But as you can see the problem still exists, so maybe it wasn’t fixed after all. Is there a way to make our Opera more-standard so this problem doesn’t occur?
For sports fans, “the opera ain’t over till the fat lady sings” is a phrase redolent of hope. For us Nokia 770 fans, I hope it means that we’re not stuck with the Opera browser we have, but that in one of the next iterations of firmware it’ll be more stable and more flexible.
For a device predicated on dazzling the populace with its internet tricks, the 770’s browser and email app leave a lot to be desired.
For instance, OperaShow is a fantastic tool in the full-featured Opera, letting you present an html file as a slide show — “page” at a time display, no scrolling, simple click to advance. Wow, would this fill a gap on the 770!
And how about setting different (more) options via preferences, like minimum font size? Even if our Opera is always going to be a subset, shouldn’t there be more customization possible?
And shouldn’t we be able to uninstall the browser and email app if we prefer some alternative applications?
Maybe Nokia will release an intermediate type of firmware, one that falls between the consumer straight-jacket we all have and the minimalist developer version. One where every feature would be take it or leave it.
“Opera for Devices is a complete suite of Internet technologies for electronic devices, with innovative and powerful features that seamlessly adapt the Internet experience to suit varying screen sizes and input devices. In addition to being a full Internet browser, Opera is an execution environment for Web applications and dynamic user interfaces based on interoperable open Web technologies such as AJAX.
“Opera for Devices is currently being shipped in devices from NDS, Amino, Archos, Nokia….”
Since the blurb goes on to say that Nokia’s use of Opera for Devices is in addition to the company’s use of Opera on mobile phones, it got me thinking: Is Opera for Devices the version that’s running on the Nokia 770? Edited to add: Well the picture to the left answers everything.
The reason I wonder is that Opera for Devices has an SDK available for developers. Surely from that we non-Nokians/non-Operians might learn something about improving Opera’s, um, friendliness. Maybe a way to add a plug-in that worked on the 770 could be brought forward or some features of the full Opera be restored.
As it is, like some others, I’d love to see more full-Opera features, as well as being to access its settings via a dialog rather than backdoor editing of the opera.ini file.
And I know where I’d start, too. Since we’re lacking a presentation app on the 770 for slideshows, we could really use the slide-by-slide display that Opera’s full-screen projection mode provides. Looks like a slideshow, but the file is straight html. What about it?
Edited to add:gultig located this PDF brochure about Opera for Devices that shows the Nokia 770 on its front page — yes, that’s it shown above. Looks like this shot in the dark hit the mark. But now, can we use this information somehow?
Back in November, I wrote about visiting a page that didn’t display a graphic — OK it was the Washington Post comics page — and wondered what was up. One of the cleverer users of the Nokia 770 responded that Opera wasn’t using the “HTTP_REFERER header in HTTP requests.” (Here’s a screen capture showing the comics page in Opera on the 770 without the Mutts comic.)
I stopped visiting the Washington Post comics page with the 770.
Until a couple days ago. Then I discovered this problem had been silently fixed (the evidence is below).
Google’s m.gmail.com is designed for picking up email from mobile phones. Wow, does it work great with the 770. All the extraneous material is dropped and things fit much easier on the screen, with type much larger than the standard view. And it loads very fast. I didn’t time it, but perceptually, with my large inbox, loading took maybe a quarter or a fifth the time it usually takes.
The Compose screen input box stays at a phone-screen width, despite the 770’s ability to accept a wider box, and it has one significant disadvantage — it doesn’t provide for attachments. Note that the CC and BCC buttons don’t show up in this screen shot because they’re below the input box.
Above is the inbox and below reading an email and the Compose screen. All of these are shown at 150 percent to make it easier to see; the message has Optimized View checked.
Thanks to dillera for pointing this to us, and to The Syncing Apple for its post about this. And, hey, Apple is now on Planet Maemo — great to see you there!
As I’ve been using the Nokia 770 more for web-browsing than I envisioned (that’s saying a lot, considering that I am a pre-purchase self-confessed web addict), I’ve had to learn the optimal method of surfing on the device.
Of course, I almost always jump to full-screen mode. And many sites I also zoom to 150%. And most sites accommodate this. However it wasn’t till I read Dominique Bonte’s 770 tips and tricks at mobile development and analysis that I learned about Optimized View, in the Web menu’s View sub-menu, which reflows the text at any size zoom and fits the page optimally on your screen.
Here’s why I like the Washington Postwebsite: the ads don’t mess around with the text:
Here’s why I dislike the The New York Timeswebsite: the ads to the right of news columns always appear fully on-screen, squeezing the news column to virtual unreadability, even in optimized view:
I don’t know the difference in how the pages on these sites are constructed, but to the undiscerning eye they use pretty much standard newspaper layouts: two columns of news on the opening page, with narrower standing columns on the right; news stories might have a narrow lefthand sidebar with the news in the middle, and an ad on the right. But how this is executed, as you can see, plays very differently on our 770 screens. The Post page, even though it’s three columns not two, still gives the text two-and-a-half times as much space.
