Opera 10 is out of beta and in official release, so if you want to try it out, go for it.

Note before continuing: PCMech Premium members can see me review this browser in a 20-minute video.

1. "Windows Native" skin

Accessible by: Tools/Appearance or Shift+F12

The default look of Opera is "Opera Standard". It definitely looks better than Opera 9 did, but "Windows Native" is better. It makes the browser look much cleaner and icons are easier see because they’re color coded (in "Standard" they’re not).

This combined with the fact the tabs are above the address bar by default (Note: It can be moved easily, I’ll cover that in a moment) makes this one of the easiest browser interfaces there is.

It used to be that all browsers had different colored navigation buttons on purpose to make it easier to use. Opera is the only one left that does it right.

2. Fastest address bar search there is

Example:

Firefox’s "Awesome Bar" stutters and/or chokes when trying to search your recent history from the address bar. Opera never, repeat, never does any of that crap. Just start typing and blam, there’s your results. Instantly.

3. Sessions

The Sessions feature is when you can load up specific sets of tabs on demand at any time that you want.

Example 1 – You want to load up Google, Yahoo, MSN and Ask all at once.

So you do:

Then while these tabs are open you click File, Sessions, Save This Session:

Title it and click OK:

Now whenever you want to open those four sites all at once, you click File, Sessions, [title of session you saved]…

…and ta-da, the session is opened (as a new Opera window) with all four sites loaded exactly as you saved them.

You can have as many saved sessions as you want.

For those saying, "But IE 8 has that too!" No it doesn’t. It has the ability to load multiple tabs on startup, but with Opera’s Sessions feature you can actually save sets and call them up at whim whereas in IE 8 that must be done manually.

4. Just as fast as Chrome in a way better package

If you’re all about speed but Chrome is just way too watered down for your liking (a common complaint by many), Opera 10 is the best of both worlds.

Some benchmarks out there may say Opera 10 is not as fast as Chrome. I disagree because I’m talking real-world use here. And in my experience, Opera is faster than Chrome for day-to-day stuff. It loads my online banking web site faster. It resolves sites faster. It caches better. The interface allows me to find stuff quicker. It’s extensible with widgets. It has the best mouse gestures of any browser that exists.

I could go on and on about this, but you get the idea. Speed means nothing to me without features that make that speed worth it. Opera gives you the speed and the features.

5. Best smooth-scrolling there is

Most people can’t stand smooth scrolling and instantly turn it off. Opera is the only browser I use with it turned on because it’s the only one that does it right. It’s not too "stiff" or "loose". Opera has that nice happy medium when it comes to smooth scrolling, so much so you would probably leave it on as well.

In addition: The default setting for the mouse wheel concerning how much it scrolls up and down is also just right.

6. Ability to move anything just about anywhere

This has been a feature of Opera for a while, but it’s still worth mentioning.

Example:

Of all browsers I’ve ever used, Opera is the one you can customize the most. Want the tabs on the bottom? Do it. Want the address bar on the top, right, left or bottom? No problem.

Other browsers only dream of native customization like this.

7. Help documentation that’s actually (gasp!) helpful!

One thing I knock other browsers for is the seriously crappy documentation they have.

The F1 key, as most people know, is the key you press when you want help in an application in Windows.

When you do this in IE 8…

…the first thing the help section does is tell you what’s new in the browser. I don’t want to know what’s new. I want a table of contents because maybe, just maybe, I’m looking for documentation on a feature but don’t know what to call it (so I can’t search for it being I don’t know the title).

It no wonder that nobody ever uses the help section in IE – even in 8.

When you do this in Firefox…

…you are brought to support.mozilla.com where you are shown, quite loudly, to SEARCH FOR WHATEVER IT IS YOU WANT TO GET HELP WITHIN A BIG YELLOW BAR.

Once again, no table of contents. You get "featured tutorials" and "handy references" instead. Wrong, wrong, wrong. I want an itemized list. It’s not here. You’ll waste time going thru other "handy" sections just trying to find out how to do simple things.

Note to Mozilla: We as users don’t want a "knowledgebase". We want plain English documentation. And yes, there’s a difference and a big one at that.

