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Software

Opera Goes To 11, With Extensions and Tab Stacks 296

Posted by timothy from the none-more-fat dept.
surveyork writes "Opera Software released Opera browser 11 for desktop (Windows, Mac, Linux, etc). The main features are support for extensions similar to Chrome and Tab Stacks, Opera's version of tab management. The extension catalog is still small, with roughly 200 extensions, but steadily growing. The browser is very fast — Chrome-fast — and lightweight, with a new installer which is 30% smaller than the one in the previous version. Other enhancements include visual mouse gestures and better address field. There's no hardware acceleration yet, but it could be coming in a further dot release and benefit XP users as well as Mac, Linux and Windows 7/Vista users."
Software

Opera 11 Beta Released, With Extensions Support 142

Posted by timothy from the fat-lady-warming-up dept.
An anonymous reader writes "Opera 11 Beta has just been released and now includes support for extensions. Also new in this release Tab Stacking, Visual Mouse Gestures, performance improvements, new installer, and much more. Even with its many new features, Opera 11 is 30% smaller than Opera 10.60. That means that Opera downloads more quickly and installs in fewer steps. There are over 130 extensions and climbing including NoScript and AdBlock! Extensions can be found here."
Image

World's Northernmost Town Gets Nightlights 144

Posted by samzenpus from the goodbye-darkness-my-old-friend dept.
Velcroman1 writes "On October 26, 2,000 Norwegians watched the sun set. The next time they'll see it rise? Sometime in February. Extended nighttime is an annual occurrence for the residents of Longyearbyen, Norway — Earth's northernmost town. Located at 78 degrees north latitude in the Arctic circle, Longyearbyen experiences a phenomenon called Polar Night, in which the town remains in perpetual darkness for four months each winter. To lighten up the seemingly endless night, Philips has started an experiment called 'Wake Up the Town.' And anyone who's complained about the brief daylight hours in winter will want to know how it works."
Apple

iPad Owners Are 'Selfish Elites' 780

Posted by CmdrTaco from the sounds-about-right dept.
An anonymous reader writes "It's not exactly official, but should also surprise no one: According to a new study the psychological profile of iPad owners can be summed up as 'selfish elites' while have-not critics are 'independent geeks.' Consumer research firm MyType conducted the study, in which opinions of 20,000 people were analyzed between March and May. The firm's conclusion was that iPad owners tend to be wealthy, sophisticated, highly educated and disproportionately interested in business and finance, while they scored terribly in the areas of altruism and kindness. In other words, 'selfish elites.'"

Comment Re:6th season was unnecessary... (Score 1) 955

by friguron (#32328958) Attached to: <em>Lost</em> Ends

> -Egiptian Iconology: No answer, but it's spelled "Egyptian"

If only my mother tongue was English...

On the other hand, "I know WHY explicitly Richard became immortal". What I need is the proper "Why". Some kind of hint, purpose, something...

The same thing with the polar bears, I know perfectly "where they come from", but "why"? Which kind of experiments were these? How about the infinite supplies? Does the Dharma initiative exist in the real world (of the Lost universe, of course)?

Why in some episode in the 3rd (or so) season there's some Dharma seal buried onto an archaeological site? (That means probably thousands of years in the past)... I'm not sure if Dharma initiative has to do with these long-in-the-past-time-spans... All vague...

How about the "whispers", or the "pregnancy problems" of island mothers...

And the tyrannic Ben who turned into such a (specially) lame "puppet"? I don't get it either... I want to get something! "I want to believe".

What I saw depicted, feels like kind of vague to me (and of course, to MANY others)... I "don't feel fulfilled", just this.
Many other TV series are more "let's-fit-the-pieces-of-the-puzzle" oriented (even some of them remain loose). I don't feel the "pilot episode creation team talent" has been used with the same strength they put when creating the 1st season. It's EASY to create the ending we saw. It feels like the "we're out of fuel and ideas" approach. I don't want to see that I could have been the one writing this easy ending.

I feel happy for the few people that liked it, anyway.

Greetings

--
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Comment 6th season was unnecessary... (Score 1) 955

by friguron (#32322946) Attached to: <em>Lost</em> Ends

MANY topics have remained unsolved. And beyond "happy endings" and such, THIS is what people wants, minimal justifications. Among other:

-Pregnant women
-Richard immortality
-Dharma initiative
-Polar Bears (WTF?)
-Egiptian Iconology
-That lighthouse
-Libbie and the mental institution staff
-ESP capable people (Hugo, Miles... Why?)
-Who are the ones/the others/the other others/the other others ruled by a japanese guy (COSMIC WTF)
-Original people (Jacob's mother people)/Jacob's stepmother
-MANY more things that don't come to my mind...

More than furious, 6th season has been a BIG Deux ex Machina.
Lost peak was the impasse between 3rd and 4th season, where the first flash forward appears. Since then, it's been a slow and steady freefall...

Greetings

--
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Comment Re:Big Deal! (Score 1) 347

by friguron (#31983264) Attached to: How To Get 39 Megapixels From a 53-Year-Old Camera

Not to speak about storing 50 megapixels onto a memory card. Take 20 shots and you've got a full GB of pics (rough numbers imagining JPG storage... Imagine RAW!!)
And then comes processing/JPG Conversion speed (a powerful processor might be needed)... And data transfer speed (Sensor -> memory card)...

