I made a little compilation of the various error messages displayed by browsers upon encountering an XML syntax error. Firefox (Gecko) has the unfriendly looking error on top, Chromium (Webkit) renders the page up to the error, but shows a large error message (albeit not at all useful like in Opera & Fx), and for Opera I included 10.10 and the latest 10.50 pre-alpha build. Note that it’s just the styles behind the error message that changed a bit: the content and helpfulness of the error message is still the same. I’ll run it down a bit more:

• Firefox displays an error message that’s only useful if you already know sufficiently much about X(HT)ML, whereas Opera’s error message not only highlights more clearly where parsing failed — although ultimately this difference might just be one of preference. More important, its error message might just helpfully link you precisely where you need to go to learn how to avoid it. When I first started messing about with XHTML back in ’03 or so, I probably would’ve appreciated it if Opera had done that. At the time Opera behaved the same as Fx does now.
• Chromium displays an error message that doesn’t even manage to clearly indicate what’s the problem. This compares negatively to Fx and Opera highlighting the &.
• Chromium renders the page up to the problem, which may result in a get out of jail free card. The error message doesn’t seem very annoying, but if the error is in the middle of the page it’ll still be in the way. In my sample page it’s at the end, however. (My example page is basically a standard installation of phpGraphy on which I decided to switch to application/xml+xhtml because it claims to be more or less XHTML compliant now — I had to fix all the unclosed meta and link tags first.)
• Despite rendering the page, you won’t be able to see the page fully in Chromium. You will with Opera’s reparse as HTML function.

I hope that clarifies why I think Opera’s handling is best, both as a user and as an author.

This blog post is now outdated. You can return to the behavior I hailed by disabling the opera:config#UserPrefs|AutomaticallyreparseXHTMLwithparsingerrorsasHTML option.

Don’t get me wrong: I want the option to override this automatic detection system with a language selector in the top-right or some such, but it seems like I’m sending out these headers to waste bandwidth. I guess I should just be grateful that they don’t make their language-selection pages Flash-based, though they do typically come attached with gigantic pictures that aren’t reused on the actual site.

I don’t know what the best method would be to utilize this, but in the case of the aforementioned majority of Belgian sites they tend to be like domain.be/nl/etc and domain.be/fr/etc, so I’d say just quietly redirect me to domain.be/nl (all through HTTP) whereas if I go directly to /nl or /fr nothing should happen.

PS The few sites that initially seemed to utilize this method (like argenta.be) actually perform some IP-based shenanigans. It happens to work out for me in this particular case, but generally speaking I consider that far worse than the redundant language selection screens, although a lot of that depends on overridability as well. Which reminds me of software that insists on displaying itself in Dutch based on my location settings while it should really just align itself with my OS language.

To cut to the chase, here’s the addressbar I’m envisioning:

What you see on this screenshot, however, does not tell the whole story. Let’s start with what’s visible:

• The protocol is grayed out. This is the method that most so-called URL highlighting uses to emphasize the domain. I think this is the wrong approach, but in the case of the protocol it seems the right thing to do. It is somewhat hidden, but still fully visible: no need to select the addressbar to find out what protocol is being used. People know that something is a web address when they see it in print thanks to the protocol, even if they have no idea what it means (and in fact many might mistakenly interpret HTTPS as safe), and combined with the large, clear button indicating security information you’d really have to try to misinterpret HTTPS as safe.
• The domain is highlighted, specifically by bolding in this example, but it could also be done through underlining, a background color, or a combination of various things. The important part is that the domain is highlighted, rather than the rest of the URI lowlighted.
• Query strings have parameter highlighting, and characters that separate parameters like ? and & are hidden and replaced by a small outline indicating what goes with what. The space between the various parameters corresponds to the size of the hidden ? or & characters and thus no shifting will occur when selecting them. I did not look into things like color blindness and the colors I used are solely for illustration purposes; they are no suggestion for specific colors.

Then, what’s not visible:

• Complex query strings, meaning with 3 or 4 parameters or more, could be hidden from that point on, but this should be visibly indicated. An ellipsis is the standard method of conveying such information, so there’s no need to come up with something fancy. A complex query string like Google’s would thus look something like http://www.google.be/search [client=opera] [rls=en] [q=test]…

  Perhaps the number of parameters before hiding occurs should be configurable as well.

  This hiding should not affect links to IDs like #someID, which are hidden along with the query string at the moment.

• Linkify URI segments on hover when a modifier key, such as Ctrl or Shift, is pressed. This has been implemented quite nicely by the Firefox extension Locationbar².

