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.
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 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.
I’m a pretty lucky guy when it comes to my gadgets. Almost nothing I own have ever broken down while I was using it. Having said that, If I want to make a purchase and a lot of users have been reporting lots of problems with theirs, I usually just disregard them and buy it nevertheless.
Last night I was playing Portal on my Xbox 360, which I got just a couple of posts down. I am extremely close on solving the final level when the screen suddenly froze. I did not think much of it since my progress have been saved before that so I turned it off and turned it back on. What happened next is the one thing that all Xbox 360 owners are afraid of, the omen of an impending doom, the red rings of death:
Like a scene from a movie wherein a loved one died, I let out a loud and grim ‘NOOOOOOOOOOOO’ as I say goodbye to hours of fun that my Xbox 360 has brought me. I have read about it on the internet, heard it on the news and still I could not believe that something like that could really happen.
The good news is that the store is offering me a replacement—as soon as they get new stocks. In case you didn’t know, Microsoft Philippines is not supporting Xbox 360 units as it is not officially distributed here.
For now, there’s nothing I can do except wait.
Everyone on the interwebs is talking about the new MacBook Air and how mind-numbingly thin it is. I swear, you could use it as a weapon to slash a mugger’s face when one tries to steal it from you.
As if I did not show enough evidence from my last post that I’m a gadget-whore, I’m actually thinking of buying this thing. Why? I don’t know, it’s so pretty. It’s not just that but the thought of actually carrying around a full mac and not feeling the weight in your bag and the ability to whip it out in just about anywhere is pretty amazing. It will be a downgrade power-wise and I still have to add a hefty sum so it’s something that I really need to think through.
