The Peregrine has landed! Opera 10 released

Version 10 of the Opera web browser was released today. Here are a few links to introduce you to the latest and greatest web-surfing innovation out of Norway.

First the video:

This video of course just scratches the surface of what Opera can do. There are a few new features that were not mentioned in the video. Notably Opera now has a built-in spell-checker, automatic updating and a re-sizable search box, three features that had been widely requested in the Opera forums. You can read about these features and others, including the 40% increase in surfing speed, on this link:

Turbocharge your Web experience with Opera 10

Or for the complete list of what’s new in version 10, even the super-techy things like its perfect acid3 results, check out the change log:

Opera 10 for Windows changelog

Remember, Opera for the desktop is totally free and totally add-free, and has been for years.

If you haven’t already discovered “the other alternative browser”, be sure to download it today to see what you’ve been missing!

Opera Browser main download page (gives an overview of features as well)

Opera browser for operating systems other than Windows (Mac, Linux, FreeBSD, Solaris and still more (some of these may still be in beta))

The Opera browser is today’s featured article on Wikipedia

It is well-known that I am a big fan of the Opera web browser (or check out the version 10 beta!). I even have a blog more-or-less completely dedicated to it (whose posting activity, as is the case here as well, is suffering from my ever-increasing workload).
An Opera Forums member pointed out that the Wikipedia article on the Opera browser is today’s featured article on the English Wikipedia front page.
What a great opportunity to learn more about the other alternative browser!

EDIT: And while we’re on the subject of Opera, I just reddited upon an interview with Jon Stephenson von Tetzchner, the company’s co-founder and CEO, on the NPR website. Von Tetzchner explains his take on the future of Opera, notably as concerns the Unite platform and web-based applications…
Opera: A Survivor Whose Time Has Finally Come?

Opera tips and tricks: On-the-fly drag to scroll

I was just replying to victorxstc2’s request for a feature that would allow click and drag, i.e., moving a document about in the window by clicking on it then dragging, like you can do in Adobe Reader.

In fact this option exists in Opera and can be set permanently via the Opera settings menu, by turning on “Scroll Is Pan” under “User Prefs”.

But it’s not particularly practical, because doing so makes it virtually impossible to choose text by clicking and dragging.

So I started playing around with keyboard combinations to see if click and drag could be done on the fly, that is, without changing the setting in opera:config.

And Eureka! it can!

The magic formula is: Ctrl+Alt+normal mouse click and drag the page about to your heart’s content.

Handy!

Insert special characters in a click

Special characters, like “¶”, or “Ω” or “≈”, are already a pain to insert in Word documents (or the like) and a super-mega pain in the a** to insert correctly into web pages, where if you’re going to be disciplined about things, you need to put in the html entity, so that the symbol will display correctly everywhere.

At least, these things were a pain until now!

I was just taking a look at Lifehacker.com, one of my favorite daily reads. They put up an article today on a new website called copypastecharacter.com. This website is, in reality, a single flash-based webpage, but little websites can sometime have big benefits for users.

Indeed the website is just a display of special characters, but the beauty is in the use. All you have to do is click on the special character that you want and Bing! (no free advertising for search engines intended) the character is on your clipboard, ready to be pasted wherever you need it.

You have the choice of copying the normal text character, but also the html entity; I think that the real beauty of the website is with this latter. In other words, website developers will find this more useful than your average Joe typing in Word.

†, ¼, ⇧, ®, § …

Easy as pie.

(EDIT: All the above symbols display correctly in Opera, Safari and Firefox, but the third from the left, an up-arrow, may not display correctly if you’re using Internet Explorer [hmmm, wonder whose fault that is...].)

www.copypastecharacter.com

Incredible animation on angiogenesis at Amgen

Beyond a certain point of growth, cancer cells, like any other cells, need blood vessels to provide them with nutrients and dispose of waste.
Angiogenesis is the process by which new blood vessels are formed in living tissue. Although the term, in and of itself, is not obligatorily attached to cancer, it is usually used in this sense; that’s to say the ability of cancer cells to invoke the creation of new blood vessels in tissue, thus assuring their nutritional needs and allowing them to continue to grow.
Controlling angiogenesis as a method of cancer treatment is thus a major field of current research.
The therapeutics company Amgen has put up an absolutely amazing Flash animation explaining the process of cancerous angiogenesis. This is really, really well done and an excellent illustration of just how powerful the web can be for educational purposes.
Don’t be frightened off by their use of medical terminology: the supporting animations are so well done that even a novice can keep up and learn a lot on this promising therapeutic path for cancer treatment.
Bravo Amgen!