That’s about it for my proposal regarding how to truly upgrade the addressbar as opposed to trying to make it little more than a domain display.

Opera 10.63

Here you can see the classic method as it is in 10.63: full URL. You could say that the security information is somewhat detached on the right.

Opera 11

This is Opera 11, with the changed addressbar. The favicon is removed, the protocol and query string are hidden, and the security information is made more prevalent.

Generally speaking I don’t care too much about http vs. https; secure vs. insecure certainly is a better way of presenting that, lest https give you a false sense of security. Then again, I think that keeping the protocol and simply moving the security indication to the spot of the favicon (while still getting rid of that) would’ve accomplished the same effect better without losing out on such information. After all, if I notice some site uses https, but is insecure, I should probably notify the site, right? The lack of something like ftp is slightly more annoying, but the lack query strings is the absolute worst. I realize that some query strings can be overly complex, but I fail to see why the lowest common denominator should get rid of the good query strings as well. Seeing or not seeing it is only part of the issue: it also kills the ability to easily select the relevant part of the query string that you want to change (like a search term).

Opera 11 as it should be

And here is my combination of both. Remove the favicon, which might give a false sense of being on the real site (and is already visible on the tab), and move the security information to where the favicon used to be. The rest of the URL can remain fully accessible, displaying information for those who can use it. Domain highlighting can take care of those who have trouble spotting the domain they’re on (and on Windows it already does, making the removal of the query string even more peculiar). No extra step is necessary to select parts of the URL.

I feel that this is a fair compromise: it makes the security information more accessible without compromising existing functionality.

