Being best Innovator is enough ?.. OPERA 10 ... (Innovation & Performance)

           The best innovator and well recognized browser maker Opera made its mark again with dashing new browser Opera 10. I always look at Opera products to see what they got this time, as what they bring is what u gets in IE, Firefox, Safari, Chrome etc in their latest build. The tab browsing feature is coolest feature of the today's browsers, thanks to Opera but they set the expectation high for their new version and they met it. Opera 10 PC browser and Opera mini are awesome. But I won't get into comparative analysis as it will bring the bad score to the Opera mini, the best in its class for handhelds, so all the contents here by refers only to the Opera PC browser.

Whazz new? Opera Unite & Opera turbo: - Opera introduced a awesome application well embedded with the Browser itself. A new way of being online. This is what Google wave, Microsoft Live or web portals needs to be designed as.... all in one place easy to use easy to configure etc. 

        

           Remarkable feature of the Opera Unite is to avoid uploading the files you want to share on third party servers, just create your network and share the resources between them. The Opera unite file server is well integrated with the build in web hosting, Now just donn share the files and information (pics, music, short message etc.), share your thoughts too, via a webpage. Design your web page and seek a URL from Opera unite and use it to share just the link in the network.

           Blog access and fridge notes are pretty good new things for BlogSpot & tweeter lovers, its all the same way and similar. All Unite needed was a interactive built in chat messenger for the users between the network, or something similar like Google wave a dashboard to chat on. But still overall the Opera Unite is the application to work on and good enough to grant the Opera the prestige it deserves being a innovator.

           Opera turbo is another cool application which performed very well in my test run, and is capable of providing some speed (Sub conscious mind said that), Its a cool add-on to the browser that compresses the image up to 80% in best case (some compromise to quality), to display the contents quicker. Best part of this application is easy accessibility on the bottom corner, as any time turn on or off switch.

Whazz still same? Menu and accessibility: - The menu and accessibility options are very orthodox, its a crap to have kinda menu structure Opera has. From one option to another all stone age era arrangement of the accessibility. Opera needs to seriously needs to work on it. They have examples to follow, look at IE, Firefox, Chrome and Safari, how well arranged and mannered they are. Let’s take an example of built in search bar on right top corner: -

 

           Opera has tie up with Google and is getting good revenue for placing Google search at the top of the search provider list, no problem, I love Google search, but where is Bing or Yahoo search, donn keep them up but at least keep them in the default list . These are prominent search providers too. But anyways adding these search providers in the list is not easy, one has now to go through various menu options and then add up a new search provider. This is crazy.

           The Opera unite looses the charm when the drag and drop files in the file sharing, media sharing or picture sharing controls are absent, need to follow the traditional way  of browse select  file and add.

Performance: -   Opera 10 like other followers from Opera lacks in performance, Browser hanging was one, for many reasons. The competitive browsers have made the tab browsing significant by considering all the tabs as independent process, to counter the browser crash. The new features of Opera doesn't works on these facts, if the Opera Unite hangs or doesn't responds well one can't kill it or Opera tries to recover it, rather restart the browser. This is one of the main reason performance troubles for Opera in new release.

           On the speed test for opening the web pages, Opera did well. I wasn't able to figure out much of difference being a generic end user between IE, Firefox and new Opera 10.All Opera has to do now is to be popular and get rich add-on support from developers.

Finally: -

          Opera 10 has lot compared to the last version as it has well integrated features and new offerings for the user. The Opera just need to make the cool things coolest, sharpen the edges of the applications by making them mre interactive and happening. The picture upload option should have add on- like that is present for Hotmail or live window, quick and fast selection and sharing.

          Opera browsers are good to give a shot but to gain popularity Opera needs to think the way users want and the Users are addicted to IE & Firefox. Play the games as the rule says, donn make rules for your own game, or else is not the same sport. Just being innovator is not enough if the innovation doesn’t has exposure or adaptability. Statistics is the analysis in itself, if its business do it like business.

Visualization and Infographics ............ MS Vedea inline to Processing

 Insight: -

               Picture and animation says more than words, so is the effort involves in creating the visualization for the idea. A dedicated graphic language is needed to give better processing and regards to shapes. But still better visualization processing languages are derivatives of the existing high level languages, whazz needed is the extensive studio and interoperability over heterogeneous world.

               Microsoft's Vedea seems to be the future to enhance the existing Processing 1.x applications beyond java. Microsoft is yet to make this application public but the introduction is like any other Microsoft projects its flashy and eye catching. Microsoft's computation studio seems to be addressing "infographics, data visualizations and computational art" (they claim so...), in the easiest possible way by inlining itself to the existing Processing 1.x application.

            The visualization and graphic processing applications are very significant, as it doesn't needs domain specialization and high end programming expertise. If you got more, these applications will get you more. These graphic processing applications provide easy way to do the easy thing, a dedicated compiler to address the codes. 

             I didn't have much of experience towards the graphics and image processing world, but it seems exciting the way Microsoft has put things under Vedea project. Its supposed to be supported via computational studio. When its Microsoft’s product then considering application being user friendly and feature rich are obvious terms. 

         
Glimpse of the Processing application: -

             Image processing, graphic designing or visualization computation is very cumbersome on languages like Java, C, C# etc, need to write lot of codes to draw a line, and also knowledge of the languages. But I tried the Processing application, best open source application for the purpose. Tried drawing some quick shapes like, line, circle, eclipse etc. Its awesome just do what you want, want to draw a basic line use line function and give the co-ordinates to it thats it.      

              Easy to manage two important aspects of the application 1. setting up the frame 2. Placing and managing the components over it. Use the function setup() place everything in it and use the function draw() and place the components accordingly. The application has event driven built in functions.

 

           The processing application has java background, and supports Java well. Microsoft's Vedea seems to be starting with Silverlight and Windows platform support i.e. after first public release interoperability will be supported not good for linux and solaris users (they seems to be busy with some other application, that is good enough though). Seems a good plan to begin with but they have a nice benchmark set by Processing to achieve.

          Most important part is the web support and interoperability. When we highlight the mighty web, the application should be able to integrate well on the client-server architecture and be able to manage resources well. The Processing application helps generating images and graphics which can be managed and deployed well over the application server.

         The second part is interoperability it involves support of lot of applications and platforms, so does needs easy accessible APIs and add-ons. I didn't tried Processing application well, but it seems from examples posted and derivatives available that its easy to convert the program to applets, PDF documents, interactive for user feeds, openGL support etc., and has rich API library support for Java.

           The Visualization processing and graphics world seems like taking shape with decent considerations with dedicated, simplified, interactive and feature rich application development studios and languages. Seems like more to come to user to avail just have to keep up with the advancements.