A couple of weeks ago, I was searching for a way to have Adium show up my currently playing game on Xbox Live. Windows Live messenger automatically does this but seeing that I only have 2 buddies on that and more than a dozen on Yahoo Messenger, that feature is useless to me. I was surprised that no one has done it yet, it just seems like there is an Adium Xtra for everything now. I found out why, there isn’t a publicly available API for Xbox Live, only a select number of developers can access it.

Looking for a workaround, I stumbled upon a Twitter app by Duncan Mackenzie that kinda does what I wanted, replacing Twitter with Adium. He was kind enough to create a service that relays the Xbox Live data and make it available to those working on small sites or writing scripts.

Anyhoo, a whole afternoon and four cups of coffee later, I was able to create my very first AppleScript in the form of an Adium Xtra. I know it’s not exactly a feat since AppleScripts are very easy to write but it just warms my heart a little bit when I contribute something, even if it’s not the most useful thing in the world.

Usage instructions and download link are detailed on the Xbox Live Status Adium Xtras page.

Late last year, I made a somewhat snarky post about WiGO and their free WiFi service. I admit, I was a little hard on them, after all they were just starting out and naturally they would not try to roll out features all at once. Now that they have enough time to settle in and get comfortable, maybe it’s time to give them a fair review.

Armed with my MacBook and iPhone, I went to the Power Plant Mall last weekend. WiGO blankets the whole mall and surrounding areas, which is awesome. I can be anywhere and still get a signal but I’ve decided to stay at my favorite coffee shop, find a comfortable spot and order a latte. I woke my MacBook from sleep, connected to the WiGO hotspot and launched the WigoBar application which I downloaded from their website. On the Mac, the application is a Java jar file which is really jenky but will do until they realize that it sucks and write a proper Cocoa application. So anyway, I launched my browser, logged-in on their customized welcome page and off I go, pretty much free to do anything I want.

Now there is a bit of a problem here, the WigoBar. Remember the bar that sits on top of all your windows and display ads? That bar and the business model behind it died during the dot-com bust. Now, WiGO dug it out from the grave and renewed its sole purpose of annoying the hell out of us.

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As I am writing this, Firefox 3 Release Candidate 3 just came out for the Mac an It has also been recently announced that the final version will be ready for download on Tuesday, June 17. As a long-time Safari user, this marks the week that I am finally ditching Safari and will be using Firefox 3 as my primary browser.

I have always been a Safari user ever since I got my first Mac. It has an excellent user interface and is blazingly fast. Minor annoyances such as not remembering tabs on exit and the lack of option to open new windows in tabs were fixed by Saft, an excellent Safari plugin. However, I’ve been experiencing lots of lockups lately which will, of course, cause the Spinning Beachball of Death to appear. I don’t really know if the reason for this is the website I am visiting, Safari itself or Saft, all I know is it happens often enough that writing long paragraphs in textareas makes me feel uneasy. That finally made me download the latest Firefox 3 RC.

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Here it is, the moment we have all been waiting for ever since Steve Jobs announced that there will be a 3G iPhone in 2008, and they are calling it iPhone 3G. The rumor sites pretty much got everything on the dot this time by predicting 3G, GPS and a 50% price drop over the previous model.

As previously reported, Globe Telecom will be bringing iPhone 3G over our shores here in the Philippines. Apple’s iPhone Philippines page does not detail anything specific. Availability, pricing and plans are still up in the air. I hope Globe releases this information as soon as they can so we can prepare our wallets.

Speculations abound as to what kind of arrangement Globe has for iPhone 3G. Will it have Visual Voicemail? If you are a Globe subscriber right now, you couldn’t even use the regular voicemail as they shut it down in favor of Voice Txt or whatever they call it. Bigger question is what kind of rate plans will iPhone be offered in. Globe already offers specialized plans for Blackberry users, will we see the same for iPhone? We are very much used to pay-as-you-go and Globe has already confirmed that they will also offer iPhone on prepaid and will most likely be unsubsidized.

Data is another thing as iPhone 3G can take advantage of Globe’s HSDPA network. Unless they are really greedy, there is no possible way that Globe will insist on its current data scheme–P5/15 mins or P0.15/KB, because of all the Push stuff that will be happening. Looking at their Visibility plan, the most expensive at P1499/month only has 100 hours of internet use. With iPhone, you can use up all that in a week! Although not in their official website, some blogs are saying that they are still offering unlimited Visibility plans at P3000/month. I cannot imagine paying that much on top of the regular voice plan. An ideal price for me will be P1000/month on top of regular voice, maybe even up to P1500 if their HSDPA coverage is pretty much everywhere I need to go.

Whatever happens, for sure this Apple zealot is going to get an iPhone 3G. I absolutely love my iPhone and the only time I feel that I want to throw it against a brick wall is when I’m surfing in Safari over EDGE. Luckily, that problem has been solved in this new release and I can only imagine what great (or not-so-great) things we can do with having the internet on our pockets everywhere and actually use it.

I hate the EDSA MRT. If you have been following me on Twitter, you probably have noticed that most of my tweets are complaints while I am in the system. I don’t even want to call it a system as to a public commuter such as myself, I think the stations are poorly planned and the trains are taking in more than what it could handle. You can clearly see how flawed it is compared to the LRT-2 which started construction almost at the same time as the EDSA line and yet have properly designed stations and efficient fully-automated trains.

What made it even worse are the people. Although majority of the passengers are disciplined, as with every place in this world, there are some people who are uneducated, rude and arrogant that ruin the supposedly peaceful commute from home to work and vice versa. Some of these “characters” are described here so that you are prepared the next time you ride the MRT during rush hour.

The Right-Hand Drivers

The MRT stairway in most stations is usually divided by chains to separate those who are coming in from those on the way out. During rush hour, the line on the right going in can be so ridiculously long that it actually overflows to the street causing an insane amount of foot traffic. Some people, who obviously think that they are royalty therefore deserve to come in the station without much hassle, climb up the other side. Now when a train arrives and passengers get off at that station, the dimwits have already blocked their way causing yet another insane amount of foot traffic upstairs. Next time you encounter these kind of people, feel free to push and let them fall down the stairs. They are better suited lying against the pavement.

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