// see http://www.w3.org/TR/SVG/types.html#ColorKeywords
var SVGColors = new Object();
SVGColors['aliceblue'] = [240,248,255];
SVGColors['antiquewhite'] = [250,235,215];
SVGColors['aqua'] = [0,255,255];
SVGColors['aquamarine'] = [127,255,212];
SVGColors['azure'] = [240,255,255];
SVGColors['beige'] = [245,245,220];
SVGColors['bisque'] = [255,228,196];
SVGColors['black'] = [0,0,0];
SVGColors['blanchedalmond'] = [255,235,205];
SVGColors['blue'] = [0,0,255];
SVGColors['blueviolet'] = [138,43,226];
SVGColors['brown'] = [165,42,42];
SVGColors['burlywood'] = [222,184,135];
SVGColors['cadetblue'] = [95,158,160];
SVGColors['chartreuse'] = [127,255,0];
SVGColors['chocolate'] = [210,105,30];
SVGColors['coral'] = [255,127,80];
SVGColors['cornflowerblue'] = [100,149,237];
SVGColors['cornsilk'] = [255,248,220];
SVGColors['crimson'] = [220,20,60];
SVGColors['cyan'] = [0,255,255];
SVGColors['darkblue'] = [0,0,139];
SVGColors['darkcyan'] = [0,139,139];
SVGColors['darkgoldenrod'] = [184,134,11];
SVGColors['darkgray'] = [169,169,169];
SVGColors['darkgreen'] = [0,100,0];
SVGColors['darkgrey'] = [169,169,169];
SVGColors['darkkhaki'] = [189,183,107];
SVGColors['darkmagenta'] = [139,0,139];
SVGColors['darkolivegreen'] = [85,107,47];
SVGColors['darkorange'] = [255,140,0];
SVGColors['darkorchid'] = [153,50,204];
SVGColors['darkred'] = [139,0,0];
SVGColors['darksalmon'] = [233,150,122];
SVGColors['darkseagreen'] = [143,188,143];
SVGColors['darkslateblue'] = [72,61,139];
SVGColors['darkslategray'] = [47,79,79];
SVGColors['darkslategrey'] = [47,79,79];
SVGColors['darkturquoise'] = [0,206,209];
SVGColors['darkviolet'] = [148,0,211];
SVGColors['deeppink'] = [255,20,147];
SVGColors['deepskyblue'] = [0,191,255];
SVGColors['dimgray'] = [105,105,105];
SVGColors['dimgrey'] = [105,105,105];
SVGColors['dodgerblue'] = [30,144,255];
SVGColors['firebrick'] = [178,34,34];
SVGColors['floralwhite'] = [255,250,240];
SVGColors['forestgreen'] = [34,139,34];
SVGColors['fuchsia'] = [255,0,255];
SVGColors['gainsboro'] = [220,220,220];
SVGColors['ghostwhite'] = [248,248,255];
SVGColors['gold'] = [255,215,0];
SVGColors['goldenrod'] = [218,165,32];
SVGColors['gray'] = [128,128,128];
SVGColors['green'] = [0,128,0];
SVGColors['greenyellow'] = [173,255,47];
SVGColors['grey'] = [128,128,128];
SVGColors['honeydew'] = [240,255,240];
SVGColors['hotpink'] = [255,105,180];
SVGColors['indianred'] = [205,92,92];
SVGColors['indigo'] = [75,0,130];
SVGColors['ivory'] = [255,255,240];
SVGColors['khaki'] = [240,230,140];
SVGColors['lavender'] = [230,230,250];
SVGColors['lavenderblush'] = [255,240,245];
SVGColors['lawngreen'] = [124,252,0];
SVGColors['lemonchiffon'] = [255,250,205];
SVGColors['lightblue'] = [173,216,230];
SVGColors['lightcoral'] = [240,128,128];
SVGColors['lightcyan'] = [224,255,255];
SVGColors['lightgoldenrodyellow'] = [250,250,210];
SVGColors['lightgray'] = [211,211,211];
SVGColors['lightgreen'] = [144,238,144];
SVGColors['lightgrey'] = [211,211,211];
SVGColors['lightpink'] = [255,182,193];
SVGColors['lightsalmon'] = [255,160,122];
SVGColors['lightseagreen'] = [32,178,170];
SVGColors['lightskyblue'] = [135,206,250];
SVGColors['lightslategray'] = [119,136,153];
SVGColors['lightslategrey'] = [119,136,153];
SVGColors['lightsteelblue'] = [176,196,222];
SVGColors['lightyellow'] = [255,255,224];
SVGColors['lime'] = [0,255,0];
SVGColors['limegreen'] = [50,205,50];
SVGColors['linen'] = [250,240,230];
SVGColors['magenta'] = [255,0,255];
SVGColors['maroon'] = [128,0,0];
SVGColors['mediumaquamarine'] = [102,205,170];
SVGColors['mediumblue'] = [0,0,205];
SVGColors['mediumorchid'] = [186,85,211];
SVGColors['mediumpurple'] = [147,112,219];
SVGColors['mediumseagreen'] = [60,179,113];
SVGColors['mediumslateblue'] = [123,104,238];
SVGColors['mediumspringgreen'] = [0,250,154];
SVGColors['mediumturquoise'] = [72,209,204];
SVGColors['mediumvioletred'] = [199,21,133];
SVGColors['midnightblue'] = [25,25,112];
SVGColors['mintcream'] = [245,255,250];
SVGColors['mistyrose'] = [255,228,225];
SVGColors['moccasin'] = [255,228,181];
SVGColors['navajowhite'] = [255,222,173];
SVGColors['navy'] = [0,0,128];
SVGColors['oldlace'] = [253,245,230];
SVGColors['olive'] = [128,128,0];
SVGColors['olivedrab'] = [107,142,35];
SVGColors['orange'] = [255,165,0];
SVGColors['orangered'] = [255,69,0];
SVGColors['orchid'] = [218,112,214];
SVGColors['palegoldenrod'] = [238,232,170];
SVGColors['palegreen'] = [152,251,152];
SVGColors['paleturquoise'] = [175,238,238];
SVGColors['palevioletred'] = [219,112,147];
SVGColors['papayawhip'] = [255,239,213];
SVGColors['peachpuff'] = [255,218,185];
SVGColors['peru'] = [205,133,63];
SVGColors['pink'] = [255,192,203];
SVGColors['plum'] = [221,160,221];
SVGColors['powderblue'] = [176,224,230];
SVGColors['purple'] = [128,0,128];
SVGColors['red'] = [255,0,0];
SVGColors['rosybrown'] = [188,143,143];
SVGColors['royalblue'] = [65,105,225];
SVGColors['saddlebrown'] = [139,69,19];
SVGColors['salmon'] = [250,128,114];
SVGColors['sandybrown'] = [244,164,96];
SVGColors['seagreen'] = [46,139,87];
SVGColors['seashell'] = [255,245,238];
SVGColors['sienna'] = [160,82,45];
SVGColors['silver'] = [192,192,192];
SVGColors['skyblue'] = [135,206,235];
SVGColors['slateblue'] = [106,90,205];
SVGColors['slategray'] = [112,128,144];
SVGColors['slategrey'] = [112,128,144];
SVGColors['snow'] = [255,250,250];
SVGColors['springgreen'] = [0,255,127];
SVGColors['steelblue'] = [70,130,180];
SVGColors['tan'] = [210,180,140];
SVGColors['teal'] = [0,128,128];
SVGColors['thistle'] = [216,191,216];
SVGColors['tomato'] = [255,99,71];
SVGColors['turquoise'] = [64,224,208];
SVGColors['violet'] = [238,130,238];
SVGColors['wheat'] = [245,222,179];
SVGColors['white'] = [255,255,255];
SVGColors['whitesmoke'] = [245,245,245];
SVGColors['yellow'] = [255,255,0];
SVGColors['yellowgreen'] = [154,205,50];