When you do this in Opera…

Well, glory be, look at that.. a list of contents on the right showing every single feature in the browser in a nice clean categorized way. This is proper.

Do you realize how rare this is these days that a team actually took the time to document this the right way the first time?

It’s gotten so bad these days that we as browser users expect the documentation to suck. But Opera’s docs don’t suck. Not by a long shot.

Final notes

At present Opera isn’t enough to pull me away from Firefox mainly due to the way it handles bookmarks and the fact I don’t get the plugins FF has.

However I will say this browser is staying installed on my system. It gave me a solid reason to ditch Chrome and go with Opera instead. I was happy to uninstall Chrome after using Opera 10.

This browser is also going to kick serious ass on my netbook due to the native Opera Turbo feature.

A big thumbs up to Opera 10. It finally looks modern, acts modern and has the big-player features people are looking for.

And by the way, yes it’s available for Mac and Linux too.

Opera is one of those browsers that has a very dedicated community, but pales in usage compared to Firefox and Internet Explorer.

The perks of Opera have pretty much always been the same.

• Best native tab management
• Lightning fast operation in just about every way
• Low memory usage
• A user interface that just makes sense
• More options that are actually usable

I’d dare to say that other browsers "borrow" features from Opera routinely. The Opera browser always seems to come up with something really cool but people really don’t take notice of it. Then after a while, a competing browser will introduce a very similar feature and be lauded as if they invented it.

An example of this is the zoom feature. Opera was the first browser I can remember that got zoom right the first time. Firefox didn’t get that right until version 3 and IE not until 7, both several years after Opera more or less perfected it.

The only thing about Opera that was obvious is that it looked old. The current Opera 9.64 does look a bit antiquated while IE, Firefox, Safari and Chrome look snazzy and modern.

Opera 10 on the other hand finally gets a freshened interface. It’s nothing particularly groundbreaking, but considering how often we all use our web browsers, this is a welcome sight to see. There is no part of this browser that says "old" anymore.

Concerning the address bar…

The AwesomeBar in Firefox sucks. Even in FF 3.5 it’s still a drag to use. You will realize why once you use Opera’s address bar. Why? Because Opera never "thinks" when trying to pull up information. The moment you start typing, wham, instant search of your bookmarks with no "thinking". It is nothing short of amazing how fast it is (even on slow PCs!)

Concerning better web integration…

From the Opera 10 page:

If you use a Web mail service as your default mail client, you can tell Opera 10 to do the same. Clicking on e-mail addresses or "Send by Mail" in Opera will open the compose page from your Web mail service provider. The same is true with the Feed reader — you can now also add any RSS/atom feed into your favorite online feed reader from within Opera 10.

This is actually really cool. But unfortunately the selections available do not include what most people use.

For example, when you click on an email address on a web page, this is what happens:

Okay, cool, I can choose a webmail service of my choice, let’s see what choices I have.

That’s it? No Hotmail? No Yahoo Mail? No Gmail? I’m hoping those services will be added in when this browser is out of beta.

Concerning the other stuff…

Opera Turbo

The Opera Turbo feature is an accelerator of sorts that is supposed to increase the speed of browsing when on a slow or choked (i.e. a slow public wi-fi) network. It is enabled by clicking the clock icon at the lower left of the browser. I can’t use it because my network is too fast (oh, darn it all). You can read more about Turbo here.

Resizable search field

At top right next to the address bar you can search Google (just like in Firefox or IE) and now you can adjust the size of it, but I bet you didn’t know that IE and FF can do the exact same thing. Opera makes it easy to spot. The other guys do that hiding-in-plain-sight thing.

Auto-update

Summed up: It’s about time Opera got this.

Would I recommend Opera now?

Opera 10 is the first version of this browser that I would actually recommend. As good as 9 and all the previous versions were, I just couldn’t recommend those. And the main reason for that is sub-par web standards support.

Version 10 on the other hand does have proper web standard support (believe me, that’s important). And as soon as the loose ends are tied up from the beta to the final release, I think this will finally be the one that will get Opera more new users.

