·:[ E-Musings On Web Stuff ]:·
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Sorry to have skipped last week. I was at the fag end of a fortnight’s vacation. And was too relaxed to even lift a finger. Waited on as I was hand and foot. To stir and write the previous week’s column. And if you wonder how I managed the previous week’s installment. Well thank the kind Wordpress developers who have thoughtfully included a Publish On feature. Allowing your peripatetic columnist to pen some episodes in advance.

It’s taken me the better part of the last week to change channels from vacation to work. At least insofar as researching and evaluating new web tools. As I invariably drop off to sleep by 10 PM and need at least 10 hours straight sleep! But I seem to be shaking off this not quite unwelcome habit and spent most of this weekend past catching up.

There’s new software aplenty. But of special interest in release of Opera for Windows 9.0 Beta Build 8238. Which continues Opera Software’s fine tradition of very stable Betas. Opera 9 Beta Build 8238 features an improved Content Blocker. And in this version support for GMail Ajax scripting seems to have been improved. For the first time during the Opera 9 Beta have I been able to login to a GMail account when using Opera. But all this technological prowess comes at a cost: Opera seems to have abandoned charting its own course in favor of cloning Firefox’s dialogs, keyboard shortcuts and features. But this apart, I really like the new version. Which is a big improvement of the 8.5x version. And with OperaGet some of your problems getting Opera to correctly interface with download managers may be a thing of the past. However this software seems a bit buggy so use at your own risk. Flashgot it ain’t!

And if you like reading lots of blogs. Yet are still under-whelmed by email. Or would like some mail that’s not junk to be delivered to you. Do visit Squeet that delivers blogs to you via e-mail. The free service is very customizable. More details in the Squeet FAQ.

And there’s a fix for Firefox’s runaway resource use. According to Ben Goodger (one of the browser’s lead developers), by design Firefox allocates read-ahead page caching by installed system memory. And

To improve performance when navigating (studies show that 39% of all page navigations are re-navigations to pages visited < 10 pages ago, usually using the back button), Firefox 1.5 implements a Back-Forward cache that retains the rendered document for the last few session history entries. This can be a lot of data. It's a trade-off. What you get out of it is faster performance as you navigate the web.

For those who remain concerned, here's how the feature works. Firefox has a preference browser.sessionhistory.max_total_viewers which by default is set to -1. When set to this value, Firefox calculates the amount of memory in the system, according to this breakdown:

RAM	Number of Cached Pages
32MB	0
64MB	1
128MB	2
256MB	3
512MB	5
1GB	8
2GB	8
4GB	8

No more than 8 pages are ever cached in this fashion, by default. If you set this preference to another value, e.g. 25, 25 pages will be cached. You can set it to 0 to disable the feature, but your page load performance will suffer.

If you’re interested in seeing what one of Asia’s great cities looked like during 1945-46, there’s a visual treat in store for you courtesy the South Asia Section of the Van Pelt Library, University of Pennsylvania.

Who recently acquired a photo album of 60 photographs of Calcutta by Claude Waddell, a military photographer. Who also provided interesting glosses accompanying each photograph.

That’s it for me this week. Stay Safe and we’ll continue next week.

It’s quite ironic that the Hon APJ Abdul Kalam, President of India. An avowed technocrat. Is so anti-Google Earth. His contention is that Google Earth allows anyone to view India’s secrets. I do wonder what these secrets are? I mean the maps that the software uses are at least a couple of years old. And if breaches of security continue to exist, perhaps its time to securely close such doors. And when an attack does materialize based on 2+ year old information, then in my book the intended targets fully deserve what they expect to receive!

Yes, its true that Google Earth mapping is found more in areas of strategic interest. So if you live near an ordnance factory. In or around a military cantonment. Or along the approach path to an airport with a known military presence. There’s a higher probability that parts of your city will be available in Google Earth. But there are many exceptions. The metros of India are well documented. But not all India’s security assets are concentrated here. There are many more towns and cities that literally remain unmapped by Google Earth. For more on attempts to ban. Along with several rather childish opinions. Is a Google search about banning Google Earth.

That’s enough with the ranting. Let’s instead look at something more pleasurable. Like new software. And do I have a couple of interesting ones for you. Let’s lead off with Opera for Windows 9.0 Build 8212 Technology Preview 2. This includes lots of new features. But remember its a Beta. And one that will be quite unstable. Make sure to backup your Opera Bookmarks and mail setting. And as far as possible install the new Preview build in a unique folder all its own. When Opera runs true to form it will also store its Profile settings in a folder distinct from your existing version.

The key updates include support for Opera Widgets (small web applications that run directly on a user’s desktop). You can also develop your own Opera Widgets to perform tasks that interact with news feeds, dictionaries and search engines. There’s a complete Guide to Opera Widgets. This release also offers selective content blocking, search shortcuts, and site specific preferences. New to this version are popup thumbnails that display when you hover (the mouse pointer) over the relevant tab. The address bar search now support Google I got Lucky searches that will open the web site Google matches best with the keywords entered. The History feature has been enhanced with sort by date and site.

The source page viewer now supports syntax highlighting. With CSS errors reported in a separate module. However in a way Preview 2 takes a step back. My Gamil account broke again. As did this blog’s login page. Where all I got was a blank screen. I hope the unfix whatever is causing the problem in the next release.

The Opera:config function introduced in the previous Preview has been enhanced to highlight modified settings (just like Windows XP). Opera for Windows 9.0 Build 8212 Technology Preview 2 also includes a BitTorrent client which supposedly is better than previous versions. But I still find it a pain to use. For the same Torrent file, uTorrent reports availability statistics and begins downloading immediately if available. Opera’s client just stays in the same no traffic state for >10 minutes (the limits of my wait ‘n see capabilities for 1 mbps connections).

The new Opera 9 Preview 2 build also introduces the world to Opera Labs. This is the company’s new research face. That lists topics of interest. And information about browser technology in development. There’s also a detailed Opera Labs illustrated version of the Opera 9 Tech Preview 2 changelog.

The other software discovery is GigaGet. This is the (now) free, licensed English Beta version of the Chinese-only Thunder Downloader. GigaGet includes patented Net-Grid technology to locates extra download links and mirrors in real-time. The software can also spawn new download threads from a single URL. All without a specific, per-download setting. On a 1 mbps connection, I found files actually downloaded up to 5 times faster than they did with the free WinGet 1.9 version. Or Metaproducts Download Express. And unlike both those products, GigaGet didn’t glom (grab) available bandwidth causing other applications like web browsers or mail clients to stop responding.

That’s it for this week. More next time. Stay Safe. And Sayonara!