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There is no doubt that the iPhone being released in Canada on July 11th will be huge. Regardless of price or plan, lots of fanboys, tech nerds and kids with rich (or dumb?) parents will get there hands on it.

The highly anticipated price plans have been released on the Rogers website. Notice that there is no unlimited data transfer like our friends in the US get as well as the basic extras cost extra. (call display, evenings at 6pm rather than 9pm, etc). It looks like for a decent plan, you are looking at paying at least $100 a month, probably more. Don’t forget the extra charges as you are watching Youtube videos that push you past your cap!

Check out the tons of comments which are even more entertaining and basically comes down to everyone saying “F YOU Rogers”.

http://www.blogto.com/tech/2008/06/rogers_iphone_plans_revealed/

http://www.engadget.com/2008/06/27/rogers-announces-iphone-3g-plans-unlimited-data-isnt-one-of-th/

In fact, it has even spawned  a brand new site http://www.fuckyourogers.com/

It would be interesting to see how the iPhone does in Canada. Unfortunately, it seems the Canada is far behind that of the United States in this regard as there is very little competition here.

I have been on MSN Messenger for a long time. Admittedly, it’s not the best IM client out there but the simple fact is that most of my friends use it. Apparently it’s the #1 of IM client in Canada while AIM is #1 in the United States (go figure?).

A potential problem that I have started to see is the IM Spam that I have been receiving. I would estimate, at least a few times a week I would suddenly receive an unsolicated IM message:

(9:39:03 PM) curtissmalzahnzmbx667@live.com: 2252128559Hey check out hxxp://cobatra.com/gdr43

It’s fairly obvious that this is some kind of malware website. I can only imagine how many people fall for it and click on the link mostly likely with the famously insecure browser, Internet Explorer 6.

As always, keep your system up to date with virus and firewall protection and of course, use the just released, Firefox 3 web browser.

**EDIT**

Just got this one:

(10:33:46 PM) vitiwovazig84@hotmail.com: heyy. how are you? I’m doing OK. lonely though … can you come watch me strip on my webcam??? pleaasee. i’ll love you forever.. go here  http://2iN3ZBpcygOP6.blogspot.com see ya there! =) i am waiting!!

It’s kind of sad seeing what has become of Yahoo as of late. It has been in the news for some time as it negotiates on and off again with Microsoft that eventually led to nothing. This did not make too many shareholders happy as they saw perhaps billions (yes billions) of dollars fly away. This created more drama with major shareholders such as Carl Icahn’s attempt to dissolve the board of directors and the head of Yahoo Chief Executive and co-founder Jerry Yan on a stick.

Eventually Yahoo turned to Google as their white knight but that deal (partnership?) turned out to a be a lame ad sense deal . Yahoo might as well have just created a publisher account.  Shareholders see this as a ~ $800 Million deal, which pales in comparison to the ~ $12 Billion. Maybe Yang uses a different algorithm?

What is perhaps most interesting is mass exodus of Yahoo execs.  What will become of Yahoo?

Possibly some scary news for Canadians who may soon face stiff copyright law where some critics are going so far saying that Copyright law could result in police state:

The federal government has introduced a controversial bill it says balances the rights of copyright holders and consumers — but it opens millions of Canadians to huge lawsuits, prompting critics to warn it will create a “police state.”

People caught downloading music or video files illegally could also be sued for a maximum of $500, but uploading a file to a peer-to-peer network or YouTube could result in lawsuits of $20,000 per file.

Most people in the tech industry are keeping an eye on Apple WWDC Event today and the rumoured release of the iPhone 2.0. Let fanboys rejoice, the Apple Hype Machine is in full force.

Most, if not all the big bloggers are doing live, play by play of the event including what Steve Jobs is wearing, here’s a few to keep an eye on:

• macrumours.com
• techcrunch.com
• engadget.com

Will this be the iPhone that Rogers wireless is planning on releasing at most likely some exorbitant pricing plans?

I am actually more curious how twitter will be able to hold up to the onslaught of tweets for this event, which I can only imagine will be massive. They are supposedly prepared for it based on their blog post.

We’ve moved much of the load off our database by utilizing more memcache, employing more read-slave servers, and by fixing some bugs for improved efficiency.

In the event that our estimates and preparations fail, we have designed a way to keep Twitter updates moving quickly through the system to their respective recipients. We have isolated and created on/off switches for many Twitter features. Should it become necessary to shed incoming load quickly, we can turn off features such as stats, pagination, and several others to preserve the reliability and timeliness of your Twitter timeline.

