lachblog

Last weekend the unbeaten Opera Wii Sports Tennis Champion Adam had to fight against the unbeaten Ahnsbeck Wii Sports Tennis Champion Olga. With some additional training Olga became an equal combatant. Well, almost. Adam had to avert a matchball before he turned the game and won again.





Adam also managed to dominate the Wii Sports Bowling Tournament.



The weekend also saw the fight of the year between the unbeaten Oslo Mini Pool Billiard Champion Adam and the unbeaten Ahnsbeck Mini Pool Billiard Champion Ralf.



Again Adam proved to be the real champion. First evening's results: 6 (Adam) : 1 (Ralf). Second evening: 3 (Adam) : 2 (Ralf).



At least my results improved a bit.

Today Olga and I are married for 9 years (which means that we are together ten and a half years).

Many of you will probably remember how I was wanting a decent Internet connection at home until we finally got DSL 6,000 on May 31st. However the phone/internet contract I have includes speeds up to 16,000 kBit/s. The positive side of waiting so many more years than other people in Germany is that we received new cabling etc. in our small village and when I checked the available connection speeds yesterday it said we should have the possibility to use 16,000. So I called the phone company and they approved that that's working technically and had a lame excuse on why I had to find out myself instead of them switching us automatically. They promised that I'd have faster DSL by the end of the week. I didn't really believe them and I also wondered about how much faster it would be. 16,000 means anything between 6,000 and 16,000, usually people told me they have something like 14,000.

Today I logged into my router to see if anything changed. And guess what it told me:



I couldn't believe my eyes, it said 17,692 kBit/s download speed and 1,173 kBit/s for upload!!! And it does so still. I wonder how that can be and if it'll last. However I checked some FTP downloads and uploads from and to a server that I know is fast and it seems the connection is working as fast as the router claims it is:





As long as this works I have 17,692 reasons to smile!

What do I need those speed for you might ask. Well, good question. I doubt I can make proper use of it but since my contract includes fast DSL I'm happy I got it aswell. Plus it makes surfing/system updates/etc. even more comfortable. And if Apple really introduces movie downloads in the German iTunes store (they promised to do that before the end of this year) I guess I will buy one or two films.

Yesterday Opera 9.50 Alpha 1 was released on all supported desktop platforms including the Mac. Overall the reactions are very positive including the Mac version. However the fellow Operatics in the Mac Forum preferred to bash this version and claim once more it's not mac'ish enough and that Opera does not show the devotion it shows for other platforms. So let's see.

- When Opera 7.50 came out on the Mac it was late and not on the same level as WinOpera. So everybody said, see it's late, Opera does not support the Mac. For some time the versions are in full sync now.

- Opera used to render slower on the Mac so people said Opera does not support the Mac port. Kestrel has significant speed improvements and MacKestrel even outperforms WinKestrel in some areas (I won't even comment on Safari performance). Do people realize that?

- Opera had a really non-native interface in 7.50. Now take Kestrel and compare it to 7.50, do you see any difference? I do! 2007_09_05 Edit: I made a Screenshot mockup to illustrate this.

Shall I make this list longer? Don't worry, I could but I won't. I'm known to be very balanced, you could also call me confident. When I answer in the Forums, I don't show those strong opinions everybody else seems to have. But enough is enough. I'd like all those who claim that Kestrel is worse than Merlin and uses mis-sized buttons or fake glow (which it isn't, it's native, I asked a Mac dev in chat) to ask themselves one question: Do you want Opera on the Mac?

We all know that Opera doesn't have the same market share like other desktop browsers. Take that market share and calculate the percentage of mac users, then you know how much of us there are. Still Opera hires developers to work on MacOpera. Those probably have to justify what they do every other day. Do you think being overly criticised will help them or make them feel better? Do you think whinig will make sure Opera's management will always decide to put as much effort in the Mac port it does now? I'm not so sure about that. Plus what everybody seems to just ignore: They do a very good job! From the list above and my experience I get the impression that the MacOpera developers are much more dedicated than MacOpera users, at least a certain group that manages to make even compliments taste bitter.

You want to see even more progress and more efforts? Well realize that Opera is a superb product (that's why you use it in the first place) and go tell others about it. Give us a bigger market share and thus Opera better possibilities to justify even more development efforts. Concentrate a bit more on what has improved and a bit less on what you don't like. A newbie who joins this thread must think that everything got worse on mac and nothing is being developed on. It's still the only thread about Kestrel in the Mac forum so the obvious place to go ...

Oh and don't get me wrong: I don't want to tell anybody to ignore issues or bugs. Everybody knows I'm an Opera fanboy, but everybody who diggs through the Mac forum will also see that I always confirmed bugs that I could reproduce. When it comes to enhancing the user interface I have some things to show aswell. If you don't like the default look of Opera, Opera itself gives you all the flexibility to adjust almost everything or use Khadgars great skin. If you find bugs or specification violations report them in the Forums and report them as bugs. But do so in a structured way without bashing so that others including me really want to join you and support your requests. And when a new version is discussed try to find the positive and negative aspects and give each of them room.

If macification means that they'd have to drop flexibility and integration I'd say no, though. Not following the HIG is not always bad, even Apple does so whenever they want to be ahead of the competition. Do you think that Finder, Safari, iTunes and Mail share the same design in Tiger? Is it bad to add your own to the list? Does Mail even fit anywhere with it's funny buttons? Does it make Mail or Firefox bad applications because they are non-standard or non-mac? Do I have to hate Opera because I love Apple (which I do, too)?

I see that Apple is superior to other operating system and hardware vendors because it has created a unique and great user experience. That's why I use Macs ecxlusively since 2003 (at home and now at work, too). Opera OTOH has created a unique and great Internet Experience on all supported platforms which is what I need. So as a conclusion I'd like to cite Little Big Town, this is from their song Boondocks :

I feel no shame
I'm proud of where I came from

Do you want Opera on the Mac? I do!

Small weekend update: On Friday I prepared the party to celebrate Alessa's school enrolment. Meanwhile Olga made tons of nice bouquets and sunflower bunchs for a silver wedding. Friday afternoon we went to the silver wedding and enjoyed a real nice party. First we went to church where the bridal couple renewed their love assurance. Afterwards we went to a restaurant in our hometown to have a great meal. Then we partyed until 3 AM and also had a fun appearance with some of our friends and neighbours.







Saturday we had to stand up early since we had to be in church again at 8 AM. This time we celebrated Alessa's school enrolment. We all had a great day in the school and afterwards in our garden with a decent barbeque (do you recall the spits, Uncle Adam?) and a campfire. Alessa is so happy to go to school and today is her first real day. Sofie is now in the 3rd class and they can go to the same bus stop, use the same bus and walk to the same school together for two more years.











So now both of my kids are in school. Am I supposed to feel old?

On Friday we had a nice Party and I received a beer dispenser suitable for beer kegs with 5 litres which are quite common here. I like how it's called Beer Maxx. Funny how people know that beer and Moods (small cigars) are what makes me really happy (besides my girls who are much more important of course).



I also managed to buy beer bottles with the signs on them. There have not been enough "Lions", though



In the morning my girls surprised me with breakfast in nature. They blindfolded me and drove me to a nice lake where they prepared everything. That was fun!









Yesterday we spent a nice lazy day in the garden, enjoyed the ducks and started a camp fire in the evening.





I prepared some baked potatoes in the fire but managed to burn one. See how it finally had the shape of a heart. Of course Olga and I ate the parts that were still eatable.



See all the weekend pictures in the Album.