shaped mouse. The question is how it compares to other mice.

When was the last time that Apple made a better mouse than Magic Mouse? It wasn’t Mighty Mouse, though it was good. It wasn’t the one-button mouse. It wasn’t the original iMac’s hockey puck mouse.

It also can’t manage to stay free from scratches, similar to white MacBooks that also get scratched very easily. But the blemishes don’t interfere with the mouse’s functionality—it’s just painful to watch any new product lose its pristine finish so quickly.

How do you scratch the top of a mouse? If it’s a ring causing the scratches, then it’s your own fault. A gold plated mouse would have the same issue. So, is it a good mouse?

Yeah, it is. The Magic Mouse is much better than the Mighty Mouse, which people hated, and might actually be good enough that non-Mac users might want to pick it up as well, supposing that they don’t really care about ergonomics.

Alright, Jason. Guess what? All people didn’t hate Mighty Mouse. Only elitist techno nerds hated it. It sold by the tens of millions. I loved mine, even preferring it to an expensive and well-used Microsoft Intellimouse.

It’s not ergonomic? What mouse is ergonomic? Compare it to something.

The Magic Mouse doesn’t have the crazy tracking ability that Logitech’s MX mice just introduced—so it can’t track on glass, and it can’t track on glossy surfaces like the 13-inch MacBook.

Right. That makes sense. Don’t use Magic Mouse on a window or on top your white MacBook. Are there any negatives?

As good as the swiping gestures are, they’re limited in what you can actually accomplish with them. You can’t use more than three fingers at a time, because you won’t have enough fingers left to hold the mouse.

Damn that human anatomy. If only we had more fingers then Magic Mouse would be Gizmodo worthy. Did Apple do anything right?

The one thing Apple did completely right in the Magic Mouse was the touch scrolling. It’s fluid, natural and works with any amount of fingers on over 75% of the mouse surface (all the way down to the Apple logo). Flicking up and down gets you up and down web pages fast, as long as you have “momentum” turned on in the settings.

Thanks to Wil and a patient friend from the 5th Avenue Apple Store (the shrine), I’ve been playing with a Magic Mouse for about an hour (long lunch). First, it’s strikingly beautiful. That’s Apple’s forte.

Second, Magic Mouse is incredibly smooth, altogether similar in movement to the glass trackpad on my MacBook Pro. My first problem was accidentally activating right-click while scrolling. It’s sensitive and requires a finger tip pressure adjustment that’s different than Mighty Mouse.

Magic Mouse surface is far smoother to scroll than any scroll wheel I’ve ever used. Two finger swiping is more awkward than on my MacBook Pro, probably because the trackpad has a larger surface area, and the notebook doesn’t move as I swipe, which Magic Mouse is prone to do. Jason is correct.

Using two finger swiping to navigate web pages, on the other hand, is a bit more awkward. You’ll need to pinch the mouse on the sides with your thumb and fourth/pinkie finger while you’re scrolling, forcing you to make a painful eagle claw all the time.

For the first time ever you can scroll in a circle. Photoshop users will love it. On the other hand, if you have a problem with swiping on a MacBook Pro trackpad, you’re likely to have similar issues with gestures on Magic Mouse. There’s not as much surface, and even with a smooth swipe, the mouse itself can move. That takes getting used to.

Unlike the iPhone, Magic Mouse’s Multi-Touch surface doesn’t allow you to pinch or squeeze to zoom in, or stretch to zoom out. Magic Mouse is also much smaller than expected, especially when placed next to the brick-like Logitech or Microsoft mouse.

One hour does not a review make, because it takes time to unlearn old habits and learn a slightly different way to do the same things, but Magic Mouse is smooth as silk, and very sensitive to a precise touch. Even with two batteries inside it doesn’t feel heavy. It remains to be seen how long the batteries last. I’ll do a more detailed review as soon as I can buy a Magic Mouse and give it a run through (awaiting Mac OS X 10.6.2).