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Blog Entries from June 2008
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Are Dual Monitors Worth It?
Most techies will quickly preach about the increased productivity one will experience as a result of dual (or multiple) monitor setups. About a year ago, I went to my local Apple Store and purchased a brand-new 20" Apple Cinema Display to pair with my 20" iMac. The price had just been reduced another $100, so it seemed like a pretty good deal to snatch up. Of course, dual-monitor setups are really cool and the expanded screen space can often come in handy.
Primarily, dual-monitors came in handy when designing webpages, when I had Opera, TextMate, Photoshop, etc. all open at the same time. It allowed me to see all the windows without having to thumb through them. Writing papers for school was nice too, where I could have a few websites open at the same time on the secondary monitor, with iWorks open in the primary monitor. However, for normal, everyday tasks (web browsing, writing articles, listening to music, etc.), dual-monitors was a waste. Plus, when I did something as simple as coding, I tended to spend too much time looking around on the screen or arranging windows.
Last week, I decided to pack up my Cinema Display and to store it in the closet. It took me about a month finally to settle on trying a single-monitor setup, but I finally concluded it was best. I am back to a one-monitor setup and I like it a lot better actually. I find I only have one place to look and thumbing through windows is such a minor annoyance. In reality, the only area I miss the dual monitors is during web development, but I seem to be doing that less and less nowadays. Overall, I have also been more productive with one monitor, with the overall reduced distraction: blog entries are going up on time, emails are getting written, code fixes are being made, and much more.
Sure, I will admit that for some people dual monitors will be worth it. However, for others, you should evaluate your actual needs. I discovered personally that I do not need two monitors for my computing tasks, whilst others may discover that they do. So, before you shell out any money to buy a second monitor, just think about the actual benefits it will give you first. Perhaps you should just buy a bigger monitor instead of a secondary monitor?
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Microsoft Does U-turn on MSN Music Shutdown
In a past rant, I talked about Microsoft's decision to close its DRM servers for its MSN Music service, rendering all of the music bought from the online store next to worthless. Luckily, it turns out that Microsoft listened to what was being said by the online community and they have decided to keep the servers online. They have extended the date from the previous cut-off of the 31st of August 2008 to at least the end of 2011.
This is great news for anyone that used the MSN Music service before it closed, but still it is not as good a solution as a method of removing the DRM, so that this problem will never happen in the future.
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Firefox 3
Matt just recently posted a blog entry about Opera 9.5, so I figured I would post an entry about the also newly released Firefox 3 (external link). Be forewarned, I am a hardcore Opera user, so I am not super familiar with Firefox. However, on a whole, I can say that Firefox 3 seems like a step in the right direction and it improves on a number of issues that plagued Firefox 2. The general changes include:
- New theme
- Implementation of Gecko 1.9
- Page zooming
- New bookmark manager
- New download manager
- Improved password manager
- New address bar
- Numerous memory and security fixes
I can say that Firefox 3 appears to handle memory much better now. It is evident quickly when you open twenty tabs or so, which would previously have brought Firefox to its knees. Now, I will not go much into the backend fixes, because I am not at all familiar with them. However, from what I understand, Firefox 3 handles memory much better and a lot of security issues were addressed. Also, Firefox finally officially passes the Acid2 test!
When you open Firefox 3, the first thing you will notice is the new theme. The theme has been tailored for each operating system (Mac OS X, Windows Vista, Windows XP, and Linux) to give it a more native look and feel. Firefox 3's new theme is largely different from Firefox 2's look and feel. I have to say I do quite like the new Mac theme, but it looks an awful lot like Safari now. Also, the Mozilla team has made a much more convincing Mac-style theme than Opera.
The other updates with bookmarks, downloads, and passwords seem to put them all on par with what Opera has had for awhile. Plus, Firefox finally has page zoom, a very nice feature Opera has had nearly forever (well, that's a bit of an exaggeration, but you get the point anyhow). The address bar is nearly identical to Opera's new address bar, but it seems to not find things as well as Opera's.
