1337pwn XBOX Live Friends Widget Version 2.0

About one week ago, we went "live" with our MacOS widget making it available to the general public. Two days later, Apple listed it in their Dashboard widget gallery. From that moment, the widget was no longer something being used and tested amongst friends. Within 24 hours, we were updating THOUSANDS of gamer tags and moving GB/day of data through the 1337pwn server.

While I have pushed other applications on to the net, I never imagined this kind of immediate response. I created the widget, because I simply couldn't find a nice quick way to display the online status of my XBOX Live friends on the Mac. The available solutions were buggy, suffered very real design problems, and worst of all, asked you to fork over your Windows Live account name and password. They just were not acceptable ways of getting the job done. The 1337pwn XBOX Live Friends List widget came out of a strong desire to have a solution that just worked.

Unfortunately, it did not work very long. In just a few short days of wide availability, Version 1.x of the widget had more/less become unusable with the amount of traffic that it was generating at our server. Quite simply, the application wasn't working. While we tried some quick fixes, it was pretty clear that some major changes were in order. In couple of days, we rewrote the server/client code, tested everything, and pushed out Version 2.0. You can download it here.

At a glance, the new widget is similar in appearance to the old version. Underneath its exterior, the 1337pwn XBOX Live Friends List widget Version 2.0 is better in almost every way that counts - speed, scalability, reliability. With the new underpinnings, we're well positioned to keep things fast and responsive as the 1337pwn community grows. The new server architecture also makes it easier for us to support new devices and platforms. We are on our way!

As always, let us know what you think of the new version. If you were a 1.x user, we're glad that you stuck with us as we worked out the kinks. More good things are to come.

Thank you for your patience, support, and feedback as we work to make the 1337pwn.com services better.