The release of Ubuntu 10.10 coincided with this change for wintry weather; however, while I’m sure it’s swell, you won’t see me upgrading just yet. Perhaps I’ll have to look a little harder into acquiring a netbook so I can use it with the Ubuntu Netbook Edition.

Of more interest is the announcement that Opera 11 will have extensions. Or, more particularly, that I was the first to guess this in a contest.

The speed is less relevant since Opera 10, although more relevant again since Opera 10.50. The history argument is far more important to me. It really throws me off that the first page I visited in a window still allows me to go back. I don’t know why someone would want to go back to the speed dial; isn’t it faster to just open a new one?

To disable the speed dial, you have you change the SpeedDialState setting in opera:config.

0: Folded
1: Shown
2: Read only, and always show speed dial
3: Disable speed dial

Set it to 3 to disable speed dial completely. If you think this will impair your ability to open pages quickly and easily, you need to take note of go to nickname (Shift + F2).

Opera Mini and this kind of calendar synchronization enable me to use my now over three years old Sony Ericsson s500i much like it were a modern smartphone. I realize the phone is as ubiquitous these days as the Nokia 3310 was in the early 2000s, but I take comfort in being a pioneer: I got the phone about one to two months after it came out.

But none of that is really relevant. If you use Google Calendar and a phone that supports SyncML, syncme.se might just be what you were looking for.

To clarify what a tab is, I looked for a random picture of a tab and added a circle around the tab.

If those tabs aren’t there in some kind of metaphorical pixel-form, there are no tabs. Or to put it another way, a tab-based user interface consists of multiple internal windows with a sort of task bar.

Setting Up a 301 Redirect

Instead of having to bother with a plethora of settings in cPanel itself, I came up with the following to stick at the top of .htaccess. A quick look around on the Internet brought up Fayaz Miraz’s blog, but while the solution suggestion was close, it misses one crucial aspect: it only redirects from the main page as far as I can tell. This is fixed easily by the addition of $1 (i.e. everything that was added after the main page).

<IfModule mod_rewrite.c>
RewriteEngine On

RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} !^fransdejonge\.com$
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://fransdejonge.com/$1 [R=301,L]

</IfModule>

Simply put, it matches all possible routes of approach (whether through www or through a subdomain of another domain) and if it’s not fransdejonge.com, it will 301 redirect to fransdejonge.com. The L means no further rewriting will occur after that rule. Mostly because it would just be inefficient, and partially because something else further down the line might mess things up.

Preventing .htaccess Hell

Another problem is that cPanel automatically creates a /public_html/addondomain directory. This is bad, because /public_html already contains a .htaccess file for the main domain. When accessing /public_html/addondomain, it would first parse the .htaccess file in /public_html before moving on and overriding it in /public_html/addondomain, and that’s assuming none of the rules in /public_html make anything go awry!

To prevent this kind of nightmare from occurring I took the simple precaution of creating a new directory /domains. This domain is contained in /domains/fransdejonge.com, for instance, and any other add-on or subdomains can reside in their own /domains/domain.com directory to prevent any added load from needlessly parsing .htaccess files.

A malamanteau (plural malamanteaux) is a neologism for a portmanteau created by incorrectly combining a malapropism with a neologism. It is itself a portmanteau of malapropism and portmanteau. In a less strict definition, a portmanteau of a malapropism with another word can also be considered a malamanteau. The contained malapropism must be typically a very common one, probably most people are not aware of, in order to be able to regain the meaning of a malamanteau.

A malamanteau often is created when somebody tries to use a neologism (alternatively, an idiom) but mistakenly confuses a word with another one. However, unlike a malapropism or an eggcorn, the fumbled word is not completely replaced, but merely transfixed to the new one. A famous example is: “misunderestimate” which was popularized by the 43rd President of the United States, George W. Bush. Probably it was intended to be “underestimate” but mistakenly jumbled with “misunderstand.”

