Rescue dog looks like Phantom Of The Opera character

From: http://www.thesun.co.uk/

A nice tail ... Bruno has been rescued from a dog shelter

BRUNO the boxer was rescued from a dog shelter - because he looks like the Phantom of the Opera.

Show fans Tony and Christine Armstrong took him on after spotting his lookalike face.

They reckoned Bruno, three, was a ringer for the masked character made famous by Michael Crawford in the Andrew Lloyd Webber musical.

Retired Tony, 72, of Royston, Herts, said: "We love Phantom of the Opera and saw the likeness. Then Bruno licked my wife's hand and she fell for him."

Browser Speed Tests: iPhone's Mobile Safari vs. Opera Mini

From: http://lifehacker.com/

This morning Apple surprised everyone by approving the Opera Mini web browser for the iPhone and iPod touch, bringing one of the most popular mobile browsers to the most popular smartphone. So how does it stack up?

First of all, it's worth pointing out that Opera Mini has one big roadblock for iPhone and iPod touch users: Apple doesn't allow you to set any other application as the default for web browsing, so if you're opening links from other applications, like Mail, you'll still launch Mobile Safari when you click that link. (To use Opera Mini, you'd have to copy the link, close Mail, open Opera Mini, and paste the link.) That's a pretty big hurdle, but it's not the end of the world, especially since more and more apps display links in-app unless you explicitly choose to open a link in Safari. All that aside, you probably still open Safari directly when you want to do a lot of basic web browsing, so nothing's standing in the way of just launching Opera Mini in those instances instead.

So let's talk speed and performance. I don't have all the same options for testing these as we have when we do our normal browser performance tests (most notably, memory use is missing, but since multitasking isn't on the iPhone yet anyway, that doesn't much matter), but we'll try to tackle as many of the same tests as we can. (Also like our other performance tests, these aren't exactly scientific, but we do follow our own set of guidelines to get as accurate of results as we can on limited equipment. For these tests, I'm using my iPhone 3G.)

Browser Boot Up/Load Time; Split Decision... Probably Mobile Safari

This is a little bit of a tricky category. What I found when pitting the two against each other in launch time is that, while the Mobile Safari took significantly longer to launch from a cold start—that is, after having rebooted my iPhone entirely—it apparently resides in the iPhone's system memory from that point forward, meaning subsequent launches are nearly instantaneous. Opera, on the other hand, had a better cold startup time, but it doesn't have the benefit of sitting in the system memory, so every launch for Opera Mini is a "cold" launch.

Page Load Time; Winner: Opera Mini

To measure page load times, I timed five or so page loads on several popular sites over Wi-Fi, threw out the highest and lowest for each site, and then averaged them all out. In this category, Opera Mini absolutely pummeled Mobile Safari, especially on full versions of web sites like the New York Times front page (which partially rendered in Mobile Safari before it finished loading, but continued loading for over 40 seconds time and again).

JavaScript, DOM, CSS Speed; Winner: Mobile Safari

We used Mozilla's very cool Dramaeo browser performance testing tool to pit Mobile Safari's JavaScript, DOM, and CSS chops against Opera Mini's. Unfortunately, we learned pretty quickly that, while Mobile Safari slowly chugged through the test (slowly compared to desktop browsers, that is), Opera Mini failed to run with any of them.

That's not necessarily a huge black mark against the speed of Opera Mini, per se, since we couldn't actually pit the two against each other, but it speaks pretty loudly about which browser is currently capable of offering a more desktop-like experience, and that's Mobile Safari.

Keep in mind that we're not saying that a more desktop-like experience is necessarily preferable; you're on a mobile device, after all, and that desktop performance does seem to come with some trade-offs—like the page load times mentioned above.

Takeaway

It's pretty clear that, while Opera Mini features seriously impressive page load times, it's still behind Mobile Safari on several levels—some of its disadvantages are due to Safari's advantaged position as the system default, some of them probably have more to do with the youth of Opera Mini on the iPhone platform. You will, however, notice the considerably faster page loads when you're using Opera Mini, and with the web, speed is everything. If Opera could keep the speed and fix some of the rough edges, it could be really impressive.

Speed aside, use Opera Mini for a while and you'll quickly miss the smooth zooming of Mobile Safari and the nice font rendering. (When you're looking at a desktop version of a site zoomed all the way out on Opera Mini, the type renders as big blocks of color and is generally unreadable.)

(Click the image above for a closer look.)

Still, I'm holding out hope for Opera Mini. The speedy page loads alone make it an ideal browser for a quick lookup, and its tabbed browsing interface is, in my opinion, superior to Mobile Safari's.

If you've been kicking the tires on Opera Mini since its release this morning, let's hear how its measuring up for you in the comments.

Send an email to Adam Pash, the author of this post, at tips+adam@lifehacker.com.

Approved! Opera Has Made It Into The App Store

From: http://thenextweb.com
By: Brad McCarty
Brad is the editor of TNW's Google Channel, and a music junkie based in Nashville, TN. Find him on Twitter.

Opera just announced that their popular Mini mobile browser is now finally available for the iPhone and iPod Touch.

