Opera Unite - A Browser-based Web Service

Whoa, so this thingey is brand new as of this morning.

Cutting to the chase...Download Opera Unite.

Opera Unite is a feature of the just-released build of the Opera 10 web browser that provides a web server for sharing local data on your computer with others without having to upload anything.

Simple concept, but fairly cool. Imagine this scenario:

I'm working on a project, and I have a video I'd like to send to my friend. Normally, I'd do this by uploading it to YouTube, sending an e-mail, or uploading it to my own web server. There are problems with these approaches:

1. All three of these approaches require me to transfer my video, which could be pretty large, to another web server in some form before I'm able to pass it on to my friend. The transfer will probably take a considerable amount of time.
2. Depending on my proficiency or level of access with my web server or web service, I may not be able to easily restrict access to this file.
3. With YouTube, I'd have to wait for the site to convert the video into the correct video format.
4. With e-mail, my e-mail server may prohibit me from sending such a large file.

Enter Opera Unite: I can launch the Opera web browser, select a file or folder to share, set some access permissions, and voilà, I send my friend a link to something like http://my_computer_name.my_username.operaunite.com/, and they're able to instantly view my video. The browser runs a local web server that gives me a way to host and share content through the Internet without uploading anything. Opera Unite has a few different preset sharing modes that let you easily share files, media, and photos. Unite also consists of two handy social features - a live chat feature called "The Lounge," and "The Fridge," a place to leave a note "on" someone's computer.

I've set up Opera Unite on my machine, so feel free to give it a try: Joe's Opera Unite Page
Use "panthertr1ck" as the password when requested.

Now, there are a few caveats, the main one being that Opera Unite won't work if Opera isn't running on your local machine. For example, you won't be able to do much with the above link if my laptop isn't running.

It doesn't seem like Opera Unite was meant to replace a full-fledged web server, however. Opera Unite look more like a solution for sending large files or otherwise sharing files quickly with others at a given moment. I do this all the time, so I'm really excited by this service's potential.

I also like / don't mind the Opera web browser itself...Opera Software has always shown a strong commitment to web standards and openness, so while the Opera web browser may not see nearly as much use as Firefox, Safari, or Internet Explorer, its unique features and overall quality give it a special place in my Applications folder. If you haven't given Opera a try, I'd encourage you to do so, especially now that Unite is part of the equation.

A Crash Course in "A List Apart"

Written by Joe Kohlmann

Chances are you’ve heard of A List Apart by now. Hopefully you’ve taken a tour of ALA and have checked out some of the [really] neat tricks that many of the articles describe, but hopefully you’ve also skimmed a few of the articles that take a standard technique used across the web and offer a better solution.

There are many of these articles, but here’s a sampling of the ones I very often refer back to when building a website:

Creating Liquid Layouts with Negative Margins

This technique solves a potential usability problem that the standard technique of creating a floating sidebar presents: why must the sidebar content come before the main content in the HTML code?

Usually we need to do this because of how CSS floats work – the floating element causes proceeding elements to flow around it. Though less of a problem with modern, CSS-compliant web browsers, consider how a web page using this technique will look on a mobile phone that doesn’t support CSS, or the order in which a screen reader will read the page to the user. In both cases, the sidebar will come first, and depending on your own design philosophy, this might not be what you had in mind.

The article presents a technique that allows you to place the main content before the sidebar in the HTML code, allowing the viewer to get straight to the most important content, no matter how they access or navigate the page.

Exploring Footers

Ever wanted a more versatile footer in your web page? This ALA article describes a technique for a footer that will display after the bottom of a page’s content, or at the very bottom of the browser window if the content is too short.

Faux Columns

You may have noticed that giving a sidebar a background color or background image does not cause that background to extend beyond the height of the sidebar’s content. Using a background image and some more tricks, you can style your page with a sidebar background that extends to the entire height of the browser window.

Cross-Column Pull-Outs

Though CSS 3 supports multi-column layouts, some web designers can’t wait for all major browsers to support these standards (because, frankly, they’d be waiting an excruciatingly long time!). Meanwhile, you can use the techniques in this article to create print-like columns and text flow on the web.

CSS Sprites: Image Slicing’s Kiss of Death

If you only read one of these articles, make it this one. Web design master Dave Shea describes the definitive technique for making CSS-based image rollovers. Sure, DreamWeaver can do image rollovers, but not as cleanly or as elegantly as you yourself can, using only CSS. This technique is easy to master, easy to appreciate, and, in my opinion, absolutely indispensable.

Also Recommended

• Understanding Web Design
• Better Living Through XHTML
• Zebra Tables
• Progressive Enhancement with CSS
• Creating Intrinsic Ratios for Video
• A Preview of HTML 5

A List Apart is a long-running web magazine that both amateur and professional web designers read and comment on daily. In this author’s opinion, there’s nothing else out there with the same amount of detail, quality, and polish as ALA.