Cyro's weblog

Very nice blog post!

Link: http://www.usabilitypost.com/2009/04/15/8-characteristics-of-successful-user-interfaces/

Starting yesterday, all WinVista skins received a major upgrade. As you can see it's like a big family now, currently we have six variations.
- WinVista LE Classic (not visible for an unknown reason)
- WinVista LE Native
- Winvista MSO2007 Blue
- Winvista MSO2007 Black
- Winvista MSO2007 Silver
- WinVista Maxthon

This update includes a lot of fixes as well as improvements. Detailled list of enhancements:

- Improvement: It has a brand new set of buttons (Back, Forward, Rewind & Fast Forward), activated if you turn "Large Images" on (Appearance > Toolbars > Click on the Address bar > check "Large Images");
- Improvement: Changed height of the tab buttons, specially on WinVista Maxthon;
- Improvement: Removed animated page bar loading icon, because it was considered annoying;
- Fix: Dropdown button;
- Fix: Smaller page bar buttons;
- Fix: Slightly bigger address bar height;
- Fix: Missing bookmarks button image;
- Fix: Maxthon specific: Lots of interface fixes & new speed dial.

Note: If you are using Opera 10.00 alpha, please consider restarting Opera right after a new skin is applied, because there is a bug which prevents the page bar buttons to resize accordinly.

Hello,
It's me again, it appears that Opera Software has answered our calls about a shared QT4 build and for that I'm thankful. Of course, we will be discussing here, ways to customize QT4.

In time, I found one bug, it appears that using qt4-qtconfig to customize the theme I found out Opera is not respecting the "ButtonText" color and it's using the regular "Text" color for the text inside the buttons. That's not cool.

Thanks,
Cyro


*UPDATE*
It appears Opera has dropped support this shared QT4 version, and they are back to static. Shame on you, Opera Software

This NewHuman theme for Ubuntu is fantastic, isn't it?
What happens if you use it in a daily basis? Well, OpenOffice.org, Firefox and most of the software behave normally to it. Except for our little friend Opera 9.6(who just became a beta!).

Ok. First, I'm talking about Opera 9.6 beta 1 GCC4, QT4 (i386) on Ubuntu Intrepid Ibex (but it applies to Hardy Heron as well). The same issues were verified with the Ubuntu Studio theme (which is dark too)

Sharp (Non-native Skin, default to Opera 9.6)
First screenshot shows us a barely unreadable disclaimer screen, which makes it impossible to read. Unless you select all the text.


Then, we get the very fist screen. The addressbar is ugly brown and the sharp skin gets deformed. The Edit boxes and dropdown boxes get all mixed up. In white and brown. Eww.


Random Native Skin
Now, I want to use QT4 to check if it fits the OS better. But, hey, wait. Check out this address bar. It keeps alternating between brown and white background. And you can't see anything. Eww. Again, very ugly. I feel like disabling it at opera:config.
Also, what's wrong with the Speed dial?

This is skin is a native skin made by me, while attempting to change the address bar background colors, I realized only the text-color allows modifications. Tsk, tsk.

It's not over yet. The tooltip also is unreadable. The background is yellow but the text is white gray? And not even opera:config can fix it because since this is a native skin, it's a system setting rule.


To conclude, I wish we had more control over qtconfig in the QT4 build. But I guess we will have to wait until they found about this. I leave a question for all of you: How does Openoffice.org and Firefox can manage that well while Opera cannot?

I bought it last week, here comes the review.
First thing, I replaced Xandros with Ubuntu Hardy Heron. Why? Because Xandros is not the best choice. XP was another option (There is a CD with the XP drivers on it). But I picked up Ubuntu because I knew there were tons of customizations to get the best experience.

Hardware:
Processor: Celeron 900 Mhz in overclock mode (650 Mhz is the default);
Memory: 2,048 GB (expanded from the original 512 MB);
Storage: 4GB internal (flash), 2GB external (SD card), 16GB Pendrive;
Video: Intel, 800x480 (wide). There is an external VGA output to connect to an external monitor;
Sound: Yes, integrated;
Mike: Yes, integrated;
Camera: Yes, integrated;
Battery life: 3 hours & 50 minutes (w/ Wifi turned on);
Network: LAN & WLAN;
Bluetooth: No, but I've got a bluetooth dongle which is working;
USB ports: Three.

Outside:



So, I've connected an external CDROM drive and booted the ALTERNATE version of Ubuntu Hardy Heron, which is way better than the Live CD version. I also didn't create a SWAP partition, since I'm not interested in hibernation and it's pointless, since I have 2GB of RAM and there will not be enough room for it. Then, I've followed the instructions on several websites on how to install the drivers correctly, and how to optimize the battery and some other minor tweaks like small fonts, and window resizing (since the resolution is low).

Then, of course, I removed Firefox. Why? Because I don't like it.
Besides Opera, I have OpenOffice.org 2.4, Filezilla, PuTTY, Compiz (always enabled), Pidgin (temporarily because I hate it as well), Skype Beta(Camera enabled), Totem (with all plugins), FrozenBubble, DosBox, and many others. Since it's installed in the 4GB internal drive, I only got 1,5 GB left. But that's ok, because I have the external storage drive and the pendrive as a last option for documents, videos, games, etc.

Inside: