Øyvind Østlund - Opera Magazine - A horoscope I can believe in:

Opera Magazine - A horoscope I can believe in:

Sunday, 25. May 2008, 20:00:00

The first (will there be more?) issue of Opera Magazine is out, and their horoscope told me to continue what I was doing. How can you not believe in a horiscope like that.

I don't read that many magazines anymore. I tend to pick up Linux Journal every now and then, and I have a subscription to Game Developer Magazine, but most of the time I print out tutorials for the bus ride in the morning, and read news on Opera Mini on the buss back home.

My girlfriend, on the other hand, only use Opera Mini for social networks like Facebook and the like, leaving news and gossip for traditional magazines. One thing she gets to read that I seldom do is horoscopes. I don't believe in those, but for some reason I always tent to read them when I see them just to see how much luck the person writing them had this time around.

The problem with all of these horoscopes are they are very little specific, and tent to only evolve around money, women and work. But there are so much more to write about. That's why I was so pleasantly surprised yesterday when I opened Opera Magazine, and their horoscope just told me out to continue what I was already doing.

" When you start feeling a bit too ordinary in life, there is one word to remember: customization. Energize an ordinary desktop by customizing your Opera web browser. Visit My Opera Community to browse the hundreds of skins available. Never suffer from boring browsing again."

Now how about that? Is my horoscope telling me to use my time to browser MyOpera, and customize my web browser? I think I am starting to believe in astrology after all.

In the end I don't really believe in this, but something good came out of it in the end. Remco did reset my password for his BTS so I could start submitting bugs again, and I filled my first Opera snapshot bug in a long time. Finally it seems I am able to get some quality time with my computer again. Life is sweet when you are in full control.

[Edit:]Before I managed to get this post posted. I can see that a new snapshot is out. And the bug I reported is already fixed. Guess I need to pick up speed both with blogging and bug hunting[/Edit]

A lot easier navigation with bMenu:When the sun is shining :

Comments

LorenzoCelsi # 25. May 2008, 21:18

Besides, being you a man of science, you know the stars in the zodiac have moved since the ancient times so now the signs are in the wrong positions compared to back then...

NoteMe # 25. May 2008, 21:24

Now that is a good point, but it is not going to stop me from spending my time in front of my computer customizing

BTW; what sign are you?

- ØØ -

LorenzoCelsi # 25. May 2008, 21:31

Mmm, I was born 23 April, accordingly to Wikipedia it should be Taurus. Not that I care...

NoteMe # 25. May 2008, 21:44

Then let me care for you

Since I have the [url=http://my.opera.com/community/blog/2008/05/22/opera-magazine magazine open already.

Taurus:

You will soon feel that you are spread too thin.
Organization will be important to your future success. Use
Opera Link to continually synchronize your bookmarks and Speed Dial
settings between your desktop and mobile phone.

I guess you have no other option than to download the beta of Opera 9.5 if this is going happen

PS: When thinking about it, I remember you bloged about your birthday not long ago, so I should have remembered. I even commented on that post. I am a air-head when it comes to names and dates.
- ØØ -

LorenzoCelsi # 25. May 2008, 21:56

I have been using Opera builds and Firefox builds since some time now...
But for some strange reason I still think that I've got other issues in life than syncronizing my desktop and mobile (which BTW is a Nokia 2100).

And my desktop is a PIII 500 with Win2K from an old work place back in '98. Definetely I am not "cool".

NoteMe # 25. May 2008, 22:32

My phone is probably a lot more what you would call "cool", but I am pretty sure it doesn't perform better than yours

That's what you get when you go for cool.

My computer is a bit faster though. But not by much. It is a 1600Mhz about 6-7 year old computer. But it works for me. If I get into the Master degree I want to do after the summer I will probably leave the computer here, and buy a new laptop I can bring to Copenhagen. But then I won't aim for cool at all. Just "it works"

- ØØ -

melnichuck # 26. May 2008, 10:04

@LorenzoCelsi:
I had the same machine as you with 128 Mb of RAM and a small dummy CRT monitor a few years ago. There was WinXP and I was using Adobe Photoshop CS2 on it

That was a real hell, I must say! You move something and need to wait a few seconds for the changes to apply. Really annoying. But it was okay for the Net surfing. I had a 56K dial-up connection back then. Ehhmm...

it was cool! Maybe I'm too much geek, but I love the modem's sound

@NoteMe:
Hey buddy! You are saying it all wrong

Not "If i get into the Master degree ...", but "When I get ... I'll (!) move to Copenhagen"!!

Send me a postcard and a photo of your brand new killer laptop when you'll be there!

LorenzoCelsi # 26. May 2008, 10:24

Everybody is able to use a brand new thing but only the Jedi Master can use a 10 years old computer and a router picked up from a trash pile...

