Misc archive
Hey, ISO, April Fools was *yesterday*
2008-04-02 13:30
Words fail me when ISO approves OOXML
Hereafter, I shall refuse to refer to you as a standards body. Accepting an ill-thought-out set of documentation for Microsoft quirky and proprietary technology in a process that has been widely regarded as suspicious with allegations of corruption, co-opting and buying of votes is a cruel and horrible joke. Thank you so much for nothing.
Here’s an interesting factoid for you (via):
Norway ended up “supporting” OOXML, while 80% of the members of The SN/K 185 subcomittee of Standards Norway were opposed to the proposal.
There has been allegations of “comittee-stuffing” to get a particular view through, so it’s rather interesting to see what the original members of the comittee has to say on the matter (those who were members of SN/K 185 prior to the OOXML process started). For reference, these members were:
- Lars Marius Garshol
- Erlend Øverby
- Thomas Flemming
- Keld Simonsen
- Steve Pepper (chairman of SN/K 185)
And, they have all signed an open letter to Standards Norway (the letter is in Norwegian — I’ll try to find an English translation) , opposing OOXML as an ISO standard.
Again, ISO, thanks for exactly nothing.
My iPod is dead
2008-03-31 14:02
Some time ago, I said that my iPod was dying — well, it’s now thoroughly dead. A round in the washing machine at 40°C took care of that.
I am not sorry. But I am looking for another player. The same requirements as last still apply:
- Must support any OS
- Must work as a regular mass-storage device
- Must be flash-based. 8GB or above
- Should have decent multi-format support
- Should be small
- Should have upgradable firmware
- Should sound better than the iPod
- May have radio
- May have video playback capabilities, but this is not important
So, what should I pick?
I have shortlisted a few candidates:
- The Meizu M6SL — likable as this device seems to be, I’m a bit unsure about build and sound quality. I would appreciate input from someone who owns one.
- The Sony NWZ-S618 — It seems reasonably compatible with Linux, has good battery life, and allegedly good sound.
- The Samsung YP-P2 — seems like a really nice alternative, but it seems to be quite a bit more expensive than the alternatives, and while it supports replacing the firmware, I find it a bit worrying that people have reported bricking of devices just to switch between MTP and UMS modes, I am sceptical.
Are there any other alternatives I absolutely must look at?
ACID3: Strike ninety-eight. Make that 100
2008-03-26 21:20
Below is a screenshot of the Acid3, taken straight from one of our developer's machines. It's a screenshot of the builds we use to test core functionality in Opera (cue the weird, minimalistic user interface).
Yes, it says 100/100. I'm not going to say too much about it right now, other than send some Kudos in the general direction of the developers responsible (whom for some reason always seem to keep a low profile), and point to what Anne said earlier when we reached 98.
Note that there is a small rendering glitch left, but we will fix that too in due time. If you want to follow what happens in the future, visit the desktop team blog
Radiohead: In Rainbows
2007-10-11 12:03
I am not actually that big of a Radiohead fan, but that’s beside the point. I like their attitude, politely telling the greedy creeps over at RIAA and the record labels to roll over and die already.
Which is why I bought the album. Which is why you should as well. Pay over about a pound, and you’ll have the satisfaction of having paid the musicians, and having told the music labels, represented through RIAA you don’t approve of suing the living shit out of single moms.
What are you waiting for? Go shop!
(A sidenote, if your e-mail address contains a + anywhere, like mine did, the generated download URI you get upon ordering is invalid. Just edit the URL and substitute with %2B.)
Opera 9.5 alpha, Kestrel, released
2007-09-04 14:44
Ok, I never got around to blog the release of Opera Mini 4 beta 2 — apologies for that. Let me instead introduce you to Opera 9.5 Alpha - a.k.a. Kestrel.
A quick overview is available on a separate product page
So, what’s new? In a nutshell:
- History search
- Bookmark synchronization
- Dramatic performance improvements
- Web site compatibility improvements
- Improved standards support
- Huge improvements to M2
The Changelog
I wish I could get through all of the changelog here, but I’m afraid it’s way too long, and I could blog until 2011 about it, in which case Kestrel would already be severely out of date. Instead, I’ll just give you the links.
So, let’s go through some of the changes
History search
I’ve lost count of the times in the past, when I’ve visited some page, somewhere, and have been totally unable to remember where it was, on what domain, or even what the document title was. In other words, finding what I have already visited has been a very hard task, bordering on impossible. Enter history search.
With history search, Opera creates a full-text index of each and every page you visit, and when you go to the address bar, you can simply start entering words you know have been on pages you’ve visited before, and items matching your search show up. It’s a kind of magic, really. At least compared to what browsers have done in the past.
