Opera Mini fan blog

Now that Opera 9.5 for desktop browsers is finally officially released it's also time to give a few advices before you rush using it together with Opera Links and Opera Mini 4.

Once you have taken the new Opera browser in use, just select 'File > Synchronize Opera...' from menu bar. Then, when you open a new tab on Opera 9.5, you get the same speeddials as you have on your Opera Mini 4 browser's start page. Moreover, you get access to all your other Opera Mini bookmarks via Opera 9.5 bookmarks, and all your Opera 9.5 desktop bookmarks will be accessible via Opera Mini 4 browser's bookmarks page.

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Opera Mini users on Windows Mobile / Symbian / BlackBerry, attention: you will NOT need this all-in-one Bible in order to “just” make your Opera Mini work. Your best bet is following my Opera Mini 4.1 review HERE. However, if you want to learn all the secrets of running MIDlets on your handset (for example, to reassign buttons to make scrolling much-much easier) or you also plan to run other MIDlets and want to know everything about the compliance, speed etc. issues, this Bible may turn out to be REALLY useful.

Also note that this Bible does NOT discuss Java applets or applications. For more info on running applets under Windows Mobile, see the Web Browsing Bible; for application-related info, see my generic Java articles.

You may have already heard at least of Java games (more precisely, MIDlets) running on almost all current “dumb” phones. These games are all the rage today, especially with teenagers, which also means there are thousands of sometimes really high-quality games for ordinary phones, all written using the portable Java language, ready to be played on (almost) any kind of mobile phone. Just an example: in THIS HowardForums thread, the topic starter post lists some (but not all!) games available for the Samsung QVGA 240x320 phones (d600, d900, e900 etc – not only Windows Mobile ones!). Quite an impressive list, isn’t it? And it’s just the tip of the iceberg – there are a lot more games, all waiting for you to purchase, download and run!

No, don’t think MIDlets are only for gamers and are absolutely useless otherwise. You can make a good use of them in the enterprise too. There are several solutions already for, for example, mobile payment, reservations etc. done using a MIDlet as opposed to the Web, which is, in a lot of cases, is much harder to access / operate on a small-screen device. Controlling for example your bank transfers via SMS can also be less intuitive and/or require a lot more work / data entry than using a GUI to do this. Other, known enterprise-related MIDlets are Jupiter, which is basically a financial data streaming program (also see THIS) and Betfair (also see THIS). Should you be interested in these “MIDlets in the Enterprise” questions, I really recommend Michael Juntao Yuan’s excellent book “Enterprise J2ME: Developing Mobile Java Applications” – I’ve learnt a LOT from it. Highly recommended!

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(Note that this article not only discusses Opera Mini but also a lot of other browsers. Even if you aren't really interested in them or have an OS not covered (for example, a dumb / feature phone), it will give you a decent overview of how Opera Mini 4.1 compares to the alternatives. Sorry for the size - particularly if, as recommended, you follow the references.)

As has been announced some weeks ago, I had a W3C speech a week ago devoted to Web browsing on mobile devices. You can find the (English) slides HERE. (Sorry, some of the example screenshots are in Finnish. This, however, doesn’t have a detrimental effect on the overall understandability of the material.) In order to understand the slides, I’ve also decided to comment on all of them so that the entire Windows Mobile, Symbian and BlackBerry mobile community can benefit from my speech – in written form. Finally, note that, albeit this article is over 80kchars long, it in no way can provide a FULL, absolutely thorough overview of the Web browsing scene on these platforms. That is, if you don’t understand something, don’t despair: in my referenced, previous articles, you can, in most cases, find a very thorough dissemination of the subject. Just an example: in this article, I only devote some 2kchars to the subject of downloading files while my original, devoted article, along with its (recent) updates, amount to over 100 kchars.

I also provide in-line screenshots in this article so that you know what I'm speaking about without constantly switching to PowerPoint; however, to see the original document at its full (and copy/pasteable) glory and resolution, you'll need the PPT file.

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Guys and gals, while I do know that, currently, Opera Mini isn’t able to play videos (or even invoke external programs to play them), you may still find my YouTube Bible highly useful when used from another browser where system-level invocation works – for example, Opera Mobile or even your built-in Web browser when used with some external apps. Hope you’ll find this new Bible useful.

Watching YouTube videos is a favorite pastime of many. With data charges constantly decreasing (or, should I say, plummeting), not-that-expensive flat 3G data rates getting common, Wi-Fi’s getting pretty ubiquitous and, of course, YouTube’s getting really-really full of videos worth checking out, you might be tempted to watch YouTube (or other) videos on your handset. After all, it's a great pastime and these handhelds have both the processing power, the necessary hardware and, in most cases, connection speed to render these videos well.

In this YouTube Bible, I show you how this all can be done on the three major non-iPhone platforms: Windows Mobile, Symbian S60 and BlackBerry. (As the iPhone, as opposed to most other solutions, already comes with a decent player, there isn’t much point in elaborating on it. You just fire up the YouTube icon and off you go at – if you have Wi-Fi connectivity – very good quality. Nothing needs to be installed and there’re no alternatives you will need to know to make an intelligent decision.)

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