Opera Task Force

Hi everybody!

It seems that we have let quite a few people down by not having posted anything on the blog lately (sorry for that, the reasons are explained below). Funny as it seems, we have not been kicked out of Opera.

First of all, thank you Eivind for breaking the silence and being so nice to sign off on our behalf (u rock, Eivind!).

But guess this message should not be so much about apologizing and instead we should concentrate more on some funny stuff. Why? Guess you already know it: because our working at Opera has been mainly about having fun.

First of all, I'll start with the least funny of all the fun stuff: we are right in the middle of our exams and term papers for school. The semester is nearing its end and we're working hard on maintaining our reputation of being the "eminent" Opera Task Force: it's only that this time we are doing it at school.

Moving on our least funny - funniest scale let me tell you that the weather in the sunny and happy Oslo has gone mad: it's been raining cats and dogs for the last three days and summer doesn't really seem to be that close. Actually, the weather pattern is rather funny around here: there were very nice days in March and great ones in April, and now I've got a running nose and I'm coughing. Looking at the bright side of things, maybe it's better not to have the best weather when studying.

We had a great deal of fun watching last weekend the final of the Eurovision contest, which represented a well deserved break from studying (for those of you who don't know it, Eurovision a pan-European singing contest with contesters from most of Europe's countries). What was really cool about it was the fact that several of us and our friends gathered to watch it, so we were pretty much a very noisy crowd. As people watching TV were supposed to vote for the different countries, I tried to twist as much as possible
Begi's arm to get him to vote for Romania, but my muscular mass is maybe a tenth or even less of his, so I gave up with a big grim on my face.

Moving on, last night was a big football night: we had the final of the European Football Champions League between AC Milan and Liverpool. Both teams gave a great performance but eventually Liverpool won after the penalty kicks (for the ones that are not so much concerned with football, if a match is prolonged until the penalty kicks this means that the situation on the pitch is getting really hot). Milan's losing of the Cup made at least one casualty I know of: Dani- he couldn't sleep until 3 o'clock last night just wondering how could Milan lose after having a 3-0 lead. The poor guy has an exam tomorrow and so we can just hope that he will be strong enough to forget his favorites' failure and to tackle as well as possible his tomorrow's match, namely the Portfolio Management exam.

To answer dan1el's question on the blog, we hope that we left a few good projects behind us at Opera. Besides liaising with many web sites, PC magazines and universities and doing our best to spread Opera 8.0 on the web, we were able to come with an action plan to be implemented for Opera's fans and with marketing strategy ideas. Hopefully you'll be able to see the results in the near future. We used the best of our business skills and imagination during our working with Opera, so this experience was not only about having fun, but also about facing a great challenge.

Now that I'm done with the fun stuff, I'll tell you what we are up to for the future. Both Andrea and Donata are still in the first year of studies, so next semester they are going abroad for their exchange programs - Donata is going to Canada (I hate her ) and Andrea is going to Mexico (I hate her even more ). As for Crina, Dani, Begi and myself, we are almost done with our masters' program in business, so we are looking very seriously for a future career. In my case, it's kind of hard to give up a great student life and start up my really mature future, but guess that eventually "a man's gotta do what a man's gotta do".

But, maybe because I'm Latin and I have kind of a short term perspective, I am certainly looking forward to enjoying my summer vacation (maybe the last real one I'll ever have). So on behalf of the Opera Student Task Force I wish everybody to have a great time this summer and for the guys in the Southern Hemisphere I am wishing a great winter or a nice summer spent in the Northern Hemisphere- maybe in Norway (hopefully the weather will turn around and the nice days will come).

We would like to thank everybody for bearing with us for the last month and for following our Opera adventures. It's great to know that after being involved with this company and its really great product, we truly have something in common: we are all Opera fans and form Opera's community. So, no matter where life will bring us, we'll definitely have a clear picture of what's the best browser on the web and we'll do our best to also let other people know about it.

Thank you everybody and thank you Opera!!!

Keep on rolling and may the Opera force be with you.

Yours,
Radu of the Opera Student Task Force

We just tried to scare you a little bit, but the 'official' reason was that we were too busy. No, we haven't left yet, and we are still enjoying our time here.

Last Friday, as usual, we had a meeting, and discussed a lot about projects involving the community that we think might be interesting, and presented our action plan containing some of these projects. Be patient, only a little more time and you will be able to see these projects, and, more important, make them happen.

The weekend was an exceptionally long weekend, a 4-day one, since yesterday we celebrated the National Day here in Norway. It's a great event, for those of you outside Norway it could be a great cultural experience: children parade instead of a military one with tanks and guns, Norwegian flags everywhere, great weather, beautiful Norwegian national costumes and great fun.

Yes, I'm just trying to delay a little bit the most important purpose of this post, the one you've been all waiting for the last 5 days or so: Andrea's photos.

