The Good Life... a weblog about life, technology, and the Opera web browser

I've just upgraded my site, so let me know if you run into any problems. I'm going to try to add in trackback support today, too.

I'd like to applaud the Internet Explorer (IE) team on their commitment to fix many of the most loathed IE bugs. This will make it much easier for new and exciting things to come to many more sites on the Web. Of course, the things we're planning will help, too. Now, if they'd just release IE 7 for OSes older than Windows XP SP2, the future would look even brighter!

We've just released 8.10 Preview 2. There are two important changes in this release compared to 8.02: a) BitTorrent support is back with some back-end fixes and b) the default browser identification is Opera (!). Have fun!

Get it for...

• Mac
• Windows
• UNIX

I've worked in various departments throughout my two years at Opera Software. All the fun began in May 2001, when I was invited to be an Elektran. The Elektrans are Opera's oldest volunteer testing group, made up of around twenty-five volunteers from all over the World. When I graduated from college with a Bachelor of Science in Computer Science (which sounds much better than "a BS in CS") in May 2003, I asked one of the volunteer coordinators if Opera had any developer internships available. Within a couple of days, I was offered an internship in the Quality Assurance (QA) department at Opera's headquarters in Oslo, Norway. I jumped at the opportunity to take my first overseas trip. Elektrans are ad hoc testing specialists, so the position seemed to fit even if it wouldn't be in product development.

That summer, I worked in the Bug Tracking System, confirming new bug reports and cleaning up old reports. I also started working on a user interface test suite, helped with testing new features, and wrote changelogs for preview releases. I had known a lot of the Opera employees through e-mail, but it was nice to finally put a name to a face and learn how to correctly pronounce their names (you try pronouncing "Yngve" or "Håvard" without knowing a bit of Norwegian).

Before I left, Opera asked me to stay in Oslo and work full-time for QA. That didn't work for me, though, as I had too many attachments in the US (mostly my girlfriend). So, I headed back to the States to search for a job. But before I could start, Opera contacted me and asked if I would work from home part-time as a Customer Service Representative. I hadn't been trained in our Customer Service system, so I mostly did support through our community sites. Over the next couple of months, the part-time job became a full-time job and I visited Oslo again in January 2004.

Upon my return to the US, Rebekah (my girlfriend at the time) said she wanted to give Oslo a try. Things progressed quickly from there. I switched over to the QA department in May, we married in September, and we moved to Oslo in October.

When I arrived, the QA department was low on device testers, so I started working on device testing. Shortly thereafter, QA was restructured. The development team had so many on-going projects that QA needed to split into five groups to focus testing efforts. Customer Service joined QA and became QA: Services. A new group called Systems and Processes QA was formed to continue development of QA systems. And the rest of the testers split into Desktop QA, Devices QA, and Core QA. Device testing didn't agree with me, so I moved into the Core QA department when it was formed in January 2005 and I've been there ever since.

When I finished college, I dreamt of being an Opera developer. Yet now that I'm in Core QA, I wouldn't change a thing. It's been a great journey so far and I look forward to seeing where else it takes me.

As we lay in bed on Saturday night, Rebekah grabbed my hand and put it on her abdomen. She'd been doing this almost every night for the past few weeks with no success. This time, I felt the gentle prodding she's become accustomed to. For the first time, I felt our baby reaching out into our world from the safety of the womb.

Rebekah is starting to show now and things will only speed up from this point on. I'm still unsure if I'm ready to be a parent, but I think that's natural. It's probably one of those things where if you think you're ready, you're not, and if you think you're not ready, you are. I didn't expect to be a father this early in my life. Yet, I can't wait to see what it's like. I'll do just fine. My parents taught me well, whether they know it or not.

Bill Cosby says that all parents curse their children. "I hope your children grow up to be just like you," they say. If only I could remember what I did to be cursed: I'd start preparing!

Before the confusion starts, I want to make one thing perfectly clear: 8.02 Final will not include BitTorrent. 8.02 will be a maintenance release. BitTorrent will be in a later feature release (8.1, perhaps). BitTorrent was included in 8.02 Preview 1 to preview technology we're working on. It was never our intention to include BitTorrent in 8.02.

Rebekah and I made a trip to the hospital today for her first ultrasound. This was only our second appointment to see a midwife and the first time we got a glimpse of our baby. There's no denying it now: she's definitely pregnant. I suppose I've been in denial. I mean, maybe Rebekah's upset stomach was from something else, right? And pregnancy tests aren't 100% accurate.... But all that went away today as I watched a baby appear on the ultrasound monitor.

As the midwife moved the ultrasound transducer across Rebekah's abdomen, parts of the baby jumped into view.

There are two hands, the midwife said with a deep Norwegian accent. And two feet.

Our baby has two hands and two feet? I asked Rebekah. That's normal, right? I added with a grin.

The midwife moved the transducer around for a while, taking measurements, pointing out different parts of the baby, and printing sonograms. She stopped when she located the heart and let us watch as the four chambers pumped in their perfect pattern. The baby was clearly moving around the whole time, though Rebekah didn't feel anything (and hasn't yet).

Unfortunately, the baby isn't far enough along to determine its sex. The midwife we saw in mid-May (the one who will be performing the birth) estimated the due date for early December and scheduled the ultrasound based on that information. Using the measurements she took, the midwife we saw today estimated the due date to be December 16th. The baby's sex can usually be determined after the sixteenth week, so we were just a bit too early.

I figure it's a good thing that pregnancies last nine months: it gives me a decent amount of time to get used to the idea of being a dad. By the time Rebekah goes into labor, I should be all set.

This sonogram is a profile of our baby. The baby's head is on the right, facing down. The spine is clearly visible on top heading from the head all the way to the left. The black area in the baby on the left is the baby's stomach. I've added a couple more sonograms to our gallery, too.