Yes, that”s right, a new version of the Opera browser is now available for download. If you use Opera to navigate the World Wide Web open a new tab and go to www.opera.com to get the new flashy version.

The Opera Turbo is basically a new feature that enables faster browsing on slower connections.

Opera has been redesigned and version 10 has a complete new interface with a fancy tabbed browsing feature; it shows thumbnails of the open tabs.

If you dig on their website you can find that they are already advertising a new version (10.10) which will include Opera Unite. Opera Unite is a new service that you can use which optimises the way you use the web. You will have Web server functionalities and it increases sharing of information even further.

Read more about this on unite.opera.com.

Opera 10 is the new version of that popular browser used mostly in mobile devices. In this article I will talk about the desktop/PC version. Will it have enough gimmicks to beat the most popular browsers? I”ve made a few tests and used this browser for a few hours and you can now read my thoughts on it. Besides Opera 10.0, I have installed in my laptop Mozilla Firefox 3.5.2, Internet Explorer 8.0.7100.0, Google Chrome 2.0.172.43 and Safari 4.0.530.17. I am running Windows 7 RC 64bit, have 4GB of RAM and have some other applications running in the background while using those browsers. This review is not a thorough one nor it replaces a proper review from one of the big dedicated sites out there. This is simply my opinion on this browser compared with the other ones I have.

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Today I just wanted to share my experience of upgrading the RAM of my gaming laptop, the XPS M1710 from DELL.
I’ve been wondering if it would be worth changing my 2x1GB of RAM for 2x2GB. Would I run applications faster? Do I really need those extra 2GB of RAM? I searched the web for some signs of wisdom which could lead me to the right path. Well, it was very insightful and I got the idea that yes, it is worth it.

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Paint.net 3.36 is still fresh. Get it from http://www.getpaint.net/download.html.

This is the new version of this amazing piece of imaging software. It’s free and it’s good. Here are the latest changes:

Improvements

• Effect rendering should be a little faster now.

Changes

• Implemented some changes to the “Add Noise” effect that were suggested by a forum member.
• The canvas background color is now always #c0c0c0.
• The auto-updater should now correctly detect .NET 3.5 and newer, which will help to save bandwidth when Paint.NET v4.0 is released (it will require .NET 3.5).

Fixes

• Paint.NET now works on a system that has the .NET 3.5 SP1 “Client Profile” installed.
• When zoomed in and the cursor is to the top-left of the image (negative coordinates), the ruler is now highlighted in the correct area.
• The effect rendering system no longer sets the “Tag” property on the configuration dialog.
• Some incorrectly authored plugins would cause a crash when loading their support details (author, copyright, etc.).
• There was a bug in the color wheel for IndirectUI that caused it to show the wrong values at initialization.
• There was a performance problem for effects that used the IndirectUI color wheel control.
• In some rare cases, Paint.NET would crash while shutting down.
• When using the “Fixed Ratio” feature of the Rectangle Selection tool, it would crash if 0 was specified for both the width and height.

Last weekend I decided to clean up my computer. No, not the dust inside it (I did that 2 weeks ago). My Windows installation was a bit slow and it was time to do a full clean.

I decided to install Windows Vista and Ubuntu Linux. It’s time to jump to the new operating system, I was still using XP. With Service Pack 1 and software houses already optimizing their software for Vista I think it is now the time to install it. Regarding Linux, from all the distributions available, I think Ubuntu is the best one for me. Clean interface, easy to use and update/install new software and good enough to use as a multi purpose server.

So, after I installed Windows and Ubuntu all was running perfectly. I even started to use Ubuntu as my preferred OS to play music, movies and to download from torrents. If you haven’t tried Linux yet, Ubuntu is a very user friendly that “almost” replaces Windows. I say almost because Windows has much more software support. So if you’re a gamer you probably want to stick with Windows (or buy an Xbox 360 ). But of course it all depends on your field of expertise and what you enjoy using. Some say Linux is the way to go, some say Windows and I had a friend of mine saying that Solaris is the one . I chose Windows and Linux.

Today I ran Media Direct (included in DELL laptops) and had an error. Running for a second time was ok (weird). This has caused my Grub boot loader not to start and to give an Error 17. There are lots of information out there about it. I actually spent around 2 hours researching how to get rid of it and to have my boot menu back.

This is how I got rid of the Grub error 17:

1. Boot from Live CD
2. Open a terminal session
3. Run “sudo grub” – It runs Grub with root permissions
4. In Grub prompt type “find /boot/grub/stage1″ – this will tell you where Grub was installed so that we can fix the boot
5. Still on Grub prompt: “root (hd?,?)” – Replace the ‘?’ with the values from the point 4 result. First ‘?’ is the hard drive, the second is the partition. This tells Grub that its files are on that specific partition.
6. Type “setup (hd0)” to install Grub into the MBR (Master Boot Record)
7. “quit” to exit Grub
8. You can now reboot and check if this fixed your Error 17. You should be able to boot properly now.