It’s my opinion that everyone should own a laptop. Two years ago I couldn’t say this because the price point wasn’t low enough. But with the netbooks quickly becoming the new norm of laptops, I can say now that yes, you should own one.

And if you needed a reason why, here are 10 good ones.

1. Better resale value.

PCs hold little resale value – but laptops hold a lot more. Even if you own a Mac, the Macbook will always sell later for more than the desktop version.

2. Portable.

When I say portable I’m not necessarily referring to sitting in a Panera Bread click-clacking away with their free wi-fi (although you could). Portable can be as simple as bringing it elsewhere in your house or apartment/flat. Sit down in your easy chair or couch, watch the game and surf the ‘net? Sure, why not?

3. Space-saver.

One does not know the joy of owning a laptop until you put it on the computer desk and then realize all the space you get back. All you have is the laptop and possibly an external mouse and pad. That’s it.

4. Energy-saver.

Laptops use far less energy than desktop PCs do.

5. Easier keyboards.

Laptops use short profile keys with a scissor-style spring underneath. Your typing speed will increase almost instantly. And after using one for a while, going back to the desktop feels old and clunky compared to the super-easy laptop keys. Additionally, the place where the trackpad is serves as a built-in wrist rest, so it’s also ergonomically sound.

6. Better LCD screen.

More often than not the LCD screen on a laptop is far superior to your desktop LCD monitor. The colors look more true, gradients don’t "fuzz" and it has a more crisp picture.

7. Easier to work on.

Most laptops only require one screw to remove the hard drive or RAM. After that it’s literally pop in/pop out to upgrade. It doesn’t get any easier.

8. Proprietary architecture means everything works better.

The vast majority of laptops are very proprietary. This means there is no guesswork as to whether the unit will function properly or not. Even Linux "likes" laptops better because it absolutely knows what to expect, so to speak.

9. Easy-access USB.

Most laptops have 4 USB ports (two on the side, two on the back) and are in easy reach.

10. It’s not a throw-away computer.

This goes back to point 1. The laptop is more or less the only type of computer you can buy where you know it will sell later when it’s time to get rid of it. Even if you have an older laptop with a busted optical drive, someone will still buy it because of what it is. Older desktop PCs on the other hand turn into paperweights that you can’t sell for a decent price no matter what.

So go ahead, get that laptop. You’ll be happy you did.

Chances are you’re probably going to stick around with XP until Windows 7 comes along. And even then you may wait. If that’s what you plan to do, no problem. You can do a few things to get XP to look and feel better.

1. Use the Zune theme

The Zune theme is available here:

http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=75078

This gives XP a black and orange look. Additionally it’s a complete theme (unlike "Royale" which isn’t and has rough edges here and there).

Here’s an example of what it looks like:

Trust me when I say you will like this.

If you don’t feel like using this theme, the next best thing is "Silver". This is built-in to your XP already and is accessible from the Display icon in the Control Panel from the Appearance tab.

Looks like this:

Silver is arguably the best built-in theme in XP. The standard blue gives XP too much of a toy-like appearance, and the "Olive Green" just doesn’t cut it.

Zune and Silver work well.

Small end note: Using the Zune theme doesn’t mean you have to actually own a Microsoft Zune music player, nor do you have to do any sign-up stuff or any of that crapola. It’s just a theme, plain and simple.

2. Use no wallpaper or tiled wallpaper.

Full-screen wallpaper can actually slow your system down – especially if you’re using dual (or more) screens. The reason for the slowdown is because XP has to keep redrawing the screen with a high-res graphic behind it.

If you use no wallpaper, XP won’t have to redraw as much. And in fact this is true for any OS and not just Windows. Even on Mac OS X and Linux, having no wallpaper speeds up window/screen redraws quite a bit.

Tiled wallpaper (ex: "Coffee Bean" in Windows XP) draws much faster compared to full-screen wallpaper.

TIP: Do a Google Image Search for wallpaper pattern. You’ll see lots of cool-looking stuff there you can try out for wallpaper use.

3. Use the ClearType Tuner Powertoy.

It makes all your fonts look better and easier to read. This is a no-brainer. I use it; it works; it’s free; it’s awesome.

