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Opera 9.5 gets improvements after feedback

Published
by
kyleabaker
on June 6, 2008
in Applications, News, Opera, Uncategorized and Web Browsers
. 0 Comments

Today the Opera Desktop Team released improvements to the new skin which was released only yesterday! The improvements come from an amazing 300+ posts by users like you and me in just 24 hours. What makes that even more incredible is that this is a beta and snapshot blog, so it’s typically just a small group of people who participate…but not this time!

The new skin has brought the Desktop Team a great deal of attention! If you have a digg account then you should help digg this!
http://digg.com/software/Opera_s_new_modern_UI

The improvements to the skin are aimed at correcting issues that were reported by the majority of the visitors yesterday. More improvements will come shortly (maybe Monday!), but for now the changelog consists of the following:

  • Improved contrast between active and inactive tabs in the tab bar
  • Higher contrast for the text on inactive tabs to increase readability, especially on laptops
  • Brighter background in the panels
  • A tiny bit more color: We added the Home button as default by popular demand
  • We tuned the color intensity of the color themes (Tools: Appearance: Color scheme) to be more usable with both this and other skins. Try it out again!
  • Improved visibility of the scrollbars
  • Buttons no longer grow wider when you press them
  • Nicer background for security status on https pages

To use Opera with the new improvements and test them out, you can go to the latest post or you can use the links I’ve posted below for you:

If you find a bug or an improvement to the skin or this build then help us all out by posting it here:
http://my.opera.com/desktopteam/blog/2008/06/06/turtle-wax

This post is an update to the initial Opera 9.5 skin improvements post from yesterday. To read more about this, you should read the post from yesterday.

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Opera 9.5 just got a face lift!

Published
by
kyleabaker
on June 5, 2008
in Applications, News, Opera, Picture, Uncategorized and Web Browsers
. 0 Comments

Good news today for Opera browser fans! The Browser received a much needed face lift today. The desktop team has (on a side project) put together a new skin for the browser to enhance it’s appearance, improve functionality and bridge the gap between a few more cross-browser usability issues.

The new skin is now installed by default in the latest Opera 9.5 snapshots from the Desktop Team’s blog. However, if you need some time to get used to the new skin, they have also packaged the previous skin in the installer as well and it is called the Opera Classic skin.

Well, what are you waiting for? Go download this bad boy as you continue reading the rest of this post! You can grab the download from the original post (which is here), or you can just use the links I’ve gathered below for you. ;)

Now that you’ve got the download process going on in the background, I’ll tell you a little bit about the changes that you may notice.

The new skin has replaced all of the old icons that you may be used to and with glossier and shinier new ones. The back, forward, refresh, stop, etc. buttons are all easily recognizable, but different.

It didn’t take me long at all to like the new skin! I actually liked it from the instant I restarted Opera!

One thing, however, that I used quiet often that has been changed is the panel toggle button that extended up the left-hand side of the window. You could click the talk and narrow button to show or hide the side panel and it’s windows.

A new button has been placed to the left of the tabs that does the exact same thing now. I’m still getting used to it, but I think it’s a good change..as many of you may not have known about the older button in the first place. :P

The New Tab button is now moved to the right side of the row of tabs. It moves as the tabs row grows and is designed..or placed there to be more conveniently placed. This change is also one of the areas that Opera is working to bridge the gap between usability in Internet Explorer 7+ and Opera.

If you’ve used Internet Explorer 7 or 8 (beta) then you known that the new tab button is on the right side of the row of tabs and follows the tabs. Well, this is the same behavior as Opera now. :D

The panels icons are also new. Although they take a little more time to get used to than the navigational icons, they are still a much needed update!

One thing that I’m not in favor of is the background color of the windows in the panels tab. The windows are, in my opinion, too dark and slow for the eyes to glance through.

I’ve spoken with some of the developers and they have told me that the skin is by no means finished. They are taking feedback from everyone, tweaking the theme, releasing it and then taking feedback again.

If you have any suggestions or feedback at all for them then you should go post it in the blog so they hear your voice! You can make a difference in the development of Opera!
http://my.opera.com/desktopteam/blog/2008/06/05/looking-sharp

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June: My Movie-holic Month Already

Published
by
kyleabaker
on June 2, 2008
in Multimedia, News and Video
. 0 Comments

Well, the first day of June was a long and slow one…I didn’t think it was ever going to end. :P I spent most of the day watching movies. Let me tell you, I saw a weird movie today, lol.

Two of my Netflix movies came in the mail yesterday so today I got to was Six Days, Seven Nights and Hotel. Both of them ever David Schwimmer films, but if you only read one part of this blog read this:
Do Not Watch Hotel.

Six Days, Seven Nights was actually pretty good. The basic plot from the Netflix envelope is that David Schwimmer and his girlfriend go on vacation together at a romantic beach. The pilot is Harrison Ford. After a crash landing and not getting along, they learn to get along and understand each other.