Opera has been tearing up the mobile browsing market, with more than 50 million users at present, and millions more now sure to come.

Lars Boilesen, CEO of Opera Software is quoted as saying “”We are delighted to offer iPhone and iPod touch users a great browsing experience with the Opera Mini App”.

More info, screenshots and a video after the jump.

For those of you pinching pennies, or on a data package that isn’t unlimited, you’ll be pleased to know that Opera uses compression methods that allow you to view a full website, yet download noticeably less data. This also serves as great information for those unlucky enough to be stuck on AT&T’s Edge connection, which is notoriously slow with large data transmissions.

So get to the App Store, grab the free Opera Mini (it will be available in the next 24 hours) and let us know what you think of it. We expect to see some great comments about this!

What’s that? You want a video demo? Why sure!

Brad McCarty
Brad is the editor of TNW's Google Channel, and a music junkie based in Nashville, TN. Find him on Twitter.

Opera Mini for iPhone Makes Browsing on (the) EDGE Actually Kind of Great

From: http://gizmodo.com/

"Why," you're probably asking, "would I want another browser on my iPhone, when mobile Safari's the best one around?" Because Opera Mini on the iPhone makes pokey EDGE feel like 3G. Check it out.

This whole demo's taking place on EDGE, and as you can see, it's pretty damn quick—especially considering it took place in Gawker's office, where reception tends to suck, in the middle of Manhattan around 4pm on a weekday. As you're probably familiar with by now, Opera Mini's the little browser that does all of the heavy crunching on the server side, and spits it out to your phone, making things much faster than if your phone and its slower connection did all the work.

Overall, it's the fastest I've ever felt Opera Mini perform across any platform. Everything happens instantly, and it feels really smooth, and polished. As with other versions of Opera Mini, there's no pinch-to-zoom, simply one-touch, fit to column, but the super speed makes that just fine, at least when it properly displays columns—it had a problem rendering Giz, for instance, but that was the only page where I had an "AHA it's broke" moment. (Expect other pages that give Opera Mini problems to still have issues here, since it's the same engine, after all.) It caches back pages, moving between them quickly, because Opera Mini is used to working with "tens of megabytes, and here we lots of megabytes of RAM to play with," says Opera founder and former CEO Jon von Tetzchner. What's really nice? Finding text in page, which Safari doesn't have.

It's functionally the same Opera Mini on other platforms, with mostly the same interface, just written in Objective C and optimized for iPhone. So you have syncing with other versions of Opera, and everything else you'd expect. The only difference, feature-wise, is that it saves your browsing state, down to your tab and position, which other versions of Opera Mini don't do.

They're submitting it like a normal app to the App Store sometime today. Tetzchner doesn't see why it would be rejected, arguing that it doesn't execute any code (which the SDK prohibits), it's just reading what the server sends to it. We'll see how Apple feels about that, but I hope they let it go, since it'd make life on EDGE for original iPhone users—and anybody in NY or SF, where AT&T reception is terrible, and EDGE is way more reliable—way more livable.

Opera Mini submitted to Apple's App Store

Oslo, Norway – March 23, 2010

Opera Mini for iPhone was officially submitted to the Apple iPhone App store today. A select few first saw it at Mobile World Congress 2010 in February. Now, the "fast like a rocket" browser is taking its first big step towards giving users a new way to browse on the iPhone.

Early reviews of Opera Mini for iPhone praised the sheer browsing speed, powering through Web pages up to six times faster than Safari. Due to server-side rendering, Opera Mini compresses data by up to 90 percent before sending it to the phone, resulting in rapid page loading and more Web per MB for the end user. Those familiar with iPhone roaming charges will relish Opera Mini's ability to deliver more for less, giving users the Web they want quickly, without, the high costs.

"The Opera Mini for iPhone sneak peek during MWC told us that we have something special," said Jon von Tetzchner, Co-founder, Opera Software. "Opera has put every effort into creating a customized, stylized, feature-rich and highly responsive browser that masterfully combines iPhone capabilities with Opera's renowned Web experience, and the result is a high performing browser for the iPhone."

Opera Mini is the world's most popular mobile Web browser, famed for bringing the Web to nearly any mobile phone. Its speed, usability and navigation-friendly design have catapulted this browser onto more than 50 million mobile phones worldwide. Creating a version for iPhone is part of Opera's mission to bring the Web to all platforms and all devices.

[Opera]

iPhone browsing could be faster with Opera -- if Apple approves

By Doug Gross, CNN

Opera clearly covets the iPhone's devoted and active user base.

CNN will have complete coverage of the 2010 South by Southwest Interactive Conference at www.cnn.com/TECH and @cnntech on Twitter.

Austin, Texas (CNN) -- The company behind the Web browser Opera is weeks away from submitting it to Apple's iPhone store for approval, a spokesman said Friday.

The result, according to the Norwegian company, would be a browser up to six times faster than the iPhone's default Web tool, Safari.

The question raised by the plans -- and the major publicity push Opera made last month at the Mobile World Conference in Barcelona, Spain -- is whether Apple will approve the application -- in effect creating competition for its own product.