Examples

• Somebody describes his misunderstanding of what someone was saying by stating, “I misconscrewed it up.”
• Somenone explains his inability to talk while being upset by saying he was “flustrated.”
• A meaningful malamanteau is “ambiviolent,” as in: “Beatrix Kiddo in Kill Bill was ambiviolent. She didn’t know who to kill first.”

I was going to write more about it when I made this draft, but by now it’s two weeks later and I’ve lost interest. Booyah.

On the other hand, you might prefer all links to external sites to open in a new tab. I recently wrote a script that does just that for someone on the MyOpera forum.

I don’t block Flash as it typically crashes separately from Opera on Linux, nor does it seem to slow things down for me. I don’t typically block ads, either — though it is really annoying if one ad is making the entire page load slowly. However, I will generally close a page while it’s loading if I am annoyed by the ads. When do ads annoy me? Simple: when they do not fit the type of content I’m looking at. If I want to read some text, I’m fine with static textual or image-based ads. I don’t want animation, although I suppose it’s possible to change ads now and then without it being too obtrusive. Anything that utilizes Flash typically breaks these rules and comes with distracting animation. Worse, it often even comes with sound. It doesn’t really matter what I’m doing; as long as I’ve got my sound system turned on I don’t want any sound to come from my speakers that I did not explicitly ask for.

Now if I’m going to watch a video, like on Uitzendinggemist, then I’m perfectly fine with a video-based advertisement with audio. Uitzendinggemist literally means “missed broadcast.” It’s an online archive of most of Dutch public television broadcasts. After all, I’m requesting video with sound. A 10-15 second advertisement prior to actually viewing the particular video I requested is perfectly acceptable. Similarly, I welcome short audio clips or endorsements in podcasts if they help pay for the podcast. But don’t start playing such messages at random. Although I don’t frequently use Firefox for regular browsing, my favorite extension is StopAutoPlay. This isn’t just about ads of course and applies just as much to people who decide to stick background music on their site, or to start playing videos automatically (I’m looking at you, YouTube), though if I opened a video somewhere it’s usually not too hard to figure out where the noise is coming from.

What could be an acceptable form of a video-based advertisement on a non-moving Internet page would be something akin to YouTube embedded videos. These don’t autoplay, but you have to click the play button first.

Everything I said applies just as much to things that aren’t advertisements, but too many advertisements seem to be made as annoyingly as possible on purpose. I hope that nobody has ever gained any business from such advertisements. They sure haven’t from me.

Anyway, I wanted to subscribe to the UN News podcast. To my surprise, gPodder was incapable of handling it. No surprise, as it turns out, because it’s not even proper according to the iTunes enclosure specification (although I imagine it works in iTunes). SimplePie had a nice get_enclosure() function already, so the first step, adding a proper enclosure to my Tube’s output feed, was a matter of minutes. The UN also fails to specify any size information, however, which I can’t say I was too enthused about in my trusty gPodder interface. Another 10 minutes or so later, I finished adding some cURL magic to my application. I should probably stash it away into a class later and see if I can somehow make it utilize SimplePie’s cache system to minimize useless traffic, but for now I just stuck it straight in the feed generation code. Now the UN feed is transformed from something gPodder couldn’t handle into something that essentially fixes all the UN did wrong. Thank you SimplePie for providing this great foundation!

Before (RSS):

<item>
  <title>UN Daily News 12 March 2010</title>
  <itunes:author>United Nations Radio</itunes:author>
  <itunes:subtitle>News and features from United Nations Radio.</itunes:subtitle>
  <itunes:summary></itunes:summary>
  <enclosure url="http://downloads.unmultimedia.org/radio/en/ltd/mp3/2010/10031200.mp3" length="" type="audio/mpeg" />
  <guid>http://downloads.unmultimedia.org/radio/en/ltd/mp3/2010/10031200.mp3</guid>
  <pubDate>Fri, 12 Mar 2010 11:42:32 EST</pubDate>
  <itunes:duration>0:00</itunes:duration>
</item>

After (Atom):

<entry>
  <author>
   <name>United Nations Radio</name>
  </author>
  <title>UN Daily News 12 March 2010</title>
  <summary> </summary>
  <published>2010-03-12T11:42:32-05:00</published>
  <updated>2010-03-12T11:42:32-05:00</updated>
  <id>http://downloads.unmultimedia.org/radio/en/ltd/mp3/2010/10031200.mp3</id>
  <link rel="enclosure" type="audio/mpeg" href="http://downloads.unmultimedia.org/radio/en/ltd/mp3/2010/10031200.mp3" length="6720384" />
  <link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="http://downloads.unmultimedia.org/radio/en/ltd/mp3/2010/10031200.mp3"/>
</entry>

I realize the alternate link currently has the wrong type attribute, which I’ll look into fixing, but at least my gPodder can handle the feed now.