That was mostly in my words. :P It was pretty good though.

Now…Hotel, on the other hand, was a weird film. The film is split into four separate stories that are happening at the same time. At times, the screen is split four ways! The acting was very poor, even though some of the actors were acting like actors in the film (you know how they make it seem like they are trying to act).

The film just doesn’t make much sense for the majority of the duration. Near the end, it all comes together, but I’d only suggest watching it if you’re desperate for a film you’ve never seen.

After watching those, I watched the movie Untraceable. It was pretty good, but most of the scenes were ridiculous. The scenes where they show how easy it is to catch people online, find their home, wireless signals, photo id, very detail about them..blah blah blah. It’s just a little bit ridiculous how easy they make it look.

I mean, the applications that they are using should look like AIM and other applications that under-go user interface development to look sweet and awesome. Most hacker tools that I’ve seen (whether they be white-hat or not) are always dull looking and purely designed to get the job done.

Getting the job done with these tools usually requires a step-by-step process that can take a while depending on what you’re trying to accomplish, but in the movie..they had one click and double click method to do anything and everything.

It would be nice if you could do some much so easily, but imagine how many things you could to on a computer starting with turning it on, while on and trying to turn it off..all while only being about to use something like the enter key or maybe only the shift key.

The film just had a lot of little stretches in it, but I guess most people wouldn’t have caught most of it.

That reminds me, I was watching some movie about a week ago with Sandra Bullock in it called something like..The Net..or something like that. Anyhoo, the got an ip address with one of the sections ~340 or something like that. Now, no one in Hollywood knew that all four parts of the ip address must be between 0 and 255?

The film was based in the 1990’s and AFAIK, IPv4 was the latest ip version around that time which means no higher in any levels than 255.255.255.255. IPv6 is the latest used today, but is supported very little and still hasn’t caught on just yet. Major slip-up if you ask me! :)

Anyways, back to watching FRIENDS before I try to pass-out for the night. Who knows, maybe one more movie in a bit. Can’t stay up too much later though. I’ve gotta get up and get those flix back in the mail for the next batch.

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Welcome back into the wild

Published
by
kyleabaker
on May 31, 2008
in Birthday, Jasmine and News
. 0 Comments

Well, I just got back home from a great party with some of my home-boy friends. They had a good throw down up in Boone, NC with a bunch of people I hadn’t met before.

I randomly ran into Brandon and Scuff at Ingles in Boone! How weird is that!? I mean, Brandon’s always in Boone, but the fact that I just randomly went to Boone and saw him there..that’s funny!

Adam stayed at the party since it was pretty much for him, but Will went with me to grab some more party “materials”. ;) You know…cup-cakes, sodas, candles, balloons…lol, just kidding. The “other” party items. :P

It was really interesting to hangout with them again! It brought back some memories from childhood..which is always cool.

I mean, once you go off to college, you lose touch with your best friends from home and make new friends. I can’t say that I like either group of my friends more than the other, because that would be a lie..but wow..isn’t it great to catch-up with old friends again!

We just played some pong, a little sequence (the board game..only modified for the party mood), talked on a balcony, walked up a deserted road and downed a few bottles and basically just had an all around great time!

It’s sad that when you move off to college you have to leave them behind and start all over, but at least I know now that good friends are friends for life. We just connected again almost like we hadn’t been a day apart!

Sometimes you hangout with friends again and have nothing to do or talk about, but wow…that was probably the best time I’ve had with them yet.

It was great to catch-up with Will and talk to him about what’s going on in his world and what’s going on in my world. You know, just the basic definition of catching up.

When I first called up Will last night, he was like “Kyle??….Kyle Baker??? Holy crap man! I can’t believe it’s you! What the heck are you getting into tonight!?” Straight from long time no see to what’s taking you so long to join us and party?!

It was like a re-bonding experience. Fantastic!

Then later, Adam and I sat up until like 5:30 am playing Halo 3 on his xBox 360. I pretty much got pwn’d every round, but it was cool.

We sat up talking about all kinds of cool stuff. He told me about how a long time ago when we were kids he came over to my house and we sat down at my families piano and I showed him how to play this piano part while I played to other half of it.

It was just cool to listen to him tell me about a memory like that. Honestly, I didn’t recall any of it..but it made me feel awesome to know that I made a cool memory with one of my friends so very long ago..even if I didn’t remember it.

I feel like I remember so many little things that I did with my friends that they probably don’t remember and those little things were the best times of my childhood.

Anyhoo, I’ve got to get some sleep now. More partying and socializing is in the works for later this evening!

While I sleep, I hope Jasmine is regaining her “health” (feeling a little sick while in Peru) so she can go on the Inca trail!

I hope everyone is having a blast as well. You only get one summer per year. ;) Use it wisely. :P

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