English 421Y: Technical Writing Online

This week was spent researching the functions and operation of the Opera web browser. I’ve used Opera in the past so I was somewhat familiar with its functionality, but knew there was a lot more to learn based on the needs of our project.

Other than the basic feature of simply browsing the internet, Opera has some cool features that separates it from the other popular browsers like Firefox. The most obvious feature is the “Speed Dial”. This is a function that allows the user to have nine different buttons (pages) on one screen. For our audience, this would be a perfect tool when frequently using web based utilities for network hardware. Throughout the week I found myself using this function over and over, rarely referring to my old bookmarks. Another feature that stood out was the ability to re-open closed tabs. I thought this would be useful for someone in IT when working on important pages and loosing your place is not an option.

One problem I noticed with Opera is the inability to use Linksys’s web based web camera software. I was getting page loads, but the feed wasn’t there. This could be a potential problem for IT that manages a security camera system.