Opera Guide
I’ve completed the Opera Guide. It is mainly a list of tips and tricks that I found useful for the user switching from Firefox to Opera. Feedback is much appreciated. Thanks!
WordPress 2
Well many months behind the rest of the internet I have finally updated this site to WordPress 2. I am actually disappointed. On the admin side of the world it just appears that all they have really added is fluff. I miss the upload bottom from 1.5 and earlier versions. The removal of this button is starting to really annoy me because I upload files all the time to my web server for storage or for future reference. If someone has a work around please let me know. I hope there are some internal changes that will help the blog perform faster. I have to say having built in spam protection is nice, as well as some other minor details that I am enjoying. Stay tuned over the next few days for a redesign.
Firefox Guide v. 1.9
It’s been well over a month sense I’ve been able to update my Firefox Guide. I reorganized how the extensions are listed, added more hacks, and some more customization hacks. Go check it out and leave me your feedback.
Opera Memory Useage
Over a week has past sense I started playing with Opera 9. I have learned a ton this past week and the feedback from users has been awesome and truly valuable. I’ve left Opera open for the past 6 days, with at times over 100 tabs and at little as 10, but I never closed the application. The memory usage has hovered at about 66mb for the past day or so with little to no activity on the browser. Firefox on the other hand I had to reboot on Thursday due to memory usage problems. Right now with about 30 windows open and Firefox being the browser I am currently using to write this, it is using over 225mb. I seriously hope this problem gets fixed in Firefox 2.0 or I might just start using Opera more and more.
Comments(1)Opera Guide
Well I’ve started an Opera Guide that will be somewhat similar to my Firefox Guide. I should have version one of the Opera Guide and some major updates on the Firefox Guide later on tonight. If you have any tips, tricks, hacks, or anything else that would be a point of internet please email me or leave a comment.
Happy Birthday Podcasting
Podcasting is now a year old. I don’t see how it has already been a year, as it seems like almost yesterday this was a brand new thing! I really need to charge my iPod.
Firefox 1.5 vs. Opera 9 - Round 2
UPDATE: Please Digg. Thanks!
I would like to thank everyone for their positive feedback on my Opera vs. Firefox article. I think there were some misunderstandings about the point of the article that I would like to clear up. I also feel there needs to be an amendment to the article, as I left out some key points that need to be put in the spotlight.
Over the weekend in the little free time I had between my brothers wedding and trying to catch up on sleep I tried to use Opera for all my browsing needs. This goal didn’t last as long as I wanted it to. There are a few select extensions that I live by in Firefox and not having those hindered my browsing to make me go back to Firefox. For more information on the Firefox Extensions that I use please visit my Firefox Guide.
I received several emails telling me about how this match up was unfair because Opera 9 was just released and Firefox 1.5 is from way back in November. Well this match up was for production versions only. I could easily go grab a nightly build of Firefox 2.0, but then I wouldn’t be comparing equal products so I decided not to go down that road. Once Firefox 2.0 is released I will do a match between the two.
Putting Opera up against an extensions loaded version of Firefox makes it almost impossible for Opera to win. There are countless add-ons available for Firefox that make it nearly limitless in its add-ons. I think that is what really separates the two browsers. I feel there are two separate audiences that these browsers are meant for. For an out of the box browser Opera wins hands down. For the power user, open source lover, and someone that wants to be able to customize their experience down to the last penny Firefox is the one.
Features
In Opera the user has the ability to bind keyboard shortcuts to any combination, I have started using this and it is a very cool feature and something that Firefox lacks completely.
True MDI - Users now have the ability to set different mini-windows in different arrangements; therefore eliminating the need to make new windows entirely. I am not totally sure how this feature helps because I believe having tabs eliminates the need to have windows within a window when the user can just switch tabs. Cool feature but I feel it’s unusable for most applications.
Drag and Drop Tabs - Both Opera and Firefox now have this feature, but Opera has taken it to one more step, allowing tabs to be drug between different windows.
Page rendering problems
In round one I didn’t fully understand how cool the fast forward button really is. I used Opera most of the weekend trying to give it a fair run for its money, even though this morning I am back on Firefox, I do miss the fast forward button. I did quite a bit of generic browsing, digging, and forum browsing and it seemed to speed up my experience as well as save some scrolling. Good job to Opera on this one.
