Pacific NW Summer 2009

Another summer gone by, and this one was memorable for all the wrong reasons. In the weather department, the reasons were twofold: the worst Portland heat wave on record, 10 days extending from Jul 25th to Aug 3rd, with three consecutive days within that period reaching 103/106/106. And the most number of days 90 degrees or above: 24.

Seattle even had a less-than-pleasant summer, notably in late July and early August, where they reached into the 90’s a staggering 5 times and eclipsed 100 for the first time (103).

Portland 2008:

Days in 80's: (May: 7, June: 6, July: 9, August: 9, Sept: 8)

Days in 90's: (May: 0, June: 1, July: 11, August: 7, Sept: 2)

Days in 100's: (May: 0, June: 0, July: 3, August: 0, Sept: 0)

Highest temp the whole season (Jul 28-29th): 106

Precip (inches): (May: 3.26, June: 1.32; July: 0.34; August: 0.76; Sept: 1.40)  

Seattle 2008:

Days in 80's: (May: 2, June: 3, July: 13, August: 6, Sept: 5)

Days in 90's: (May: 0, June: 1, July: 4, August: 1, Sept: 0)

Days in 100's: (May: 0, June: 0, July: 1, August: 0, Sept: 0)

Highest temp the whole season (Jul 29th): 103

Precip (inches): (May: 3.61; June: 0.18; July: 0.06; August: 1.16; Sept: 1.75)

Pacific NW Summer 2008

Has it been a year already?  This summer was notable for a surprising stretch of temperate weather in the second half of July, a time which typically features the worst weather of the year. Reality soon returned, however, in the first half of August, which culminated mid-month with the worst stretch of summer: 100/102/99. The pattern then repeated: the second half of August was reasonable, but soon into September things were smoking again, and by the end of the month we were pushing 90 just when it seemed like summer was over. September was much warmer than normal overall. Precipitation was normal all summer long: virtually non-existent.

Portland 2008:

Days in 80's: (May: 3, June: 6, July: 15, August: 10, Sept: 11)

Days in 90's: (May: 2, June: 0, July: 5, August: 3, Sept: 2)

Days in 100's: (May: 0, June: 1, July: 0, August: 2, Sept: 0)

Highest temp the whole season (Aug 14th): 102

Precip (inches): (May: 0.96, June: 0.71; July: 0.26; August: 0.29; Sept: 0.35)  

Seattle 2008:

Days in 80's: (May: 1, June: 3, July: 9, August: 7, Sept: 1)

Days in 90's: (May: 1, June: 2, July: 0, August: 3, Sept: 0)

Highest temp the whole season (Jun 29th): 92

Precip (inches): (May: 0.19; June: 0.58; July: 0.25; August: 0.88; Sept: 0.54)

Pacific NW Summer 2007

As I've done the last couple years on this blog, I like to summarize the summer that was in these parts. Subjectively, at least, this summer couldn't compare to 2006's notable heat waves, and I appreciated that the heat high-tailed it out of here with two weeks of calendar summer left to go. Let's see what it looked like by the numbers.

Portland 2007:

Days in 80's: (May: 5, June: 6, July: 16, August: 7, Sept: 6)

Days in 90's: (May: 1, June: 0, July: 2, August: 4, Sept: 1)

Days in 100's: (May: 0, June: 0, July: 1, August: 0, Sept: 0)

Highest temp the whole season (July 10th): 102

Precip (inches): (May: 0.54; June: 0.39; July: 0.26; August: 0.32; Sept: 1.08)

Seattle 2007:

Days in 80's: (May: 4, June: 4, July: 9, August: 6, Sept: 2)

Days in 90's: (May: 0, June: 0, July: 1, August: 0, Sept: 0)

Highest temp the whole season (July 11th): 98

Precip (inches): (May: 0.56; June: 0.38; July: 0.45; August: 0.25; Sept: 1.19)

Opera 9.22 not for Vista either

So Opera Software released a new version of Opera last week after a short beta test period. You would think that they would take this opportunity to make their browser work better in Vista, particularly considering that this may be the last released version of Opera for several months in advance of the testing period for "Kestrel" (Opera 9.5), the final version of which is due late in the year.

But other than a vague "Fix for accessing certain Web sites using Windows Vista" note in the the 9.22 release notes, there were no documented fixes for Vista at all. This is despite the glaring issues Opera has in Vista, as documented in my last post.

Given that Opera Software only bothers to list the highlights in its revision notes (something they've admitted to), I moved to 9.22 full-time in Vista and can now confirm that both problems are still there, which makes sense since A) Opera is still in radio-silence about the issues and B) The issues seem to have the same root cause.

So where does this leave us?  Vista was released in November 2006; the problems were reported in February 2007 (including formal bug reports by at least the first poster in the problem thread); there have been four releases of Opera since Vista's release; and Opera Software has barely said two words about the issues in any venue in all that time.

