Database Users

Opera 8.60 for Windows Mobile, Pocket PC

Download and info here:
http://www.opera.com/products/mobile/products/winmobileppc/
MaX

Downloaded the cab, installed to storage card (the new version removed the old version), ran Opera, it asked me if I wanted to register (17 Euros), I said Okay.
Then I had to tell Opera.com my IMEI in order to get a registration code. I found the IMEI in Settings\Indentity.
When I received the reg code, I ran Opera, selected Tools\register, and then there appeared a box asking for the reg code plus another box showing the "Device ID". The device ID number was completely different from my IMEI, and needless to say, now opera does not accept the registration code. Now I have to write Opera for a new reg code.
So, I would advise all to check the "device id" that opera uses, and provide that number when requesting the registration code, rather than the IMEI found in your PPC's Settings.

Is it just me, or does the large icon for opera have a white background (rather than being a ransparent background as it should be)?

BillB said:
Is it just me, or does the large icon for opera have a white background (rather than being a ransparent background as it should be)?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
also here!!!!
using pocketplus large icon....
MaX

Just my two cents, I've been a big user of the data service, particularly browsing, and found Opera the best browser... almost. A much better alternative is to RDP home, and use whatever you have there. No more need to worry about user agent strings, java or flash, plus, it's (suprisingly) a lot faster. The VJ fullscreenTSC utility is particulary useful for that purpose.

mdaexecfan said:
Just my two cents, I've been a big user of the data service, particularly browsing, and found Opera the best browser... almost. A much better alternative is to RDP home, and use whatever you have there. No more need to worry about user agent strings, java or flash, plus, it's (suprisingly) a lot faster. The VJ fullscreenTSC utility is particulary useful for that purpose.
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Was thinking of trialling Netfront - Can i ask why you think Opera beats Netfront in your eyes?
Thanks
Matt

i was using netfront before i switched to opera and i must say that opera is the best by far.

I find Opera completely useless for most sites:
try www.o2.co.uk on both Opera and Netfront 3.3 and see the difference.
or try new.bbc.co.uk on both
THERE IS NO WAY I WILL EVER USE OPERA.

matt1971 said:
Was thinking of trialling Netfront - Can i ask why you think Opera beats Netfront in your eyes?
Matt
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Because with the 'fit to screen' option, Opera resizes the pixs and everything on the webpages - keeping them in proportion with the text. Netfront doesnt, so you end up with horizontal scroolbars and unreadable pages, while the opera-rendered ones looks just like the ones on a regular desktop computer.

I agree, my experience with opera is bad. It locks up all the time and can't be dissuaded from dumping tons of temp data in main storage memory.
Netfront is much better. The fonts on netfront are a bit wierd and its no way perfect though!

RE
Quote
"I find Opera completely useless for most sites:
try www.o2.co.uk on both Opera and Netfront 3.3 and see the difference.
or try new.bbc.co.uk on both
THERE IS NO WAY I WILL EVER USE OPERA."
No problem for the mentioned 2 sites if you'll to set OPERA to 'Fit to screen'

Re: RE
FOSA said:
Quote
No problem for the mentioned 2 sites if you'll to set OPERA to 'Fit to screen'
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Click to collapse
Exactly - bbc.co.uk is brilliant on opera 'fit to screen'. I find it unusable on netfront.

Sorry, I meant to say the Opera is useless on Universal (mine MDA Pro) compared to NetFront.
I wouldn't use it if they paid me to.

One advantage is netfront 3.3 allows you to log onto more secure sites and if you fiddle with the settings does look and work better for me than Opera but they still haven't relesed the final pay for version and my trial version has ran out

samsul said:
Sorry, I meant to say the Opera is useless on Universal (mine MDA Pro) compared to NetFront.
I wouldn't use it if they paid me to.
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Click to collapse
I use Opera on my Universal since the first Beta and all I can say is that it's the closest you can get to a "real" browsing experience on the PDA. The only "better" sollution would be to use some sort of RDP, as mentioned above.
I don't know what you do with your Universal, but on mine, in TrueVGA, Opera is simply great.

Almost as crappy as beta 2! Still very much work in progress - few bugs havn't been fixed, map hardware buttons??, flash??!. Also i'm not sure about you guys but Netfront (latest TP - D2) seems to render about 90% of websites (using WiFi) much quicker than Opera and is more responsive too. What's up with that?!?

