Canadian national newspaper discusses the plan pricing differences between Rogers and AT&T.

You will find this story, The iPhone’s cross-border price clash, on the front page of the Report on Business section of today’s Global and Mail newspaper.

As I pointed out in this post on June 30, a number of iPhone hungry Canadians were upset at Roger’s voice and data packages for the iPhone 3G.

Pricey packages have some Canadians dreaming of Manifest Destiny.

July 1st is Canada Day.  Like many Canucks, I look forward to enjoying the holiday and celebrating the 141th birthday of the greatest nation on Earth.  However, after seeing Roger’s iPhone 3G voice and data packages I have to admit, I’m a bit envious of my American neighbours.

Down south, Yankees that want to surf the web using their iPhone can subscribe to an unlimited data plan offered by AT&T.  The cost of the plan is $30 USD per month.  Canadian wireless carrier, Rogers, on the other hand, has not announced an unlimited data plan.  Instead, Rogers offers a maximum of 2 GB of data and 800 minutes of weekday voice calls for $115 CAD per month.  If you exceed the 2 GB limit, you are charged 50¢ per MB for the first 60 MB and 3¢ per MB thereafter.  The AT&T plan requires a 2 year commitment.  The Rogers plan locks you in for 3 years.  To make matters worse, Rogers iPhone subscribers are obligated to name their first born after company founder, Ted Rogers.  Ok, I made the last part up.

Fortune’s magazine’s Apple 2.0 blog observed that this pricey difference has iPhone-hungry Canadians hot and bothered.  Not content to just post vent in forums and blogs, some “radicals” have setup an online petition misdirected at Steve Jobs. 

Loyal readers will remember that I had a very cool reaction to the first generation iPhone.  Unlike many in the blogosphere that greeted it like the Second Coming, I thought it needed more storage, longer battery life, and support for third-party applications.

With the second generation, it appears many of my concerns have been resolved.  Also, with Canadian availability, I had hoped US-style unlimited data pricing would sneak across the longest, undefended border.  Unfortunately, those rumours turned out to be false.  I guess you can’t believe everything you read on the Internet.

For now, I’ll shelve any plans of buying a iPhone 3G from Rogers.  Perhaps I’ll do the patriotic thing and consider the new Blackberry Bold.  Not only was Research in Motion started in Canada, but co-founder, Jim Balsillie, is eager to setup his own NHL hockey team.  You can’t get more Canadian than that!

June 7th marked the 25th anniversary of the launch of IBM’s DB2 database on the MVS operating system. 

This InformationWeek article describes how a close knit community of researchers and programmers caused the “accidental birth of an empire”.

At first, relational database was a highly mocked product, halting in its performance compared to the programmed-path systems. Skeptics like John Cullinane, founder of Cullinet Software, once took this reporter aside to instruct him that relational database would never amount to anything compared to his firm’s IDMS product. Last year, relational database represented an $18.6 billion a year market, according to IDC. Ecommerce would be impossible without it.

ITWorldCanada discusses the contributions of the IBM Toronto Lab and the development of DB2 for Linux, UNIX, and Windows.

The next DemoCamp, DemoCampToronto18, is scheduled for Tuesday, July 15, 2008 at the Supermarket (268 Augusta Ave, Toronto).   You can register at EventBrite.  Tickets are going fast.

What is DemoCamp?

DemoCamp is a variation of the un-conference style of event, started by the TorCamp group as an excuse to have more regular meetings where community members share what they’ve been working on, demo their products, meet others (and share a drink or 3).

Over the past few months, Presentation Zen has become a favourite blog.  The author, Garr Reynolds, routinely finds videos of talented speakers.

Recently Garr linked to this 2006 presentation about high-tech marketing by author Seth Godin.  The title of the presentation is “The Power of Telling Authentic Stores in a Low-Trust World”.   The video is embedded below.

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It seems every other week, I encounter someone that has just bought their first digital SLR camera.  In most cases, these people had upgraded from a compact digital camera, also called a point-and-shoot camera. 

I thought I would share some links to information which will help these beginners learn to use their new camera.

Unlike many compact, “point-and-shoot” cameras, a digital single-lens reflex camera offers more flexibility to create great shots.  Of course, it is easy to be overwhelmed by the options provided by your first digital SLR camera.

Here are two free websites that offer sample photos and interactive tutorials. 

Canon’s Enjoy! Digital SLR Cameras
http://www.canon.co.jp/imaging/enjoydslr/index.html

Nikon’s Digital Learning Center
http://www1.nikonusa.com/slrlearningcenter/index.php

Don’t worry if you don’t own a Canon or Nikon digital SLR camera.  A lot information is applicable to any digial SLR camera.

We have just released 11 best practice papers for DB2 9.  The papers are available at no charge.  You can download them from IBM developerWorks.

These Best Practice papers present advice on the most optimal ways you can use DB2 to satisfy key business data processing needs. These papers are authored by leading experts in IBM’s development and consulting teams, and have been extensively tested.

Each Best Practice paper is designed to provide practical guidance for the most common DB2 9 product configurations. By applying these recommendations, you may improve the value of your DB2 data servers and align yourself with IBM’s technical direction for DB2.

Currently there are papers covering the following topics:

1. Database storage
2. Physical database design
3. Data life cycle management
4. Minimizing planned outages
5. IBM data server security
6. Deploying IBM DB2 products
7. Writing and tuning queries for optimal performance
8. Tuning and monitoring database system performance
9. Managing XML data
10. Improving data server utilization and management through virtualization
11. Frequently asked questions from problem management reports

Expect more papers on other topics in the near future.

LifeHacker offers up their top ten memory “hacks”.  Also, Google search can provide quick currency conversions.

Some analysts think a next-gen video game console price war is coming.

If you’re a fan of Ansel Adam’s iconic photos of Yosemite National Park, you’ll enjoy this multimedia feature from the New York Times.  Ansel’s former assistant talks about the story behind nine of his famous photos.

Looking for a parking lot or transit stop in Toronto?  Try Stopfinder.  After you provide the destination address, the service highlights public transit stops.  It also identifies the closest and cheapest parking lots in the area.

Gina Trapani, the founding editor of the Lifehacker blog, has published an updated book entitled Upgrade Your Life.  The publisher is offering free samples of the book in PDF format here.  The sample chapter contains 10 easy to use email management “hacks”.  Check it out.

A few months ago, I heard about TripIt from a rave review in Joel Spolsky’s blog.  Yesterday, I read another glowing review from Don MacAskill.

TripIt is a free web service that “automatically organizes all your travel plans.”  Supposedly you simply forward each travel confirmation email to their the plans@tripit.com email address.  Using the information in the confirmation emails, TripIt will then compile a personalized travel itinerary that includes weather, driving directions, maps, etc.  They claim to support Canadian travel vendors including Air Canada, WestJet, and ViaRail.

Has anyone tried it?