RAM / Memory Usage
After a few comments about my RAM usage test being inaccurate which I will fully admit to, I have redone it. Using Opera 9 and Firefox 1.5.0.4, with fresh installs and no settings changed I went to Digg on both browsers and opened up all the front page stories. I started first with Firefox and it opened up all pages with no issues at all. Next was Opera, about half way through doing the whole middle click program to get each link to open in a new tab Opera started to leg on me big-time, when I got to the last link the browser legged for about 30 seconds and after that I had to click the link again to get it to open in a new tab. Once the dust settled the memory usage for Firefox was 79mb and Opera 76mb. They were bouncing around a few megs but from my findings there is no RAM savings between the two browsers in short term. Once themes, widgets, and extensions are added to their corresponding browser I feel this will tell a different story, but I am only trying to prove out of the box experience, other tests will be left for another day.
Monday morning I was updating software on my work computer. While downloading the latest versions of Opera and Firefox; I noticed that Opera’s installer size was larger than Firefox. There was a comment saying that they both were the same but I will argue that Firefox 1.5.0.4 is 4.9MB while Opera 9 is 6.17MB. This comes as no surprise to me, as I just wanted to make sure I have accurate data on here.
Rendering Problems
I’ve read a lot about how Opera has horrible page rendering problems. The most talked about problem is rendering most Google applications. Well I personally have tried GMail and Google Maps with no issues to report. It appears that some of those problems have been fixed. There are rumors that Opera also has issues with AJAX websites, I cannot personally confirm this but I am sure there are some problems. If you come across a website that has a rendering problem please leave a comment or shoot me an email.
Widgets
After messing around with widgets for a few days I feel that they are totally useless. I personally use Yahoo! Widgets on my Windows computers and the build in widgets in OS X 10.4 on my Apple Powerbook G4. Not only are they useless in Opera but not necessary. I think widget support was an attempt to compete with the extension support in Firefox, but was not well implemented, once Opera has an extensions system it will become almost unstoppable.
Page Zoom
If anyone is running a super high resolution like I am there is always a website that is hard to read, due to some part of it being too small. In Firefox and Internet Explorer it’s really easy to make the text bigger, Opera has gone the extra mile and included the page zoom feature. Instead of making the text bigger, it just zooms in on the whole page.
UserJS vs. Greasemonkey
Many die-hard Firefox users are familiar with Greasemonkey scripts. Opera has built in support for javascript add-ons that do similar functions like Greasemonkey. I think native support for an add-on scripting system is necessary and a big thumbs up to Opera. For Opera scripts check out userjs.org and userscripts.org .
Complaints
The search box in Opera is very cumbersome and unusable. For everyone that uses Firefox and loves the find in page search style, please scroll down to the tips and tricks area of this article for find in page options in Opera.
One feature that I use on a daily basis in Firefox is form history; Internet Explorer also has this feature. I am quite shocked that Opera doesn’t have this feature when it includes everything else.
I am also very shocked the Ctrl+H doesn’t open the history by default, but instead hides all windows, this is a basic shortcut function that has been around in web browsers sense the beginning. This is of course an easy fix because the user has the ability to map keys in Opera.
Google Browser Sync is probably the best extension to come to Firefox in a long time. If (when) Opera ever gets this feature it will be a very happy day in Opera land.
Tips and Tricks
Turn off the Context Menu when Double clicking on text via Tools - Preferences - Advanced - Toolbars - Uncheck “Double click to display context menu.”
Remove the close button on the tabs, and place it to the right via Tools - Preferences - Advanced - Tabs - Uncheck “Show close button on each tab.”
Change the tab close button location via Tools – Settings – Tab
The “Close Current Page” button at http://operawiki.info/CustomButtons can be dragged into the top right if the user wishes to retain both buttons on each tab and one at the right to close the tab.
Activate the Thumbnail Preview function in CTRL-TAB via opera:config - UserPrefs - UseThumbnailsinTabTooltips
Web Developer Toolbar For Opera: http://operawiki.info/WebDevToolbar
When using the ctrl-tab menu, you can hold down the right mouse button and use the scroll to very easily scroll back and forth in the list. When your hand is already on the mouse this trick will save time by allowing the user to select the tab he wants faster.
Hold Ctrl while using Alt-Tab to scroll backwards aka Ctrl+Alt+Tab
Undo closing a tab with Ctrl+Z
To navigate between tabs I use the keyboard numbers 1 and 2 (previous and next tab).
To go back or forward in history, depending on the direction you want to go, click either left or right-mouse button followed by the opposite mouse button slightly after, i.e. back = right+left mouse button, forward = left+right button.