Has anyone read the press release fully?
Here it is. http://www.opera.com/pressreleases/en/2006/05/31/
One bit that jumped out at me was this.
The first operators to ship Windows Mobile devices with Opera Mobile(TM) pre-installed are T-Mobile through their Web'n'Walk offering, and the leading Japanese operator, Willcom.
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Has anyone seen Opera on a released T-mobile phone, or is it more likely the t-mobile have been holding up the release of ROMs in the UK market until they could put Opera out at the same time? If this is true then should we be expecting to see an AKU2 ROM for the MDA PRO with opera embedded sometime soon?

matt1971 said:
Was thinking of trialling Netfront - Can i ask why you think Opera beats Netfront in your eyes?
ThanksMatt
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I have found NetFront to be AWESOME. I have it set so I see full webpages with very little jumbling or problems.
Combine it with FlexMail and you got a basic internet package on the go..
That said, I will give the new Opera a spin.. Why not.. Everything since I installed the latest DOPOD ROM has been working flawlessly and well I cant have that..
Charles

samsul said:
Sorry, I meant to say the Opera is useless on Universal (mine MDA Pro) compared to NetFront.
I wouldn't use it if they paid me to.
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Click to collapse
Considering that the opinions are so divergent, yet we all come equipped with (pretty similar) sets of eyeballs, I reckon I'm going to take screenshots of both netfront and opera rendering of common webpages and will post them here.

I am a web designer and think the differences of opinions are all to do with how the site's are coded in terms of fixed widths and such like in the html or xhtml and CSS.
Netfront is definitly better for me as web designer for checking on the fly changes for clients sites but for simply viewing sites informtion then I think the new opera mini works quite well and keeps data trafic low.

Skyfire UK release

Ok, So we've all been told about how Skyfire will change the way we use mobile internet. But has anyone got any idea when we will be able to use it. I have my beta code, and I can find nothing regarding its release.
In the USA the Beta has gone down rather well, albeit a few complaints about the fact that the speed is not what was promised.
Any one with Info please add to the thread.

Taken from the www.skyfire.com website.
Skyfire rolls out UK mobile browser
by Dan Leahul, Brand Republic 12-Dec-08, 11:10
LONDON - The Skyfire mobile web browser is available for download in the UK and the company claims its internet speeds are the fastest in the market.
The browser advertises itself as the "real web" experience, with proprietary software that makes mobile browsing comparable to using a PC.
Free to download, Skyfire ensures users "will not encounter unrecognizable content, unfamiliar page layouts, or missing content, like they do with other mobile browsers."
The browser is compatible with any internet technology, including advanced Flash, Ajax, Silverlight and Java. It also supports Quicksilver, QuickTime and Windows Media video.
The beta version was successfully rolled out in the US and Canada in February and is available for a number of handsets, including most Nokia E or N phones.
Nitin Bhandari, Skyfire chief executive, said: "Consumers in the UK have been promised the 'real web' on their phone 'real fast' only to be disappointed by slow rendering, no Flash support, error messages, watered down WAP pages or second-rate mobile versions of their favourite site.
"Skyfire has remedied those ills at a speed not seen before on the mobile platform. By extending the PC web experience to mobile phones, we are fundamentally changing the way people use their phones."

but...
Do you have sound on your skyfire???
Me not!!!

uk download???
is the uk something special....i.e will bbc iplayer work out of the box???
where is the uk download link....or am i missing something?

Well, i've downloaded it onto my universal today (go to www.skyfire.com on your device) and it seems to work ok. A few crashes and things. it doesn't like "waking up" and the today plug in doesn't work properly but the browser itself works.
Youtube works out of the box but iPlayer doesn't (on my 3G connection anyway, will try on wifi later)

Skyfire is still in beta guys its not perfect.
And yes i have sound in mine.

Internet Explorer Mobile 6 - Something worth looking forward to...

Hi,
IE 6 for mobile devices has been anncounced. When will it be available? Can't say for sure, but for more info including screenshots, go here: http://www.theunwired.net/?item=bro...obile-6-aka-6-on-6-is-real-and-shows-its-face
I really like the compatibility option in IE6! Not to mention, it'll include flash.
Looks like with this or skyfire, we won't have any problem with flash sites on Xperia or any other mobile device for that matter...
Best regards.