Pioneering New Frontiers in Tumor Angiogenesis

Opera tips and tricks: Cycle in recently used order without showing list

(I recently posted this subject in the Opera Wish-list forum and my thanks to sgunhouse for telling me how to do this.)

One of Opera’s keyboard functionalities is the ability to cycle through open tabs using Ctrl+Tab. You can choose how Opera cycles the tabs in the Preferences dialog:

Tools > Preferences… > Advanced > Tabs — Choose from the drop-down box under, “When cycling through tabs with Ctrl+Tab”.

Your choices are:
Cycle without showing list
Cycle in recently used order
Cycle in tab bar order

If you choose “Cycle in recently used order” or “Cycle in tab bar order”, by default, Opera will show a list of open tabs while you’re cycling. You can furthermore indicate if you want Opera to show thumbnails in the list by checking or unchecking the box, “Show thumbnails in tab cycle”.

If you choose “Cycle without showing list”, Opera will cycle in tab bar order, but not show the list.

What’s missing from these options is the ability to cycle in recently-used order, without showing the list. Indeed, displaying the list is not strictly necessary because when it’s not shown, Opera simply jumps to the concerned tab with each Ctrl+Tab.

As it turns out, cycling in recently-used order was apparently default behavior under Windows in the past. You can thus “re-tell” Opera to do this via the Opera Settings File, a.k.a. “opera:config”.

Here’s how:

First, make sure that “Cycle without showing list” is chosen in the Preferences dialog (Tools > Preferences… > Advanced > Tabs — Choose “Cycle without showing list” from the drop-down box under, “When cycling through tabs with Ctrl+Tab”).

Then:

Open a new tab and type “opera:config” in the address bar (no quotation marks)
Click “User Prefs”
Find “Alternative Page Cycle Mode”
Set it to “0″
Scrrrroooooooooolllll down and click “Save”

Enjoy!

See the Wish-list Forum post that I put up on December 11th, for a few more points concerning tab cycling in Opera: Add (bring back?) “Cycle in recently used order without showing list”

Fun with Google Zeitgeist 2008

So, if you haven’t noticed yet, Google has published its “Google Zeitgeist” for 2008.

It’s a collection of the most popular search terms in Google for 2008 grouped under a variety of categories, thus providing an interesting look into our collective, global psyche. Often banal, sometimes funny, sometimes sad and sometimes strange, the Google Zeitgeist is definitely worth a look.

Take a look at the “Politics” section for an excellent illustration of how we use Google to get information rapidly: one day the “Sarah Palin” line is non-existent and the next, boom! it’s there (McCain names her as running mate) and sky-rockets above the other election personalities.

Then, under the “Around the World” section, I couldn’t help but notice two things. First, the amazing popularity of Facebook the world-over. And second, more interestingly, notice how often the word “Google” itself appears in many of the countries’ “Fastest rising” and “Most popular” lists (Australia, Belgium, Canada, Germany, India, etc.)…

This means that a huge number of people in these countries are searching for “Google”, in Google.

Why?

Feel free to leave a comment for the elements of the 2008 Google Zeitgeist that you find interesting, and, well, keep on Googling!

Ciao!
2008 Year-End Google Zeitgeist

Opera tips and tricks: Opera tools and toolbars 101

One of the most frequent requests in the Opera forums is how to “move toolbars” from one place to another in Opera. The helpful folks who are active in the forums are quick to point out that Opera’s toolbars work differently from other browsers, but this is sometimes confusing for newcomers. The goal of this post is to explain Opera’s unique and flexible approach to managing toolbars.

Opera tips and tricks: double, triple and quadruple clicking

As I’m sure all you Opera technophiles know already, David Pogue has a blog at the New York Times called Pogue’s Post. Today he put up a post entitled, “Tech Tips for the Basic Computer User“. You’ll probably know already most of the things that David talks about in the post, but it’s a good read anyway, and you never know what little nugget of information you may discover.

So I’ve been on Opera version 9.50 for several weeks now and I think the time has come to add my two-cents worth on our favorite new toy.