Checking in from a workshop near Helsinki (break time), using my N800. I would have posted yesterday but there was this huge wall of PWN around the place.

Speaking of preeteen fun, when did 'meltdown' become a euphemism for 'soberly expressing doubt'? Is that like when 35 years ago we said 'bad' when we meant 'good'?

Speaking of good... Finnish women. Consider me pleasantly surprised.

Great to hear from you Tex

This forum has had some pure pwnage! Hehe. Hope you're having fun out there.

You probably,don't have a choice, but good places to go from Helsinki are St. Petersburg or Tallinn.

I saw the tours mentioned. No chance on those though. Did go to Suomonlinna Island. Very nice.

See ? Told ya so... :-)

Hmm - I guess Mrs Texrat does not read ITT?

She would rather die.

Besides, there is her fetish for Harrison Ford to bring up @ opportune times...

Ok, time to report on the Finland adventure.

First, specific to tablets: I did not have my laptop on the trip and was forced to live on the N800. Fortunately I got the VPN client I'm testing to work and managed to handle almost everything I needed to do, including accessing SQL Server asp.net reports across the pond and corporate email. Asp.net interaction will be important to some of my development projects.

The next tablet-specific item may be of interest to several posters here. I was taken to task some time back because I expressed the opinion that not all browser errors were due to the tablet/browser. This assertion was based mainly on my own experience, ie, where I used the same device/OS that others used and didn't experience those problems. Suffice to say that while in Finland I encountered NUMEROUS browser crashes, many fatal (shutting down all Opera windows). Once I returned home to the comfort of my own wifi, they dramatically reduced in number.

As far as I'm concerned, this bolsters what I said before: there MUST be other factors involved, such as routing, ISP config, signal strength, etc. Maybe even the "right" combination of factors. I experienced the most problems while using the Helsinki Radisson's wifi, which had an open signal but authenticated via a web page.

I also tried, as was suggested, using Privoxy to access an intranet page that was giving me grief (due to browser reporting) as well as the infamous Wells Fargo banking page (same problem). Privoxy did not help in this regard, and I'm confused as to why anyone thought it might. What's needed is a proxy server that acts as a middleman browser, passing along the data entered via Opera to the target server using a virtual Internet Explorer browser. Any way to do that? I haven't found anything.

I also played around with the previous version of Minimo, but as before had many problems, mostly browser crashes and the inability to access web pages. I also didn't like the fact that it wouldn't let me paste in URLs. ???

Anyway, the good news is that this experience showed me that if the browser compatibility problem can be resolved, the N800 can 100% replace a laptop in the work environment I am developing for. That was very encouraging!

Oh, and overall, Finland was great. I developed leg problems that required brief hospitalization (probably gout they say) and the doctors were great. $150 euros for everything! A fraction of the US costs.

Bad news is, I did not get to visit with my friends in tablet program...

Privoxy allows you to change the user agent on the outgoing HTTP request. Depending on what the server is doing to block non-IE browsers, this *can* be sufficient.

But I'm glad you've finally seen just *how* flaky some people find web browsing on an N800. Admittedly, it seems a lot better these days - but perhaps I'm not using it as much.

Okay, thanks for that info about privoxy. I just can't get it to work for me in any way, unfortunately. It even blocks certain corporate intranet pages, which I didn't expect!

As for the flakiness, I think what I've related is critical to understanding what's going on. Not to belabor the issue, but the circumstances regarding my home experience versus other experiences is very telling. I need to share it with the Opera developers. But the root question remains: why should different environments affect the browsing experience to that degree? Is Opera just too sensitive?