Thanks for the link! Wish they mention flash and silverlight though.

htcplussony said:
Thanks for the link! Wish they mention flash and silverlight though.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This was what was said by Microsoft when it first announced IE Mobile 6: "The new version of Internet Explorer Mobile adds the ability to easily view full-screen Web pages and multimedia on the Web with a smartphone. By taking advantage of Internet Explorer 6 technologies and supporting established and upcoming industry standards such as H.264, Adobe Flash and Microsoft Silverlight, the updated Internet Explorer Mobile gives people a rich mobile Internet experience."

hard to get excited imho
most people who are into computer
are moving away from all browsers
made by ms as they are less secure and
behind with nicking features from the rest
and a lot slower
i'll take a chome, opera, firefox or even safari on my wm
device before i turn back to PIE

i tried chrome, i moved back to explorer!
chrome is like a lite version of explorer.

I used to think I felt that way, but I find myself more and more turning to PIE when I just want to check Facebook or Engadget. I can browse one handed, and over GPRS it's much faster (not the browser itself, but as the mobile versions of these pages bring down much less data...) and loads up faster as well. I still like Opera for the full web experience but PIE does come in handy...much better on my battery life as well.

Talking of browsers from Microsoft... (not on mobile device) you should definitely check out IE 8 Beta preview... it has improved a lot!
I have Firefox and Chrome installed on my laptop, but mostly use IE.

i perfer PIE too, it loads instantly!
Opera Mobile 9.5 takes 2-3 seconds to load.
i love Opera mobile 9.5 too, i use it for those sites that PIE cant handle.

After having security problems in the past only with IE, i will never use it again except for special microsoft offices updates. Firefox does the work for me better and more safe. Never had problems with firefox since it is out

pf said:
After having security problems in the past only with IE, i will never use it again except for special microsoft offices updates. Firefox does the work for me better and more safe. Never had problems with firefox since it is out
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I kind of went through that same phase... IE had become completely unreliable. But disabling pop-ups pretty much took care of any such problems, not to mention adding a spyware to the machine doesn't hurt either.

SkyFire running on X1!

http://get.skyfire.com/
Skyfire, the mobile browser for Nokia S60 and Windows Mobile devices, has broadened its beta testing to include the UK and no longer requires users to register with the service.
Skyfire works by using a proxy server, including a UK-based one, to do all the heavy processing and just renders content on the mobile device. Opera Mini works in much the same way, optimising content through a proxy, but Skyfire takes that further with support for Flash, Java, AJAX and Silverlight, as well as rendering content from YouTube and the BBC's iPlayer.
According to Skyfire this is "the first time you'll be able to view the entire web on your mobile device". You'll have to excuse us if we claim to have heard that before, but at least the company makes no claim to have the whole internet available.
Early betas of Skyfire had problems with stability and clumsy interface components, as well as being limited to US users (at least officially), but these areas have been addressed in the latest version (0.8.5), which apparently offers better zoom control and management of bookmarks.
We say "apparently" as we've not managed to get the beta installed yet - our Windows Mobile device is of the wrong resolution, while the nearest S60 handset won't recognise the Skyfire certificate. But if you have a less esoteric device handy the beta is free to download.
Skyfire would still like you to register with them, offering the opportunity to store your bookmarks and cookies in the cloud and take them between devices - the company is funded with $17.8m of VC capital and is going to want to make money at some point. The use of proxies provides the potential for embedded advertising or a subscription service, though the company will be hoping to charge handset manufacturers to pre-install their browser as the best mobile experience available. ®
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Says it wont run on the X1. Just use the wvga fix to get it running

Not in United States, Canada, or United Kingdom, so can't download.

im rather intrested in the Firefox mobile version.

Added it as an attachment if you cant download it

Browser which doesn't use the entire screen isn't very useful IMO.

Currently, we support Windows Mobile and Symbian S60 (3rd edition) platforms, and run on these phones:
Windows Mobile phones: Skyfire runs on Microsoft Windows 5, 6, and 6.1. We support VGA and QVGA screen resolutions. Skyfire runs on many popular Windows Mobile phones including the HTC Tilt, HTC Touch Diamond, HTC Fuze, Motorola Q and Q9, Palm Pro, Palm 800W and Samsung Blackjack II. To check if your phone is compatible with our OS and resolution requirements, please refer to the Microsoft website.
Skyfire will not run on Windows Mobile PDAs. Skyfire runs on phones only.
Skyfire will not run on WVGA Windows Mobile phones (e.g. 800x480 resolution or similar that differs from 640x480 VGA).
ok wtf i'm confused

Yeah, i sooo totally bought this phone to run applications on 2/3 of my screen.
Dont get me wrong, it is nice for some people that it works, but i will not install crap like wvgafix' because some program does not know how to scale on different resolution screens.
If i wanted VGA res, i'd would've bought a Diamond / TP instead.
btw, no offence to the programmer of wvgafix, but IMO it should'nt be necesary in the first place.