Not only can you do this, but there is also an internal web page, named opera:historysearch that gives you a more traditional web search interface that allows you to bookmark your searches. Speaking of which …
Bookmark synchronization
Bookmarks have changed in Kestrel. In the past, the only way to get your bookmarks from machine to machine was to export the bookmarks, copy the opera6.adr file, or use external software to transport them. In Kestrel, you simply log in with your My Opera account, and sync your bookmarks, speed dial items and personal bar with the server (The synchronization is using https, fwiw, so you don’t need to fear that your data are being compromised).
So, you may say “I never use two computers, why should I sync?”. Real men don’t do external backup. They just cry a lot - when their offices catch on fire!. That’s why.
M2
I have been absolutely dependent on M2 as my mail client for years, but it has had a number of annoying issues, related both to IMAP, and to indexing, where I’ve seen mail go into the wrong access point for no reason. I’m happy to report that I haven’t seen any such issues with mail with Kestrel for a long time.
Keyboard shortcuts
Now, this change is probably somewhat controversial for old-time Opera users, since they probably have single-key shortcuts as part of their muscle memory. For newcomers, though, Opera is going to feel a lot less alien, as all single-key shortcuts have been removed in the default setup. This prevents these newcomers from performing accidental navigation, or from changing their browser’s settings without knowing how.
Those oldtimers who want the old setup back, can do so, though, by checking the box in opera:config#UserPrefs|EnabledExtendedKeyboardShortcuts (Alternatively, by going to Preferences->Advanced->Shortcuts and and check “Enable single key shortcuts”.)
Now, on to more developer-related stuff
Selectors
Kestrel has top-notch support for CSS3 selectors, as shown in this demo.
Backgrounds
Kestrel has also added support for SVG in background-images, plus support for the background-size property. David Storey has created an extremely nice demo, also including a showoff of Opera’s extended selector support (mirrored with permission, as the My Opera file store doesn’t allow external referers).
Overflows
Opera now support both the overflow-x and overflow-y from the CSS3 box model specification. This both improves web site compatibility, since there are a few sites out there that use this, and it allows you, as an author improved control over those scrollbars.
getElementsByClassName
Library vendors, take note. Opera supports getElementsByClassName natively. This should allow for even faster selectors.
Dynamic media queries
In Kestrel, CSS3 Media queries support has improved, making them dynamic. For you, as a developer, you can now count on Opera actually applying the correct style when the user resizes his window, instead of re-rendering on a resize event. You can view this yourself here - note how the content changes in the max-width & min-width tests when you resize the window.
Getters and setters
Opera now supports Getters and setters from JavaScript 1.5.
Offline support
While Opera doesn’t yet implement a peristent storage, the Navigator.onLine is now supported, with window.online and window.offline events for when the value changes.
Spatial navigation
Controlling keyboard navigation can be a major pain in web applications, in particular if your application is on a device with “keyboard” as the only input device, which is the reality if you want to make web applications tailored to mobile devices, or you want to accomodate those unable to use a mouse. Opera support for these scenarios have improved in two ways.
First, Kestrel supports a custom CSS pseudo class -o-prefocus that applies to form elements that have been reached via spatial navigation, allowing for better styling. Further, Opera also now support four methods on the document object, document.moveFocusLeft(),document.moveFocusUp(),document.moveFocusRight() and document.moveFocusDown(), allowing you to initiate spatnav on regular keyboard events. I have put up a very simple demo that demonstrates a use of this property. When you navigate of the right end of a table, the code in the example moves the spatial navigation focus to the far left of the table row below. The code is not commented, but should be fairly simple to understand.
Text-shadow
Kestrel also adds (full) support for the CSS3 text-shadow property. Unlike WebKit’s support, Opera supports multiple text-shadows, comma-separated (More precisely: You can have 12 of them).
There’s more?
Yes. There’s lots more, and like I said, I could continue posting stuff from the aforementioned changelog until 2011, now go download a build for unix, Mac or Windows
Have fun.
Search-based interfaces
2007-08-10 12:34 – Two comments
Is document indexing technologies and local (computer) search really needed?
Editor love, baby
2007-03-08 15:48 – Seven comments
Editor Love, or "How I learned to love Komodo Edit" after having been nudged in that direction a couple of days ago.
Just gimme a good editor, dammit
2007-03-05 16:32 – 15 comments
I'm on the lookout for a new (Linux/Gnome) editor, for mainly working with editing angle brackets, JavaScript and Python. Can you help me?
Apple, iTunes and DRM
2007-02-07 10:15 – Leave a comment
The iPod problem
2007-01-28 10:19 – Three comments
What is the real problem with digital media distribution? Why have the media industry been fighting a losing battle against piracy? The answer is, predictably, their insistence to stick to DRM that just end up limiting their potential market penetration. They have created an enviroment in which piracy offers a better product than the recording industry does.
My iPod is dying
2007-01-11 11:18 – 21 comments
Help me find a replacement player for my dying iPod Nano.
The species license
2006-12-08 10:39 – Leave a comment
Ok, this one's a bit over a year old, but did you know that the Daleks have an Opera species license