Farewell Steve Jobs

     This morning, I woke up with a shocking news I heard from a TV program; Steve Jobs, the great man behind popular gadgets such as iPhones, iPods and iPads, has died of pancreatic cancer at the age of 56. Stunned and incredulous, I opened Twitter on my phone to verify the information--not that I'm cynical with the news report but at times I often find social networks a lot louder and more convincing. Except an iPod Shuffle, I do not own any other Apple products--I use and prefer a BlackBerry over an iPhone because I'm not used to a touch screen--but the demise of a visionary leader and business man like Steve Jobs is a terrible loss to the world. Surely, he contributed incredibly in how the lives and cultures of people have changed because of the innovations he introduced and strongly believed in--technologies that could lead to social transformation. And he was quite right. We can now see how drastically a computer, from its mere purpose of number crunching, has served an essential role in every day business, communication, entertainment and multimedia. The ubiquitous letter "i" imprinted on these gadgets' name would long be remembered and probably would transcend far beyond generations, much longer than the lifetime of this man whose name I've first known from the pages of a History of Computers book, one of my first courses as a Computer Science major. Since then, he has already stepped onto the pedestal of greatness. There's more to learn from this incredible yet enigmatic man, who kept most of his life private. One of the words he had spoken that I really like is this: "The only way to do great is to love what you do. If you haven't found it yet, keep looking." This brilliant man is definitely an inspiring model of tenacity and determination, and makes us believe we can always achieve our dreams.