Why the New Opera is Perfect for Slow Connections

Opera 11.1 is available for download for Windows, Mac and Linux. One of the best features of Opera is the built-in Turbo mode that lets you browse the web faster even on slow connections. The feature can also help you save money when you are on a metered Internet connection, like that hotel room, where you have to pay per byte.
Let me explain. When you request a web page - say time.com - your browser will connect directly to the time.com servers to download all the images, text, and other associated files. However, in the case of Opera Turbo, the same request is routed to Opera servers – the web page is downloaded on Opera servers first, it is then compressed and served to you.
The content and layout of the page doesn’t change after compression though the quality of images is often reduced. But since your browser now has to download lesser number of bytes for the same web page, it will load a lot faster on your computer.

Opera Turbo with Google's WebP

The Turbo mode has been part of Opera since version 10 but with the new 11.1 release, that’s due today, Opera servers are now using Google’s WebP image format, instead of JPEG, to compress images. As a result, the byte size of the compressed images is reduced even further without much degradation in the visual quality.
I ran a quick test comparing the size of these photographs as served through regular Opera, Opera Turbo (JPG) and new Opera Turbo with WebP based compression. See results:

The quality of compressed images is quite acceptable. In some cases the images compressed with WebP look better (or smoother) than the ones that have been compressed using JPEG.
And when every byte matters, the savings are obviously huge with Opera 11.1. The other innovative feature of Opera is Unite that turns your computer into a server with a click.

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How to Find WiFi Hotspots in your Area

If you are travelling to a new city and are trying to locate Wi-Fi hotspots around to access the Internet, both Bing and Google may help you find the information you are looking for.
Go to Bing.com and search for “wireless hotspots near Delhi, India.” Replace Delhi, India with the name of your city or, if you are in the U.S., you may even use zip codes with the search query as in the following examples:
1. Wireless Hotspots near Manhattan, New York
2. Wi-Fi Hotspots near 10005
3. Wifi Hotspots near Chennai, India
You should switch to the U.S. edition of Bing to use the hotspot finder feature though they do have hotspot location data for Indian cities as well.
Google Places may also be used for finding Wi-Fi hotspots anywhere in the world (screenshot) and the syntax is pretty similar to that of Bing. For example:
1. Wireless Hotspots in Las Vegas
2. Wi-Fi Hotspots near Dubai
3. WiFi Hotspots near Bangalore, India
Google Places gets data from business owners as well as listings on travel sites as these listings may have information on whether that place offers Wireless Internet or not.
Also, the hotspot listings appearing in Google and Bing are businesses and less likely to be ‘public’ hotspots so you’ll be disappointed if you were looking for free Wi-Fi.

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The Freshest laptop designs

ASUS G51JX

With aesthetics becoming almost as important a factor in usability and performance when it comes to buying a laptop these days, manufacturers are using teams of consultants to get the design just right for a particular market before they even start putting the parts together. Business users will be looking for something that projects a corporate image of sleek efficiency, often in matt black, whereas teenagers will be more interested in bright colours and funky originality, and there is a whole raft of different requirements in between. Laptop news covers the latest designs in innovative laptops to hit the market in recent months.

Notebooks are becoming increasingly lighter and thinner, and taking on the role of fashion accessories to project a personal image as well as sophisticated machines for processing data and keeping in touch with friends and colleagues.

Intel's Core-i technology is at the heart of the laptop revolution, with these ultra-fast and ultra-small microprocessors allowing for ever-smaller designs and increased performance. They are fitted into a whole range of electronic devices apart from laptops, from digital signs to automated machines. Fitting them into laptops allows the kit to work anywhere up to three times faster than those using the Core 2 technology of older ranges.........

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