One of the most awful things I'm coming up in the latest times of processing big files is precisely that: BIG files... I don't care storage is cheap (hard disks and so), It's just a cosmic PITA having to go up an down everywhere with TONS of MB for just 20-30 photographs... Or launching image editing progams to load 50 Mpixels onto memory...

Let's stick with BRUTALLY NICE optics, limiting resolution to 3-5 megapixels for the general audience. Or even for semi-pro audience. I wouldn't mind at all. (But I don't have the power to make camera companies do what I'd like to)

--

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Comment Maybe a bit harsh but... (Score 2, Informative) 193

by friguron (#31977820) Attached to: Russian Hacker Selling 1.5M Facebook Accounts

...probably some people "deserve" the trouble they attract when using computers. Using an easy login/password combination is something it's not my problem. Maybe illiterate people have this problem, but then "what did they expect" of computers and internet usage? They pretend it to be like turning on a bulb. It works, it doesn't work. I would sincerely propose something like "computer usage credentials certificate". Someone is ALWAYS pretending "using computers is something anyone can do" (ha!)

No matter how easily I explain these risks to my acquaintances, they don't really understand the BIG trouble behind it, and they don't change passwords. When they tell me something like "my hotmail has a virus, please help me". I just ignore them, and/or tell them not to enter onto those silly webpages mean't to steal your login password. It's some kind of natural selection. (And Mr. Russian is, "righteously", just rubbing his hands).
I'm starting to be fed of losing my time and my friends'. And the best part is they still are friends with me. (I wouldn't expect less)

Besides, even people like me (for example), who do use "safe" passwords, are in this kind of risk, (lousy webpage programming, plain http login/password negotiation, etc...) but then, having a periodical password change schedule is something NOT SO painful. Besides if your web browser is nice enough (Opera for example), can deal with your passwords wonderfully.
Only you have to keep ALL your passwods inside a encrypted .rar archive (to say something), IN CASE YOU DON'T REMEMBER THEM... Again "not a big pain" (at least for me).

Paranoia with passwords, is something one can learn by conditioning (much like Pavlov's dog), and then you don't realize you're doing these (not so) "boring" routine tasks (like updating your local passwords file, etc...) On the long run, it's really worth its effort.

Greetings

--

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Comment I wouldn't mind 4:3 for my programming needs... (Score 1) 952

by friguron (#31951240) Attached to: HDTV Has Ruined the LCD Market

The 16:9/16:10 trend, is the worst thing it could ever happen to programmers (or similar computer usage users).

The other day I went to my local computer shop and I asked for the biggest monitor with the biggest amount of vertical pixels (24").
At that time, I knew a 1920x1200 Samsung model T240-HD existed. All the time, they were showing me "1080" vertical resolution models. The third time I got that answer FROM A COMPUTER SHOP (not a mass consumer electronics dealer), I was forced to say, a bit outloud (on purpose), "1080 resolution is for 'poor' people!". Some of the other customers had to laugh, because they felt I was kind of right. At the end, I just went to another shop where I got the LAST monitor they had on the main shop window. I didn't mind. I'm now the happy user of a 16:10 monitor. Showing 1920x1200 pixels.

I wish something like "1920 x 1440" existed. That would be just wonderful...

On the other had, I have NO USE for the integrated TDT decoder. If I'm using my PC I can't see TV with it!!! Now I feel "computer usage and resolution" as a marginal feature of a typical TV set... gosh...

BTW: I was in Japan 5 months ago and the DPI I observed on the displays of the mobile phones sections, was JUST INCREDIBLE. When you compared these displays thoroughly against the plastic mock-ups counterparts (there are TONS of this stuff), boy, it was HARD to know which one was a sticker and which one was a real display... I WANT THIS resolution for my screen also! For all the screens that surround me!

And I also want antialias for my fonts, even having a high DPI number!! Once you combine both methods (japanese mobile phone screens showed antialias), you don't want anything else...

Greetings

(Try some alternative antialias method for windows going here: http://bit.ly/bADWOj )
(Get 250 extra MB Dropbox space using this invitation http://bit.ly/agkF3r )
Input Devices

Is the Line-in Jack On the Verge of Extinction? 411

Posted by timothy from the erasing-the-analog-hole dept.
SlashD0tter writes "Many older sound cards were shipped with line-out, microphone-in, and a line-in jacks. For years I've used such a line-in jack on an old Windows 2000 dinosaur desktop that I bought in 2000 (600 Mhz PIII) to capture the stereo audio signal from an old Technics receiver. I've used this arrangement to recover the audio from a slew of old vinyl LPs and even a few cassettes using some simple audio manipulating software from a small shop in Australia. I've noticed only recently, unfortunately, that all of the four laptops I've bought since then have omitted a line-in jack, forcing me to continue keeping this old desktop on life support. I've looked around for USB sound cards that include a line-in jack, but I haven't been too impressed by the selection. Is the line-in jack doomed to extinction, possibly due to lobbying from vested interests, or are there better thinking-outside-the-box alternatives available?"

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