I’m truly saddened to learn of Steve Jobs’ death. Melinda and I extend our sincere condolences to his family and friends, and to everyone Steve has touched through his work.

Steve and I first met nearly 30 years ago, and have been colleagues, competitors and friends over the course of more than half our lives.

The world rarely sees someone who has had the profound impact Steve has had, the effects of which will be felt for many generations to come.

For those of us lucky enough to get to work with him, it’s been an insanely great honor.  I will miss Steve immensely.

- Bill Gates

In an effort to save the carriers that support them vast amounts of frustration, Microsoft is slowly rolling out the update to users, with all of the updates being pushed by the end of October. If they rolled out the update to 100% of users on day one the carriers would probably be inundated with support calls from clueless WP7 users, and their networks would certainly slug along due to the bandwidth required for such an update. So, Microsoft is going with a tiered approach to help stave off that frustration.

However, if you haven’t received your update notification yet there are a few things you can do that will bump you to the front of that queue.

The first thing you should try doing is plugging your WP7 into your PC, and launching the Zune software. Once in the software, click settings in the top right of the screen and then update from the menu on the left of the screen. If an update is available you can update directly from the Zune software. This method completely bypasses the need to use the carrier’s network, and it may very well be available to more customers than we think.

If that doesn’t work, you can also force the update on your Windows Phone 7 device.

1. Connect your WP7 to your computer and launch the Zune software
2. Click on phone ► settings ► update. If an update is available, skip the remaining steps.
3. Click any of the left menu items other than update (ex: linking, wireless sync, etc).
4. Click update again, but a few seconds after you do, unplug your PC from the internet. If it doesn’t show the update, try again and disable your internet connection faster.
5. Once you click the update your phone button, wait 30-45 seconds. You should be prompted to update to 7392, which is a pre-update.
6. Re-enable your internet connection and proceed with the update(s).
7. You should be taken through the remaining update steps after the 7392 update completes. If you do not, repeat the steps above.

There are three pre-updates to Mango, so it may take some time. The magic number you want to end on is version 7.10 (7720). This is a confirmed work-around, so enjoy your Windows Phone 7.5 experience!

You can check out at all of the updates and improvements with Mango here, or view some of the most important updates below:

• Custom ringtones
• Bing Audio: Shazam-style audio track recognition
• Multitasking for third-party apps
• Deeper integration with live tiles
• An overhauled Live Tile system
• Internet Explorer 9, support for HTML 5
• Bing Vision: Integrated scanning for barcodes, tags, text, etc.
• Voice recognition for drafting text messages
• Email folders pinnable to the start screen for quick access
• Facebook Chat and Windows Live Messenger integration
• New conversation view for email exchanges
• Ability to search email servers for archived messages
• New Lync app for Windows Phone (IM and presence), a likely first step toward
• Skype integration
• Support for complex passwords (alphanumeric)
• Information rights management support for protected emails and documents
• Ability to access hidden corporate WiFi networks
• Native podcast search and download in the Windows Phone Marketplace
• Integrated turn-by-turn directions
• The ability to send SMS text messages to preset groups of contacts
• Integration of Office 365 and SkyDrive in the Office hub
• Overhaul of the Games hub, with an auto-sync feature
• Twitter integration into the Windows Phone People hub
• The ability to quickly search for installed apps by keyword
• Access to motion sensor and camera by third-party apps
• AOL instant messenger integration
• Office Hub Improvements
• Album Artwork displayable on lock screen
• Xbox Live Gold and Silver and other Live improvements;
• And small performance and security tweaks

It seems Microsoft learned from the well-publicized debacle that was the NoDo update earlier this year, as it seems they have worked directly with all of their carriers to ensure a global release for the vast majority of the handsets. To check the status of your Windows Phone 7 device check out this site, or view the handy-dandy table below (US only).

I think it is safe to say that our new design is heavily inspired by the guys in Redmond. We hope to be employing some user customizable features as well, so you can choose any accent color your heart desires! We hope you enjoy it as much as we think you will! Look for it to be released within the next week or so.

News out of Redmond today as Microsoft announced quarterly dividend payments of $0.20 per share. According to the company, the payments for this quarter are 25% more than last quarter’s $0.16 per share. The dividend payments may seem like chump change to many, but for the investors of Microsoft it is a great reward for having faith in the company:

“Our strong financial results enable us to increase our dividend as part of our ongoing commitment to return capital to our shareholders,” said Peter Klein, chief financial officer of Microsoft.

Lets use Bill Gates as an extreme example of dividend payments being highly profitable. Mr. Moneybags currently owns 591 million shares of the company’s stock, which makes his dividend payment for this quarter a whopping $118,200,000 (pre-taxes of course).  That is a 25% increase over the previous quarter’s puny return of only $94.5 million in dividends.

As you see, it can be highly advantageous for stock holders to reap the rewards of quarterly dividends. Strangely enough, silicon valley juggernaut Apple does not pay dividends, a shocking move considering they currently have $76 billion dollars in the bank, and are on pace to have $96 billion in the bank by the end of the year. So why no dividend for their share holders? There are rumors that will soon change.

UPDATE – After further investigation we discovered that Bill Gates actually owns 540,979,055 shares of Microsoft stock. So his dividend payments for this quarter will only be $108,195,811. Poor Bill.