Get it here:

http://www.microsoft.com/typography/ClearTypePowerToy.mspx

To note: Only people with LCD monitors should use this. If you’re using CRT (i.e. "tubed" monitor), stick with what you have.

4. Adjust Active Title Bar to use a larger font.

When you use a larger font in the title bar area it makes all apps look better and easier to locate.

It’s done like this:

First, go to Display Properties ("Display" icon from Control Panel), click the Appearance tab and then the Advanced button.

Looks like this:

Note the "Advanced" button at the bottom right. Click that.

Where it states "Message Box", click that. The Item listed will be Active Title Bar.

Set the font to Arial and its size to 12 and bold it (the little "B" button). Then next to Active Title Bar, set to 25. THIS SHOULD ALWAYS BE 25. If it’s not it will make icons in the taskbar look "scrunched" and pixelated.

Confused? Match what you see below:

To note, you don’t have to use Arial. Other good fonts are Verdana, Trebuchet MS, Lucida Sans Unicode or whatever is loaded on your system.

Just remember to keep the "size" setting next to "Active Title Bar" to 25 to avoid the scrunch/pixelation of taskbar icons.

5. Adjust "Message Text" and "Menu" to Tahoma.

Tahoma is a built-in font with XP and said honestly is the best menu font it has.

Follow the same instructions above – but click on "Message Text", set to Tahoma, size 8 and for "Selected" use the same settings.

It looks like this:

(Note under Item: that "Message Box" is selected – you want to do the same for "Selected Items" as well from that same drop-down menu.)

For those who have not-so perfect vision, try bolding the menu and dialog fonts. It makes the menus in XP a whole lot easier to see and use.

6. Set the Icon item to bold.

This is in the same section as the others mentioned above.

Looks like this:

The Item is "Icon", the font is "Tahoma", size 32, the font size is 8 and lastly, the "B" is impressed (by clicking on it) to indicate it’s set to bold.

This carries over to the Windows Explorer and makes stuff easier to read, like this:

The icons on your desktop will also have bolded fonts, and will also bold a few things in Internet Explorer (which is not a bad thing at all).

7. Use a useful screen saver.

Fancy screen savers eat CPU cycles and slow down your computer. I stopped using those years ago and instead use the JKDefrag screen saver instead.

Whenever my computer goes into a screen saver mode it automatcally starts defragging the hard drive. That’s useful.

How to do it:

Step 1. Get JKDefrag (free).

Step 2. From the ZIP file, extract two of the files, that being JKDefragScreenSaver.exe and JKDefragScreenSaver.scr, into the main Windows folder (usually C:\WINDOWS).

Step 3. Go to Display Properties from the Control Panel, click the Screen Saver tab and select JKDefragScreenSaver.

Looks like this:

Step 4. Click Settings.

Set your screen saver to "Blank", last defrag to 4 hours and status bar to Full status bar.

Looks like this:

Note that you don’t have to use "Blank", however it is better overall that you use a screen saver that doesn’t eat CPU cycles at all – and "Blank" is it.

When using this particular screen saver, JKDefrag will auto-defrag whenever your computer’s screen saver comes on – unless it was done fairly recently (less than 4 hours ago).

Basically put, you’ll never have to remember to defrag your drive because it will be done automatically. A defragged drive is a happy drive.

Additional tip:

From the Screen Saver tab click the button labeled Power. From that screen set your monitor(s) to turn OFF after a set amount of time (I suggest somewhere between 10 to 30 minutes). This will increase the life of your LCD monitor. There’s no excuse to have it on when not at your computer.

8. Use a bigger mouse cursor.

On every XP computer I’ve ever used I always set the mouse cursor to "Magnified" and enable the pointer shadow.

Looks like this:

This is available from the "Mouse" icon in the Control Panel and via the "Pointers" tab.

The default mouse pointer in XP is too small and you can lose it easily. With "Magnified" it’s easily located. While it’s true this is a non-animated cursor set, believe me when I say you won’t miss it – because seeing the pointer is more important than it doing some frilly animation.

