Expert: Werner "Menneisyys" Ruotsalainen

The final version of Opera Mini 4.1, one of the best Web browsers available, has just been released; see THIS for more info. I’ll post a detailed multiplatform review in some days, after having used it for some time on all my three mobile operating systems.

Finnish computer mag Tietokone has just published a summary of their desktop browser speed test published in their (offline) papermag. Currently, I only have access to the online summary (while I'm a paying subscriber to their mag, it hasn't arrived yet). I'll let you know when there's anything else of interest in the article as soon as I receive the offline version - it's promised to be pblished tomorrow (which means subscribers living in abroad receive it shoon thereafter).

They state the current desktop Opera 9.5 b2 is considerably faster than both Internet Explorer 8 b2 and Mozilla Firefox 2. It's only Apple's Safari and Mozilla Firefox 3 beta 5 that turned out to be faster. It has also turned out to be faster with both normal- and Flash-based contents.

I've always preferred using Opera to IE on my 15" UXGA (1600*1200) Thinkpad because, even as of IE8b2, Opera 9.5 has far better zoom-in capabilities (which is essential on an UXGA or WUXGA 15" notebook), particularly when zooming into forum pages; not to mention its standards compliance (see my latest reports HERE).

I've just posted a new section to the YouTube Bible. See section UPDATE (05/12/2008) at the bottom.

Because of the huge prices of traditional (non-Internet-based) video phoning services, several Symbian users have been praising TiVi, a VoIP app / service with video phoning and, at least on Symbian, front camera support capabilities. As it also has a Windows Mobile version, I gave it a very thorough, three-platform (desktop Windows, Symbian and Windows Mobile) ride to find out what it's really capable of.

1.1 Registration, Web page

Fortunately, using the service for TiVi - TiVi connections is absolutely free (as opposed to what some people state in some Symbian forums) and works over fully (on both sides) firewalled connections. To being able to reach your buddies, you'll need to register a nickname on the central server. This is pretty easy and can be done HERE.

You'll also need to download the client software; it's available for the desktop HERE and for mobile platforms HERE. Install it; after starting it, press the left softkeys on both mobile platforms and go to Config. There, fill in your login name / password. After this, you'll become available for the others; using your nick instead of a "traditional" number will work when calling you. Note that it also has a built-in Contacts list and also has access to the system-level contacts, offering (of course, non-free - as opposed to in-network calls) dial-out capabilities for them.

Note that the page and the service themselves are pretty far away from being professional. Latvian is used on some both the Web pages (even when using English) and, which is even worse, in the answering machine. This, of course, isn't that problematic, particularly if you speak some Slavonic language because, then, you'll understand at least the last two words of the answering machine message and can deduce what takes place. And, it's only in the first occasion that this can cause any kind of confusion.

1.2 Screenshots

(a Symbian shot showing the output of the HTC Universal - that is, the Nokia itself, me trying very hard to make a screenshot on it. In the upper left corner, you can also see Nokia's own camera image (of the Universal, with 180 degrees rotated screen, in front of it). Note that the Symbian version, in addition to stopping / restarting video, also supports switching between the front/back cameras if you press 0. By default, the front camera is used, of course.)

(a Windows Mobile HTC Universal screenshot showing the image received from the Nokia N95 and its own picture in the upper left corner. As you can see, the client doesn't even display a button shortcut to switch between the front and the back cameras)

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In my last (and, now, heavily outdated) article on making Opera Mini 4 be invoked on by just clicking a URL, I’ve already elaborated on the advantages of doing this (and, actually, the advantages of Opera Mini 4 itself). Please do read it if you want to know why making use of direct invocation can be really advantageous.

Because there’s a lot of news worth reporting on (and I’ve been asked by Serola to join the Opera Mini Fan Blog as the first blogger, because of which I've decided to update this really important tutorial) and the original article didn’t elaborate on other mobile platforms like Symbian and BlackBerry, I’ve decided to devote an entirely new article to this question.

1.1 badbob101’s StartOperaMini
(the download is at the bottom of the first post; as of 05/12/2008, 09b is the latest version, which you'll want to go for.)

I recommend this solution the most because it’s really-really easy to install and maintain and it’s much more flexible than, say, superdave’s, otherwise, in some respects cleaner and faster solution.

All you need to do is, in order to set it up, downloading and installing the free MortScript (just copy the MortScript-4.1-PPC.cab file from the cab subdirectory of the ZIP file to your handset and tap it there) and, then, just copying StartOperaMini.mscr anywhere (including a storage card) on your handset and, as with MortScript, clicking it from File Explorer. It’ll automatically find the current location of Jbed, the index of Opera Mini and set up everything just fine. Unlike with the early solution, absolutely no manual setup is needed.

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In several of my articles, Bibles, W3C presentations etc., I’ve explained what HTTP User-Agents are, what they can be used for if you’re a webmaster etc. As my previous articles (see THIS, THIS and THIS, in addition to the W3C presentation and the two Web Browsing Bibles HERE and HERE) on the subject got a bit outdated with the latest browsers and firmware versions out there, I’ve re-checked the User-Agents. This time, I also provide you with all the other headers, should you want to correctly identify the mobile browser even if it’s User-Agent spoofed (that is, it’s trying to hide its identity). Note that I don’t explain what this info is used for – I’ve already done this several times in the above-linked articles, read them first if you need more info on the usage of all this info.

Internet Explorer Mobile (IEM)

WM6.0 Classic (HP iPAQ 210, official ROM):

Accept: */*
Accept-Language: en-us
UA-OS: Windows CE (Pocket PC) - Version 5.2
UA-color: color16
UA-Voice: FALSE
UA-pixels: 480x640
UA-CPU: ARM
Accept-Encoding: gzip,deflate
User-Agent: Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows CE; IEMobile 7.7)
Connection: Keep-Alive

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