Disinterest or incompetence, I ask again.

10 Things in Opera that piss me off

In no particular order. Some major some minor, but all annoying. I currently use v9.21/MSI in Windows Vista Ultimate, on a P4 3GHz (Hyperthreaded) with 2GB RAM.

• In Vista only, exiting Opera will leave opera.exe in memory taking 100% of your CPU. Nice. It may remove itself after 5, 10, 15 minutes or more, but then it may not, so I simply End Task on it after about 30 seconds to un-cripple the machine. This didn't happen in XP, where with rare exception it would remove itself within 30 seconds. The only way to avoid this issue in Vista is if you run Opera very briefly with only a few tabs, which is not realistic. No other app I have does this. Known problem since February 2007.
• In Vista only, Opera will "pause" for about 5 seconds at random times throughout the day. When it does, its title bar will usually say "Not responding."  Apparently, this coincides with Opera writing out a small .TMP file to its profile directory, which never posed a problem in XP. No other app I have does this. Known problem since February 2007.
• Obscenely inefficient use of disk resources. Fire up Process Monitor some time and watch Opera go absolutely mad with disk and Registry accesses. I've never seen a program that can compare. My I/O Writes, for example, are typically around 50 million by the time I close Opera out every night. Sad.
• Making changes in Preferences--or even viewing some areas--can be agonizingly slow. A few choke points within Preferences include: Manage Cookies, Manage Site Preferences, and OK'g out after having made even a minor change. 
• Apropos of nothing (hey!) Opera will "permanently" highlight random pieces of text on a page. There's no way to un-highlight the text short of refreshing the page. There are reports of this happening since early builds of v9.0 in early 2006.
• No support for major add-on programs like the essential password manager Roboform, which works with numerous other browsers, such as the legendary "3B Browser" and "Flock."  Roboform is particularly necessary because Opera's own password manager, Wand, is so pathetic. Support for such add-ons has been a requested feature for years.
• No support for in-line Autocomplete in fields, similar to the feature in IE, FF, and every other browser made this decade (most likely). No, I'm not talking about the few things that you can pre-program into Wand, but Opera being able to recall what you've typed into any previous field on a Web page. I waste a little time every day by Opera not having this feature. This has been a requested feature for years.
• Inability to recall a list of recent searches in the Search box on the address bar (Google, etc). Of course it should be able to do it; of course it doesn't. I'll cheat by making this a two-fer and suggest that the Search box should also have the ability to auto-suggest items as you type them in, just like FF does.
• Support for very few typed-in URLs, such that a site you know you visited the day before yesterday isn't recognized when you begin to type it into the Address bar, forcing you to type in the entire address. But there's a # of "Addresses" section available in the History section of Preferences, you say?  Yes, there is, but when you increase it much beyond the default, it exacts a terrible toll on Opera's startup time. IE and FF can remember weeks on end of addresses with no impact on performance.
• Why is it when you "Find" an item on a page, whether you use the traditional Ctrl-F or the newer inline find, that it never tells you when you've found the last item?  Wouldn't that be more useful than silently cycling back to the beginning, leaving it up to you to notice?  Apparently not.

You didn't think that was all, did you?  These were just the first 10 off the top of my head. There will be more to come.

Just be glad you don't live there

I'm sure there's a reason people want to live on the eastern sides of Great Lakes. I don't know what those reasons are, but there must be some. Anyway, some areas east of Lake Ontario have picked up, oh, about 12 feet of snow over the last week. Doesn't this scene from Redfield, NY look idyllic?

Pacific NW Summer 2006

Compared to last year's summer, this year's was hell, featuring four official heat waves in Portland (at least three consecutive days 90F or above) in less than two months, one of which was a sprawling five-day affair that brought most of the Pacific NW to its knees with not only 100+ degree temperatures but dew points for a couple of those days that would do the East Coast proud.

Portland 2006:

Days in 80's: (May: 4, June: 5, July: 12, August: 8, Sept: 14)

Days in 90's: (May: 1, June: 2, July: 4, August: 8, Sept: 2)

Days in 100's: (May: 0, June: 2, July: 2, August: 0, Sept: 0)

Highest temp the whole season (July 21st): 104

Precip (inches): (May: 2.54; June: 0.93; July: 0.51; August: 0.11; Sept: 0.86)

 

Seattle 2006:

Days in 80's: (May: 1, June: 5, July: 8, August: 11, Sept: 7)

Days in 90's: (May: 0, June: 1, July: 4, August: 0, Sept: 0)

Highest temp the whole season (July 21st): 97

Precip (inches): (May: 1.65; June: 1.67; July: 0.06; August: 0.02; Sept: 1.43)