//beconfused » opera

Opera Mobile 9.5 redesign

Mr. Dew — Wed, 06 Feb 2008 08:38:28 +0000

Opera Mobile version 9.5 is noticeably faster thanks to a re-engineered Presto rendering engine and features a new browser interface and downloadable Opera Widgets.

OPERA MOBILE 9.5

This looks interesting and Internet Explorer is really slow in Windows Mobile it would seem.

[via Engadget]

Safari looks prettiest in Chinese character renders

Mr. Dew — Fri, 28 Dec 2007 12:09:20 +0000

All browsers render text a little different from each other.

(Internet Explorer 7, Safari 3 and Opera 9.5 attempts to render Chinese characters with various levels of success in readability.)

I compared Windows Internet Explorer 7, Apple Safari 3 and Opera 9.5.

In my opinion, Apple Safari renders best Chinese characters, followed by Windows Internet Explorer. Opera didn’t look good at all! It’s probably something to do with Microsoft’s ClearType behaving differently. I do most of my web browsing in Apple Safari these days. A pretty good browser but it’s got some memory leak problems and at times use up 1 GB of memory.

It seems that Apple Safari might have some problems with Google Reader. Leaving Google Reader for hours is impossible for me. Yeah, I do open other tabs but they’re just text most of the time.

Luciano Pavarotti, Italian tenor, passed away

Mr. Dew — Sat, 08 Sep 2007 13:07:26 +0000

ROME (AP) Ã¢Â€Â” Luciano Pavarotti, whose vibrant high C’s and ebullient showmanship made him the most beloved and celebrated tenor since Caruso and one of the few opera singers to win crossover fame as a popular superstar, died Thursday. He was 71.

Italian Tenor Pavarotti Is Dead

His manager, Terri Robson, told the AP in an e-mailed statement that Pavarotti died at his home in Modena, Italy, at 5 a.m. local time. Pavarotti had been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer last year and underwent further treatment in August.

“The Maestro fought a long, tough battle against the pancreatic cancer which eventually took his life. In fitting with the approach that characterised his life and work, he remained positive until finally succumbing to the last stages of his illness,” the statement said.

Speaking from inside Pavarotti’s home, which was guarded by police, Pavarotti’s assistant Edwin Tinoco told Sky TG 24 television that Pavarotti’s final days had been calm and spent at home.

Read more through Associated Press

Well-loved by many, Pavarotti did his last public performance in February 2006 during the Winter Olympics opening.

Yay! Opera 9.2 released

Mr. Dew — Thu, 12 Apr 2007 12:31:53 +0000

Finally! 9.2 is launched today. 9.2 is not only an important update with bug fixes and the new Speed Dial functionality, it’s also a milestone in spreading Opera to new users around the world: Opera 9.2 for Windows ships with 31 languages.

read more | digg story

lecture//prank

Mr. Dew — Mon, 07 Aug 2006 00:59:02 +0000

This is a pretty good prank actually. A bunch of guys just invaded a lecture hall and acts like it’s a musical scene. I wish it were to happen during my physic lessons. It would definately make lessons a lot more interesting. Sorry, I just don’t get physics.

*Musical Lecture Prank*

[Direct link]

Hey, can anyone using Opera browser manage to view through the above embeded video player? Because I can’t seem to view it with Google Video’s player unless I go to the direct link. It works fine with Internet Explorer and Firefox. So far, I didn’t manage to view any of the embedded Google videos with Opera. Can’t seem to find the problem.

vga//dvi

Mr. Dew — Fri, 28 Jul 2006 02:38:41 +0000

I’m quite disappointed today. My graphics card’s VGA feature didn’t seem to work anymore. Now while editing this blog post, everything looks so different for me.

At first I thought it’s my BenQ monitor that went wrong. I plugged the monitor into the lap top and everything looked fine. I am able to extend the laptop desktop to the monitor. So it means the culprit is probably my graphics card.

(My graphics card VGA feature works no more. Now I use DVI.)

I used to run my display setting at 1280 x 768. I am one of those few people who uses this screen resolution. Now I use DVI instead of VGA. And I can’t set to that resolution! Presumably, my graphics card probably doesn’t support that resolution for DVI. It’s a horror!

Now I run my screen resolution at 1440 x 900 which makes my text quite small. Most web pages don’t support resolutions like this. Even my blog is set to favor people using 800 x 600 and 1024 x 768.

So I zoom the text with Opera to 120%. It doesn’t look right. The borders are 2 pixels instead of 1 sometimes. There are problems with the kerning of the text too. I see several underlining faults. These minor errors degrades my internet browsing experience. Sighs…

Maybe I’ll try Firefox or Internet Explorer 7 next week or something.

Opera 9 is out, widgets, BitTorrent and more

Mr. Dew — Tue, 20 Jun 2006 11:51:25 +0000

Opera 9 is out! This release is not a radical change. A couple of updates here and there. I notice they tried to consolidate some of the features too. Nothing pops out when you click on the address bar now. It feels strange after the upgrade but it’s definately a good move.

*New in version 9 is:*

* Widgets. Opera Widgets are tiny applications such as calculators, clocks and weathers. Just press F6 in Windows to get the Widgets out!
* In built BitTorrent support.
* Slight interfaces modifications such as tab previews. You can now mouseover on the tabs to get a preview.
* Better content blocking if you use that. I personally don’t.

If you’re using Opera, do upgrade!

Download Opera 9 now.

new//yahoo

Mr. Dew — Wed, 17 May 2006 04:34:30 +0000

You can check out a preview of Yahoo!’s new design.

