5 days ago, I ordered a replacement LCD screen for Megan's netbook, a run-of-the-mill Gateway LT2032u machine. The screen had cracked due to an unfortunate fall. I was able to install the replacement in less than an hour, and it works perfectly. The netbook originally cost about $300 and the replacement screen was only $50. Small victories.

In other news, Opera 10.60 was released officially today. Opera is truly an awesome engineering feat. The supported operating system list is impressive: Windows, OS X, Linux (i386, x86-64, and PowerPC), FreeBSD (i386 and x86-64), and Solaris (SPARC and Intel). The FreeBSD'ers must be rejoicing. Not only is basically every modern operating system supported, but it is the fastest browser, even faster than Google's Chrome. I didn't believe it either, until I ran some benchmarks myself. It's got WebM video. Now that Firefox is getting beaten badly by 3 browsers in the speed category, the folks at Mozilla need to do some soul-searching. If the current Mozilla JavaScript engine (SpiderMonkey), which is descended directly from the first ever JavaScript interpreter created by Brendan Eich at Netscape, can't keep up, it should be replaced. Heck, Mozilla could grab V8, it's open source. It certainly wouldn't be a trivial task, maybe infeasible due to how deeply embedded in the code the current one is. But they have to do something.

The release of yet another super-fast browser is a big win for everyone. Internet Explorer is losing market share fast enough to make Microsoft actually want to compete, though IE 8 was such a spectacular failure that I have little faith in IE 9. The web is everything. Windows is still the dominant desktop OS, because that's what you get when you buy a computer. It doesn't much matter now, though. You could put someone in front of an Ubuntu desktop, they'll click the Firefox icon and be off and surfing in no time. The web is the great equalizer. Between Firefox, Chrome, and Opera, the operating system has become a commodity. Add Open Office and Google Docs into the mix and there is no reason that anyone couldn't use any operating system. Now, I prefer Linux as the perfect balance between usability and power. If I was a hardcore gamer, I would probably use Windows since it is the PC gaming operating system. I've even dabbled with Windows 7. It's not that bad--much better than Vista and finally an evolutionary step past XP.

Some people love OS X and I understand why. It is the smoothest, sexiest operating system with enough Unix cred to be cool for the developer crowd. I'm willing to trade in that sexiness for paying 1/3 as much for a computer and having a slightly more powerful, configurable operating system. OS X is also a bit too mouse-oriented for my taste.

Enough about operating systems. I want my Arm-powered Linux netbook already. When do I get that? Lenovo's got one in the works, called the Skylight, but it looks to be a bit pricey.