Category Archives: Reviews

Simple and Quick Diagram Designer

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I was looking for a diagram designer and I was in hurry. Thus I have no time to download any well known diagram designer applications. I went to Google and searched ‘diagram designer’ and got an application with identical name: Diagram Designer.

diagram-designerIt’s quite small. Only  1.3 MB and took a few minutes to download. It should just be a few seconds if I have a broadband access.

I just need a few click to install and run Diagram Designer. Very nice application despite of its small size. It displays object tree, canvas and some common symbols for flow chart/diagram.

The application really fit my needs. The only  missing thing is a feature to export the diagram into PDF file, but that’s OK.

NicEdit: Lightweight Web Based WYSIWYG Editor

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After a couple of years using TinyMCE as my prefered web based WYSIWYG editor, I started to look at another one. My brand new star is Nice Edit, a lightweight text editor that come with basic styling tools.

NicEdit web based WYSIWYG editor

What I like from this editor is NicEdit doesn’t use another HTML page to load its tools, it just ‘draw’ it on the screen. Amazingly, it’s only using one image for all the menus, using image as sprite.

I don’t like when TinyMCE loads another file to display link properties or image properties. It’s wasting time, eat up web space and more bandwidth to waste.

Although NicEdit isn’t as complete as TinyMCE, but it fit my needs. It gives me simplicity.

Google Chrome At Glance

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Just a few hours ago, I’ve downloaded Google Chrome and give it a try using Windows XP running on VirtualBox. Interesting browser, fast and very user friendly. But I got a difficulty when I need to change the language into English (the default was set into Bahasa Indonesia, with funny translation).

Google Chrome

I was thinking that this is a hybrid of Opera and Firefox, adopting the good parts and patch their leak. For example, something like Paste and Go is a familiar thing in Opera. Also the thumbnail for most visited pages remind me about Speed Dial in Opera.

I love the task manager, incognito mode, and the way they use tabs. Very handy and visually appealing.

But I think this browser miss some features: option to enable and disable stylesheet and option to display or not display image from web page. Menu to enable or disable javascript or plugin is also missing. But I can say this is very good for the first beta release :)

What Opera Dragonfly could be

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Opera DragonflyOpera 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.

Opera Mobile jumps from 8.6 to 9.5

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Opera Mobile
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.

Why don’t they use Opera

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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.

Design Inspirations and Opera Mini 5?

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Opera MiniI have a plan to re-design my other blog but still have no idea what to do with the color, placement etc. Until I reached Smashing Magazine and found two posts related to design. I also read a news from Opera Watch about an Indian magazine, My Mobile, that wrote about Opera Mini 5.

Here they are the links:

Happy reading, everyone!

Opera Mini 4 beta 2 released

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Opera 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!*

E, unique text editor for Windows

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E text editor

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 Edit – Free The Dragon!

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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/.