SomeoneSimple said:
Yeah, i sooo totally bought this phone to run applications on 2/3 of my screen.
Dont get me wrong, it is nice for some people that it works, but i will not install crap like wvgafix' because some program does not know how to scale on different resolution screens.
If i wanted VGA res, i'd would've bought a Diamond / TP instead.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Your loss, the reason why SkyFire is VGA is due to the fact that it's not really a browser, but a viewer to their server.
The image displayed is nothing more than an upscalled QVGA.
However you can now listen to Last.fm and watch Hulu/BBC iPlayer (depending on your location).
Also a large number of apps were built before WVGA was even considered. Yes some developers will create new versions, but others will have stop working on the projects years ago.

support for low-bandith friendly transcoding proxy in Opera 9.7[Opera Turbo]

edit Feb13: Opera Turbo http://www.opera.com/press/releases/2009/02/12/ does exactly what i want to do. so does toonel (it refuses to run on my device though)
anybody willing to work on this? i looked it up but got nothing as there are no full-fledged bandwidth friendly web browser.
adding the ability for opera mobile to use these proxies (like opera mini) would make opera far more usable to many people that use their phones on hsdpa/3g/edge/gprs
UCweb and opera mini both use a transcoding proxy for all their http traffic. for example loading www.engadget.comm on opera mobile is about 1MB vs only 80KB for the same page on UCweb or 90kb on opera mini. the smaller version have no flash and lower quality pictures (not that important on a phone tiny screens and resolutions)
for me a good compromise is to use two browsers one for wifi (opera mobile with all it cool features) and another for 3g/edge(UCweb). but i rather simplify my life + it would be really good to make use of all the extra featurs of opera mobile when browsing in low badwidth mode

btw
for thoes that dont know it, the advantages of using a browser like opera mini and UCweb:
-significantly cheaper (should be about %80 cheaper)for thoes that dont have flat rate.
-much faster experiance especially for thoes who are on edge.
-better battery life since you can turn off 3G and still maintain a reasonable speed browsing the low badwidth version of the same page on edge/gprs.
-telco blocked sites work

I dunno about a proxy you can configure your browser onto. But I do know:
http://www.skweezer.com/ and the (IMHO) better http://www.mlvb.net/ since its a lot more configurable.

thanks schaggo
your two sites are very usuful to what i want to do indeed. i will play with them some more to see if i can get them to run better on my wvga Xperia
it would however be very useful to to somehow get opera mobile make to use them or a similar site as proxy with a flick of a button.
i wonder if such a simple and useful feature is on the to do list of a future opera mobile version

I havent thought that one through, but couldnt you just set a prefix in the options (opera:config) which goes like http://www.mlvb.net/ which then would preceed all the adresses you enter. No...?

You should check Toonel
http://www.toonel.net/
It is free and it has a windows mobile version (check the downloads page).
I used it a couple of times with opera mobile and it works.

This is abso-excuse me-****ing-lutely great! Seriously, in 3 years I was looking for something like this and today you point it out to me!
Do you maybe want a new car? Or coffee machine? Maybe my wife?

never got toonel to work on my device but i just got to read this
http://wmpoweruser.com/?p=2906
'Opera Turbo" comes to Windows Mobile
Just when you thought browsing couldn’t get any faster, Opera unveils its latest innovation for better browsing, Opera Turbo.
Opera Turbo is a compression solution, similar to its Opera Mini, which will be usable on the desktop with Opera and also for Opera Mobile. It reduced data transfer by up to 80%, thereby speeding up browsing. By taking the processing load onto Opera’s servers it will also allow low-end devices to enjoy a good web experience and fully supports dynamic Web technologies such as Ajax and Flash.
In a press release Jon von Tetzchner, CEO, Opera Software said "We are living in a time and place where access to the Web should be a universal right to all. Technology has advanced us to the point that we can very nearly access the Internet anytime and anywhere from a growing number of devices,", "As part of Opera’s commitment to provide the best experience on any device, Opera has developed the Opera Turbo solution.”
The service is to be demonstrated at Mobile World Congress, and is to be sold to cell phone carriers and OEM’s as a way to conserve resources and provide end users with a good web experience independent of the hardware or network conditions.

schaggo said:
This is abso-excuse me-****ing-lutely great! Seriously, in 3 years I was looking for something like this and today you point it out to me!
Do you maybe want a new car? Or coffee machine? Maybe my wife?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
i would like a coffe machine

white paper for opera turbo. hope it works better than toonel
worth a read very short paper
http://www.opera.com/business/file/Opera_Turbo_white_paper.pdf

stupid question:
anyone got a proxy i can use with toonel?