On a side note, this computer works well also with WinXP and Linux, but I don't have the license for the first and I find the second annoying with the habit of re-invent the same weel 1 million slightly different times.

melnichuck # 26. May 2008, 10:41

I'd like to use Linux if there would be a real ability to run Adobe products on it. I found openSUSE to be a great choice for me. But now there's only one way to run Photoshop CS2 — in Wine. Anyway, I think it's not what I want, cause it will be definitely crashing too frequently.

I was also used to install a patched Mac OS X Tiger on my Intel PC a year ago. That's far more good than windows XP, but at that time there was no Adobe products to run natively on Intel Macs. Now there are. Maybe I'll switch back on it in a few months.

LorenzoCelsi # 26. May 2008, 10:52

I don't have any license for Photoshop either and so I would use Gimp on Linux. Anyway yes, in general there is a very poor choice of good software on Linux, expecially on the "graphics-multi-media" field. It is understandable, probably today's Linux is already beyond the possibilities of software mostly developed as hobby or school project and so far nobody found a real working business model.

melnichuck # 26. May 2008, 20:10

Well, not exactly. I'm using OpenOffice, Kate, Pidgin regularly even on Windows. These are a really good apps! Hope there will be more soon

NoteMe # 1. June 2008, 18:42

It took me quite a few tries to become more productive on Linux than on Windows. Since I am no graphics expert and don't want to be one either graphics applications doesn't matter too much for me. But there is one thing I miss from Windows, and that is Visual Studio. I can't say I work as fast with C++/C# on Linux as in Windows, but programming in most other languages like Python and PHP I prefer to do on Linux these days.

- ØØ -

LorenzoCelsi # 1. June 2008, 18:54

Øyvind, do you want me to say Linux is made by programmers for programmers, who are basically autistics and that is the reason why it sucks for "normal" human beings and for any real world use?

NoteMe # 1. June 2008, 19:56

You just did

Although I highly disagree with "for any real world use" unless you meant as a home computer for average joe. But that is an other topic.

I guess it is a chicken and egg problem really. When a bunch of nerds get together to make an operating system for them self, they don't think about market share and what would be nice to have for their old neighbour. And as long as they are the only users, it will stay like that. But slowly (very slowly) a person less skilled than them selves will try it out and like it but would like to see changes where they need it the most. And when those changes are done, even less skilled persons will try it out, and require even more changes. It might take the next 100 years to get there, but it is definitely moving in the right direction. As more and more of the open source applications becomes good and available on Windows for them to test and try out the jump to Linux won't be that big in the end. Hey, ubuntu even import your documents, images and bookmarks already, and if you manage to use Firefox and OpenOffice on Windows, why should you not be able to use them on Linux when time is due.

- ØØ -

LorenzoCelsi # 2. June 2008, 07:27

After some time watching Linux and trying it, I came to the conclusion that the problem around Linux is the lack of management.

The problem is not the nerds/geeks/programmers/autistics, they are behind any computer related activity.
The problem is the above people left alone in making decisions and not supervised so:
1. they can't work together focused on a master plan and a roadmap.
This leads to every time forking and fragmentation of projects. You have multiple istances of the same software that do the same things in a little different way and all they actually always unfinished or not working as well as "commercial" counterparts. An incredible amount of energies is spent in neverending wars among the Linux community.
2. they don't really get the idea of bringing Linux to the masses. Because of the above point 1, they just look in their own closed circles and their wars, ignoring the rest of human kind.

I am not "average Joe" yet I can't find a reason to use Linux, compared to Win or MacOS. It is extremely demanding in terms of time spent on forums to fix all the glitches hardware-related (and some you can't overcome). It is unfriendly, the flexibility translates in nonsense complication for people who don't enjoy spending days for configuring any single bit. It lacks good software for most common PC activities, when you are lucky you have one of two software and you must stick with it.

See, in today's world people want to be able to build a LAN with two clicks. It makes no sense when you have to read 100 pages of documentation and install packages and edit "conf" files. Yes, in theory with Linux you can plug your fridge in your toilet, because of the flexibility. But that is good for 0.1% of people. All the others find it annoying when it comes to connect the desktop with the laptop and you need to study for an university exam to make it.

afroza # 9. June 2008, 08:02

i entered,here are yours conversations very good,thanks.

Anonymous # 29. August 2009, 17:32

Dodger writes:

I must agree with the average rant here, that linux just isn't for the everyday fellow's everyday use. I would love to use Linux to break away from MS bloated software and the arrogant Mac userbase who claim that their pcs (come on now, it IS pc hardware) are worth the extra $$$ because of an apple sticker.
However Linux simply isn't the answer. It's just so messed up. It takes minutes to install and hours to fine tune (fix).
It's not any faster. (please don't come around with some alien program that no normal person uses in order to prove me wrong)
Let's put it like this: Gimp is not better/faster than Photoshop.
They are always saying that Linux is almost "there". You know what? It will never be "there".
IMHO, the best OS's I've ever used were: OS/2 2.1 and BeOS.
So why don't I use them now? Cause they were killed and I've realistically moved on. C'est la vie
But it's still frustrating :/