The WORST places to eat in Baguio

Here’s a rundown of the worst places to eat in Baguio City. You’ve been warned!

#1 Zola

Location: Patria de Baguio Building, Session Road

Oh my gawd! You know something’s wrong when they can’t even get your regular longganisa right. The food could have been kinda fine if it were bland, but the taste is just all wrong for most of the meals other than the pizzas, which are acceptable but not great, and with Don Henrico’s, Volante, and Vizco’s just down the sidewalk, why bother coming here? If you’re looking to have lunch here, don’t. Just head on over to Steaks and Toppings just behind the building, you get double the servings for much less than Zola’s overpriced rice meals. They also serve this tastes-like-used-dishwater with a horrible horrible horrible after taste… they call it coffee… and you pay 40 pesos to torture yourself. Ack! I wouldn’t recommend this place even to my worst enemy… well, honestly, maybe I would.

#2 Mile-Hi Diner

Location: Camp John Hay

I really don’t know what happened to this place, it used to be a favorite among locals when Camp John Hay was still under the Americans. Now? Pukable food, stale breads, near-decomposing meats (you can smell it!), and a less then cheery service crew puts it almost at par with the Hall-of-Shame Zola.

#3 Figaro

Location: 3rd Level Sunset Terrace, SM City Baguio Mall, Luneta Hill

Small mugs, overpriced, Airborne Access WiFi has several blocked sites, and rude service crew. Nuff said.

#4 Kentucky Fried Chicken SM Baguio

Location: Ground Level, SM Driveway, SM City Baguio Mall, Luneta Hill

Iiiiiiifffffffffff yyyyyyyyyyyyyyyooooooooooooooouuuuuuuuuuuuu ccccccccaaaaaaaaannnnnnnnn ssssssssttttttttttttaaaaaaaaaannnnnnnddddddd wwwwwaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaiiiiiiitttttttiiiiiiiinnnnnnnggggggg iiiiinnn llllliiiiiiiinnnnnneeeeeee fffffffooooooorrrrrrr ccccchhhhiiiiccckkkkeeennnn, thhheeeeeeeen tthhiiiiisssssss iiiiss tttttthhhhhhheee plllllllaaaaaaaccccceeeeee toooooo gooooooooo…

Seriously, the store managers have got to do something about the incompetent staff at this rinky-dink branch of Kentucky Fried Chicken. They can’t even tell the difference between “Pepsi” and “rootbeer”… or even the difference between “one order” and “two orders”. Geez.

{ I’ll be updating this list often, it’ll soon be up to ten places NOT to go to. Coming soon: Best places to eat in Baguio. }

Install and run WordPress locally in Mac OS X using MAMP

Techspansion, developer of VisualHub, iSquint and AudialHub, shuts down

In a surprising move, Techspansion - the makers of the indispensible Mac OS X conversion software utilities, VisualHub, iSquint and AudialHub - has decided to close down for personal reasons as stated by the head developer, Tyler Loch.

The sad news is now posted on the Techspansion website, bearing the following message:

…After much soul-searching (it’s not you, it’s me), for personal reasons, Techspansion is closing its virtual doors. Thanks for all your support. It’s been a fun ride… and a special thanks to all the well-wishers that have e-mailed. I’m sorry I don’t have the time to respond to every e-mail, but please know that it’s very appreciated.

I personally use VisualHub on almost a regular basis, using it to encode my downloaded public broadcast TV shows and video podcasts to mobile MP4, which I then load to my Sony Ericsson Walkman phone for later viewing on the go. With a simple drag-and-drop of the source file, with one-click settings for most video formats, makes a tedious thing to do in QuickTime almost enjoyable.

AudialHub is another great utility, although I don’t use it that often, that comes in handy for the random .ogg file that finds it way to my hard drive, needing to be encoded to something more iTunes friendly.

I personally don’t use it, but iSquint is quite popular with the iPod crowd for converting movie files straight to QuickTime format compatible with any iPod that can play videos.

Indeed, this is sad news for the many Mac users who rely on Techspansion’s software for re-encoding various video and audio formats. I just hope the source code is sold to another developer, just to keep the good work going. There really isn’t much of an alternative out there that can match VisualHub’s features and price point. Another good option would probably be to make it open-source. Or even better, maybe Apple could somehow buy the 3 software utilities and add some great new iApps to its already stunning iLife suite.

Techspansion, you will be missed.

For those of you who would like to backup their present copies of VisualHub and AudialHub, here are the instructions since we won’t be able to get a hold of any further official downloads.

• Backup the actual VisualHub or AudialHub application (inside your Applications folder)
• Next, you’ll have to backup the Conversion Engine. Copy the folder at: /Library/Application Support/Techspansion
• …for good measure, you can also back up your Preferences file, containing your registration info in case you lose the original purchase e-mail. It’s at: /Users/yourname/Library/Preferences/com.techspansion.visualhub.plist
• …or for AudialHub: /Users/yourname/Library/Preferences/com.techspansion.audialhub.plist

University of Baguio Science High School @ the 11th Philippine Web Awards

I’m proud to announce that the design and coding I made for the University of Baguio Science High School website is again an entry for the 11th Philippine Web Awards in the schools category! This is the second year in a row that we’ve joined the “annual” competition. We ended up being a Finalist in the 10th Edition, just beaten by Enderun Colleges by a teeny-weeny margin.

We are joined with 4 other pre-finalists: Aquinas University of Legaspi City, STI Philippines, and Southwestern University MHAM College of Medicine. Quite honestly, the other sites look a bit dated (yabang!)… although I have to say my design feels so different from all the others. I’m not sure though if the judges will find it more appealing.

I’m keeping my fingers crossed… you know Pinoy designers naman, mahilig sa borloloy!

Hopefully, the cheating and other oddities (even from the organizers themselves) will be cleared out for the 11th Edition. Vote for us as soon as online voting is started on November 03, 2008.

Visit the UB Science High School’s new website.