A couple of weeks ago I got to see one of the OLPC computers in person. Cute little guy. It had been purchased through the Give 1 Get 1 (G1G1) program and was delivered in February 2008. I had heard about the G1G1 program but it was only available for two weeks in November 2007.
No worries - EBay had lots listed. Buy now for $465 - seems excessive. One auction closed at $300 - more like it. I ended up paying $350 - about what I expected. Two days later, the XO was delivered to my door step via FedEx. Yes, that is what it is called - XO laptop.
Getting the XO open was challenging. Those little antenna ears are also the lid latches so you have to flip out the antennas before the lid will open. Good thing the “instructions” showed a series of pictures of the process. It is worth noting that along with some pictograph warnings about how to damage the XO laptop or yourself, is all that is covered in the folded single sheet of 11 x 14 inch paper “instruction manual”. In other words, there is no manual. There is lots of information on the OLPC web site - more about that later.
It powered up no problem and was ready to take for a quick spin. The interface is a little odd if you have used other computers. Having read a bit at laptop.org and spent 5 minutes poking around on the one last week, I was able to explore well enough. The icons all have text and/or options when the cursor hovers over them.
The basic activities were pretty much as expected - basic word processing, media capture and manipulation for images, audio and video. Not exactly commercial quality, but a kick to use. Some nice features like the picture snap delay timer and pre-set selectable audio record times. I don’t plan to do a lot of multimedia productions so I didn’t spend time looking through many of the activities associated with that. Kids will use these functions to learn by doing and by making their learning their own.
I was interested in browsing. Checked the neighborhood view - lots to see but most are secured, which was actually a pleasant surprise. People are taking precautions about access and privacy. I walked over to the library with XO. Sure enough, “midas” - the library access point popped up and was connected. The browser works well.
The screen is sharp, even though it is small. The 485 × 599 pixels (Full resolution 554 × 684) is readable. The color is pretty good when used indoors. Outdoors, the screen is nice and bright, although the colors are pretty much reduced to grayscale.
Scrolling with the arrow keys on the keyboard works well. The touch pad is quite good. I plugged in my USB mouse and it worked.
I have already had the pleasure of exchanging emails with some folks involved in the OLPC project. Nice friendly bunch, eager to share and encourage others to pitch in. I look forward to participating with the San Francisco Bay Area group. There are several groups nearby as well.
Documentation and information
I do have a problem trying to find information. Information is available in the wiki.laptop.org, but it is difficult to find. For example, yes, you can use Skype on an XO but it took about 20 minutes of searching to find the page with the extremely detailed explanation of absolutely every step in the installation and setup process needed to for it to work.
T-Mobile
Because I didn’t place the order for G1G1 I don’t get the T-Mobile deal, I think. There was information in some correspondence that is required to activate it.
http://wiki.laptop.org/go/T-Mobile
Sugar-Control-Panel command in the Terminal Activity
This is the answer. What are the questions? Although I really don’t want to interact with Linux any more than absolutely necessary, it seems that personal settings are options in the Sugar-Control-Panel - time, date, color… However, as this means messing around in the Linux shell, I just live with the current defaults.
http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Support_FAQ
Wifi and internet connectivity
The Neighborhood view shows all the wireless access that XO detects. As we have a hidden SSID, our hotspot dot is not visible in the Neighborhood view. The network can be manually added using the iwconfig command through the Terminal Activity - oh, great. If I make the change it will be difficult / impossible to access any other wifi. SO changed the wireless to visible and secure, but now we have to change all the Windows computers - arg! However, after 20 minutes of fooling around, and rebooting the Windows computers (not XO running Linux, by the way), everyone - SO, XO and me - are all connected and working fine. Without a resident sysprog, this would have been very time consuming, if not impossible.
Connectivity Quick Start Guide answers most questions about Internet Connectivity.
http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Wifi_Connectivity
Neighborhood view - what is with all the colored dots?
XO found 3 mesh networks
XO won’t let me log into my online course - invalid security certificate on the server housing the course management system. While I appreciate XO keeping me from harm, I have work to do, so this is a problem.
Save a file
From the wiki
Files are saved automatically in the Journal Activity, accessed from the Home View. Select the notebook icon just below the XO character to open the Journal and find the activity or file you need.
For more information about the Journal, see OLPC Human Interface Guidelines/The Laptop Experience/The Journal.
Journal here has quite a different meaning than the current common technology meaning - keeping regular writing in date sequence. Many people use blogs as journals. However, journal here means more of an automatically generated log of activities and files created in listed in date / time sequence. One can use the Write activity to create and save text or html documents. These would be listed in the XO journal by time / date created.
Viewing the directory system is a different function.
Activities
Write (text), Paint (draw),
TamTamjam, TamTamedit (multimedia? audio sequencing, editing)
Etoys - slides with interactive and animated objects - presentations, simulations
TurtleArt - like Logo
To do
- figure out the file system, computer settings like audio volume
- what happens when you click register option on the XO guy
- learn more about the wireless and wifi access settings
- activities - TamTam, Pippy
- what can I contribute? something in my area of expertise such as mentoring people doing train-the-teacher where the XOs are being distributed.
Learn more…
- One Laptop Per Child (OLPC)
- OLPC wiki
April 18th, 2008 by 
alameda
Comments Off