On other Post pages, the ads themselves change sizes switching from normal to fullscreen mode.
(Note to myself: Maybe I can get an interview with the washingtonpost.com webmaster/designer to explain this. Well, maybe not for this item, but soon.)
Update:Grahame suggests choosing the print-friendly versions of pages, such as those at The New York Times, that don’t adjust appropriately to the Optimized View. Great idea.
Some things I was slow to learn:
Pressing the Escape key () is the same as clicking the Back button. Added later: And using a long press will close the window (thanks, ragnar!)
Pressing the Back button in the toolbar longer than, what, one second? gives you a history of pages you’ve visited, so you can go back more than one page
The Scroll key () will move you down the page or to the next link, depending on whether you use long or short presses. The only problem with this is you can’t I’m not able to scroll down a lot by leaving the key depressed, as apparently I should be able to. Instead you I have to use a series of long presses, repeatedly lifting your my finger. It doesn’t work all that well for me Wish it worked for me the way it seems to for others
I quickly gravitated to connecting to my WLAN before opening a bookmark. I’ve had few problems connecting this way, while I’ve read more than one complaint that skipping that first step sometimes requires repeated attempts to connect
There’s a way to change Opera’s minimum display size of type (right now it’s set to 7 pixels). I haven’t tried this yet, but I will.
I always go offline as soon as I don’t have any pages I want to get to. This is for battery life
You almost always have to view a table at 100% size; Optimized View can’t help you there (for instance, the front page of the Maemo wiki)
Google mail and Internet Tablet Talk use really small default fonts. itT copes better with zooming than gmail
Sometimes when I enter passwords, the virtual keyboard will stick in uppercase. On these sites, sometimes I can’t log in, or it takes me three or more tries before the password is accepted. The WordPress blogging software here at Internet Tablet Users blog is one of these (one reason for the small number of posts directly from my 770)
Opening a line in a new window is performed by click-and-press on the link, then choosing Open in new window from the popup menu. But in fullscreen view, I haven’t found any way I’ve found there is a way to cycle between open windows (long press on the Home key brings up the task switcher) and a way to close a window (long press on Escape should close the window — so I’m told; it’s not working for me). Sometimes I Now I don’t have to press the Menu key () to do this other times I or to switch back to normal view. Neither seems faster or easier(thanks, ragnar!)
More sites than I ever realized don’t like Opera
Flash is great, but will Adobe let version 7 or 8 migrate to our 770? More sites than I ever realized expect newer versions than Flash 6
I will try MANaOS when Antonio Gomes has it down to 6 mb, as he promises ,”before the end of this year.” But I’d like to be able to remove Opera if ultimately I prefer MANaOS (or GPE-mini-browser). What’s with that?
Will MANaOS become Nokia’s default browser in future? I thought so once, but I think I’d better see some indication of that from Nokia to keep thinking so
Not really a surfing trick, but the tip to enter /usr/ allows Opera to browse the contents of your 770. Since it displays directories that begin with a dot, and File manager doesn’t, this can be really helpful
What I can’t do yet is use my Win XP laptop’s wired network connection at the office to gain access to the web. RealNitro has a complete explanation of how to do this with a Bluetooth adapter (I didn’t buy one yet), which is slightly daunting to a Linux newcomer such as myself, mostly because I haven’t taken the actually daunting steps to enable myself to become root.
If anyone has additional tips for improving the web-surfing experience on a 770, please let us know, and we’ll put it in an update to this item. Thanks!
Reggie wrote me a note about getting his new Nokia 770 and being a bit frustrated with the mail program. In my poor attempt to commiserate — I use gmail and don’t really care about mail (sorry, Reggie!) — I drifted off into a reverie about my first three weeks’ using the Nokia 770. Herewith my observations on its effects on me:
What’s interesting to me is how I’ve changed my attitude towards the 770 since I’ve been using it for three weeks. The tiny size of the type on web pages is not bothersome to me anymore. I’ve learned how to surf using it (efficiently, that is); in fact, that’s something I’m writing up for the blog: what techniques to apply to surfing so increase your happiness. Just discovered Optimized View and how to access “history” properly.
I play more games than I used to — on the train or when I’m waiting. Web Sudoku, BattleGweled, chess, Marbles, and I play them with my two kids (6 and 9). It’s been a way for me to bring my kids into computing, instead of Learn how to use a keyboard and here’s the complicated set of rules for Windows. My daughter loves to draw with Sketch. (Me, I thought I would use it, but I don’t.) This is her self-portrait:
I think that the oddly-and-inappropriately named Hexinput from Joe Strout will be a fantastic way to enter text on this device — awful on any other (well, PDAs too), but perfect for a keyboardless, wide screen.
The more I think about it after using it all this time, it’s the 800 pixel-wide screen in the 5.5-inch device that’s the smartest thing Nokia did. Surfing on a big-screen phone (”big” for phones) was so excruciating recently that I gave it up on the spot. Permanently. Makes me unhappy with the way some companies design their websites now, too — they should adjust better to my width, especially when I zoom in.