Find in page options for Opera, very similar to Firefox. Opera will also search inside of text boxes unlike Firefox.
- Ctrl-F gives a dialog as is familiar in most software packages, with options like match whole word only, and only searching when you click “Find”
- There is a Find-in-page entry on the search box next to the address bar, which finds as you type (it can also be added to other toolbars)
- Pressing ‘.’ or ‘/’ will popup a thing in the corner, sort of like FF, also find-as-you-type
- Pressing ‘,’ will find links containing the searched text, although this can be done differently from the Links Panel (Ctrl-9) or its expanded version Ctrl-J.
Customizing Opera: http://www.pallab.net/2006/04/12/extending-opera-the-ultimate-guide-to-customizing-opera/
Conclusion
Between this article and my last article it’s a very hard decision to declare a winner between these two awesome browsers. I feel that as an out of the box experience Opera wins hands down. For the user that wants to fiddle to no end in customization, and have the ability to build on an already awesome program Firefox wins, but Opera is not far behind only lacking extension support and a few other small features. Therefore I must say it’s a draw, to make Opera work the way I wanted to it required lots of unnecessary tweaking that in the end wasn’t worth it because I went back home to Firefox. I will still be using Opera for a side browser to try to learn more tips and tricks and maybe soon write a guide like I did for Firefox.
Net Neutrality
Net neutrality is starting to scare me. I had quite a few misconceptions about what NN really was. This cartoon and an opinion about the cartoon is well worth anyone’s time. And be sure to visit Handsoff.org.
Firefox 1.5 vs. Opera 9
Update: Read part two of this article here.
I’ve been a diehard Firefox user sense before Beta 1. I wrote my Firefox Guide earlier this year, once that page hit Slashdot there were several comments about how Opera does all of that and more, without the need of the extensions that Firefox has. I put a mental note that I should check this out. Well a few months later and Opera 9 has been released. Well I guess now is a good time to look at this Opera vs. Firefox talk that everyone flamed about. So the goal in this article is to see what is better under different environments. So let’s give it a go.
Both Firefox and Opera have many more features than Internet Explorer. This isn’t about tabbed browsing, having a search box on the right of the navigation bar, added support for extra features, or anything else we’ve come to expect in these browsers. My goal in this is to go into the features that Opera is showcasing and to see how well Firefox holds up.
Features
BitTorrent Client – Well I am honestly not sure what the point of this feature is, none the less it is a feature. I am usually not the type of person that goes for a once size fits all application. I like to have a different application for each use, web, email, irc, ftp, and more. I do tent to leave programs open for a century or two and I only reboot my box when it’s totally necessary. I am currently using uTorrent as my default torrent application so I went to grab a CentOS ISO file. I do not have the exact memory usage of both applications but I can say the memory usage jumped a bit on Opera and I think uTorrent was around 10-12MB. Well Opera has Firefox on this, 1 this feature is built in, and 2 there isn’t an extension that adds a BT client to Firefox.
IRC – Setting up IRC was very straight forward. I actually liked it a lot. I am not going to go into details on how to configure an IRC client, but it works great. For an IRC client in Firefox the extension ChatZilla works well, but I honestly have to say I like this much better, and would actually use it. I currently use mIRC.
Add Favorite Search Engines – This is a very standard feature although I do like how they did the layout of the menu.
Content Blocker – This I thought was an awesome idea, just not implemented very well. An example I was on Digg and wanted to see if I could remove the ads on the homepage. I right clicked, and went down to the content blocker; well in short it said hit the shift key when clicking on the time. It didn’t work. Firefox doesn’t have a built in feature that does this, but the extension AdBlock/AdBlockPlus does this very well. You are able to block any element of the page.
Thumbnail Preview – When browsing with lots of tabs I often wonder what one tab is when I am trying to find a certain page. I often use the Ctrl-Tab shortcut in Firefox to browse through tabs. Well Opera has gone many steps above Firefox in solving this problem by showing a thumbnail of the webpage when you hold the mouse over the tab. Check out the screenshot below. There is an extension for Firefox, Viamatic foXpose that displayed thumbnails of all the pages on a separate tab. I used that a few times but found it to be slow and cumbersome and removed it very soon afterward. In writing this article I have already found this feature to be very useful.
Transfer Manager – This is very similar to the Download Manager in Firefox, except its in a tab. Very cool implementation and reduces the number of windows open.
