Man, what a week

[jrg]

I need to tell someone about how my week has been, and not wanting to
freak out my housemates, a.u.a. will do.

Saturday evening/night/Sunday morning: York University Cave and Pothole
climb up ropes equivalent to the height of Everest in under 18 hours
for charity.

Sunday afternoon: Some of us go on to a pub for lunch. Amongst them are
a girl I fancy and her boyfriend. Tired and placed in the unfortunate
situation of having to sit directly opposite them, I'm not in a good
mood and don't give a particularly good impression of myself.

Monday: Go into work. 9 hours of packing things into boxes in a
warehouse. Despite one and a half years of jobs like this to grow
accustomed to it, I still hate my job as much as ever. Regretting
yesterday afternoon and decide to avoid that group of friends for a
week or two.

Monday evening: I'm told that x, the person I fancy, phoned for me.
Assuming that they're going to tell me to stop being so childish, I
take the phone into my bedroom, take a deep breath, and ring their
number. They sound upset, and tell me they have some bad news. They
tell me that on Sunday evening one of the other people in YUCPC was hit
by a car and killed. I last spoke to said person Sunday morning. My
reply consists mostly of stunned silence.

Tuesday: Into work again. Not really able to concentrate, but the job
doesn't really require concentration. Oh well. Still hating job
extremely.

Tuesday evening: I'm told that someone from Opera software, a company
based in Oslo that makes web browsers, has phoned. I applied for a job
at Opera a few weeks previously in an off-the-cuff fashion. I had been
browsing their website out of interest when I saw a link to a page
extolling the virtues of moving to Norway, and as there was an "apply
online" button I had figured "what the hell" and clicked it.

Wednesday morning: I don't work Wednesdays, so after waking up I play
the piano for a short while. Then someone from Opera phones again. They
sound more nervous than I am. After asking a few questions they say
that they want to fly me out to Norway for a job interview within the
next couple of weeks.

????????

jrg

[Samsonknight]

Post by jrg
Wednesday morning: I don't work Wednesdays, so after waking up I play
the piano for a short while. Then someone from Opera phones again. They
sound more nervous than I am. After asking a few questions they say
that they want to fly me out to Norway for a job interview within the
next couple of weeks.
????????
jrg

Wow! Brilliant. Will they be paying for your travel/accomadation?

[jrg]

Post by Samsonknight

Post by jrg
Wednesday morning: I don't work Wednesdays, so after waking up I play
the piano for a short while. Then someone from Opera phones again. They
sound more nervous than I am. After asking a few questions they say
that they want to fly me out to Norway for a job interview within the
next couple of weeks.
????????
jrg

Wow! Brilliant. Will they be paying for your travel/accomadation?

I think it's standard practice for companies to pay for the costs of
attending an interview, so I'd hope they'd at least pay for the flight.
Though actually the job isn't quite as geek-glamarous as it sounds, as
it's in quality assurance, not development. Though it might feasibly
involve playing with PHP/MySQL a bit. If I get it, that is.

jrg

[Ian/Cath Ford]

Post by jrg
I think it's standard practice for companies to pay for the costs of
attending an interview, so I'd hope they'd at least pay for the flight.
Though actually the job isn't quite as geek-glamarous as it sounds, as
it's in quality assurance, not development. Though it might feasibly
involve playing with PHP/MySQL a bit. If I get it, that is.

Are you an Opera user then? It's my preferred browser; I only resort
to The Evil One when I can't spoof a website which insists upon it. I
must really get around to downloading bith an updated version and one
with java in it as that occasionally causes some problems.

Ian
--
Ian, Cath, Eoin and Calum Ford
Beccles, Suffolk, UK

I loved the word you wrote to me/But that was bloody yesterday

There's no e-mail address. We can talk here and go back to your place later

[cowboy carl]

Post by Ian/Cath Ford

Post by jrg
I think it's standard practice for companies to pay for the costs of
attending an interview, so I'd hope they'd at least pay for the flight.
Though actually the job isn't quite as geek-glamarous as it sounds, as
it's in quality assurance, not development. Though it might feasibly
involve playing with PHP/MySQL a bit. If I get it, that is.

Are you an Opera user then? It's my preferred browser; I only resort
to The Evil One when I can't spoof a website which insists upon it. I
must really get around to downloading bith an updated version and one
with java in it as that occasionally causes some problems.

Have you tried FireFox?

cc

[Matt]

Post by cowboy carl

Post by jrg
I think it's standard practice for companies to pay for the costs of
attending an interview, so I'd hope they'd at least pay for the flight.
Though actually the job isn't quite as geek-glamarous as it sounds, as
it's in quality assurance, not development. Though it might feasibly
involve playing with PHP/MySQL a bit. If I get it, that is.

Are you an Opera user then? It's my preferred browser; I only resort to
The Evil One when I can't spoof a website which insists upon it. I must
really get around to downloading bith an updated version and one with
java in it as that occasionally causes some problems.

Have you tried FireFox?

