Opera India

Hello everyone. I'm Siddhartha, the new intern at the Opera India Office. And I just felt this need to give you a more personal insight into the Opera India gang.

Well, the month started with Vivek on a mission to save the world in 4 mins. The Madonna bug had got us all... But we (he mostly) did conquer it, only to realise our friendly neighbourhood pappu... hadn’t figured out how to dance. And well... nothing much has changed in that department since. I promise i will keep you updated.

Well, moving on, Jaswinder is all set to go the Yankee way. And all of us here have our own evil interests of getting goodies smuggled out of the states through him.

Anil, rock solid on his Enfield, just narrated to us the other day, the story of his "Roadies" audition few years back... well... the details are too gory to write about here... all i can say is, the day didnt go well for one unnamed, flamboyant gentleman... And Anil of course had the last laugh. So, next time you feel like spamming him... give it a second thought. (Issued in public interest!!)

We have all begun to have doubts that Hari has a dual personality. He is Hari by the day... and a bug fighting Super hero by the night. Who never sleeps... never takes a break. Just crunches through software bugs, and makes the net a safer place for all of us. He is seldom seen outside his QA realm, though our sources have confirmed he has been humming the latest bollywood numbers recently. Do we have a story here?? We will have to wait for this one.

Sagar, is a famous man now. The Norwegian national paper, DN, published his interview, on the growing Opera usage in India. Well, looking smart is the least we can say about the footage. For those of you who can read Norwegian, here's the article and the interview video. And for others, we have the Google translator after all (English translation).

Well, as for Arvind, he has been mysteriously getting better at Ricochet Robots, by the day. And no matter how much he tried, I still haven’t figured out how to get the robots bouncing the right way. I'm still trying to find a rule that says, interns are supposed to suck at the game.

And about me, my first office experience has been amazing. Though it’s like spoiling the kid, because I wonder any other office anywhere is going to be this professional and this unpretentious at the same time. For the first time in my life, people around me are cracking technology jokes I don’t get. Damn!! We in college still got a long way to go.

Long hours have been spent into intensively planning the next team trip. To a secret fun destination. 100 points to anyone who can guess the right place. Please leave the answer in the comments, and we will get back to you with our detailed points calculation table. Not to let you down, I currently have 10 gazillion points and will soon catch up with board leaders Navjot and Shwetank, who have been in Oslo a long time. We miss you guys!!

And I of course cannot miss out on the latest addition to our team. The Opera Kestrel 9.5. The latest offering from the Opera armoury, has been a much discussed about member of our team. Wish all software was equally beautifully engineered...

This brings us to an end of this episode of Opera.in news... Will BRB....

You might have heard that Opera Mini is pre-installed on all Fly java phones in India. In doing so, we've made two new Opera Mini users, the sizzling Malaika Arora, and a new star of Indian cricket, fast and flitting, Ishant Sharma. This is what Ishant had to say - "Browsing the Web is so simple and fun. I get the latest sports news, movie times, Bollywood information, access to my e-mail — all on the go."

Please welcome them both to the Opera family.

So I was at the Chandigarh Airport to catch a flight to Mumbai and got my boarding pass, when I realized that I had forgot my cell phone at home . But I had Wi-Fi there, and I twittered it immediately .

Fortunately, I did not miss my cell phone at all, as Barcamp Mumbai 3 was a rocking event. The event had a huge turnout, but more than that, I was impressed by the enthusiasm of the participants. Huge props to the organizers and the guys and girls at IIT-Bombay's SJMSOM for the great event.

All kinds of people showed up, right from B-school students, to veteran entrepreneurs to hard core techies with years of experience. Also, it was heartening to see many first timers. Some of them did not work in the tech industry, but still came. And because of the eclectic mix of all these people, we had a great time sharing ideas, which was especially evident in the Firetalks which took place.

Navjot also presented there, and you can check out his presentation right here.

Hope to see you again soon, Mumbai!

The Opera Ninja hatching another plan to take down some more destroyers of the Web ...



Table-coders .... beware ....

Early Monday morning this week, I landed at the cold Indira Gandhi Airport in New Delhi alongwith my dear friend Mr. Charles McCathieNevile. We were there to attend Techshare India - a conference-cum-exhibition on accessibility. Charles (or Chaals) was speaking at the conference as well. I've attended quite a bit of these "paid conferences" in the recent months and have been utterly dissapointed - but this definitely changed after Techshare India.

I have to say it was one of the most well organised conferences I've been to, very well thought through and tediously implemented. The organization committee headed by Shilpi Kedia completely deserve a big thank you from all of us.

More impressive though, which I think is why I was so impressed by the conference, was the passion and energy of the delegates. We had people from different parts of the country coming ahead and talking about a crucial but often ignored subject - giving everyone an equal oppurtunity. If you think of the web, I am referring to making content accessible to everyone and anyone. My beleif in the importance of making sure our web content is accessible was re-inforced when I witnessed the zeal with which more than half of the participants with various different kinds of dissabilites were discussing these issues with so much understanding and knowledge. These people have not let the challenges they face affect their passion to stay ahead of others. It was a truly humbling and encouraging experience. I feel proud to say I work for a company where "equal oppurtunity" truly stands for a lot.