Dev Sandalian

Ars Technica just wrote an interesting article about their experience using Mozilla’s mobile browser which its codename is Fennec. It’s still on their early stage of development so we can’t give it a try. Thanks to Ars Technica for following screen capture of Fennec Mobile Browser:

They reported that Fennec suit on Nokia N810 for the showcase. There’s no further information on which platform they will play. Will it be Linux, Windows Mobile, Symbian OS or even Java based?

Mozilla said that they want to ”transfer” the feel of browsing using Mozilla Firefox into this handheld browser and featuring synchronization between Mozilla Firefox and Mozilla Fennec.

Based on Wikipedia, Fennec is a small fox found in the Sahara Desert of North Africa (excluding the coast) and in some parts of Arabia.

Opera Watch reported that they’re preparing something called Opera Dragonfly. There’s no clue what the dragonfly could be but a teaser said:

“I won’t say quite yet, but I do think that, in my opinion, it is the most important project we have on going at the moment, and probably since I’ve been at the company. It won’t directly affect everybody, but will hopefully become invaluable for those that it does.”

So I’m thinking that the dragonfly will be a developer tools to dealing with HTML/CSS/Javascript just like firebug in Firefox.

It’s great if the dragonfly is realy a developer tools, since the current developer tools available for Opera is not very handy and rather dificult to use. Let’s wait for the dragonfly.

You might questioning what happen with Opera Mobile version 9 and why Opera Mobile jumps its version from 8.65 to 9.5.

Opera Mobile is intended to be a replacement for Opera Desktop in a mobile device. To achieve the same browsing experience between desktop and mobile, both browsers must have the same method to display the website. Since the latest version of Opera Desktop is 9.5 so Opera Mobile should have the same version and same rendering engine. Opera Mobile 9.5 using the same rendering engine as Opera Desktop 9.5 called Presto.

By this way, Opera hopes that there’s no difference between browsing using PC or mobile gadgets. Opera also said that this version is a lot faster than previous and the GUI was completely rebuild to increase user experience. And hey, it runs widgets just like Opera for desktop!

Now I’m waiting for Opera Mobile 9.5 to be available for Symbian UIQ 3.

I’ve made a simple pool for my blog readers. I ask them why don’t they use Opera as their main browser, and here came across some answers:

• At first time they used Opera, they found that Opera’s cache is too strong. And it’s a problem for a web developer because they can’t see the change right away. Well, if they know about Shift+F5, it’s not a problem at all.
   
• They wonder if they can found something like Firefox’s plugins. They don’t want to switch to Opera because they afraid of loosing the plugin’s benefit.
   
• Some people using glubble to protect their kids from unwanted page, and Opera doesn’t have this such thing.
   
• Because Opera is not open source. Well, they don’t really need the source code but they afraid if someday Opera company will be closed. Thus, Opera users will be dumped away. But if Opera were open source, there will be another group who would give Opera a re-birth.
   
• A friend was afraid of intergalactic law violation when using a little trick to open Google Docs

Last but not least, a little sweet girl was saying that this question is the same as “Why Mac users aren’t as many as Windows users”.

From this pool, now I have idea why don’t they use Opera: because they don’t know much about Opera. Then it’s a task for Opera company to spread more information about Opera and its benefits.

I also wrote this at My Opera blog and forward to Daniel Goldman.

Latest news from Opera, they had launched Opera Mini 4 beta 2 with many bug fixes and some new features. This version will not overide your previous Opera Mini installation, so you can still use them both for comparison.

Here’s an overview of some of the notable changes/additions with Opera Mini 4 beta 2 (since beta 1), yeah I copy and paste this from Opera page:

• Now you can add the search engine of your choice to the start page, just like in the Opera desktop browser. Hey, now you could put Google Search on the start page.
• Shortcut keys
• Browse in landscape mode — view the Web on a wider screen (Shortcut key: ‘*’ and ‘#’)
• Native menu for BlackBerry phones
• Lots of optimizations for BlackBerry phones
• Content folding – Collapses long menu lists (like those found on sidebars of webpages), so you don’t need to scroll through them to get to the page content. Note: This only works in “Fit to width” mode, not desktop.
• Supports secure connections for banks, eBay, etc.
• Small fonts have been enabled
• Simplified setup process
• Improved image quality
• Improved cookie support
• Ability to edit the current URL
• Added ‘Full screen’ mode
• Dialogs now use web 2.0-ish look and feel
• Added support for more phones
• Fixed a ton of bugs

Too bad I can’t try this Opera Mini since my mobile phone is old enough.. *sigh!*

Yep, the name is E. Complete name is E Text Editor. As said on its official website:

E is a new text editor for Windows, with powerful editing features and quite a few unique abilities. It makes manipulating text fast and easy, and lets you focus on your writing by automating all the manual work. You can extend it in any language, and by supporting TextMate bundles, it allows you to tap into a huge and active community.

And I said yes, E is a unique text editor I’ve never tried before.

I downloaded E 20 days ago and now remaining 10 days to use the evaluation version. I found some rare features on E, among other things are cool undo history. After I close a file, and open it again, the undo history will remain there. So I can press Ctrl+Z as many as possible.

Other feature I like is web preview, I can write the code and watch the HTML rendered lively. Also code split (like in Scite), cool search highlight and many more.

I suggest you to download the trial version of E Text Editor and try it for a month. Then you will see US$ 35 is worth to spend to get this different text editor.

Komodo is the best programmer’s text editor I’ve ever seen. It’s the award-winning editing for dynamic languages including Perl, PHP, Python, Ruby and Tcl; plus support for browser-side code including JavaScript, CSS, HTML and XML..

Can’t say how happy I am when I found there’s a free version of The Dragon. Well, I think it won’t be as complete as the Komodo IDE, but it has the soul of it.

I’ve tried the 21 days trial version of Komodo IDE and fall in love with it, and hoping there’s the free version of it. So far I’m waiting, and just like a Bob Marley’s song, I don’t wanna waiting in vain..

So let’s grab a copy of it, both Linux or Windows users, get it here: http://www.activestate.com/products/komodo_edit/.

So far I’m looking for a good image editor for Linux. Yes, there is GIMP, but it’s not so much alike Adobe Photoshop. And need a big change for my brain to get used with it.

Then I found Pixel, an image editor that so much alike Adobe Photoshop. At first glance, it’s very familiar for Photoshop user. I haven’t installed it yet, perhaps tonight. But I hope it’s as easy as Photoshop.

But it’s not a free software, we’ll need to purchase it for US$ 38. So I choose trial version. The limitation is nag screen and watermark on the final result. But I think it’s enough to try how robust this application is. I’ll give the report as soon as I tried this Pixel

Meanwhile, you can download it too: http://www.kanzelsberger.com/pixel/?page_id=4

Since programming always dealing with choosing the best text editor to use, so here I add this category. Review will be made by me myself based on my expericences using the tool.

You can suggest me text editor to review by drop me private message to my Yahoo! ID: yeni.setiawan.