The hype of the iPhone has not yet died.  If you didn’t already know Rogers will be the main service provider for your iPhone (if you haven’t hacked one already).  Rogers’ pricing plan has been adjusted as of today and some of their stores will be open early for the drooling masses at 8am on launch day, July 11th.  If you are lucky you might get breakfast and a prize too (check Rogers Plus stores like the one on 112-10 Dundas Street East).

One small victory for consumers. YEAH! Sites like RUINED I PHONE . COM were hot on the backlash trail.  Their “petition” for this product (not officially released yet) has swollen to over 57,000 names and climbing.  Rogers were smart to act.

Not in any rush to grab a new cell phone or mp3 player but at least the plan is “more” in line with those found south of the border.  Apple does have good customer satisfaction. Perhaps their pressure along with consumer outrage turned the tide on Rogers.  I’ll be watching this hype machine from the sidelines for now. Good to see that the “little guy” can better afford their nearly $1,000 phone habit. Will this mean Crackberry’s get tossed? Check your TTC or GO platform in the coming weeks for details.

Awhile ago I saw a PBS documentary on so-called high speed in the US and how American telephone companies could not deliver on high speed because of not replacing copper wiring with fibre optic cables. Tonight I watched CBC’s Marketplace compare high speed services between four of the largest Internet Service Providers in Canada: Rogers, Bell, Telus, and Shaw. The Rogers user came in close to the company’s advertised speed; the Bell user came in dead last, like waayyyyy last. At the end of the program, they recommend going to their website to check your own speedy (or lack thereof) connection.

There they link to Speedtest.net. Speedtest has a nifty graphical interface and aside from the difficulty of clicking on the Toronto pyramid due to it hiding behind the Hamilton one, it was pretty easy to use and to test one’s own broadband connection speed. After testing, you can compare your speed to others using the same ISP, or see the stats for Toronto or Region or Canada.

Let’s just say that we might live in the largest city in Canada, and we might be the capital of Ontario, but we get no respect. The big players, Bell and Rogers, are absent in the top ten list of the speediest downloaders in Toronto — Toronto Hydro’s speed of about 16 Mbps easily crushes anything by the big telecoms — but the Canada stats tell the real sorry tale of Toronto speeds. Toronto is nowhere on the map, and Ontario is pretty dismal. The ocean-bordered provinces do way better. What’s up with that? Toronto is supposed to be the economic hub of the country; we’re supposed to have businesses that require both speedy connections in their skyscrapers as well as for their employees at home; we’re supposed to have upgraded fibre optic cables — after all they crowed about replacing copper wiring eons ago and, as well, haven’t we all been inconvenienced by Bell employees replacing our ancient lines and giving us new lines for the past many years?

Still, the stats paint a different picture. When it comes to broadband high speeds, Toronto is distinctly in the slow lane, except for Toronto Hydro Telecom, which the city just sold off.

Put Toronto First is a new initiative by the National Citizens Coalition that has just gone live. The NCC are the ones who put that big billboard up of Bob Rae back during Rae Days. Rumour has it they’re planning on doing the same to David Miller. I cannot wait!

Before they put up this new website, they spent April querying the person-on-the-street about what bugs them the most. They have a nifty little pie chart that shows that taxation is the number one priority. I wonder though how well informed people are about all the ways City Hall takes their money.

I had a couple of interesting conversations over the weekend, and despite the plethora of news reports last summer and the recent flurry of info from City Hall, I discovered that usually well-informed people are completely oblivious to the fact that they’re getting a SECOND garbage bin, to match the new blue bin. In addition, THIS ONE they will have to pay for…unless they get a “small” one, which most people I know won’t be able to because of their household size.

Remember big families get dinged the most under this new tax plan. So you would think if people are miffed about taxation and the misuse of tax dollars, they’d be up in arms about this stealth tax in the guise of cleaning up our environment. You’d think.

If you want to learn more about the new garbage bins, you’re too late if you live near Castlegrove Blvd., Summerhill Ave., Wellesley Street East, but for the rest:

• East York Community Centre at 1081 Pape Ave., you have less than an hour to get there by 8:00 pm today
• Rosedale Park — Mayfair Event at Scholfield Ave., from 10:00 am to 4:00 pm on Sat. May 10
•  Parkwoods Village Mall at 1277 York Mills Road, from noon to 4:00 pm on Sat. May 10.

For full list, visit target70.