At the South By Southwest Interactive festival in Austin, Opera spokesman Thomas Ford demonstrated for CNN the Opera Mini app being developed for the iPhone.

"I can't positively say the time frame, but I can say it's very soon," Ford said when asked when the app would be officially submitted to Apple. Asked whether it would be weeks or months, he said "weeks."

In the smartphone market, Opera currently is available on BlackBerry, Windows Mobile and Android platforms. Opera Mini is huge on non-smartphone mobile phones, accounting for much of its more than 50 million monthly users worldwide, according to the company.

But the company clearly covets the iPhone's devoted and active user base.

At the Barcelona conference, the company pushed Opera Mini hard -- an unusual approach for an application that hasn't yet been submitted, much less approved.

But Ford downplayed the notion that the push was meant to put pressure on Apple.

"This is a very, very complete beta," he said. "We were definitely ready to show it to people. We wanted people to see what it would do."

Apple did not respond to an e-mail seeking comment for this report.

While developers have sometimes complained that the Cupertino, California-based computer giant's standards for apps are sometimes hard to understand, Apple has been consistently clear on one point -- apps aren't accepted if they duplicate a function the iPhone already does.

Opera argues that Mini and Safari are different, saying Opera Mini is quicker at downloading regular Internet pages while Safari's design makes it more apt for more data-intensive functions, such as editing a Google document.

Opera's process involves running Web pages through their servers, stripping away all but the most essential data so the pages load quickly.

Whether that's enough of a distinction for Apple to allow another Web browser onto the iPhone remains to be seen.

"I wouldn't say we're trying to back Apple into a corner," Ford said. "We feel that we're very much following their rules."

How to Download Embedded Flash Files using your Browser

By Saikat Basu

Today, Flash is everywhere. Animations, music, games, advertisements or even streaming presentations. Speaking of games, here’s a list of site with the best flash games.

The use of Flash plug-ins in browsers is now almost obligatory. Yes, it’s easy to view and enjoy the rich media content delivered by interactive Flash embedded pages. But what if I want to download some of these files as keepsakes? The greatest benefit – I can watch them offline in my own jolly time. Convert them to a format of my choice. Or embed them again in a PowerPoint presentation. Or even transfer them to my mobile phone.

Flash animation files are embedded as SWF (Small Web Format) files in webpages. Rather than depending on any software or a third-party website, downloading Flash content is dead simple. The only tool required is a browser and a bit of patience to do the rummaging around.

Just one note: As we will be heading into the internet cache folders of the respective browsers, it pays to clear it of all old files before navigating to the desired page. It makes the Flash file search a lot easier.

So, here’s how to do it in three of our popular browsers.

Download SWF files using Firefox

1. Fire up Firefox and browse to the page which contains the embedded SWF Flash file that you are eyeing to download. Let the SWF file stream through once completely.
2. On any empty part of the page, right-click and select the Page Info context menu option. Or alternatively, go to Tools – Page Info.

   

3. Select the Media tab. The Media tab lists all image formats, icons, style sheets and flash files that were rendered by the webpage.

   

4. Look amongst the items to find the particular file with the SWF extension. The type column will show up with an Embed filetype. Highlight the file and click Save as to save the file on your hard drive.

Download SWF files using Internet Explorer

In IE8, we have to head to the Temporary Internet Files folder which stores all rendered files during a browsing session. (It can be directly accessed from here in Windows XP - C:\Documents and Settings\Username\Local Settings\Temporary Internet Files.)

1. Go to the IE Menu bar. Click on Tools – Internet Options.
2. On the General tab, click on Settings under Browsing History.
3. The Temporary Internet Files and Browsing History box opens up.

   

4. Click on View Files. You will get all the rendered webpage elements in this folder.
5. To rummage about effectively amidst the mass of files, choose View – Arrange by Type from the menu. Also go to Tools – Folder Options, and uncheck the Hide extensions for known file types option.
6. Seek out your SWF files, copy and then paste it to your preferred location.

   

Download SWF files using Opera

In Opera, downloaded SWF files can be accessed in two simple ways –

• Type opera:cache in the address bar.
• Go to Tools – Advanced – Cache from the toolbar.

Either way, a huge list of downloaded page elements opens up with their URLs. Search for a file with the .swf extension. Alternatively, you could search (Ctrl+F ) and hunt it down, with swf as the search query.

Right-click on the particular file and choose either Saved Linked Content As or Save to Download Folder to save the SWF file on the hard disk.

After downloading the SWF file, one can use the Adobe Flash Player to view the Flash file or a supported media player like Media Player Classic. Or, an easier way would be to just open it in a browser by right-clicking it and selecting the browser of choice.

These are the ways we can use to single out the Flash files from a webpage. In my experience, I personally have been more comfortable with Firefox than the other two. I am still searching a way perform this in Chrome but it is proving impossible without third-party support. Numerous third-party tools can do the same job better by converting it to a format of your choice. But it always pays to know that you can fall back on a browser alone.

Aibek had the same idea about offline Flash files when he covered How To Download and Play Flash Games Offline in a previous post. That post extends the possibilities of the fun we can have with Flash files.

What about you? Do you let it play on the webpage or do you dig under and take a Flash file offline?