Opaquit's blog.en

Apple releases Safari 3 beta for Windows

June 11, 2007 | 10:45 pm | Tags: browsers

Apple guys have finally released their Safari web browser for Windows along with official website redesign. I know it’s not the final release but the current Windows version is completely unusable. Although the program interface is beautiful, the program itself has too many errors even for a beta. Here are some bugs I came across during the first moments of testing:

1. It won’t run on many computers. I tried Safari on two Windows XP PCs and one Windows Vista PC and it worked just on the last one. Both Windows XP computers did nothing when Safari.exe was executed. It might have been caused by the fact that I unchecked the “Install Bonjour” checkbox on those Windows XP systems but the browser is supposed to work without this, isn’t it?
2. Heading tags that contain links are hardly rendered correctly. They’re just missing on most sites.
   
   Where’s the post heading?
3. The Bookmarks button doesn’t work. Every time I click this button, the browser crashes.
   
   Safari Web Browser has stopped working
4. It’s too slow for me. The official site says it’s the fasted browser ever. Compared to Firefox and Opera, Safari for Windows is extremely slow. Also the interface animated effects make working with the browser slower. I wonder why they don’t use smooth scrolling.

If all the major bugs get fixed in the final release, Safari will provide a decent browsing experience on Windows and the web developers will be happy for not having to get a Mac or Mac emulator to test and debug their sites.

That’s it for today, these were my first impressions about Safari for Windows, expect more to come tomorrow. And what’s your opinion about Safari for Windows? Share it in the comments below.

InstantStorm 1.5 now available + history

June 10, 2007 | 10:13 pm | Tags: instantstorm

I know I’m coming up with this post a little bit late but OndÅ™ej and I were pretty busy with publishing this InstantStorm release and planning a brand new freeware project. For those who don’t know what this piece of software is all about, I’ll make a short introduction.

About 6 years ago, I was pretty impressed by all things Macromedia Flash. I spent many days making some silly Flash applications for my school magazine cover CD. One day I came across a promotional screensaver of my favorite video game and downloaded it. It was amazing. Then I found out it had been made with Flash and started wondering: “How do I turn a Flash animation into a screensaver?!”. I searched the Internet and found a couple of nice tools for this but they were all extremely expensive. Spending like $50 for this kind of program was just too much (I was 11 y.o.), I only wanted to make a few savers for my school magazine CD. A couple of years later, my friend OndÅ™ej and I figured we should make something free for authoring Flash screensavers. The codename of our project had been “Flash Dash”, then we renamed it to InstantStorm.

This is what InstantStorm 1.5 interface looks like

To find out more about InstantStorm, go to its homepage at www.instantstorm.com. To download the latest 1.5 release, go to the Download page. More info about InstantStorm history is available in this forum topic.

InstantStorm 1.5 next week

May 26, 2007 | 2:24 pm | Tags: instantstorm

You may have heard of InstantStorm. It was the first Flash screensaver maker to be released as freeware and it’s developed by my friend OndÅ™ej and I. Anyway, we expect the new version (1.5) release date to be sometime next week. Here’s a brief list of major changes since InstantStorm 1.0.2:

• Customizable screensaver exit behavior
• Customizable screensaver screen resolution
• Password protected screensaver installer
• Custom license agreement text for screensaver installer
• Custom Readme file for screensaver
• Ability to create screensaver uninstaller shortcut in Start menu
• Ability to open Display properties window when screensaver is successfully installed
• Improved Windows Vista compatibility
• SWF files in screensaver settings dialog (with ability to save settings using local object)

The program is almost finished, we just have to write a few pages of the new features’ documentation, re-test dual monitor support in Windows Vista and compile localized language packs.

Two things I hate about Google

May 19, 2007 | 9:39 pm | Tags: google

Google offers absolutely the best online services that made lives of many people easier than ever before. Anyway, here are two things I hate about them. If they got fixed, Google would become almost perfect.

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Chat with your MSN friends using Google Talk

May 15, 2007 | 3:25 pm | Tags: google,im

Google Talk is definitely the best instant messaging solution for many users—it’s easy to use, no ads, nice and clean interface. Even my grandma got familiar with it extremely quickly. In this tutorial I’m gonna show you how to talk to your Windows Live Messenger (MSN) friends right from your Google Talk client. Since Google Talk’s protocol is based on Jabber open communication standard, some Jabber transports work with it. All you need before following the steps below is a Windows Live ID account and a Google Talk account, of course. I know there is already a couple tutorials like this but they’re usually outdated and the transport services don’t work anymore. So here we go:

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My first post… yeah!

May 14, 2007 | 10:07 pm | Tags: blog,xiii

Hello readers,
I’d like to introduce my brand new blog. The whole world has been turning into something “2.0” lately—to survive, everyone needs at least one blog to post to, so I finally decided to make one as well. Although I was too lazy to change the default WordPress 2.1 template to something own made, I hope you’ll enjoy all the posts and comments anyway.

Okay, the standard introduction is over. And now for something completely different! I’d like to announce two updates of my programs I’ve just started to develop. The first one is Unofficial XIII Patch 1.5—for those who don’t know what it’s all about, check out this page. The 1.4 version is about to celebrate its 2nd anniversary and I still keep getting tons of nice e-mails, so this is why I decided to make an update. One of the largest improvements is gonna be full Windows Vista compatibility along with multilingual user interface. The second program update is also XIII related. Yeah, it’s the Enhanced Server Launcher thing. But don’t expect many new features, I’m just gonna improve Windows Vista compatibility.

And about InstantStorm 1.5: Ondřej and I feel very sorry for the release delay but we had some trouble with dual monitor support under Windows Vista, so the program will be released during May instead of April.

Have a nice dill and enjoy this blog!
Opaquit