_(Yahoo!’s upcoming design preview.)_

It’s 1024 x 768 by default. You can set it to 800 x 600 at the Page Options. It’s good to see that the designers are finally switching to 1024 x 768. It’s about time most people set their computers to that screen resolution.

Personally, it’s an improvement I feel. I can find the Yahoo! services better than before. As for the design, it looks kinda strange to me. What do you think of the new design?

By the way, as of current, only Internet Explorer and Firefox it seems. Opera didn’t work.

macromedia//opera

Mr. Dew — Mon, 08 May 2006 22:47:31 +0000

Turns out that Macromedia doesn’t like Opera very much.

_(Opera is not supported by Macromedia.)_

I don’t see what Macromedia may be using that Opera doesn’t support actually. But either way, it makes me want to switch browsers each time I get stuck in such pages. Opera is not supported by Macromedia since a long time ago actually. And after it got bought over by Adobe, it is still not changed.

Perhaps Macromedia can attempt to make things work with Opera. I don’t think it’s really hard. All I was trying to do is to download Adobe Flex beta. Not that hard right?

free//opera

Mr. Dew — Tue, 20 Sep 2005 13:36:46 +0000

Good news for Opera lovers, Opera is going to be free!

*Feel Free: Opera Eliminates Ad Banner and Licensing Fee*

Opera Software today permanently removed the ad banner and licensing fee from its award-winning Web browser. The ad-free, full-featured Opera browser is now available for download – completely free of charge.

“Today we invite the entire Internet community to use Opera and experience Web browsing as it should be,” said Jon S. von Tetzchner, CEO, Opera Software. “Removing the ad banner and licensing fee will encourage many new users to discover the speed, security and unmatched usability of the Opera browser.”

Opera was previously available free of charge with an ad banner. Users had the option of paying a licensing fee to remove the ad banner and receive premium support.

Source: Opera press releases

I am more interested in how would it be able to survive. The last company that made it free, i.e. Netscape, did not survive too well. I’m interested what type of profit model would the company adopt to earn back the bucks. I know there is premium support available but let’s face it, it’s silly paying support for web browsers. Web browsers don’t really go too wrong. It just works and people are happy. They don’t want paid support generally.

opera//eight

Mr. Dew — Thu, 21 Apr 2005 00:25:49 +0000

Opera Software today launched the highly anticipated new version of its browser, Opera 8 for Windows and Linux. Internet users can now surf the Web faster, safer and easier than before. Opera 8 is a substantial upgrade from previous versions, and includes new features such as a unique security information field that indicates the trustworthiness of banking and shopping Web sites and voice interaction capabilities. The new version of Opera also introduces an advanced page-resizing function that adapts Web pages to fit the width of any screen or window.

Source: Opera

_(Tadah – Opera man!)_

I have tried the browser personally during the beta. Pretty good browser. I think it is speedy and perhaps faster than Firefox in terms of speed.

The usual browser stuff are there – Tab browsing, pop-up blocker, security and stuff. I shan’t talk about that since tab browsing is tab browsing and there really isn’t much to talk about anyway.

First, there is this Fast Forward button which can actually detect the most likely page that you want to view next. It’s like the conventional Back and Forward button that you see in normal browsers such as Internet Explorer. It has an added feature though. When you press that button, it tries to figure out which is the more likely page you want to forward to. So there is some sort of predictive stuff programed right there. Of course, to complement – there is a Fast Backward button.

One thing I really like about the Opera browser is it’s ability to save sessions of the pages that I am viewing. We all have been familiar with tab browsing, but once you close Firefox, the pages you view is just gone! Gone in 0.6 seconds. Of course, you can start digging out your history and start opening the pages again the next time round. For Opera, you can shut down the computer and switch it on a week after you return from Hawaii and still see ALL you tabs nicely displayed.

And you got to love this – mouse gestures. It’s a little hard to explain how it works actually, it’s best to try it for yourself. Basically, you can click, hold and move your mouse is a particular direction and Opera 8 will capture your – I supposed since there is keystrokes – mousestrokes and react the browser accordingly. Event that occur include going back to the previous page and reloading.

Some of the strangest features found include IRC, quick preference and a bloody Google Ad right on top as I am not paying for Opera. Opera adds it’s own IRC client that could have been better, don’t use your browser to chat, it’s kinda silly. Anyway, it’s instant messenger these days. As for quick preference, I actually found it to be not that useful. I realized once I configure my browser for the first time, I don’t really revisit the settings. And yes, you get the Google Ad right on the top. If you don’t mind, please click on your Google Ad right at the bottom of this page instead so that I can cover my web hosting costs a little, hahaa…

Nafcom loves the Opera mail. However, it doesn’t really appeal to me that much. I prefer accessing my email through Gmail. The mail client includes a newsreader and a RSS or Atom feed reader.

The problem with Opera is that it is too cluttered. All sorts of strange icons, panels, toolbars, buttons, whatever you call them. It is little like a clean interface. Thankfully, most of these can be turned off. [Except the Google Ad of course, but it's free, so...] The reason why I use Internet Explorer is because of its toolbars that I am used to. Personally, I have the Standard Buttons (Back, Forward and stuff), Address bar and the Google toolbar in Internet Explorer. And when I use Opera, I somehow manage to put everything up pretty much the same way that Internet Explorer look like. Yeah, except the Google Ad since Opera 8 is ad-supported.

Of course, there are other features in Opera 8. I just mentioned those I have noted. I am sure I missed out some of them. But those are the features I use more on. There is a password manager that you may like but I am not a fan of password managers.