Metblogs is looking better and better, now that they’ve fixed that really-really-wide banner. It’s so much easier for us bloggers to use, and I think it’s nicer for blog visitors to read. But there’s one problem: it’s a bitch to leave a comment.

Oh, it’s no problem if you’re a Metblogger or a WordPress user, but what happens if you’re just Joe Blow who wants to leave a comment? Who wants to set up a WordPress account just to do that? I wouldn’t. It seems strange to me that the designers were unable to devise a sign-in sheet as easy for a commenter to use as Blogger’s or the old Metblog’s.

So for all you kind readers who would like to leave a comment, but understandably don’t need the hassle: rate it! Um, well, that’s what I thought….

Down at the bottom right of each post are 5 grey stars. You’ll notice as you mouse over them that they turn green. Just click on the desired star and boom, you have your desired number of lit up stars. Try it — when you move over the stars until you get to the fourth one, click it! (After all, doesn’t this post deserve at least 4 stars?)

Even if a comment is out of the question, at least we will know what you think of our opinions and writings. And isn’t that worth clicking a star?

You’d think so, or at least I did. After all, don’t we want to encourage some interaction between bloggers and readers? But after I wrote all that star stuff, I went hmmmm…..maybe I should sign out and see if a non-WordPress, non-Metblog user can rate it too. Nope. Heck no. Like way nooooooo.

Sorry folks, if you want to comment or rate a Metblog, you’re just going to have to become a WordPress user. Sucks, I know. But I don’t have control over the admin interface. Personally, I’d use anti-scam guns, of which there are plenty, and allow legit humans easily (the emphasis on easily) to leave a comment or rate a post.

It all kicks off this Thursday. Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Festival is North America’s largest documentary festival and runs from April 17-27, 2008. The festival strings together amazing selections (more than 100 cutting-edge documentaries) from Canada and around the world, past and present. 2008 marks marks its 15th anniversary.

From the photography of Edward Burtynsky, the lives of Carnies, to a Toronto family’s challenge to NOT throw out their garbage. A whole spectrum of interesting and cutting edge documentary films to choose from. Forget reality TV and catch reality on the big screen.

Daytime/Matinees shows (before 6pm) are $10, evening shows are $12 and late night shows (after 11pm) are only $5!

HOT DOCS
April 17 - 27, 2008
Tickets are available at the DOCUMENTARY Box Office, 87 Avenue Road (2 blocks north of Bloor), Hazelton Lanes (Upper Level) by phone at 416-637-5150, or online.

Loaded up my mp3 player of choice with some tunes and came across a reunion tour of epic proportions.  SWERVEDRIVER are touring after a 10 year pause.  So happy that they will be playing Toronto!!!  Ah, but not until June 13th (at Lee’s Palace)…

Never lose that feeling… 

FLAP volunteers look for and save migratory birds that have flown into buildings and fallen to the ground. This is an excellent video of the problem and their work. Sorry, the friggin’ thing just won’t embed. So here’s a link.

Tomorrow, Saturday, March 29, at 8:00 pm ET, the lights will be going out in Toronto, and hopefully the computers and radios and TVs too, but not the fridges or freezers. That might be going a bit too far. This time city goes black, it will not be because of an unforeseen power disruption, but because Torontonians, including City Hall, will be deliberately turning off the lights as a gesture of solidarity against climate change.

I’m not sure how one can be against climate change — it’s happening — but more accurately to protest the lack of change to protect our climate and thus ourselves.

Earth Hour runs from 8:00 pm to 9:00 pm, and to get in the mood, City Hall is hosting an acoustic concert, starting at 6:45 pm, with Nelly Furtado, the Philosopher Kings, and Fefe Dobson, which will end at lights back on: 9:00 pm. How does one hold a concert sans power, even an acoustic one where sound cannot project far in an open area? The answer is Bullfrog of course. They will be the power behind the musicians.

Photo by Points North

It’s hard to believe that this large geographical feature in the east end of Toronto was built by a long line of trucks dumping clean rubble from various construction sites around the city. Since it was just a pile of fill, nature has slowly but tenaciously taken over and created a green space at the bottom of our city.

It has become a favourite place for birders, and remarkably, one can find exotic plant life there as well, plants such as cacti. In the cold days of winter, it seems hard to believe that this bleak place harbours so much life. But even when the wind blows snow across this headland, colloquially called the “Leslie Street Spit,” birds gather to sing and feed. And birders and photographers gather to watch and shoot.