Here they are, and as far as I can tell, they don't need any explanation:






Andrea promised to come up with some more photos if these have the huge impact that we all expect. And, for those of you interested in more personal details, here is her phone number
+47.....yes, just kidding of course, but if you leave a great comment with your phone number in it she might call you.


Well, this will probably be my last post here...I don't think I will be allowed even to enter Opera after our bosses read this post, so in case this happens I'm begging for your help and support to comment about what you liked in our blog so far. So, be gentle(that means NO criticisms) and give us your compliments.

Hope to talk to you again tomorrow and again, enjoy a cool evening/morning browsing with Opera.

Bye!

Spring is definitely setting in in Oslo, but unfortunately temperature is falling in our workplace. As always, in the beginning of May, here in Norway building administrators switch heating to air conditioning, and of course this happened also in the building where Opera has its offices. Some Norwegians might like this, but for the most of us(the 'global community' here at Opera), this is becoming more and more of a challenge . But, unfortunately, the building administrator is totally unreceptive to our complaints:insane:, so we take this as the ultimate test of our attachment to Opera.

Today we work in shifts to cover the whole workday, with the Romanian gang in the morning, then Donata and finally Begi to wrap it up. In the morning we called a few magazines interested in putting Opera 8 on their CDs, in Spain and Italy. We are still a lot into the link exchanges with the most popular websites, screening the forums for feedback, and putting together an action plan for a more intensive and extensive promotion of Opera 8. You know, the usual things, but the more we do it, the more it seems we've been here for ages and feel prouder about 'our' product and its superiority over our competitors. And, we want to make sure that as many as possible of the other people out there will realize this.

Enough from me for today. If Donata or Begi are to busy to write anything we'll get in touch again tomorrow morning.

Bye

We're just back from the traditional Friday meeting with our bosses here, Tor and Divisha. We talked a lot about our first impressions here, brainstormed for our brilliant ideas, and made the plan for the next week. However, we think there must have been another point on their agenda...Spring is in the air, the weather is getting perfect (and not just by Norwegian standards!) so we needed some kind of binding to earth to make sure we do our job, and stay with the feet on the ground. We were really good at making them understand this is exactly what we are doing, but of course this is so difficult...we have so much fun around here:jester: But hey, please don't tell them this!

Leaving the jokes apart, the meetings here are fun, people are open even if at some points we get as enthusiastic as if we were running the company. Very soon probably...

Yesterday was a holiday in Norway, so no Opera Software for us, and even worse than this(as if anything could be worse), we were not able to keep our promises with the photos. But here they are now, with the mention that Andrea left for Germany to attend her best friend's wedding. But you will see her next week, and we are really happy that she is not here to take all your attention:devil:


Picture 1: This is Donata, smiling and in a great mood as always:


Picture 2: Crina and Donata at their work desks, pretending
they do something useful;)


Picture 3: Radu, busy as always:lol:


Picture 4: Begi, a really lucky guy:love:


Picture 5: The Romanian connection(Crina, Radu and Dani) completed with our Lithuanian friend, Donata:


This is it for today and this week. For the ones that are going to miss us we are back on Monday for another exciting week. As it turns out, we will be thinking of a masterplan to spread Opera, such as an action pack for our fans. If you have anything on your mind, pleaaase help us!

Bye!

So, it's good to know that people talk about you behind your back, at least it means that you are missed...somehow..

Well, it's again a nice afternoon at Opera, maybe too quiet for our taste without 'our' girls here. We are trying though to compensate this by finally having the freedom to enjoy our bad, misogin jokes.

I promised you yesterday some funny stories. Today's stories are related to our efforts to increase the distribution of Opera by putting it on the CDs of computer magazines worldwide. Of course, worldwide means France and Italy too..so here comes the best part. Begi is handling the French magazines, and since his emails were not answered, he tried to call the guys. So he did, but instead of reaching a computer magazine he phoned a notary, and the lady there had absolutely no idea about Opera Software (she thought it was a village or something), or about web browsers. So, eventually Begi had to give up, even though I would say that basically a notary could help us to pass the glorious 10 year Opera heritage to as many users as possible;).

However, Crina was more lucky with Italy. This time the guy knew everything about Opera 8 and web browsers, but apparently he was more interested in Crina than in our great piece of software. The reason, so he said, was that they didn't publish any magazine..Whatever, it was very difficult for us to stop Crina from continuing this useless correspondence, as spring and an Italian admirer are a very lethal combination.

Fortunately enough, this were just two isolated incidents...People are really excited all over the world about Opera 8, and they want it as soon as possible on their CDs. Some of them have to wait still, since not all the language versions are ready, but two more weeks and the collonization can proceed in French, Italian, Spanish and so on...

This is it for today...In the end we want to thank the guys from my.opera.com who placed our blog on the homepage, hopefully we will be more exposed to your comments and questions. Don't make us wait, the girls are losing their patience:wait:, and me the privilege to post my thoughts.

Have a great evening(I know i will, it's Liverpool vs. Chelsea tonight) and talk to you all tomorrow!!!

Bye!