OFFTOPIC: Desktop Opera users, a quick tip & what I'm working on

I've long been using the EXCELLENT Opera Web Browser on my UXGA (1600*1200) IBM Thinkpad mostly because it's by far the best Windows Web browser when it comes to zooming in to pages. The latter is a must on high-resolution notebook screens and is done in a much inferior way by both the latest version of Internet Explorer 7 (even under Vista (Ultimate)) and Mozilla / Firefox.

Opera, when you let it install (and use) the Flash plug-in, may result in high CPU usage if you navigate to a page, which contains a Flash animation. Unfortunately, it seems it just doesn't suspend the execution of these plug-ins when they are invisible (for example, when you're in another browser tab).

As high CPU usage corresponds to high power consumption (which is a bad thing on a notebook, particularly when operated on battery power), you may want to disable Flash in its entirety. Fortunately, this can be very easily done: just press F12, uncheck "Enable plug-ins" and restart the browser. (Re-enabling it is similarly easy: just check in the checkbox and restart the browser.)

Note that this bug doesn't affect Internet Explorer 7 - that is, you won't want to disable Flash support in IE7 in order to keep the power consumption down. But, if you do have a high-resolution (at least SXGA+) notebook, you'll NEVER want to use IE7. (Note that the article refers to the latest desktop Opera version, 9.23, run under all current Windows non-server operating systems (XP, Vista).)

BTW, in addition to the Best Software Awards 2007, I'm working hard on the promised Bibles. I'll also publish several other, mostly Enterprise Mobility-related articles (mostly, as usual, product roundups with tons of background & related information / explanation never ever before published anyone in the Windows Mobile world) in the next months. I'm also planning to publish a tutorial on GIS Russa, an excellent, and, now, FREE mapper software of Russian origin.

In the meantime, you may want to check out my Orions: The Second Age review again - I've continuously been updating and extending it.