The first feature I must have is Speed Dial. This is a page that has pictures I can click on and go to my most frequently used pages. Here is what they look like in Opera:

Okay, good news, Opera wins in that category. The next thing I didn’t want to give up was my own toolbar (see previous Conduit post). You see in my toolbar I have my e-mail accounts configured so that they show me how many new messages I have, and when I click on the icon I am immediately taken to that account (I have multiple e-mail accounts), without being required to sign in each time. That was a biggy for me.

Well, Opera handles that very nicely in their own mail program. Now everything feeds into my Opera mail and I get little pop-ups down in the right, bottom corner when mail comes in. Or, I can simply leave the sidebar open and see when something comes in to my mailbox:

Another thing I really like is that in addition to all my e-mail accounts, the sidebar also shows my RSS feeds from Google Reader:

So far, as far as features, Opera hits the imporant ones. My only other major desire being my passwords. I use Foxmarks and really love having the saved password feature because I change them so frequently. Well, Opera addresses that too. They have a “wand” that saves passwords. Now, I am not finding it as fully comprehensive as Firefox/Foxmarks, however, it is something I can live with, because…

The speed is outstanding! I cannot believe how much faster this browser feels. I feel like I am driving a Porsche compared to an old Nissan.  It handles like nothing else. And apparently Opera 10 is supposed to be even more nimble and responsive.

So what’s the bottom line? I have been using Opera all day and I love it! It’s fast. Super fast! It pulls my e-mail and RSS feeds into a sidebar making it super convenient for me to access them (no need to sign in to my Gmail accounts). I can theme it (just like I can with Firefox). I have all the features that are important to me, and I feel like I’m driving a thoroughbred rather than a work horse.

But that’s just my experience. I encourage you to take your own test drive.  Just click on the Opera icon above and you’ll be taken to their download/information page.

Update: My husband installed Opera on his Win XP machine. He ran only the first test (2x). On his machine Google Chrome was approx. 6x faster than Opera. However, he did not use Opera in any way.

Each toolbar has a bunch of options that you can add, however because mine is for my students I tried to make it as simple as possible. Here is the result:

There are some very cool features that I would like to point out…

1. See the “Messages” button? This allows me to send a message and it will be broadcast directly into the toolbar. All I have to do is sign-in to my Conduit account and send the message. I really think this feature will be very useful as many of my students either forget, or just simply don’t, check their e-mail (I’m working on training them, but it’s a long process ).

2. With the e-mail situation in mind I added a button to the toolbar that will go and grab your e-mail at whatever intervals you specify. I happen to have mine set to check every minute and it seems to be doing a good job because as I type I just saw the number jump up by one. It is also very customizable; I have been able to add multiple e-mail accounts to the mix.

3. The little house button will take my students directly to my Lahaise’s Lair website (which is really “their” website).  Again, that is completely customizable as far as icon and link. In fact, you can even upload your own image to use instead of the one they provide.

4. I have also added another button with links to important sites they will be frequently visiting (i.e., the class Ning, Turnitin.com, etc.).

5. The last button, web 2.0 tools, is something I just added. It is actually an add-on, sort of like a widget. It isn’t very configurable, so I haven’t decided if I will keep it.

The Conduit website seems to be targeted toward business users, but I really see this as a valuable, and cool, tool to use with students. I find that my students “forget” things, so the more tools I can offer them the better. And while I have it set-up around my website, you don’t have to have a website in order to use this tool. It is so configurable the possibilities are endless.

Wow! I almost forgot the best part. It’s FREE!

BTW…I used my “own” icons and uploaded them to the Conduit site. Very cool that they allow so much customization for free.

So whether you have a class website or not, I think your students will love their very own customized toolbar.