News Update Place

A recent CBC News report from Canada sparked a lot of controversy about iPhone’s future in Canada.

The CBC News report stated that CBC was told by a Rogers Wireless customer representative that it has not announced any plans to carry the iPhone in Canada, yet. A lot of reputable sites, including Apple Insider (which we really like, but still think is not Canadian enough), carried this information as truthful.

However, we here at iPhoneWorld.ca did not buy this report, as previously a Rogers Wireless customer representative told us via e-mail that Rogers will be the sole exclusive Apple iPhone carrier in Canada.

Hence, just today, on April 6th 2007, we’ve made a call to Rogers Wireless regarding the CBC report. Rogers Wireless customer representative Amanda, (1-877-764-3772), told us the following.

According to Amanda (whose last name we were unable to get due to Rogers policies), “We [Rogers Wireless] are going to offer the iPhone in Canada… We’re just unsure of the exact release date.“

Therefore, we’d like to forward this information to all our Canadian readers. This is not the first and not the last time CBC was wrong, while the iPhone will certainly be brought to Canada by Rogers Wireless. Rumor squashed!

Additionally, we’ve contacted CBC News to try and make them aware of their error, but they never got back to us.

When students use on-campus computers, they have various browsers they can use, including Internet Explorer and Safari.

If one Appalachian State University student has his way, all students would only use Mozilla Firefox.

James F. Beckner III, a freshmen computer information systems major, is the campus representative for the Firefox campaign.

“The purpose of the campaign is to raise awareness of Firefox and to get people to switch over to Firefox,” Beckner said.

In order to help get the word out about Firefox, Beckner is hosting a raffle on his Web site where Firefox users can win T-shirts, with the grand prize being a Firefox backpack that is valued at $70. The raffle ends at midnight April 15 and is completely free for Appalachian affiliates.

The raffle is for people who are using or want to use Firefox, Beckner said.

Besides just giving away free gifts for Firefox users, Beckner wants people to understand the benefits of it.

“The security is better and Firefox is much more customizable compared to Internet Explorer,” he said.

With Firefox, users can experience less viruses and spy ware, plus it is very personalized with various add ons, Beckner said.

Other benefits of Firefox are that it is completely free and worked on by thousands of people, which keeps it more secure and more up to date than other browsers.

Beckner is also hoping that through this campaign and through raising awareness with the help of students, he’ll be able to create a new club on campus for Firefox users.

“It would be nice to have a place where students can come together to talk about Firefox,” Beckner said.

While Beckner would eventually like to see Firefox alone on campus computers, it likely won’t be happening.

“We won’t be taking off Internet Explorer from our lab computers, as some Web sites and applications function better only within [Internet Explorer] over Firefox,” Thomas M. Van Gilder, director of technological support services, said.

There is no universal standard for Web page development and Internet-based application, he said.

“Because of this, some pages won’t render correctly, or will not work at all in one browser, but will in another,” Van Gilder said.

While there are no plans to make one browser the standard on campus, Van Gilder stresses that he supports all browsers fully for various reasons and applications.

“We fully support the Mozilla suite, but also will continue to support [Internet Explorer], as well as others like Opera and Safari,” he said.