Update: (December 6, 2000) Opera 5 for Windows just came out for free (as in beer) if you don't mind an ad in the top bar. It's really not that bad, easy to ignore, and if you fullscreen it the ad vanishes. This version supports Java through Sun's Java plugin. It's only 9 megs with Java, 2 megs without it. In this tiny download is a browser, a POP mail client, and an ICQ client. It uses Netscape plugins so you can use it with any multimedia site. It starts much faster than Netscape (particularly faster than Netscape 6, which was what I was using before) or IE. Sites seem to load faster too. In all, I much prefer this to any other browser I've tried.
These few faults are minor and the browser is by far the best I have ever used.
Opera is also free for Linux but I havn't had the chance to use that version.
I downloaded the Opera browser (v. 5.12) just a couple days ago, after seeing a banner ad that announced it was now free--its former status as nagware had kept me from enjoying it in the past.
(Don't tell anyone I actually clicked a banner ad! I'll never live it down!)
The part of Opera that me as the coolest was the gestures. Just as though you were playing Black & White, waving your mouse a certain way (with the right mouse button held down) performs navigational tasks.
Me being easily amused, I have enjoyed--with actual fun--doing this for hours on end. It makes me feel like a wizard.
Here's how it works. (Remember, hold down RMB, or whatever your secondary mouse button is.)
Drag left - Go back. Drag right - Go forward. Drag down - Open new window (if you drag down from a link, the link opens in the new window). Drag up - Stop. Drag up then right - Maximize window (or restore it). Drag down then left - Minimize window. Drag down and right (or shake your mouse no) - Close window. Drag up then down - Reload.
Opera, as an art form didn't get its start until around 1600 when the Florentine Camerata decided to recreate Ancient Greek drama in a musical form. A collection of Italian aristocrats including such families as the Sforzas, the Viscontis, the Gonzagas, the d'Estes and the de Medicis decided to abandon the earlier complexities of polyphony and counterpoint in favor of new harmonic structures. They lead to one of the most important achievements of the Baroque period: the opera.
The advent of the continuo, combined with the abandonment of the interweaving of voices in counterpoint form (made popular during the Renaissance) provided a framework for musical improvisation that hadn't been seen in many years. Likewise, without complexities of polyphony to deal with, major and minor keys came to the forefront, as the each chord assumed function relative to the tonic (first) and dominant (fifth) notes.
Recitative Resitatives are the part of the opera used to advance the plot. They usually consist of a monologue or dialogue sung with the natural inflections of human speech. As such, they rarely present a musical line and are usually characterized by fast-paced chatter in a monotone, aside question and answer dialogue to build dramatic tension. The two main types of recitatives are secco (that which is accompanied by continuo) and accompagnato (that which is accompanied by a full orchestra)
Aria Arias are the more lyric, musical pieces of an opera. They release dramatic tension through an emotional melody, and are usually the ones audiences applaud and remember. Because of their inherent musicality, arias can effectively be sung and enjoyed outside the context of the operas they're written in, becoming familiar to people who perhaps have never heard the opera they're from. The most common form of aria is the da capo aria in the form A-B-A, meaning the solist sings one section, then a second, then returns to a variation on the first.
Overture An overture is a mainly instrumental section heard at the beginning of an opera. Sometimes they are used to introduce melodies from the arias to follow. Generally, every act of an opera is opened with an overture, sometimes having interludes between scenes (called "sinfonias" in the Baroque era.)
Libretto The libretto is the actual text of an opera, written by a librettist, creating characters and a plot to justify the theme of the music. It is divided in such a manner as to allow the composer to write various arias, recitatives, and overtures for the piece.
A not-so-brief history
One of the much-hyped features of the game is the dives and rolls, but in practice these are nearly useless because if you attempt one in-game you're very likely to die. They suck, and Action Half-Life had them long before anyway.
One of the other nice things in the endless list of kewl functions in Opera is the fact that is has a box next to the adresbox, in which you can search via a list of searchengines. It's by default set to google, but it builds up the list from the search.ini file in the opera program folder.
I'm not really sure what all parameters do, but it does work:
[Search Engine n] Name=&Everything2 URL=http://everything2.com/index.pl?node=%s Query= Key=e Is post=0 Has endseparator=0 Encoding=utf-8 Search Type=0
Add this code to the search.ini file and make the number n the next number in the list of search-engines now you can search E2 via your Opera browser !!
When upgrading to a newer version of Opera, make a back-up of the search.ini. You might also want to use an other letter for the variable key since version 6.02 and up use the E for Ebay.
It's also OK to remove the other search-engines, Opera doesn't mind, I myself only use the Google and Everything2 search-functions.
Note: I have only tested this on version 6.01 and 6.02 for Windows.
The current version is 7.11, which sports a completely new rendering engine from versions 6.x, finally capable of properly handling DOM.
Another wonderful feature of the current versions of Opera is called fast-forward. It automatically searches for words like 'Next' or 'Next page', or else recognizes navigational LINK tags on sites that provide them, and when you hit 'Shift-X', you will go there without having to click the link. This powerful browser will let you view the results of searching almost any engine in existence... as long as you've added an entry to your search.ini file.
The easiest way to add new engines to that file is to use the freeware utility Op6sed. This utility gives you a fairly large selection of pre-defined search engines, as well as a simple interface for adding your own.
The key thing you need for any given search engine is string to put in the URL field. This is a string containing '%s' where the browser should insert your search term(s). The following is a list of these terms which I have found useful. Feel free to add your own favorites, or /msg me and I'll add some to this list!