I do, sometimes, but I get fed up with all the plugins I'd need to install
to get what I have with Opera out of the box. I prefer Opera's UI, anyway,
and it's slightly faster to load (not that that really matters, since it
loads on startup anyway). Opera remembers what tabs I have open when I
start up, too, which is excellent, probably there's a plugin for this, I
haven't looked for a while.

[jrg]

Until I realised Opera might hire me I was mostly using Firefox. I had
been using Opera only for sites which insist on IE, because Opera seems
pretty good at spoofing sites, and also at rendering IE only javascript
etc, whereas Firefox doesn't bother.

Though the two browsers are fairly equal, Firefox does have the major
advantage that you can use it for free without having to put up with an
ad bar.

I can't believe I started a thread like that and it's already descended
into technical mumbo-jumbo discussion.

[cowboy carl]

Post by jrg
Until I realised Opera might hire me I was mostly using Firefox. I had
been using Opera only for sites which insist on IE, because Opera seems
pretty good at spoofing sites, and also at rendering IE only javascript
etc, whereas Firefox doesn't bother.
Though the two browsers are fairly equal, Firefox does have the major
advantage that you can use it for free without having to put up with an
ad bar.
I can't believe I started a thread like that and it's already descended
into technical mumbo-jumbo discussion.

The slightest *hint* of anything technical in a post, and that's what
people will reply to.

It's like finding a needle in a haystack ... AUA is one giant electromagnet.

cc

[Ian/Cath Ford]

Post by jrg
Until I realised Opera might hire me I was mostly using Firefox. I had
been using Opera only for sites which insist on IE, because Opera seems
pretty good at spoofing sites, and also at rendering IE only javascript
etc, whereas Firefox doesn't bother.

That can all, of course, be a pretty big advantage. Not used FF - is
it similar in look and so on?

Post by jrg
Though the two browsers are fairly equal, Firefox does have the major
advantage that you can use it for free without having to put up with an
ad bar.

It really doesn't bother me too much - the advantages will outweigh
that fairly small disadvantage. And it's Norwegian which has to be a
good thing... :-)

Post by jrg
I can't believe I started a thread like that and it's already descended
into technical mumbo-jumbo discussion.

Yes, I know what you mean.

Ian
--
Ian, Cath, Eoin and Calum Ford
Beccles, Suffolk, UK

I loved the word you wrote to me/But that was bloody yesterday

There's no e-mail address. We can talk here and go back to your place later

[jrg]

Post by Ian/Cath Ford

Post by jrg
Until I realised Opera might hire me I was mostly using Firefox. I had
been using Opera only for sites which insist on IE, because Opera seems
pretty good at spoofing sites, and also at rendering IE only

javascript

Post by Ian/Cath Ford

Post by jrg
etc, whereas Firefox doesn't bother.

That can all, of course, be a pretty big advantage. Not used FF - is
it similar in look and so on?

It is pretty similar in that Firefox copied the multiple
pages-in-one-window idea from Opera (except it renames them "tabs").
There are various minor differences in the interface though - e.g. I'm
growing to quite like Opera's "hold down left mouse button and click
the right one to follow first link in page or if there are no links the
link after the one you clicked in the previous page", but I prefer
Firefox's bar that appears down the bottom when you want to search to
Opera's "type f followed by a search term in the address bar". But in
general you have to be a connoisseur of web browsers to notice much
difference.

James

[Matt]

Post by jrg

Post by jrg
Until I realised Opera might hire me I was mostly using Firefox.

Bet that's changed (for the moment, at least). It's my preferred browser
too.

Post by jrg

Post by jrg
I had been using Opera only for sites which insist on IE, because
Opera seems pretty good at spoofing sites, and also at rendering IE
only javascript etc, whereas Firefox doesn't bother.

I find perhaps one site a month that fails, usually either because I don't
have the plugin (which is a fault of my minimalist Debian install, and
generally it's a windows media plugin that's missing) or some nast
javascript.

Post by jrg

That can all, of course, be a pretty big advantage. Not used FF - is it
similar in look and so on?

It is pretty similar in that Firefox copied the multiple
pages-in-one-window idea from Opera (except it renames them "tabs").

Firefox looks simpler, there's much less on the toolbard by default. Some
people find Opera overwhelming at first since there's a lot to click, but
they're working on this ATM.

Post by jrg
There are various minor differences in the interface though - e.g. I'm
growing to quite like Opera's "hold down left mouse button and click the
right one to follow first link in page or if there are no links the link
after the one you clicked in the previous page", but I prefer Firefox's
bar that appears down the bottom when you want to search to Opera's
"type f followed by a search term in the address bar".

In Opera, press . (full stop) or , (comma - for a links-only search). I
think this is what you want (the page needs to be focused, the key
shortcut for this is F9, or you can click the page, generally it's not
necessary though). It's slightly different in the new beta, there box is
larger.

Post by jrg
But in general
you have to be a connoisseur of web browsers to notice much difference.

Opera's well worth trying, definatly.