Wednesday, April 14, 2010

Opera Mini Web Browser for the iPhone & iPod Touch


It is been seen as a major break through in Opera Mini's browser history, as it becomes the first "alternative" browser to be approved for use on Apple's iPhone and iPad Touch. Many were skeptical of Opera Mini's grand plan to tap into Apple devices.. especially mobile based products that mostly run on Apple designed software. The main software browser currently used on the iPhone and iPod Touch is the Apple trademark browser "Safari".

Opera 5 offers some neat features to mobile browsing, including a much awaited "tabbed browsing". And effortlessly auto-complete web addresses thanks to their sophisticated URL auto-completion process. Backup your bookmarks, Speed Dials, and search engines to My Opera, and keep them synchronized between different phones,or with Opera - on your desktop computers or laptops. And manage your downloads and many more.. read the full list of features here http://www.opera.com/mobile/features/

So what does Opera mini really offer.. or more correctly, how does Opera Mini really work..?? Well Opera Mini doesn't technically request and pull down Web pages through its own native code. Instead, Opera Mini uses what's called a proxy browser, because it sends Web page requests to Opera's servers, which then compress the Web page before sending it back to the phone. The result is not only an often-faster way to distribute Web content, but a legitimate way to bypass Apple's objection to most standalone HTML browsers.

The upside potential for iPhone and iPod Touch users when they use the Opera Mini software is speed. CNET reports that during their internal testing, Opera's Mini browser software "happens to be noticeably faster than Safari." In terms of performance Opera mini is definitely much better than Safari, it uses some pretty neat technology to get the job done.

Being accepted by Apple is one thing but surviving in competitive waters is completely different, it needs to meet the Apple users demands. Whether users will switch totally to the new browser or stick with the old guns or use both, only time will tell. Users will be pretty interested to try it out, you know just to see "what's new in this.??" But by default many application that uses web connection will connect through Safari.. so Safari is never out of the picture, just slightly shaken for the time being.

Take a look at the Video

Friday, April 9, 2010

Google's New Search Engine.. Only for Firefox Users.?!


Recently Google seems to have given a big upgrade to their to their trade mark search engine. It looks and feels great, and it offers great new searching features. All this is good but.. is the new search engine only available to Firefox users..?!?

The new upgrade to Google's search engine is dashing and it kinda looks cool too. Google has brought its search engine to new a level and it makes searching for your related topic quite easy, and this will definitely impress many of its users. Searching for different type of results is very easy with the new engine, local search and site search are very handy if your looking to buy something off the web. Direct explanation of the new features and options available in the new Google search would be a tough job, so I broke it down with a screen shot explanation of the new features. So click on the image below to get a better understanding of the new Google search engine.

Click on the thumbnail to enlarge


So with this amazing feature many people will find Google search engine more "attractive" in terms of searching.

But is the new search engine accessible to all..?! Well no..!! Or more correctly not yet..!! I found out myself that the new Google search options are only available to Firefox users at this point in time.. I actively use Google Chrome and Opera 10.5 but in their Google search, all results are displayed in the same old fashioned way, see pic..

Click on the thumbnail to enlarge..

Chrome View -
the old boring view of Google (notice the changes from the previous image)

Yes, it still has the new options and few more other new features here and there, but it is different to the results that are available to Firefox users. May be its just temporarily, or may be Google presents various search options for various browsers..!! Who knows why..?!?!

Bottom line is.. the new Google search officially rocks, and Firefox users get to enjoy it in full for the time being..!! :)

Tuesday, April 6, 2010

Is Opera the fastest web browser on earth..??


While claiming to be the "fastest web browser on earth" with Java script engine that loads 7x faster, with new "Opera Turbo" to help increase speed of slow connections and array of other features that came out with the new Opera browser. So is Opera the fastest web browser on earth..?? The answer is both Yes and a No.

I'm delighted that after years opera developers have built the web browser that will match many internet users demands. Earlier versions of the Opera were sluggish in performance coupled with poor user friendliness. I think it would be fair to say that Opera's new Java script engine does load faster in many cases than the others. Flash scripts although takes longer to load initially, after loading the feed back and response time is stunning, you will notice marked improvements on flash games and such (like barnbuddy or farmville which uses flash). Although I don't see much of difference in loading YouTube or flash based videos on Opera compared to Google Chrome, it is how ever a marked improvement from the previous versions. So it could be said that Opera is fast when it comes to loading web pages based on java script and flash.

