Waiting for Opera Mini 5 to be released 0 comments

I bought my first cellphone just when I was about to join a Software Company after finishing my Under Graduation. I had no clue about the models available in phones and my brother was the one who helped me chose a model. After some searches and comparing the features available with prices, we ended up buying Nokia 5310 Express Music. That was also the time when I had just finished developing the Blogspot Template Generator. When I joined the company, we had many restrictions on the kind of websites that we could browse. Eventually Blogger is also blocked. Fortunately I got Airtel connection and came to know about the GPRS connectivity and the plans. At that time I din't know about Opera Mini and I was using the Nokia Default browser to browse the net. One day, when I tried to explore the phone I came across Opera Mini which is already installed. I was suprised to see websites in that small screen pretty much same as viewed in a PC. I checked the version and found it to be version 2. Quickly I browsed and updated the version to 4.2

As my phone is a java phone, I could'nt find any better Browser than Opera Mini (Recently I could find browsers like TeaShark, Bold etc trying to compete with Opera Mini). The features that i like the most in opera mini is the way it allows us to Zoom in and out, Rendering pages similar to desktop browsers, pretty good JS support, displaying colors matching the images (when images are disabled), speed at which the pages loads, swithcing between mobile and desktop views, full screen landscape view etc.

Being a jar file, It couldn't afford to consume lot of memory, so the file size is kept to around 200Kb and hence lot of features could'nt be embedded which I would have liked to see. Almost 2 years after version 4 released, I am still waiting for an update from Opera Mini. I would love to see some great changes for the wait the users of Opera Mini are having. I am expecting features like Tabbed browsing, Multiple File Downloading if possible with resume capability, and Flash Support embedded in it or may be Client Side Javascript. Though the anticipation from me is pretty high, I heard that Opera Mini is already trying to bring in Flash Support.

I hope Opera Mini 5 will be worth a wait.

Why do we have PERIODS in School/College ? 0 comments

May it be a school or a college, we are used to a period of 30 mins to 1 hour classes and Subjects keep on changing every period. The staffs have two advantage if they take classes continuosly for two periods. They cover more portions than taking two classes separately. And also staffs need to do a recap when taking class separately in two periods. But still most staffs prefer separate classses or giving breaks between the classes. One reason is that, the staff find it difficult to keep on taking classes for a long time. Another reason I came across recently while attending a communication class.

In the communication class that I attended, the staff showed us a set of 25 to 30 commonly used english words, and there is also one 3 word name of a person included in the middle of the list. The staff asked us to keep in mind as much words as possible. After some 30 seconds, the staff switched off the slide and asked us to write down all the words that they could recollect. After all of us were done, she again showed us the list, and asked us to cross check what all we have wrote, and what all we have missed. The staff asked us do you find any patterns in which we have remembered the words. Almost all the people attending the section had got most of the words that were at the TOP and BOTTOM of the list, and we were'nt able to remember most words that were in the middle of the list. Another suprise is that, we all have remembered the 3 word name. The staff then concluded that, Human brains are most concentrating at the start of a section and at the end of the section and they used to drift away in the middle. However when there is something unique or interesting it is naturally noticed by Human brain. Hence most of the people were able to remember the name. And our brain can't continuosly concentrate 100% for more than 20 or 30 mins.

This is the reason I realised for the Periods we have in schools. So if you are a staff and if you don't like giving breaks inbetween classes, have a rethink in your strategy to grab the attention of the students.

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