Archive for April, 2003

More Opera Goodness and some Microsoft Evil

Apr 30, 2003

Still coming across boatloads of nifty features in Opera. Another one of the really great things is Hotclicks. It lets you highlight a word and from the right click menu you can intiate a search by it, a dictionary or encyclopedia lookup or even get a language translation. This of course, is customizable. I’ve also found that as great as the built in search queries are, you can customize them too. It does take a minor hack or use of this editor.

There was one pretty dumb thing I came across. A typical Microsoft maneuver, when I go to Hotmail in Opera I get the following warning:

Web Browser Software Limitations
Your Current Software Will Limit Your Ability to Use Hotmail

You are using a web browser that Hotmail does not support. If you continue
to use your current browser software we cannot guarantee that Hotmail will
work properly for you.

Hotmail supports the following web browsers:
Microsoft Internet Explorer – version 4.0 or higher.

Netscape Navigator versions 4.70 and higher.
We recommend that you upgrade your web browsing software and invite you to
download the latest version of Microsoft Internet Explorer.

Of course Hotmail works just fine in Opera anyway. Microsoft should listen to Sergey Brin.

Opera Fan

Apr 28, 2003

Just finally downloaded Opera for the first time (I know, what was I waiting for?) and my first impression is suhuh-weeet! Tabbed browser windows, built in Google and Amazon search, capability to navigate entirely with shortcuts, highly customizable, built in popup blocker(huge feature!) smooth and fast…. I-LAK-IT-ALOT (as Lloyd Christmas would say). There are still some problems with Opera, but wooooo, so many neat and useful features. I have to wonder, with so many innovations, can it be long before Microsoft copies them for IE?

GeoUrl

Apr 23, 2003

Finally got around to adding this site to the GeoURL database. You or I can now see websites in close proximity to Manchester, NH. In the process of setting it up I came across a nice, easy to use satellite mapper at Acme Mapper. Look at my roof.

Alive and Kicking Again

Apr 15, 2003

Finally, this site is alive and kicking again, after being down for a few days. I switched hosts, going from Omnis to Dreamhost. That transition was no problem, but I also had to move my Movable Type weblog files over to the new server. That was a little more of an adventure. The moving of the Movable Type mysql database files from one server to another combined with upgrading from MT 2.51 to 2.63 made things get a little hairy for a while. I was stuck at several points, but after many hours of troubleshooting and much help from one of the great MT forum moderators, everything seems to be fixed. If anyone notices anything funky going on, let me know.

History of Microsoft Windows

Apr 3, 2003

There is a good history of Microsoft Windows at this site. Loads of screenshots; I had never even seen any pre Windows 3.1 stuff. After looking at Windows 1.0, XP is sure seeming sweet.