Looks like Canada is catching up to the US in regards to copyright infringement. There was a time where we were in sort of a legal limbo outside the reach of groups such as the RIAA and MPAA from legal actions . Guess things are changing….

From the article:

Link: URGENT MESSAGE TO CANADIANS

My fellow Canadians, a matter of the greatest importance has come to our attention. TOMORROW new laws will be passed by the Canadian government which will effectively OUTLAW the use of modchips and flash carts, among other things.

And more: Report Says Canadian DMCA To Include $500 Fine Per Download:

The National Post reports that the Canadian DMCA, which may be introduced tomorrow, will include a “personal use download” fine of $500. The front page story indicates that the fine (presumably a new form of statutory damage award) could be awarded on a per infringement basis, leading the possibility of hundreds of thousands of dollars in liability for file sharing. This provision has been rumoured for some time and may be designed to reduce the maximum possible awards, since the current statutory damages provision provides for damage awards of up to $20,000 per infringement.

This could become quite interesting and I wonder if we’ll start to see similar crackdowns and wild RIAA suits against us Canadians for wild amounts of money.

Interesting and kind of scary article from Canada.com: “Copyright deal could toughen rules governing info on iPods, computers”

The federal government is secretly negotiating an agreement to revamp international copyright laws which could make the information on Canadian iPods, laptop computers or other personal electronic devices illegal and greatly increase the difficulty of travelling with such devices.

The deal could also impose strict regulations on Internet service providers, forcing those companies to hand over customer information without a court order.

Considering the US Border can search laptops without cause, it seems it’s not safe to travel anymore with these seemingly harmless devices. What you have on your computer or iPod could land you a serious fine or worse yet, jail time.

Crossing the border and delays between Canada and the US is already slowed by things such as terrorist alerts, currency exchange rates and high gas prices – this could just add another reason why not to bother crossing the border. Maybe their intent is to discourage travel and tourism. Thoughts?

A phenomenal and impressive use of Abobe Flash to create a space themed visualization for Flickr images via tagging. Enjoy.

Site: Tag Galaxy

Synopsis: Great in theory, not so great in execution

GrandCentral is a “free Google-owned internet service that uses VoIP to link customers’ phone numbers together”. It is currently in private beta and there have not been any invites available since March 14, 2008. Lucky for me, I managed to snag a “blogger invite” just before the deadline to sign myself up for an account.

Some Features include:

• Screen Callers – Know who’s calling and screen unknown callers
• ListenIn – Hear why someone is calling before taking the call
• Call Record – Record calls on the fly and access recordings online
• Block Callers – Unwanted callers won’t be able to reach you anymore
• Notifications – Receive voicemail notifications via email or SMS
• Ring Different Phones – One number that rings different phones based on who’s calling
• Greetings – Personalize your voicemail greetings by caller or group
• WebCall Button – Let people call you from a web page without showing your number
• CallSwitch – Switch phones in the middle of a call

It has allowed me to setup one US based phone number that forwards calls to my Canadian based number. In this case, it goes to my cell phone but I can also set it up to direct to various other phone numbers, all controlled via a easy to use web interface. This effectively allows people in the United States to call me for free since they simply call the US based number which is local for them and it will automatically call my phone number in Canada.

Not only that, through the web interface, it allows me to call any US based number for free as well. It basically provides a middle layer. All this for free….at least for now. Sounds great doesn’t it? It is great in theory and when it works, it’s a phenomenal service.

The main problem is that it is simply not reliable. On too many occasions, there have been sudden dropped calls and inability for calls to get through. There has been one major service disruption, and just today, apparently they almost forgot to renew their domain name!

This past weekend, all Canadian number seemed to be blocked and had me worrying that they suddenly decided to change their policies. It has since been restored. They are not the fastest on replying to support requests, however, I will give them credit since one of the customer service reps did call me to verify that things were resolved. A pleasant surprise.

You can get an idea about these and other issues by checking out their discussion rooms. I think most people agree that it’s simply not reliable and not quite ready for prime time. Would not use for business purposes until they’ve ironed out the kinks.

You would think that things would improve once Google got their hands on it but I am wondering if it’s just another one of their acquisitions that they put on the back burner as far as development is concerned (can we say Google Talk?)

Feel free to give me a call on GrandCentral

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