Ramūnas blog

Yesterday I upgraded to a new Ubuntu Linux version, named Gutsy Gibbon, it works just great(seems to work faster), even though its not even a beta version yet. After installing it all I decided to go get and compile latest version Compiz-fusion as the default one didn't work quite right. After hanging out a bit on #desktop-effects and #compiz-fusion I was pointed at this guide, which really helped me a lot in the process: http://forum.compiz-fusion.org/showthread.php?t=1985

Compiz fusion has lots of nice plugins which add some nice features and eyecandy to your desktop, just like the Magic lamp animation you can see in the screenshot below, or the Widget layer, just like in the screenshot on the right. Search youtube for "Compiz-fusion", you'll find millions of videos made by users showing its features off.

After installing all the needed stuff(see the guide) all you have to do is to enable Widget Layer plugin and use this option for it to work with opera widgets: "role=opera-widget". And that's it, you're done, though it wasn't that easy for me, Compiz was crashing for me, but with help of nice guys at #compiz-fusion-dev I managed to make a crashlog. 13 minutes after submiting it I got notified that one of the guys already wrote a fix, it was up in the git repository in few more minutes, after that I just downloaded and installed the fixed version.

That's one big plus to the Open Source community, where else would you get a bug fixed that fast?
What was your experience with Open Source software?

Daniel started it all with his “Blog tag: 5 things I’d like to see in Opera” post. He tagged Vygantas, and then Vygantas tagged me. So here I am, writing my list:

1. Something equivalent to Firebug.
   
2. Ability to use 3rd party RSS reader .
   
3. A way to replace Operas bookmarking system with some 3rd party system, like del.icio.us or such.
   
4. Inline spell checker
   
5. A bunch of old bugs fixed (hoping for that in Kestrel)
   

I also want a bunch of other things, but most of them should be in Kestrel already.
Also I'll be good and won't tag anybody. If you want to tell us about the features you want consider yourself tagged, and just do it.

So it all started early(for me ) in the morning, I got up, and first thing I did while still laying in me bed was checking if Opera Mini 4 was out already, too bad it wasn't . It was released only like an hour after that, I guess I was one of the first people to download it . Just a few minutes after downloading it and cheering in the #operamini I started testing it.

My first visited site was my.opera.com, it looked pretty good, a bit different from Opera Mini 3, but still good nonetheless. Then I headed over BBC news to test the new "Overview mode". This is the actual screenshot of Opera Mini 4 with BBC news website open on my Nokia 6600. You can clearly see how good the site looks in overview mode, its just simple, intuitive and easy to use .

Then I visited slashdot and digg, sites that I often read, you can see from the screenshots that they work just fine too. After that I cheered some more in #operamini(that's where all the cool people hang out ) Also I checked a bunch of local news sites, they all worked fine too . It felt a bit strange, sitting in front of computer and using your phone to browse the web, I know it sounds stupid, but Opera Mini was just too exciting, we've(folks at irc) been waiting for it since the release of Opera Mini 3, when we were told that Opera Mini was being developed already. On the day of the release I browsed quite a lot, I used up over 3 megabytes of traffic, and with site compression Opera Mini does that's really quite a lot (3000kb / 30kb(average site) = ~100 sites). As some review sites mentioned, Opera Mini is a must have app for your phone. As a constant user of web on my mobile phone I'll definitely will be waiting for new beta of Opera Mini, with even more great features to make browsing even cheaper, faster, easier.
Now to sum it all up: "Its awesome!"

BTW: I was wearing my Opera Ninja t-shirt that day

After taking this pic, and later processing on the PC I noticed that the reflection on the windows really looks like jungle, what a nice surprise, somehow I missed that when I was taking the shot
For more cool shots be sure to visit my Flickr account
Ok, now a bit on the other topic, Opera.
Opera is releasing a beta version of Opera Mini, codenamed "Dimension", on the 19th of June, so watch out for that, it should be pretty interesting. BTW: they have a cool competition going, check it out

Also it was announced that Opera developing Flash replacement for mobile browser. Too bad we don't have any more info on that, I guess we'll have to wait, as always.

That's it for now, I promise I'll make another post soon.

BTW: Don't forget to congratulate "The Dude" on becoming a teacher

As I read on http://avencius.nl/ Alastor (hey ) decided to give firefox a try, I thought why not do the same, and so I did, today whole day long I've been using firefox.

Its pretty great once you install all those extensions, though the process is kind of long and annoying, if you don't really know what extensions do you need, you download, install, restart the browser, don't like it, uninstall, restart again. Restarts after uninstalling themes and extensions are really annoying. You really need like a gazillion extensions, you even need one for simple features like "paste and go" button or ability to make status bar auto hide.

Though there's one thing I wasn't able to get, that is the ability to show URL of the link once you hover it in the tooltip just like in opera, only way to see the URL seems to be using status bar.

Ok, now to the good part:
Firefox seems to handle flash plugin way better than Opera, videos don't lag when switching tabs.
It has some nice skins, some of them look better than Opera's.
Also it has 2 really great extensions: FasterFox and AdBlock Plus
Google sites work with it without any warnings

Have you ever tried really using firefox? what do you think about it? Oh, and I'm still not sure about swiching to the darkside Sorry if this post doesn't make too much sense, I'm just not too good at writing longer texts, I keep jumping from one thought to another.
P.S Remco and Alastor I'm still going to win those opera competitions, so you can't have my stuff