"Opera Turbo" works well as featured, but I really wouldn't use it every time, because what Opera Turbo does to increase load time is it uses server-side optimization and compression technology that speeds up data transfer and reduces the amount of data that needs to be downloaded in order to view the page by up to 80%. Among other means, the compression is achieved by image down-sampling therefore some level of distortion in graphics may occur. So as they say to improve speed, page and image quality is lost as result. May be it is good for users with internet packages that has limited bandwidth usage per day/month.

But what stops it from being the "fastest browser in the world" as claimed. Their HTML loading is still pretty much the same. I really don't see much progress in the HTML loading features. It is good, but Firefox and Chrome out do Opera's performance in HTML script loading. Another problem I see is with their cache system, for example I used Opera several times to browse facebook and all the time the welcome page alone takes a longer time to load, so their cache system needs to buck up and deliver on smooth browsing.

I believe the new Opera is good in the present day market, and very good compared to other Opera versions that was available. But I would stop short of calling it the "fastest browser on earth", may be the used technology is first in the world but there is still more room for improvement. It is a amazing new browser with tons of new features and offers a lot to users.

Sunday, April 4, 2010

My Predictions Come True


Well as I predicted on my previous blog post about Google's 2010 April Fools pranks and of course joining hands with CNN to trick the world has proved true. Hmm If you'll read my previous blog post then of course even you will find it too obvious to be true especially on April 1st. But this has to be the 1st time I've seen a two major companies joining hands just to prank their users on April 1st. How cheap can these companies get by joining hands in ensuring that their users get pranked to the maximum.. bit too cheap if you ask me. But it is now becoming almost tradition for many companies to prank their customers, staff and users on April fools day.. In then end its all just a laugh..:P

Read CNN's post about their and Google's grand plan that pranked the web users on April Fools day here http://www.cnn.com/2010/TECH/04/01/april.fools.tech/index.html?npt=NP1 and of course after or before reading that article you can read mine which I break down the "Grand" scheme of things... lol http://tweakblog-guru.blogspot.com/2010/04/googles-2010-april-fool-joke.html

Thursday, April 1, 2010

Google's 2010 April Fool Joke..;)


Hey guys its 1st of April to the world over and as usual people from all over my neighborhood and friends call me up, come over to my place, sends text messages and even email me some kind of trash to trick me on "April Fools day"..:P Ahhhhhhh little did they know that I will be the last man to fall for these jokes.. (I guard myself up the day before for all these "lame" pranks..[-_-]) ahhh in vain their effort. And not only friends and family trick you'll on April fools day, now its a tradition for major companies to trick the public on the 1st too.. (which is nothing new of course..)

So today after hearing all tricks and falling for none, I came online to see what awaits there.. and of course Google is my homepage, so i logged on to mail, chat and etc.. and as I was browsing along something different caught my eye, it was the "Google" logo on their search page, it was changed to "Topeka". So naturally I went to Google's blog and checked it out, there was a even a CNN news page supporting there claim. And just as I was thinking to myself "what are the odds Google change their name cause a city is changing there name to "Google"
..????" and Yeah then it dawned to me today was April fools day..:P I know pretty convincing story huh.. even with CNN hooked up..

But some what of a give away was that the name "Google" is giant.. and it must be the most known brand name in the "WORLD" and you can't just change names of such mega companies in one day like you change your pet name or something... It will take lots of time and Google will stand to loose "BILLIONS" in revenue just for a name change.. (economy 1-o-1.. its a long story..) Well, what I think (and pretty sure) is that the Google's name change is just a April fools joke..;) lol.. I don't know about the cities name change (which will be nuts to call a city "Google"), but who knows it could be part of the prank.. and at this very moment emails and comments are flying around about Google's name change, little do they know that this very well may be a "April Fool's Joke".. and their getting pranked big time..:P

Have a laugh about it yourself, read the Google's name change blog post here http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/04/different-kind-of-company-name.html Cheers guys, and keep a eye out for pranks like this yourself..;)