Back of the Class

Randy Pausch, the Carnegie Mellon computer science professor who after being diagnosed with incurable cancer devised a last lecture that became an Internet sensation and bestselling book, and a celebration of a life spent achieving his dreams has died of pancreatic cancer. He was 47.

Last September, Dr. Pausch addressed a crowd of about 400 faculty and students at Carnegie Mellon as part of the school’s “Last Lecture” series. In the talks, professors typically talk about issues that matter most to them. Dr. Pausch opened his talk with the news that he had terminal cancer and proceeded to deliver an uplifting, funny talk about his own childhood dreams and how to help his children and others achieve their own goals in life. He learned he had pancreatic cancer in September, 2006.

“I didn’t set out to tell the world about how to live their life,’’ he said. Oprah invited him on her show where he gave an abridged version of his lecture. He then put his lecture in a book which was published in April and leaped to the top of the nonfiction best-seller lists, where it remained this week. An internet version of his video has had over 10 million hits and its really worth watching.

The book is well worth reading too and although obviously somewhat a tear-jerker, it gave me a lot to think about.

Just when I was beginning to feel comfortable navigating my way around Facebook, they launch a new design. Does it flummox me? Yeah, somewhat. But I always like change and I figure they can only be improving it to make it easier for people to use. Having played around a bit with it today, if feel that it cleaner and simpler in design, and users can preview and test the next-generation features and functionality. People can use the new design and try out the improved features by navigating back and forth between the new and current versions of the site. Access to the new design will be limited at first and gradually become available to all of Facebook’s more than 80 million users over the coming days.

“We’ve made the changes rolling out today in order to highlight the most recent and relevant information that users value, give users even more control and ownership over their profiles and simplify the user experience,” said Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg. “Facebook’s new design makes it a lot easier for users to share information, and we encourage them to check it out.”

Since writing my previous post (just published a few minutes ago) Rogers have somewhat bowed to demands and released new lower rates - valid only until August 31st this year. We can now get an awesome six-gigabyte data plan for $30. What happens to those people that buy after August 31st? Will we have to pay $70 a month - the second highest data plan rate in the world?

It appears that they have slashed the cost of using an iPhone in Canada and the phone will be launched at six stores across the country tomorrow.

Rogers representatives say six gigabytes will allow users to visit 36,000 Web pages, send or receive more than 157,000 emails or watch almost 6,300 minutes of YouTube videos each month. That should be quite enough for the average user.

The rate covers only Web browsing, emails and video, so phone service costs will be tacked on top of the $30. Always a catch, eh?

iPHONE COMING TO CANADA

July 11th is iPHONE day in Canada - finally! We’ve waited long enough for this awesome new device that will make communication freaks even more addicted to the latest Apple toy. So what is this new phone that so many people are raving about? Well, it is not just a phone. Its your latest iPod, rolled into a cell phone, rolled into a GPS system and more! It can play music accessing your iTunes, display images, take photos, allow you to watch movies, use your Calendar, check your stocks, use the calculator and access the internet. Don’t get so caught up that you forget this new toy can be used as a mobile phone! This sounds like the greatest thing since sliced bread. I for one can’t wait to buy one. Or will I? I was all ready to ditch my Bell plan until I heard that Rogers is making it so darn expensive that average Joe who doesn’t mind paying $199 for the iPhone, will think twice (or twenty times) about the $70 minimum monthly rate plan or the top rate plan of $115. Of course, whose cell phone bill ever is the amount your rate plan quotes you? There are always extras. So now like many other communication addicts, I am stuck between a rock and a hard place.

I’ve joined over 60 000 Canadian consumers who are petitioning Rogers to bring their Canadian plan more in line with other countries’ data plans. http://www.ruinediphone.com/ Let’s see if they will bow to pressure. Stay tuned.

There has been so much to blog about lately and my huge frustration was we had technical difficulties in uploading posts, so my blogs sat dormant on my computer while we waited for the technical glitch to be sorted out. Now that we are up again, I have much to say, so stay tuned!