Free 4GB iPod Nano?

I got a little begging mail from a friend myself, to visit a site and fill in what it said, and we’d both get a free iPod Nano. Well – I thought I should bite this time and try, after all what did I have to lose?

Well – it turned out it was a bit more for me to do to achieve the prize: I have to refer five more people myself that will have to register and take up one offer themselves. How? Well – I could send them an email, or by instand messaging, or even post a link to my blog. As you suspect, I’m writing this entry to post the link – those of you who want to give it a shot and try to get a free iPod Nano yourself may want to try it.

Get a FREE iPod Nano! (Offer is for all countries, but it seems Americans — or should that be USers? 😉 — will have an easier time at the moment…)

I will update the post (or write in the comments) if it works. As long as I actually refer 5 people who go the line out, that is… (What is there to lose?)

Aliens prefer Firefox

I have it from respectable sources that the various crop circles are proof that aliens exist, because many of the geometrical patterns that are made are too complicated for humans to make in such a short time span as is used it many cases. Logically, it follows that aliens prefer Firefox.

They probably havent discovered Opera yet, or the Opera logo is too simple to make a crop circle of – who would it impress? 😉

Greatest widget?

Artist's SketchbookIf you use Opera, you may use many of its features on a daily basis. If you research stuff, you may use the built in notebook to jot down information you find (or copy it directly from the pages), or maybe write down ideas for some creative writing. But if you’re an artist and get ideas for drawings or paintings while you’re browsing, what do you do? Put the computer aside and find a sketchbook? Fire up Photoshop? Well – here comes widgets to the rescue!

The author of Artist’s Sketchbook recently won a MacBook in the competition in the Opera Community – and well deserved. This widget is – as the name suggests – a sketchbook. You get an idea while browsing? Just open the widget and start drawing and painting with different tools and brushes, while the idea is fresh. When finished, just export and save your mastepiece, and continue surfing the web, ready for any new idea at any time.

Now that’s one widget I’ll keep installed!

On Piracy

Whew. I just finished watching a documentary, On Piracy, about DRM, music, Walmart and stuff. A very interesting 1 hour 44 minutes, with interviews with several people in the Canadian music industry and its consumers, and it brought forward the different views on what it’s all about.

There are known information in the film, and things I didn’t know. There are stuff I find horrific and silly – the standard claim that making a copy of something so that two persons have their own copy is the same as stealing something so that one person lose it while the other get it is there. But no matter who you agree with and what view you have, this is a balanced documentary. Go see it on Google video.

If you want – you can also download it – this prerelease is released under Creative Commons.

Girls in bra pics

Girl in bra, seen from behindGirls are fascinating for many of us, and they are very often nice to rest our eyes on. If I should make an educated guess, I would think many like to see these beautiful creatures without too much garments obscuring their shapes. I guess seeing the tiny garment called a brassiere — or bra for short — in use is something many can appreciate. I understand that. One thing puzzles me, though.

For several weeks now, one particular search term have been at the top or near the top in the stats for my site, for what visitors look for when they arrive at my site. The search term is (as you may have guessed) “girls in bra pics”. A few have searched for “girls bra” or something like that, but those disappear in comparision with the other term. Now, I can understand that people search for such pictures, but how come that exact search phrase is so popular? I’ll probably never know.

I wonder if those who arrive after that search are disappointed? Because the only page (I think) that mention that delicate garment — up until now — is one about a test I took once: What kind of bra are you? It does have a picture of a bra, though.

Bittorrent and Opera 9

Opera LogoI see from my server logs that many visitors come here after searching for Opera 9 and bittorrent. It could mean that bittorrent is a popular feature in Opera — had it not been for an additional word in many of the searches: Disable. While some want to know more about how bittorrent is used, quite a few (of my visitors) want to know how to disable the feature. Quick answer: Type opera:config in the address bar, find the bittorrent section, uncheck enable.

Does this mean that the inclusion of bittorrent in Opera is a failure? Oh no, far from it. While it’s easy to get started with bittorrent this way, without needing to learn something new to start using it, the bittorrent client in Opera is a simple client. People who already are using bittorrent will most likely want to use the client they’re already using, as it may have more features or they’re just used to it. New users on the other hand may appreciate it a lot.

Not everyone knows how bittorrent works, and how to get started. Downloading a .torrent-file, then open it in their bittorent client? For some that don’t know how this work and how to set it up, this is an obstacle they can’t pass, and thus give up. The way Opera solves this problem is to make the process very simple: Click a link, and choose where to download the file. Just like you download any other file. The only difference is a couple extra messages from Opera during the process, one in the beginning and one when the download has finished, to explain what is happening. But you don’t have to learn anything new to get started.

Maybe those who get started with bittorrent on Opera will continue to use it, or maybe they will prefer other clients later on. In any case, Opera will be a nice and easy introduction to bittorrent for many.

What does Opera DS support?

Opera has got a lot of press with its deals with Nintendo, to make the browser for the Nintendo DS and Wii. There has been a lot of excitement around this, and several have first learned about Opera because of this, and tested it out on their computer, too. Some like it a lot, others are more reserved – as should be expected. However, many are very interested in what Opera will support on the DS and Wii.

Compared to the desktop versions for PC, Mac, *nix – the soon to be released Nintendo DS version doesn’t support much. No PDF, no Flash, no Java… Many people who would like to visit sites like YouTube with their Nintendo DS have been disappointed to learn this – many disappointed with Opera for not supporting this stuff.

Now, of course they should be allowed to be disappointed – but who should they be disappointed with? Opera? Or someone else?

When we look at it, Opera does the same on the Nintendo boxes as they do on the PC: They make the browser. They don’t make the Flash or PDF support: Adobe does that. They don’t make Java: Sun does that. Apple makes the Quicktime plugin. Should we expect anything else on Nintendo DS? I don’t think so. Opera makes the browser – had Adobe made Flash available for the DS, I’m sure Opera would’ve supported it there, too.

So, enjoy Opera DS, those of you who get it, there’s lot of enjoyment to get without those plugins, too. And who knows, maybe Nintendo strikes a deal with Adobe and others, too, to make plugins possible?