Putting this screen in there must be what convinced Nokia they could give up the hard drive and let them sell this as an internet device. I mean, one or two dozen “web pads” had failed before — yes, those failures had had wide-enough screens but were way too big, and too early in the wireless-development timeframe. I remember trying one of them (Screen Media’s FreePad, now the LinuxPad) — what, four years ago? — and sitting in Bryant Park in the cold for an hour testing it because I didn’t know anyplace else where there was wireless available. I certainly didn’t have it.
Anyway, I love the 225 ppi, it makes things readable, makes e-books gorgeous, but I see it now as a consequence of their other choice, not the initial plan (not “Let’s put in the highest res ever — gee, we can only afford 4 inches; well, that’s the size then!”). Haven’t even come close to filling up my MMC card (I thought I would buy a 1GB card the first week; guess I would if I were watching video or piling songs on it). But I don’t have 100 e-books on it yet, and I guess I do see myself heading towards that.
So, back to your first days, yes there are disappointments, which I first balanced against my great expectations, mostly realized. Now I balance them against appreciation of the things listed above, and the disappointments are considerably smaller than that first week.
And I’m really looking forward to Flite, the TTS engine, and having the 770 read text aloud.
And maybe we can get Ruby ported to the 770 and I’ll be able to write small programs and run them. It’s real Linux!
And maybe I’ll splurge for a Bluetooth keyboard (love the Stowaway) and get Abiword and create and edit documents there — but, you know, even with a keyboard, web apps will do nicely most of the time.
And I wish sometimes I had a company phone account — or worked for a phone manufacturer! — so I could have unlimited Bluetooth-linked connection time without worrying about those ridiculous data prices ($80 a MONTH?!). So I still envy Ari Jaaksi.
Dominique Bonte at mobile analysis and development has collected several tips and tricks in getting the most out of the Nokia 770. The tips include two I haven’t seen before — adding a symbolic link to the computer’s root directory so that you can see and manipulate files in File Manager outside the MyDocs and Memory Card locations; and choosing Optimized View in the browser, which will reflow web-page text columns to the 770’s screen when you’ve zoomed in to be able to read the type.
This latter is maybe useful enough to quote at length:
The browser of 770 comes with a number of features to facilitate the viewing of websites on a 800 pixels wide screen. Challenge is to read text in a sufficiently large font and not to have to browse horizontally. An issue I had is that often text columns on websites have too small a font to be read in 100% zoom mode, but no longer fit the screen width when moving to 150% zoom mode (the next available zoom level). It would be useful to have an intermediate 120% or 130% zoom mode. But even then you would have to scroll horizontally to get the text column centered on the screen. Fortunately there is another solution: optimised view mode (Menu > View > Optimised view) …. When in this mode, text columns are automatically adapted to fit the screen width regardless of the zooming level!
So, select optimised view, zoom in as much as you want for optimal reading and then scroll up/down with the joystick to read the text: perfect experience.
The screen captures on the site make it perfectly clear how useful this is. And it would solve the problem I described yesterday, which would make one-handed surfing while walking practical after all.
One of the first questions I had about Bluetooth connections was whether that meant I could surf the web on the train commute to and from work.
So this morning I tested it. Hopping on the train in Montclair, NJ, my borrowed Nokia 6682 Bluetooth cellphone in my hip bag (never took it out), I immediately connected and began surfing 770-interest and general news sites. The experience of surfing while traveling was so engrossing that I got off at the wrong station (and got right back on of course).
Part of my commute this morning involved changing trains at Newark Broad Street Station — never a glitch in the connection. In fact the only “problem” I encountered was when the train entered the tunnel under the Hudson River: no reception there and hence I couldn’t connect to receive my page (above, from the New York Times). There are dead spots on the commuting lines, distinctly noticeable when engaged in conversation, but either these occurred while I was reading a page and not connecting to a site, or I attributed it to the slower speed of Bluetooth and thought nothing of it.
I kept the connection active on the twenty-minute walk to my office. New York being heavily cellularized, I wasn’t expecting any connection difficulties. My first concern was holding onto the 770. Holding a PocketPC or Palm firmly while walking is no problem. But the horizontal orientation of the 770 meant I was gripping it from top and bottom, not left and right. I was very conscious of not dropping the device the whole way down Seventh Avenue.
After a few blocks of stopping here and there to click on a link or scroll, I tried using the 770 one-handed. I pressed the down side of the scroll key. On the link-heavy front page of the Washington Post (above), I discovered this didn’t take me down the page one screen’s worth, but instead highlighted the next link on the page each time I pressed it. Pressing the scroll key’s center button activated the link and brought me to the news story. Continue reading ‘Surfing on the go: on the road with the Nokia 770 and a Bluetooth phone’
But I am a bit disappointed [with surfing] because my 770 becomes sluggish after 15 minutes approx. browsing the web. The screen does not respond properly and charging the windows is very slow. I delete the cache, and get some improvements but at the end I have to reset the device.
Ran across this at the Opera site:
) is the same as clicking the Back button. Added later: And using a long press will close the window (thanks, 
) will move you down the page or to the next link, depending on whether you use long or short presses. The only problem with this is 
) to do this 