Also be sure to check off "Enable pointer shadow" at the bottom. This does help with visibility.

Alternatives:

Other mouse sets with XP that work well are black and inverted.

9. Enable "Show location" for mouse pointer.

Even with single-screen setups it’s easy to lose where the mouse pointer is. You can take care of this in short order by going to Pointer Options from Mouse properties and checking off "Show location of pointer when I press the CTRL key".

Looks like this:

Check off the box at the bottom, click Apply, then tap your CTRL key once. You’ll see an animated circle appear around the pointer once.

This is very handy to have enabled – especially if you run a multi-monitor setup where you can lose the mouse a little too easily.

10. Make the taskbar "taller" so day and date is shown.

"One tier" high taskbar:

"Two tier" high taskbar:

As you can see, the date and day of week is shown when it’s "two tiers" high. This is good info to have at a glance.

How do to it:

1. Right click an empty area of the taskbar. A small menu will appear. One of the entries will be "Lock the taskbar". If there is a check next to it, click it to uncheck. If there is no check, leave it be and click outside the menu to close it.

2. Move your mouse to the top of the taskbar so your mouse cursor changes to an up/down double-arrow.

3. Left click, hold, and drag the taskbar up one tier.

That’s it. You should see the day and date at that point.

If you don’t like it you can drag it back down to where it was.

While it’s true Ubuntu has very dedicated followers, it can be argued that Fedora has users that are just as passionate about that Linux distro also.

If Linux is your thing and Ubuntu just doesn’t float your boat for whatever reason, you might want to consider Fedora. Just released is version 10, and here are some of the features included are:

Better printer support (setup, management, etc.)

With each successive release no matter what the distribution, printer support and management has improved. If your printer didn’t work in Fedora before for whatever reason, there’s a good chance it will now.

RPM update (to 4.6)

This is the way Fedora does package management. It’s been around a very long time, it works, and now it’s better.

Better webcam support

Generally speaking, support for webcams is a bit limited on Linux but Fedora has stepped up to the task of providing better support for these devices.

A whole lot more

You can check out the full feature list of 10 here.

You can download Fedora by heading over to the Fedora Project at http://fedoraproject.org/.

Since the release of Mozilla Firefox 3 there have been issues with the Adobe Flash player (currently at release 9), particularly with Flash video. What happens is that you’ll attempt to watch a video (say on YouTube) and the first 2 seconds will play and then stop. And you’re left with no choice but to restart the browser and sometimes that doesn’t even work.

There is a Flash 10 beta available right now if you want to use it. It’s recently been updated for both Windows and Mac. Personally speaking I won’t be using it because all I have to do is that if Flash bugs up on me I just go into Internet Explorer 7 and everything is okey-dokey. I figure if I want to view a Flash video that bad, going to another browser just for that video doesn’t bother me.

So if you’re a Firefox user and have been experiencing that maddening 2-second-and-stop issue, it’s not your fault. When version 10 of the Adobe Player is officially released it should resolve that issue.

For those not familiar with the product, Dragon NaturallySpeaking is a software product that allows you to speak to your computer (via microphone obviously) and transcribe everything you say into a document.

Some people say this product is absolutely perfect while others say it could be better. A lot better.

Well, version 10 might be the version you were waiting for. According to a review I read on the product (which is where the image comes from in this post), this version does not require the very annoying "training" of the software to recognize your voice (a longstanding complaint) and it boasts 98% accuracy to boot.

This version also allows the ability to have it act as an app launcher of sorts. For example, if you literally tell your computer to do something by voice, it does it. How much it does is indeterminate.

It should be noted you need a computer with some fairly decent specs as it is resource intensive.

For the "Standard" edition, this product retails for $99. Considering what it does, that’s not bad.

Yes, I was a cubicle dweller and lived it up (read: down) in the corporate lifestyle for several years. It is the land where the most exciting thing that happens all day is when the server goes down (again).

1. The decorations on someone’s cubicle offends you for no reason at all.

You walk by someone’s cubicle and see all sorts of decor they’ve bought for it. Plants, Garfield figurines and so on. It makes you mad because.. why? You don’t know. But it does.

