Wandering electrons... but not too far

Hoo boy hoo boy!!!

The Desktop Opera Team released the alpha version of Opera 9.5 (aka "Kestrel") today.

You can download it here for a test drive. It will install itself beside your stable opera version by default, so no worries about losing your current stable version. On this same page you have a brief overview of what's new.

Here's the announcement from the desktop team, from which you can look at the platform-specific change logs.

Remember it's currently just an alpha; you can expect to run into bugs, which can be reported here. However you will want to "check the Known Issues list in the changelogs and discuss them in the forums or newsgroups first." (desktop team)

The invention of the mouse revolutionized how computers are used by removing the need to memorize hundreds of keyboard commands. The idea was all the more brilliant in that it mimicked pushing buttons, a movement that is familiar to everyone.

However, keyboard commands never really went away. The reason for this is because once you've memorized a keyboard command, it is often actually faster to use than the mouse. this is because there is less movement through space if your hands are already on the keyboard. Using the mouse implies moving your hand from the keyboard to the mouse, moving the mouse to place the arrow on what you want to click, clicking, and bringing you hand back to the keyboard. For any one occasion this doesn't seem like that much time and effort wasted and the "no brainer" quality is advantagous. But if you spend the day on a computer, as many of us do, those tiny bits of time and effort, one after another, again and again, start adding up.

Here's a few of my favorite keyboard shortcuts to make your day more efficient...

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Hi all,
I Googled "browser reviews" this morning. The first page results included two of interest.
You can help spread the word about Opera at http://www.rateitall.com/t-1067-internet-browsers.aspx . Register with your junk e-mail address and write an opinion on Opera (personnally I gave it 5 stars), and while your at it, why not write an opinion on Firefox (I gave it 3 stars; "ok", and said if you want the best experience possible, try Opera).
Be sure to add a comment saying that Opera is now free and ad free. There are outdated reviews there saying that Opera is not free.
Remember: be respectful, be friendly, be convincing. Leaving a message like "Opera rules, Firefox sucks" won't convince anyone to join us.
And then you might be pleased with this website's browser comparison:
http://internet-browser-review.toptenreviews.com/
Ciao,
Wandering

It seems as if the good folks at Opera spent a little more time than the other guys thinking about logical user interface layout...

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