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piranha |
my OLPC xo arrived, gifted by the *poing* (v-hugs the *poing* again, since the real thing has to wait another 4 weeks). it arrived for the second time, because the first time it came it wouldn't boot and tech support told us we had to send it back to be fixed (i do hope this doesn't happen to too many kids; somebody really ought to at least turn these things on before they ship them out). |
but this time it booted, and we're both having fun exploring it. it is much smaller than my mind's eye imagined it, maybe because i always saw it either pictured alone with nothing for scale, or in the hands of kids. it is very cute because of that -- in the picture it sits in front of a 19" monitor. the rabbit ears are not just cute, but fulfill two functions -- rock on.
first impressions:
aside from being cute and colourful, it's very sturdy, easy to carry, has rounded edges, texturized covers, and a small keyboard with a membrane, so no crumbs can lodge between keys, and i bet the occasional spill won't hurt it either -- it does look and feel very kid-friendly.
the "sugar" paradigm will take a little to get used to (sugar is the core of the xo's interface); it's not intuitively obvious to me. the first thing we did was figure out how to get a linux prompt. :) the keyboard being kid-friendly means it's not friendly for adults with large fingers -- but mine aren't that big; lucky.
the screen is a marvel, very easy to read under all sorts of strange conditions which are often deadly for regular laptops. the xo is a little large and heavy to make the ideal ebook reader, but it's no worse than handling a big hardcover (better, because it doesn't flop around); i read about 200 pages last night without problems.
the reader is simple but has sufficient features for me at this point, and it's easy enough to get or convert books into pdf format -- i downloaded something from baen's free library in rtf format, opened it in the mac's textedit, and "printed" it to a pdf file. file transfer can be done over the network, or via a USB stick or SD card.
it's great fun so far. i am feeling urges to write stuff for it.
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on 2008-03-15 02:26 (UTC)no subject
on 2008-03-15 03:14 (UTC)no subject
on 2008-03-15 07:03 (UTC)help in kansas city
on 2008-03-15 07:45 (UTC)i doubt i can give her pointers as easily as a local geek. :)
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on 2008-03-16 03:32 (UTC)no subject
on 2008-03-15 02:37 (UTC)I can't wait.
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on 2008-03-15 06:52 (UTC)no subject
on 2008-03-15 07:38 (UTC)However, a bit of Google-searching does indicate that the bootloader (Open Firmware) is written in Forth, and if you push the right button while it's booting, it will drop you into a Forth shell to poke around.
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on 2008-03-16 03:18 (UTC)I found a tutorial on FORTH for the OLPC (http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Forth_Lesson_0) on line, too.
FORTH?
on 2008-03-15 07:39 (UTC)so far most of what i have come across seems to be in python, which is apparently encouraged as the primary language for development (so as to facilitate code sharing for the kidlets who want to learn programming). and then there is the smalltalk development system as well, which looks really cool at first glance.
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on 2008-03-15 12:10 (UTC)Looking for e-books to read? As part of a promotion for a shiny Web site (http://nielsenhayden.com/makinglight/archives/010044.html#010044) under development, Tor (as announced on Making Light) has been offering a series of free e-books to those who've registered. This week it's Farthing. Others that I got links to as an advance subscriber include Old Man's War, Spin, and Mistborn. Tor's e-mail for each free e-book says it's OK to forward the email with link to another person (though there's no guarantee that the free e-books won't go away after a few weeks).
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on 2008-03-15 12:54 (UTC)TOR's new shiny
on 2008-03-15 22:03 (UTC)no subject
on 2008-03-15 23:51 (UTC)no subject
on 2008-03-15 12:51 (UTC)Had to pay a visit to wikipedia as I first interpreted OLPC as OLdPC which was peculiar and didn't make much sense...
I mean who would be happy to get an old pc?
also on the picture it looked brand new!
or who manufacturer would refer to his product as old, excluding the case of antiques and wines?
and then you mentioned kids so I suspected I was down the wrong path.
WOW, I've heard about this project sometime around 2005-06 and then forgot all about it as it seems
Really good news that they went through with it, Greece is intersted in this project also and at some point is supposed to hand them out to schools, will see...
Oh, I liked your idea of using it to read ebooks as I prefer reading on my screen than from books. I find it tiring to turn pages, especially when I'm reading on fast-forward mode and want to jump around! scrolling down it is the way...
Have a nice weekend, off to prepare some lunch.
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on 2008-03-15 14:36 (UTC)no subject
on 2008-03-16 03:30 (UTC)no subject
on 2008-03-16 03:34 (UTC)no subject
on 2008-03-15 23:48 (UTC)no subject
on 2008-03-16 00:58 (UTC)I still don't have mine, but the last update I got (in February) said middle to end of March, so hopefully one of these days ...
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on 2008-03-16 06:50 (UTC)