2. When someone so much as moves your lunch in the “community” refrigerator in the break room, this enrages you.

What? Someone dared move your lunch bag to the lower shelf?! Heresy! You must find this person and destroy them quickly. Maybe it Bob in accounting. Or Marsha in Accounts Receivable. Yeah, it was her… the one who wears perfume that’s too strong and stinks up the whole office. Had to be her. I will move her lunch bag to the bottom shelf even though I can’t prove it was her that moved my lunch bag.

3. You think everyone in the marketing department lives in a place called Happy Fun Land.

In rare instances your cube might be near the marketing department. And every time you go past that place, the people there are laughing and smiling all day long and you can’t figure out why. Don’t worry, nobody else can either.

To note: The IT department always hates the Marketing people because they use Macs when the entire rest of the company uses Windows. Never is there an easy problem to fix whenever Marketing calls. Example: “Hey tech guy, Carla in Sales needs QuickTime on her PC. Well.. yeah I know.. but.. listen, I don’t care if it’s not ‘allowed’ software, my Mac uses QuickTime and she needs it to view my presentation on her Windows sojustgodoitokaythanksbye [click].”

4. You purposely take walking routes that (in)conveniently go around the cubicles of certain people.

The route you take to your cubicle after coming back from the break room looks like you’re playing a game of Radar Rat Race for the Commodore 64 in real life. People give you funny looks whenever you walk thru, but you don’t care because Marsha from Accounts Receivable ticks you off. AVOID AVOID AVOID.. must avoid..

5. The fact your superiors can “get away with anything” bothers you.

A standard conversation statement that happens in every corporation in the world: “How [manager's name] get his/her job I’ll never know. S/he does nothing all day!” The answer is simple as to why they can. The guy or girl who got the job applied for the job, got it, and you didn’t.

6. You lock the file cabinet in your cubicle as if anything matters in there.

To you, pen theft is a class felony, punishable by a kick in the face to whomever does it.

7. When you are forced to park on the far end of the parking lot, this bothers you even though you are completely able to traverse the distance.

You have become so lazy that it bothers you to walk an extra 100 feet to get to the office even though you are completely capable of doing so.

8. When someone is walking slowly in front of you, this bothers you.

You’re making your standard trip to the laser printer to grab a document (probably your résumé you’re going to mail out later) and are forced to wait an extra 30 seconds because another employee is in front of you walking slowly. The only thought that crosses your mind is a wish to able to take down this person rugby style and toss them upside down in a trash can, because.. well.. they’re in your way. And you got other companies to apply to, damn it.

9. You have purposely studied every single way to get around corporate firewalls at home before going into work.

You know ‘em all. Google Translator, proxies, tunnels, “cloaker” sites, etc. Heck, you might have even set up a private tunnel on your PC at home just so you can surf freely without the almighty “WebSense” blocking you at every turn. When you are finally able to bust thru you are overjoyed because you finally can get some entertainment at work.

Is it any wonder why there are so many iPhone users in the office?

Is it also any wonder why all cell phones are “banned” in the office?

10. You hate the I.T. department.

People who work in I.T. are very aware that most people hate them because they can seemingly (and sometimes literally) “do anything” on the corporate internet connection. Yes, they know this. And they also know that if you cop them an attitude you will be placed at the bottom of the stack in their to-do list when you call in with a problem. What’s that? You don’t know your asset tag? And you didn’t call the help desk first to assign a ticket number? Well.. guess you’ll just have to follow the rules then…

For the people that don’t work in I.T., you only call these guys when you absolutely have to, otherwise you want nothing to do with them. If your database app crashes 9 times a day you just deal with it. Better to deal with the app than the “computer guy”, right? It doesn’t matter if the “computer guy” is the nicest person in the world because then you’re going to be forced to go to another cubicle and work on a computer you “don’t know”, right?

I know what you’re thinking. “If the ‘computer guy’ had to do MY job, he’d see how important it is!” Well, he doesn’t. Hate not the computer guy. Hate the company that doesn’t pay you enough for all the work you put in… except for the times you’re busting the firewall to apply for other jobs.