Fast Forward – This is a very interesting item. I am not quite sure what to say about this, I haven’t found it very useful at all. Fast Forward will detect the most likely "next page" link and greatly simplify navigation in multi-page documents such as search results and image galleries. Although I must admit I haven’t been on forums, Digg, Slashdot, photo galleries, or Google much this afternoon. Maybe when I start browsing those sites I’ll fall in love with this feature.
Notes – Save text from web pages or write notes for later viewing. I’ve been looking for something like this forever. I’m in love.
Sessions – Saving sessions is very important to me. Incase you don’t know what it is, saving sessions basically allows the user to have for example 5 tabs open. Close Opera. Open it again and all your pages are where you left them. This is a wonderful tool, although right now I rarely close Firefox because it lacks this feature. I do use an extension, SessionSaver, but in some instances I have found it to be very unreliable. The only time I use it is when I need to restart Firefox after a few days to recover the memory lost in leaks.
Mouse Gestures – I personally haven’t ever been a fan of these features. There is a Firefox extension, Mouse Gestures that basically has the same features that Opera has out of the box. For the people that love this feature this probably kicks totally ass to have it built it. For me it’s cool but I don’t use it.
Trash Can – I know that whenever I close a tab I didn’t mean to a few words start coming to my memory. Well Opera has what they call the Trash Can. The extension in Firefox I use for this is TabMixPlus, I also use that to drag and drop tabs around. Opera has drag and drop support built in, as well as the feature to drag and drop tabs across different windows. I’ve even used that today a few times.
Speed / Memory Usage
When running Firefox I usually have at least 10-20 windows open at any given time. Therefore memory usage is a big deal to me. I have been using Opera for about 8-9 hours at this point so my experience is nothing like my experience with Firefox. When browsing I noticed the CPU usage was very minor compared to Firefox rendering the same page. RAM usage with 28 tabs in Firefox and 22 in Opera was 89MB and 69MB. Opera as you can tell was much better on ram usage, and over time seemed to stay lower even though I had more tabs open.
Screenshot of the 28 tabs I opened.
Innovations
There are a few innovations that I really found handy and useful. First off when clicking on the address bar this nice box drops down with Hope, Top 10, Bookmarks, Search Box, and Price Comparison. This saves a bit of time of having to move the mouse all over the place to find these items.
Using Ctrl-Tab to switch menus is very fast, but often I will fly right past the window I need or have to go through them all when searching for a window. Opera has a nice menu that drops down to display all the page titles for you to see and browse.
Disappointments
I often double click on a word to highlight it so I can copy the text or for some other usage that isn’t coming into my brain right now, but in Opera a menu pops up. For some reason I find this very annoying and unwanted.
I love the scroll wheel on my mouse. I often use it when trying to find something on a long webpage where scrolling is required. Duh. However in Opera whenever I click the scroll wheel on my mouse the cursor jumps the exact center of the page and then starts scrolling. Another annoyance is when I am middle clicking links to open then up into a new tab and I miss the link and the cursor jumps to the center of the page.
Safari, the web browser bundled with OS X and Opera both have the button to close the window on each tab. I personally love having it on the right side of the window, like Firefox has it, unless you use an extension to have it on each tab. I wish there was a way to change it to be like Firefox, but then again I guess it’s something that in time will grow on me.
I am sure there is a way to turn these annoyances off, I just haven’t found out how to, yet.
Widgets
Just like in MacOS X 10.4, Opera has the ability to have them to. I browsed around the Widgets page on Opera’s website and didn’t find anything (yet) that really struck me. I think widget support is needed, but not nearly as powerful as the extension support in Firefox.
Conclusion
I am sure many of the shortfalls in Firefox that have been fixed via extensions will be added in Firefox 2.0. Firefox 2.0 is currently in Alpha and Beta, but I am not including anything on because I want this base fully on finished products.
In short when I first opened Opera I expected another Firefox. After using Opera most of today, and going through all the features I can think of I am starting to like it more and more. Maybe it’s time I start an Opera Guide like the Firefox Guide.
I am officially torn on what browser to use; only time will tell. What I can see if Opera being a replacement to Firefox due to the amount of built in features, but Firefox has many powerful extensions that might take some time looking for replacements. Look for an addition to this article with widgets to replace some of my beloved Firefox Extensions.
Resources
Read part two of this article here.
MyFake
MySpace is now known as MyFake. Although nothing has changed, I’ve noticed it’s the degree in which it is happening. A few months back I wrote about people being fake to inflate their friends list. For an example recap; I went to high school with them, never talked and they try to be cool and friendly online to get their friend list count up. Sorry I don’t play that game.
