Reading really is fundamental. I saw a post on Lifehacker about Syncplicity finally opening their beta to Mac users, and so, having never heard of this software, I read on. The post mentioned something about file sharing, and I was intrigued. I don’t really do the whole file-sharing thing anymore, and I think a lot of other people have moved away from it, too, so I was interested in what Lifehacker recommended.

I downloaded the program, and was initially confused as to how it worked. Where was the interfact? How could I see what other people were offering? Since it was a private beta, I was willing to be a little more trusting and was hoping that I’d find some good and/or rare music. So I read the guide on how to get started, but still wasn’t seeing anything relevant to file-sharing. I went back to Lifehacker to reread the post, and lo and behold, it’s a file SYNCing program, to sync files and content across two (free) or more (paid subscription) computers.

I’m such a dummy. I can’t believe I misread that so many times. If I’d been thinking, which I clearly wasn’t even the program’s name would have tipped me off.

And, just having checked, it seems that MOST of my multitouch gestures are not working with Opera. The only thing that works right off the bat is navigating up and down a page. Bummer.

All things Opera

The last time I thought that Opera was working with Multi-Touch/Multiclutch gestures, I closed it down completely (carrying over no windows between sessions), only to find that I had been mistaken. Again. I was so disappointed that I didn’t open the program for over a week. I hear that lots of Mac users don’t like Safari, but I’m finding that it suits my needs pretty nicely (although I do still also use Firefox on occasion).

Today, though, I wanted to use a fresh browser to check for airfare, and didn’t feel like going through and deleting all of my travel-related cookies from Safari and Firefox. I opened Opera, and was informed that new build was fixed. I downloaded it, and HUZZAH!! It does work with Multi-touch gestures. Immediately, with no dumb luck involved. Unfortunately, my bookmarks didn’t make it from one version to the next, but that was easy enough to remedy. It seems like such a stupid thing to dump a browser over, but I’m so used to this now, that I hate maneuvering without my gestures, and I think my windows laptop is little more than a lapwarmer.

Speaking of opera, I just realized that I didn’t speak about my trip to see Aida last week. Eyes are floating shut, more on that later.

Seems like somebody is listening

Happy New Year, folks! I just got back from a lovely, frigid, relaxing vacation in Vermont, ready to have 2009 sap my newly restored will to live. I just found out that my nephew’s school won’t be opening tomorrow and that he’ll be spending the day with me, so I’m guessing that the sapping will commence pretty much immediately (kidding! I missed my little man when I was gone and am really looking forward to spending some time with him tomorrow).

I was messing around with various programs on my computer, and discovered that 1) I’ve either had another happy accident with this alpha version of Opera, or 2) they’ve actually made it work with Multiclutch. It’s too soon to say for sure whether the problem is permanently fixed, and since I’m so tired and traveled 250+ miles today, I’ve decided not to press my luck by completely resetting Opera and starting from scratch. Still, since I’d previously posted on how unhappy the lack of compatibility made me, I’m going to take this perceived progress as a shout-out. I’ll test it tomorrow, I guess, but I’m stoked that it has worked this well. In addition, I’ll upload some of the pictures from my vacation soonish.

I also registered a new domain tonight and set up the corresponding web site (why? wouldn’t you like to know), and will be talking a bit more about that later.

Opera 10 Alpha – Peregrine

I’ve been using Opera 10 Alpha since it was released earlier this month. I have always liked the Opera web browsers, but it never made sense to me to pay for a program when there were free alternatives that worked as well, if not better, most of the time (first Netscape, then Firefox; I have never considered IE to be better than Opera). But when I heard of the new release, I decided to give it a try. It has been a few years since I’ve used Opera on a computer, but I’ve enjoyed using Opera mini on my last few cell phones.

I know that this is an alpha release, and therefore should not be assumed to be without flaws, and I have to say that, for the most part, I am really impressed by this release. Opera 10 is extremely fast and responsive, and renders pages at least as quickly as Safari and Firefox 3. I don’t care much about the way a program looks, as long as it works, but the placement of pretty much everything makes sense, and for those who don’t like the look of this interface, I believe that skins are available.

I tried Opera’s built-in mail module to access my primary gmail account, and I am not impressed. I’m giving it time to learn and using the filters provided, but so far, too much mail from my spam folder is ending up in my inbox. You can edit rules, but none of the rules allow me to filter by folder location, which would make removing spam from my inbox here a snap. So that’s not good. I only wanted to use the mailbox feature to see what it’s like, and as there are more than enough excellent desktop programs for accessing webmail, I don’t expect to make Opera my default gmail viewer any time soon.

I’ve grown so used to using Multiclutch, and am really sad that it doesn’t work consistently in Opera 10. It never works immediately upon opening the browser. Then, once I do something, the gestures I’ve programmed work like a charm – I just don’t know what that something is, so I can’t do it sooner in my Opera sessions. In terms of Multiclutch, I’ve just gotten this browser where I want it, and once I get the gestures going again, I’m not going to ever clear this session!

In all, I’m really enjoying trying different browsers on OS X. I think that Firefox has actually become the third place finisher in terms of my browser usage on this computer. Safari is pretty neat, and with the addition of Saft, as close to the perfect browser as I’m likely to experience. I stupidly left Saft in kiosk mode for about a week and could not for the life of me figure out where I’d gone wrong, but once I figured it out (I’m slow, what can I say), it was all smooth sailing again! I am even going to install Opera 10 on my Windows laptop, to see what I think of it there. I’ve used Safari on that computer, and have no desire to install it again, so I guess that the worst that Firefox can do on my Gateway is come in second.