You might also be interested in Google Wireless Transcoder. Though not as many options as in mlvb or skweezer, it's definately faster than them.

Google Wireless Transcoder is blocked in my country becuse horny teens might end up using it to watch low quality pixelated heavely compressed dirty pictures. the only reason why skweezer and mlvb still work is because our proxy people did not notice them yet
bad jokes aside, i think a browser with this (transcoding)or similar feature will be a major thing to be supported

fatso485 said:
never got toonel to work on my device but i just got to read this
http://wmpoweruser.com/?p=2906
'Opera Turbo" comes to Windows Mobile
Just when you thought browsing couldn’t get any faster, Opera unveils its latest innovation for better browsing, Opera Turbo.
Opera Turbo is a compression solution, similar to its Opera Mini, which will be usable on the desktop with Opera and also for Opera Mobile. It reduced data transfer by up to 80%, thereby speeding up browsing. By taking the processing load onto Opera’s servers it will also allow low-end devices to enjoy a good web experience and fully supports dynamic Web technologies such as Ajax and Flash.
In a press release Jon von Tetzchner, CEO, Opera Software said "We are living in a time and place where access to the Web should be a universal right to all. Technology has advanced us to the point that we can very nearly access the Internet anytime and anywhere from a growing number of devices,", "As part of Opera’s commitment to provide the best experience on any device, Opera has developed the Opera Turbo solution.”
The service is to be demonstrated at Mobile World Congress, and is to be sold to cell phone carriers and OEM’s as a way to conserve resources and provide end users with a good web experience independent of the hardware or network conditions.
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doesnt opera mobile already support that? by turning it on, the rendering seems to be done elsewhere, although the pictures are still loading slower, this is pretty damn useful!
EDIT: @dexter: wow, the google proxy is damn fast!

Opera mini
I've tried the various site (ie the google's one). They work, quite well, but you loose completely the original format of the web pages. You win the zoom capability of Opera mobile.
But I still think the last version of OperaMini/Jbed is faster and easier.
Really irnterested though in this new Opera Turbo. We will see.

the_fish said:
doesnt opera mobile already support that? by turning it on, the rendering seems to be done elsewhere, although the pictures are still loading slower, this is pretty damn useful!
EDIT: @dexter: wow, the google proxy is damn fast!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
you are talking about opera mini(UCWEB is better if you ask me btw) and that ties you to a simple browser
wish i could test the google proxy. whats the ip address of that server mabe they forgot to block the ip address in our proxy?

ather90 said:
i would like a coffe machine
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Click to collapse
Too many expenses this month and I just got a Touch Pro while still holding on to my XPERIA. I guess you'd have to wait another month or so
fatso485 said:
Google Wireless Transcoder is blocked in my country becuse ...
bad jokes aside, i think a browser with this (transcoding)or similar feature will be a major thing to be supported
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
<- first par of msg
but yeah, youre right, speeding up mobile browsing is a good thing to do, especially if - on top of it - compresses the datastream and you save some bandwith. Theres only one major flaw until now: there is the word b-u-s-i-n-e-s-s in the URL to the whitepaper, seems like its something you have to license and pay bigtime to use it. Hmmm...
fatso485 said:
you are talking about opera mini...
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Guess not. Enter opera:config in Opera Mobile and in the searchfield which will appear on the page which loads enter turbo and do a search. Tick the checkbox and restart Opera...

i enabled the turbo mode like schaggo said but there is no difference in speed or anything if it does nothing why do they include it

I think the Turbo-option in Opera Mobile has nothing (not yet, at least) to do with the announced Opera Turbo-technology. Because the option is there since like ever, long before Opera announced Turbo. It has to be something different, this option triggers, I have no idea what, though.

This is the Turbo Mode currently available in Opera:
Disable Turbo mode
While this might sound a little bit strange at first to disable turbo mode and present it as a tip to speed up Opera it becomes clear soon. Turbo mode means that Opera pre-draws any image which means that you see part of it although it is not fully loaded. This uses CPU and memory and could increase overall performance especially on slower computers. It should not be noticeable on fast computers though.
Type about:config and enter Turbo into the search field. Disable Turbo Mode and click on save.
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Taken from: several blogs in my.opera.com, including Tamil's one.