Recently every time I login to MySpace to see what’s up, probably every 2-3 days if that, I get these people wanting to be my friends. I look at the profile and it’s a damn porn site! They must have put a redirect on their profile to go to their site. Then a couple others didn’t even have a picture, just a quick about blurb that consists of; Hi come chat with me! My AIM is this, MSN is this..and I have a webcam. Hope you like to have fun! –WooHoo good for you, skank. Then I hit the mighty Deny button on the friends request page. Seriously what is the world coming to? They need to do something about this; what about the little 15 year old kid that gets that kind of stuff. Especially sense MySpace is owned by News Corp that has to be a great image for the company. I can see it now “Porn for Minors!” Sponsored by News Corp.
There is hope though MySpace putting restrictions for younger members. The first restriction is on the ads that will be displayed. They are going to stop displaying ads for online dating sites on profiles under the age of 18. So what they are really saying is that they have been doing this the whole time. Talk about a great way to make money. Kid clicks because the banner says that he can get laid tonight. He gets to the site; the site says that he has to be 18 to join. He closes the window. MySpace makes money on the click. Awesome Idea. Till they get sued. The useful restrictions include not allowing people to send messages from a 14-15 year olds to 18 year olds. This is great, but could also back fire, what about brothers and sisters that want to message each other? They are also adding the ability to have private profiles that won’t display the friends list now, unlike before when it only blocked the information and the profiles pictures. Read the whole story here.
Might I also mention that MySpace is getting sued because a young girl got assaulted! They are suing because MySpace failed to protect minors. Who made the profile? Who talked to the guy? Who was attracted to him? Who decided to meet? The answer to all those is the girls. I think its time for the parents to step up and watch what their kids do online. Read it here.
MySpace Music is actually something cool. One of the few features on MySpace I actually use. A friend of mine in Indiana has a band so it makes it easy for me to keep up on his band, listen to new tracks they have uploaded, and keep track of their shows. Well even bands are becoming fake, some kids created a fake band, songs for download, and within four weeks got an offer for a show. Why might you ask? To prove how fake the site really is. They rock. Read the whole story here.
What all this will come to? How will MySpace die? Will it be shutdown like Napster, or just die a slow painful death? Only time will tell or will it become the Nth Wonder of the World?
Neophilia
After many months of searching I have discovered I am a Neophiliac. Don’t worry this is not as bad as it sounds. According to the Japanese and Wikipedia a neophiciac is an individual who is unusually accepting of new things and excited by novelty. I discovered this after reading about a new disease the Japanease discovered and talking to a friend about my iPod Video that I’ve used 3 times in 3 months. And that is specifically why I sold my iPod Mini (I miss it very much by the way). Maybe this explains why I try to have cool phones, network toys, and other random geek toys. This is too funny.
Opera 9
Well Opera 9 is out. I am starting to take it for a test drive. Heart be still I am breaking away from my lovely Firefox and trying Opera. Back in April the Firefox Guide got Slashdotted a got a few comments from people that said Opera does everything that Firefox and the extensions I listed. So with this new version I am going to find out. Stay tuned for a detailed report.
21
Last night my brother (Walt), his friend (Joel), and my sisters’ boyfriend (Josh) all went out for dinner, drinks, and a few rounds of pool. Basically one last night with the boys before my brother gets the ball and chain, he’s getting married on Saturday. I feel old btw. Well they ordered drinks, I ordered a Coke, and of course we ate. Off to the pool table and a few rounds of pool with Josh stopping drinking so he can drive home. This is because my stick driving skills are still being working on and I don’t want to mess up his Scubi. Well about 8:45 the lady comes up to us and tells us that there can’t be minors at the pool tables past 7, we all thought it was 9 like most places, so we left. None of us were pissed or anything it just bugs me because there is no place that my brother, or anyone for that matter, to go hang out and have fun past x time. It sucks. I wish I could be 21 not for the drinking, but for the ability to just hang out and not get kicked out of places and bs times. It’s also funny that the guys didn’t get carded.
Bar-codes
I just wanted to mention I hate bar-codes right now. I will expand on this at a later date. For the time being I’ve been at work for 12 hours today. My brother gets married next weekend. I worked all weekend. Um yea I though my life would slow down after finals (last Friday), I was wrong, very very wrong. I do have lots of articles that I have been working on, just nothing to publish, yet.
