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Web Devs:
Moonlight as a Game Developer and Win Cool Prizes by Accepting the RIA Run Challenge
Now, your mission--should you choose to accept: Take your shot at gaming stardom if you think you might have what it takes to build a cool RIA game and you could win an Xbox 360 or other fabulous prizes. Hurry! You only have until May 15, 2008 to enter.
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Opera 6.0
January 30, 2002
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If you like the tempo of rock n' roll, then you'll love opera —
uh, make that Opera, as in Opera 6.0 Web browser.
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For those accustomed to using the latest versions of
Netscape
or
Internet Explorer,
it may seem like heresy to use a different browser, but even the
most hard core users of the "Big 2" browsers owe it to themselves
to at least give Opera a try.
In our tests of opening known byte-heavy Web sites, without
failure Opera 6.0 was the quickest of the three browsers
mentioned. In some cases, the difference in speed was fairly
significant; in others, it was less pronounced but still obvious.
For those of us who gave up on Netscape some time ago in favor of
Internet Explorer, Opera has enough speed and features to make us
strongly consider changing once more.
As Web designers, we still review all sites we build in Netscape
and IE; otherwise, we might consider going to Opera altogether.
But alas, we can't because speed is such an important part of
getting people to visit a Web site that
we have to
build for the tortoises as well as the hares.
Opera is not as huge a download as many other browsers, only
measuring 3.2 MB if you already have Java Runtime Environment on
your computer, and 10.7 MB if have to download JRE, too.
The newest version of Opera offers several new features,
including the multiple document interface seen here. It can be
turned on and off as the user desires, but using it does not burn
system resources much because there is still only one instance of
the program running.
Opera now has a new interface with icons and menus similar to
those in other browsers. Changing the buttons shown (or even the
"skin" being used) is as simple as right clicking in that area
and choosing another option.
The differences in the registered version and the unregistered
version are two-fold: $39 and screen space devoted to
advertising. That ad space is not huge, but if your screen is not
huge it can be annoying. Paying the $39 registration fee removes
that advertising and leaves an interface like that shown in the
top photo.
Another feature that helps readers is the Hotclick option,
shown on the right. Simply double-clicking on a word within a Web
page causes a pop-up dialog box to appear from which users can
access a dictionary, encyclopedia or translation tool.
Taking a hint from IE, Opera now allows users to put hot links in
a bar near the top of the interface. This can be turned on and
off, again by right clicking within the bar.
Users can also download a variety of panels (such as business,
sports, news, and technology — these provide easy access to
sites with those types of information), skins, and plugins. All
of those are accessible from the Opera
site.
Users can also go to the Opera site, log in as a new member, and
then design their own version of the browser, either using pre-
designed buttons and images or by importing their own graphics.
The final result can then be distributed to other members for
free.
Opera's e-mail client, bookmarking capabilities, and shortcut
keys are not unlike those in other browsers. The e-mail client
allows users to designate keywords so that messages using them
can be automatically sent to the trash.
Many of those and other options — including the refusal of popup
windows — can be set using the program's preferences, available
under the "File" menu.
Opera is W3C compliant, which
means that pages built specifically for IE or Netscape may not
always appear as intended because of proprietary standards of
those browsers. However, most pages will work as intended.
The bottom line is that Opera is quicker than the "Big 2" and
offers virtually all of the features they offer as well as some
they don't. While I think designers should still design for IE
and Netscape, I'd recommend using Opera for their own browsing
purposes.
| What is it called again?
Opera 6.0 (Opera 5.0 available for MacIntosh) |
| Where can I get it?
http://www.opera.com |
| How much does it cost? Free
unregistered; $39 registered, which removes ads |
| How big is the download? 10.7 MB with Java;
3.2 MB without Java |
| Do I recommend it? Yes, and if
you can live with the ads, the price can't be beat. |
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