The news came to me, walking across the newsroom in what is usually the last thing I do each workday, checking in with our 11pm Executive Producer for an update on our late newscasts that are a few hours away from going on the air.

Reporter @DanSpehler looked up and said “Did you hear…Steve Jobs Died…just came over the wires.”

I can’t count the number of times this has happened in the course of my years in newsrooms. There is always the half a beat that happens where the mind processes the information – and then begins to click into gear about all those things that need to be done. They all revolve around covering the story that is about to unfold. After asking briefly about how the story was playing in the 11pm newscast, I walked back to my office.

When it hit me a little harder. One of my real heroes was gone.

It wasn’t a total shock, I knew that Jobs was ill enough that he felt the need to step down as Apple’s CEO a few weeks back in August. And that in the previous day, Apple had done the first announcement of a new product, the long awaited new iPhone, without a single word from Steve Jobs.

Mr. Jobs never had any reason to know who I was. But he left so many impressions on me–from the first time I saw an Apple II in 1977, and realized that it was the beginning of something significant, because I could actually own my own computer.

To 1985, when I nearly ended my still young marriage by spending way too much money that we didn’t have to buy a new Mac Plus (which I still have to this day, in its too cool canvas carrying (more like lugging) bag.

To 1995 when my job at Time Warner Cable bought me a way cool Powerbook Duo laptop and docking station that was like something MacGyver would have used.

To 1999 when I first edited video on a Mac using the first version of Final Cut Pro and realized that I could own my own professional video editing suite while at the NAB show in Las Vegas. To a few months later and the first time I ever saw Steve Jobs in person, when he first demonstrated what Apple called “Airport” a technology using something called “Wireless Fidelity” internet. What we would all come to know as WiFi.

To 2001, when my much too understanding wife bought me the original iPod for my birthday–and it changed the way I thought about carrying around my music with me as much as when I bought the first Sony Walkman 20 years before.

To 2007, when I was willing to stand in line at the AT&T store in Torrington, Connecticut, for the privilege of being one of the first people to buy a new kind of cell phone, called the iPhone. The original, before it had a number in the name. And every iteration since. Gladly.

To 2010, when I sat outside of a Best Buy early on a Saturday morning to buy something that was unlike anything I had ever thought of buying before. And I have used nearly every single day since. The iPad.

Something that I have to agree with Apple’s marketing, is pretty damn magical.

To today. Where I’m typing this on a MacBook Air (my favorite laptop of all time–and I’ve owned all kinds of laptops over time (including the original one, the Epson HX-20 from 1981). I’ve just watched one of Steve Job’s classic keynote presentations on my big flat-screen hooked up to an Apple TV. Plus, I’m listening to Leo Laporte and guests discuss Steve’s legacy on an iPad 2 that is displaying Leo’s outstanding twit.tv And my daughter is texting me on my iPhone 4. And yes, I’m thinking about whether or not I will be buying the just announced iPhone 4S. (Answer, yes I probably will.)

And today. I am a bit sad to know that Steve Jobs isn’t around anymore to help guide and shape the next thing that I will want to acquire. The next bit of tech wizardry that will probably change the way I live my life in some way and send every other electronics maker scrambling to imitate whatever that iconic Apple logo is on.

As Leo Laporte said earlier, Apple didn’t really invent any category of its products. It didn’t create the personal computer (that would be Altair), It didn’t create the portable music player (that would be Rio), it didn’t invent the laptop (that would be Alan Kay at Xerox), it didn’t invent pc-based editing (that would be Avid–on a Mac no less), it didn’t invent the cell phone (Motorola) or the smartphone (IBM, then Nokia). It didn’t invent the tablet device (I really haven’t a clue.)

It just took on each of those categories and built the best of class device with (and this is important) the best user experience.

And that last thing is what we should all thank Steve Jobs for. Because he was relentless about making sure that element of every Apple product he ever touched was the very best it could be. So much so that you don’t really need a manual with an Apple product.

It just works like your mind thinks that it should. Because he demanded that it ought to.

That, my friends, is what the true genius of Steve Jobs is. Note that I said is because that isn’t going away as long as there are Apple products in your home, your pocket, and throughout your life. (And if you think there really aren’t any, just notice how whatever would-be version of those products that you do have–how much what you have looks something like the Apple version.)

Jobs approved the copy in an iconic Apple advertisement that said it best:

“Here’s to the crazy ones, the misfits, the rebels, the troublemakers, the round pegs in the square holes… the ones who see things differently — they’re not fond of rules… You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify or vilify them, but the only thing you can’t do is ignore them because they change things… they push the human race forward, and while some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius, because the ones who are crazy enough to think that they can change the world, are the ones who do.”

And you did, Steve. You certainly did.

And we are all the more fortunate that you did.

Since its beginning, Facebook has been changing.

In the movie, “The Social Network”, Marc Zuckerberg was depicted as being pretty obsessive about every detail of the original site. Whether the film portrayal was accurate or not, it is true that every so often over the five years I’ve been a member–Facebook doesn’t go more than a few months without introducing something new.

And every year or so, they introduce a whole lot that’s new.

And true to human nature, there is a lot of unhappiness from many on Facebook every time things change.

So in the past few weeks, there has been a good bit of wailing about the latest round of changes on Facebook. And a lot of re-posted rumors about how Facebook is going to start charging users, unless you post some stupid sounding rant as your status and then Zuckerberg & Company would cut you some slack and give you access for free.

Listen, I don’t know much. But I do think that the truest part of Aaron Sorkin’s script for “The Social Network” was when Zuckerberg fought with co-founder Eduardo Saverin over the early question of “how to monetize” what was still called “The Facebook”.

Because it detailed Zuckerberg’s unwavering conviction that above all, Facebook had to be cool.

And that has seemed to be the driving force about almost everything that has followed.

Even when it hasn’t been all that well received. At least not at first.

Because as my better half has pointed out, every change to Facebook that has been panned at first, ultimately gets tweaked a little and then slowly but surely, wins general acceptance.

Now, the aforementioned Zuckerberg detailed to the f8 crowd, at the big Facebook conference last week, a bigger and perhaps more audacious set of changes about to break on the world’s most popular Social Network site.

I’ve spent some time exploring the new features that are set to debut in the first few days of October, and I’m just going to put it like this:

If I were you, and you’re on Facebook…and you haven’t been happy with what’s come before now…

You might just want to get an umbrella.

Because it’s about to rain “all up in here.”

And just to be clear, you ain’t likely to bail out for that GooglePlus thing, either.

At least not in my humble opinion.