This has fixed my specific issue. If it didn’t help you, try reading the following articles which helped me understand what was going on. All of these can be found using “grub error 17″ on Google.

• http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=224351 - The one I used to fix my issue
• http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=442945 - A nice forum discussion about Error 17
• http://users.bigpond.net.au/hermanzone/p15.htm - Useful information about the Grub loader
• http://users.bigpond.net.au/hermanzone/SuperGrubDiskPage.html - Supergrub application
• http://www.iknowkungfoo.com/blog/index.cfm/2008/6/16/Stupid-solution-for-Grub-error-17 - Quick fix for some Error 17 issues

Apple just released Mac OS X 10.5.4. This new version brings only bug fixes and minor changes. No awesomeness here but a good update for Mac users. 

10.5.4 Fix List:

General

• Includes recent Apple security updates.
• Resolves an issue with saving and reopening Adobe Creative Suite 3 files on a remote server.
• Includes additional RAW image support for several cameras.
• Addresses an issue that may result in a partially installed X11 application.
• Improves L2TP VPN client reliability.

AirPort

• Addresses AirPort reliability issues with 5GHz networks.
• Addresses AirPort issues that may result in slower performance in Logic Studio or MainStage.

iCal

• Improves overall iCal reliability for meeting requests, cancellation notices, delegation, and syncing with iPhone.
• Resolves an issue that prevents deleting an iCal event without notifying the creator.
• Addresses an issue in which events in all calendars affect availability. A checkbox now enables information-only calendars to be transparent from free/busy lookups.
• Resolves a UI issue preventing delegated calendars from showing up as a separate window.
• Addresses an issue with copying and pasting attendees from one event to another.
• Resolves an issue in which iCal may not delete events after a specified time interval, even when set to do so in iCal preferences.
• Addresses an issue in which To Dos cannot be marked private.

Safari

• Addresses a potential performance issue when loading secure web pages.
• Resolves issues that may be encountered when accessing secure web pages with client certificates that reside on a smart card.

Spaces and Exposé

• Addresses an issue in which switching from a space with a Finder window keeps the Finder as the active application instead of the application residing in the destination space.
• Fixes an issue in which dragging an application from the list of application assignments in Spaces System Preferences does not assign the application to the desired space.
• Resolves an Exposé issue that may result in only a subset of windows being shown.

Source: Trusted Reviews

Some time ago I was quite interested in programming languages but that interest wore off because I found a bit hard to get a job on that area. Of course, things have changed and now it’s quite easy to get a job on that specific area. You can even choose what language you want to use. But now, and because I’m part of a Development team, although I’m not developing anything, the “bug” has returned and I feel like experimenting with new technologies out there.

I’ve been reading a bit about WPF and XAML. It seems like this is the future, or at least that’s what most people are saying. The first time I heard someone talking about that my question was “what the hell is that?”. Simply put XAML is very similar to XML and it stands for eXtensible Application Markup Language. WPF stands for Windows Presentation Foundation (complicated name). I am not going to explain what those things are and what you can do about it. The purpose of this article is to share, with someone also interested in learning a bit more about it (like me), a website that contains a nice bunch of tutorials that I found very interesting.

If someone knows about any interesting reading about these subjects drop me a line. Don’t forget I’m learning. Also need to spend some time looking at C# or VB. It’s been a long time without look at it.

You can check these in here: http://joshsmithonwpf.wordpress.com/a-guided-tour-of-wpf/

Michael Donnelly, the creator of Glider, a World of Warcraft ‘bot’ application, is being sued by Blizzard.

This software allows users to be away from the computer while the software plays the game for them. It is quite useful when doing all the boring bits in the game, like grinding for gold or other resources. But it is illegal. Glider is against the Terms of Service as provided by Blizzard for World of Warcraft, so you can try it at your own risk. And yes I can provide you with the link to their website

Check the whole article on the BBC website.

Glider website: http://www.mmoglider.com/.

Yep, WordPress 2.5 is out. Don’t forget to update your blog software, go and grab you copy now.

Lot’s of new features have been released with 2.5 including a less cluttered dashboard, widgets on the dashboard, multi-file upload with a progress bar (finally ), built-in galleries and so much more. Check it out: http://wordpress.org/development/2008/03/wordpress-25-brecker/

The long awaited Service Pack 1 for the new Microsoft Operating System is now available as a final release.

I haven’t installed it yet, but I am planning to do so. It will, hopefully, fix some issues performance wise and some bugs as well. If someone has any comments about it please post them here. Maybe there is someone out there with lots to tell about it

Check the original article.