I sit here @ McDonald’s in my ‘a little geeky’ shirt, writing a blog post from my Blackberry running Opera. I think my geek index could only go up if I composed it in Klingon.
Speaking of Opera, I think the browser is very innovative and a good alternative to the built-in browser, despite the three flavors RIM has offered it’s addicts.
However, there are some very frustrating things about Opera on a blackberry that deserve a little attention. And I’m not talking about the kind of attention you might give a stunningly beautiful and heartwarmingly generous woman as she donates her time and money to homeless cleft palate victims in urban areas admidst racial turmoil. I’m talking about the attention you might give an infected dark-green and black scab on the side of that woman’s cheek as she continues to pick at it incessently as she speaks to the children.
Opera is the woman; these annoyances are the scab.
The biggest annoyance is Opera’s inability to be blackberry-like. It ignores most of the time-saving shortcuts we were given in the first place! Things like pressing space for “dot” or “@” in a web or email address. When typing in http://www.whall,org/blog I actually gotta press the periods. Or howdy@domain.com – when blackberry knows it’s an email address, it uses the first space as the “@” sign and all subsequent spaces as dots. A big typing time saver.
The next biggest annoyance is how it accepts the enter key as a character in single-line text fields. For example, if I need to type in ‘whall’ into a username field, I have to select the field by pressing enter, then type in the info into a pop-up window, then click the trackwheel in and select “ok”. The builtin browser is superior to this because as I scroll down the page, the text cursor automatically displays and I can edit in-place, and just scroll down to the next field. The way Opera does it, I inevitably end up having to use both hands for any normal kind of entry.
Another bugaboo is the bugs. The thing crashes once a day. Usually its some java.lang blahblahblah. Please stop crashing!
Yet another is the loss of the ability to paste in a URL. Argh! This was a major downside of the builtin browser already, so I’d switch to Opera as a fix, but noooooo can’t do that any more.
I *do* like many things about opera, but hopefully they start taking advantage of the blackberry advantages in the next version.
At least you’re well-dressed for your heinous analogies… dark green and black scab… really??
Dave2s last blog post..Comic-Con: Day Four
Opera has similar bugs on my Palm OS Treo 755p. Shortcuts that should be there, crashes, bugs… it’s nice when it works, and I like that web sites that don’t work in Blazer work in Opera, but it’s a bit frustrating to use at times.
Agree with Dave2. I have that same shirt and I can not only increase my geekitude when wearing it, but also it increases the “Where’d you get that shirt?” responses.
martymankinss last blog post..Scooter Sunday #15
Opera on my Treo 755p is buggy to the point of being unusable. I expect it’s really due to the version of Java I found to get it running.
Ren Maddoxs last blog post..Hershey
I can see I shall have some challenges when Motley’s BB gets here this week.
Winters last blog post..Late Date
It’s posts like this that make me feel completely out of the loop.
Robins last blog post..Wireless Gangs
Um, what?
Dragons last blog post..Zucchini, Tomato and Herb Tart
Dave2, hey, I’m trying to be more creative in my writing. Is it working?
martymankins, Opera is full of potential but it keeps falling flat. Kind of like Obama. (oooooooh ssssssssssssssss)
Ren, You know, I don’t even know if opera came with a java runtime or if the bb has one. I hadn’t thought of upgrading java.
winter, technical challenges? territorial challenges? equal time challenges? approriate behavior challenges?
Robin, yeah, I admit. this post was a little geeky and ‘out there’. I usually like to do more linking, more explanation, and keep it realz. But I was composing the entire post (bold and links and all) from my phone. So I wasn’t as “big picture” as I usually try to be.
Dragon, EXACTLY! As Alexstair Crowley said in Book of Lies,
I think we understand each other now.