I also set up a little demo so you can check the difference with the original feed for yourselves. I’d be curious to hear how different podcatchers handle both feeds.

I know you are a patent licensor in the MPEG LA, and this would actually make your actions even more powerful and meaningful. You could show just how serious you are about interoperability on the Web by supporting the free and open codec rather than the one that would best suit your short-term interests.

This is a unique opportunity for you to win back the hearts and minds of people who might have otherwise dismissed you as carrying on with “business as usual”.

Are you up for it?

This entry only deals with the basics of getting Lighttpd up and running with PHP. To get started, use:

sudo apt-get install lighttpd php5-cgi

Then run lighty-enable-mod and enter fastcgi.

Then you can edit /etc/lighttpd/lighttpd.conf. Stick the following at the end:

fastcgi.server = ( “.php” => ((
“bin-path” => “/usr/bin/php5-cgi”,
“socket” => “/tmp/php.socket”
)))

Recommended: sudo apt-get install php5-curl php5-tidy to be able to run Tubes with all functionality, and of course any other modules you might like. There’s nothing to it; you don’t even have to edit php.ini.

When you’re done customizing things to your liking, use sudo /etc/init.d/lighttpd restart to see the changes.

As I wrote a few months ago, Yahoo Pipes is a nice tool. Nonetheless, it has a few shortcomings which annoyed me because I could neither fix nor work around them. Therefore, I decided to write my own mashup tool. For the impatient, you can download the file right now before reading anything else.

Since SimplePie seems to be the feed aggregation library of choice for many projects, I decided to go with it. I ran into a few minor issues, but nothing I couldn’t handle easily. The code I wrote is based on the multifeeds.php demo file and SimplePie 1.1.3, because in 1.2 it didn’t work (the multifeeds demo, that is — by extension I suppose this file won’t either). It’s a little rough around the edges, and SimplePie is clearly meant for HTML output rather than XML (although its HTML isn’t quite decent either, even if the input feed is), so I decided to fix the whole thing up with Tidy, which takes care of low quality input material as well. Hopefully that makes this whole thing more robust than it would otherwise be. The code is based around bringing various Opera feeds I read together in one big feed, but this can very easily be changed.

So now that I’ve got the basics of output into a feed taken care of, I can easily duplicate other functionality of Yahoo Pipes if I want. Much better.

I dug into the Internet Archive and I was pleasantly surprised to discover that the 30 Days series for Opera 6 is available through the archive in a nice ZIP file. The original Opera 6 lover pages do not seem to have been preserved, but the ZIP file is easier to use regardless.

The 30 Days series for Opera 8 was also preserved. The Opera 8 series is still available in the archives of TnT Luoma, but the pictures and some other things are broken. Besides, I like the old layout better; it used to be blue, however, which was even better — you probably don’t want to read the oldest text available, though. While I would not recommend a detailed read (it is quite outdated after all), I would certainly recommend skimming through most of it.

By the time Opera 8 came out — and consequently, the 30 Days to Becoming an Opera 8 Lover series — I was already a seasoned Opera user, so the series didn’t do much for me. I did discover one very important Opera feature thanks to it, however. In the default keyboard setup, Shift + F2 is bound to go to nickname. If you don’t know what nicknames are, you can give bookmarks so-called nicknames; if you type them out in the address bar and press enter it will take you to the bookmark, and it will offer autocomplete suggestions while you’re typing. Useful, but not a huge time saver.

Go to nickname is better, because it starts going to the nickname as soon as it’s got a match. So if you have only one bookmark with a nickname that starts with a, you’ll only have to type a and you’ll be on your way. I had not realized this prior to reading the Opera 8 Lover series, and it wasn’t actually written in the series, but without it I might very well never have tried this feature again. After some consideration and major inspiration by Moose I rebound F2 to new page & go to nickname, which means that ever since, pressing F2 automatically opened a new page and this tremendously useful dialog. The introduction of speed dial didn’t do much for me thanks to this keyboard shortcut. It might take a few seconds more to configure, but it’s worth it. Additionally, new tabs will open even faster if you disable speed dial.