Today I submitted my data to the annual survey conducted by the Web Standards gurus over at A List Apart. If you make websites, and want to contribute to the only online survey that tracks trends in working conditions for web builders around the world, head on over and do your part by clicking on the badge (at right) that says "I TOOK IT". You might even win a prize.

This week the iPhone goes on sale in Canada, officially, for the first time. Too bad most of the people who should be excited about it, myself among them, are pissed. Apparently, so is Apple. The fan-sites are abuzz with a rumor that Rogers is getting "significantly" less iPhones than originally planned for the launch as punishment for pissing off so many potential customers.

Instead Apple is rumored to be diverting units to Europe where the rate plans and data packages are actually decent and affordable. They also don't have massive online petititions and almost-daily negative media coverage over there. As of this morning, there were nearly 43,000 names on the RuinediPhone.com petition. On July 11, the date of the launch, every name and comment on the petition will be printed out and delivered to Rogers' head office. The fact that this initiative has garnered over 40 thousand names in a single week is both amazing and somewhat disconcerting.

As an aside: the RuinediPhone site became so popular in just one week that it has already sold out to been acquired by a web marketing company with a very slimey slick name called Oilchange.com, who are no doubt thrilled to get access to all those email addresses.

So now the real countdown begins. It's only 5 days till the iPhone 3G goes on sale, and my name is number 15 on the "reserved" list at the local Rogers store. I still don't know if I'll actually buy one on launch day though... I totally want the device, and it's even related to my job, but it's overpriced and politically-charged. What should I do?!? 

If you haven't heard, Rogers finally released their long-awaited, and much-dreaded, rate plans and data packages for the upcoming iPhone 3G launch in Canada. Across the country, and very quickly around the globe, people were aghast to learn that Rogers decided to defy all common sense with a 3-tier pricing system with NO UNLIMITED DATA option, a mandatory 3-year contract, and prices that are way higher (with less minutes and less text message) than anywhere else in the world.

Not content to sit idly by, some enterprising Canadians picked up their keyboards and sprung into action. Within hours after the announcement the blgosphere was buzzing and online petitions went up. Initially conceived as FuckYouRogers.com, a more family-oriented version called RuinediPhone.com has been gathering names and comments that will be delivered to Rogers on July 11, the date the new iPhone comes out. You can click on the graphic above to add your name (and vitriol) to the growing list. As of this morning there are over 30,000 names on the list. The question is, will Rogers change their pricing and plans to appease the masses and ultimately maximise potential sales of the revolutionary new device, or will they be stick to their guns and continue sapping the lifeblood out of the Canadian mobile market by taxing the people for as much as they can? Hmmm... I wonder.

In mobile news today, Nokia announced that they were buying up the remaining shares of Symbian, and would be donating the whole shebang to the Symbian Foundation to manage as an Open Source mobile operating system. So what does this mean?

First of all, it means that Nokia is worried that the Symbian platform's dominance of the smart-phone market is threatened by Google's upcoming Android platform and Apple's iPhone platform (and to a lesser extent Linux for mobile). Until a year ago, Symbian was sitting pretty as the number one mobile platform with anywhere between two thirds and three quarters of the global smart-phone market share, while Windows Mobile was a distant 2nd (as of Dec 07 Microsoft only had 12% market share). Since then, a lot has changed (i.e.: Apple released the iPhone, and Google announced Android). Google decided to take the open source route when they first announced Android late last year. That model has done well for them in terms of getting a lot of developers (and bloggers) excited, but they have had some challenges getting it out the door. Apple has been getting nothing but adoration from the development community ever since it announced their SDK, and more recently, an integrated storefront (the iTunes App store) that developers can sell applications through. If Nokia wants to go head-to-head against Apple and Google, it needs its own platform and ecosystem of developers.

Secondly, it means that Nokia is betting that by going open source, Symbian might eventually become the mobile-platform-of-choice for developers. Without a strong development community cranking out exciting applications (and now presumably making improvements to the core code), the platform will whither on the vine. Even with Nokia's popularity as a handset manufacturer, they've got a real selling job ahead of them, because as the hardware components becomes more commoditised, and more manufacturers spring up to leverage Android and Linux, the future of mobile technology will be software-centric. This much Apple has proven with the iPhone, and Google has confirmed with Android. Whether or not going open source will actually help remains to be seen. From what I've read, the Symbian platform is a pain in the ass to develop for.

Om Malik has a great analysis of the game so far over at GigaOM. Make sure to read the comments.

Image source: CNET

Exciting news if you're a web-geek like myself: Mozilla has just announced the official launch date for the 3rd generation of the Open Source Firefox browser. Mark it on your calendar folks: Tuesday June 17th, 2008. In addition to their attempt to set a Guinness World Record, they are also hosting and encouraging launch parties around the world. The official party in Toronto will be held at the Mozilla Toronto office, starting at 6pm.

UPDATE: the official download site is DOWN, but these links will allow you to download Firefox3 directly:

Mac OS X

Linux

Windows

Thanks for the direct links go to MG Siegler (aka parislemon) at Venture Beat.

Well it turns out the rumours were true, and Apple will soon begin shipping its 2nd generation iPhone, dubbed the iPhone 3G, to Canadians (and residents of 21 other lucky countries) on July 11. You can almost sense the clouds gathering now so that when they part on launch day and the sun shines down upon the blessed mortals lined up around the block, rainbows and doves will fly forth and life will be good again. Uhh... right.   read more »

Those crazy grassroots marketing folks over at the Mozilla Foundation have come up with another great initiative to help make Firefox the world's most popular browser. They plan to host a worldwide Download Day (click on the image for more info) following the upcoming official release of Firefox 3 (currently in beta). The total number of unique installer downloads will be submitted to the Guinness World Records organization for evaluation and potential inclusion in the Guinness World Records.

For the real keeners like myself, you can show your support (and get a reminder by email) by signing the pledge at the Spread Firefox web site.

Mark your calendars folks, DrupalCampToronto 2008 is this coming weekend in Toronto (May 23/24). Last year was a phenomenal success, with registration maxed out at 150 people. This year is shaping up to be even better, with the recent release of Drupal v.6 and upgrades to most major modules providing plenty of new material for the workshops and presentations. If you haven't signed up yet, do so quickly as space is limited to 150 again this year. As with last year, official t-shirts will be handed out to all participants who pay the $20 registration fee. The t-shirts have once again been designed by Substance Communications, the agency I run with my partner Patricia Rodriguez, with input from Andre Molnar and Andrew Mallis. This year we are also working on the attendee badges and other conference material using the DrupalCampToronto logo we developed last year (seen at right). Substance Communications is a proud sponsor of DrupalCampToronto 2008.

These photos were taken at a depth of about 20ft along the sloping side of Half Moon reef, just off the coast of Guanaja, in the Bay Islands of Honduras. The fantastic creature is a Spotted Eagle Ray. It's wingspan was about 6ft wide and its tail was easily over 10ft long.   read more »

It's that time of year when CNET polls the citizens of the Intarweb to determine the best applications, services, and platforms. The Webware 100 Awards will be announced April 21st, but voting only goes till Monday March 31st. Categories include Audio, Publishing & Photography, Browsing, Communication, Commerce & Events, Productivity, Search & Reference, Social, Utility & Security, as well as Video. The winners from each category win $5000, so for some of the smaller startups it's a pretty big deal to win in their category. Last year's winners included Drupal (the CMS that powers this site), Last.fm (a great music sharing/exploring site) and Deviantart (a social network for artists). Get out and vote for your favourite online technologies!