Overall, Firefox 3 is a nice update to the browser, but I still find it lacks in functionality compared to Opera. Nevertheless, Mozilla does know how to make a Mac-style theme, whilst Opera Software does not.
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Increasing Clickable Area on Links
Awhile back, 37signals posted a blog entry about the clickable area of links (external link). The key is for links to have a padding on them, so that users do not necessarily have to click on the actual text itself, but have the ability to click on the area around it as well. It helps to improve usability and is a small adjustment to make to a website. One should only use it on navigation links really, but it does make a big difference for such a small change.
At Lowter, we have a large clickable area for our top navigation links, but this results more out of technical limitations than intention. Internet Explorer prior to version seven does not support the :hover state for elements other than anchors (<a>). Therefore, in order to achieve the changed hover-state of the tabs, all of the styling has to be applied to <a> tags, instead of the list (<li>) tag (as our navigation is semantically organised into an unordered list). Since this includes padding as well, the clickable area of the link encompasses the entire tab, as it should really.
Of course, 37signals is not big on semantics, so their links are not organised into a list. Nevertheless, if you organise your navigation links into a list, then it also allows you to easily have a clickable area for those links too.
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Opera 9.5
A few days ago, the latest version of the Opera web browser (external link) was released: Opera 9.5. I've been a massive fan of Opera for a while now. The feature set is great out of the box (mouse gestures, tabs that work the way I expect them to, and the speed dial, just to name a few) and the speed is great. With the latest release comes many further enhancements:
Quotation by "Opera Software"
Opera Link: Your bookmarks, Speed Dial and even notes taken in the Opera browser can follow you anywhere. Opera Link keeps you synchronized between any Opera 9.5 desktop browser and Opera Mini, Opera's free browser for your mobile phone. In Opera 9.5 write a note - copy directions, create shopping lists or jot down anything you need to remember - and access it on any Opera 9.5 browser by simply logging in.
Find anything: Remember a word from a page you've read earlier? Find that page easily with Quick Find. Just enter a word in the address bar to find matching text from any page you have visited.
Looking sharp: Opera makes a move to modernize its look and feel to a sharp new skin with clean lines and clear icons. The 'New Tab' button and other elements have been modified to make the switch to a better Web experience more intuitive. You may also select any of our platform-specific skins to help Opera's appearance adapt to your operating system of choice.
Strengthened defence against malware and phishing: Opera's Fraud Protection not only protects you from fraudulent Web sites, it is now the first browser publically available to protect you from malware and other malicious software on the Web. Powered by Haute Secure, Netcraft, and PhishTank, Opera's Fraud Protection technology automatically blocks offending Web pages to keep you out of harm's way.
Speed: Opera continues to lead in performance. Opera 9.5 makes dramatic speed improvements to the e-mail client, RSS feeds and the browser itself, so you can spend more time getting things done online.
Personally, I don't use the built-in email client nor the built-in RSS reader, so I can't comment on those specific speed improvements; however, browsing as a whole does seem slightly faster than previous versions.
Quick Find is a nice feature to have, but sometimes words I try return no results even though I know that word was on a page I just visited. Possibly, it could be because I messed with the history settings in previous versions, which might have turned it off.
One of my favourite new features is the improved default skin. The previous default skin was very dated and well overdue for a complete overhaul. The new skin looks very nice, with the grey toolbars and the clear icons. The tabs bar is very distinctive, as it's a darker grey, which makes it stand out well and I also like the new tab button. I think the new skin works very well with Vista, but when I installed it on an XP machine it really didn't fit with the look of the rest of the system and it looked terrible. I'm not sure how it looks on other operating systems either.
Apart from the feature improvements listed above, there was also good progress made in supporting CSS3, with all the selectors fully implemented. As always, Opera does well with supporting web standards.
Overall I'm happy with the new version and I'm looking forward to seeing how the Opera team plans on making the browser even better in the future! You can download Opera 9.5 (external link) for free from Opera's website.
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