Negroponte’s laptop finally in production

[cloasters]

Originally Posted by Gizmo

We just bought our second laptop: Transaction ID: 5DC094148G548190N

We currently have $67.87 in the account for purchasing our third one.

Excellent, well done one and all! Great news, thanks Gizmo.

[ccperf721p]

Sorry guys, I'll have to wait til next week to do the good deed. I'm a little short of funds this week..

[Daniel ~]

We all run into that one Cliff. The real benifit of doing this with AOA is that we have time to gather resourses, we don't have to buy them all today... they will still be needed tomorrrow!

[danrok]

Reviewed by Reg Hardware:
http://www.aoaforums.com/frontpage/content/view/3811/1/

[Daniel ~]

Seemed a harsh, but rather fair review. Found myself in reluctant agreement with most all he says...Most especially:

"Most of these changes come down to the OLPC organisation placing more emphasis on real-world usability and less on their ideals of a perfect interface. If they can manage to do this, the XO laptop could be a great tool for learning and play"

The idea of giving a child one, then possibly blowing an RMA, leaving the kid empty handed particularly disturbs me... Why wasn't the software in better shape? These kids aren't Admins, they won't know how to take the measures "Brian Hurley has been a system administrator since 1984" was able to take... bears watching... would like to hear that corrective measures are being undertaken...

[cloasters]

They should operate perfectly, but in the real world there's plenty of room for less than perfect. I think it's a promising start!

[danrok]

I know my first computer was less than perfect!

[cloasters]

RMA's should be made unnecessary, bugs like this aren't acceptable in poor countries. Pay the return shipping? What's return shipping?

[Yan]

The whole RMA circus described is primarily for the "buy one get one free" customers. Not for the actual target audience in the third world, there (unless they changed the idea since I was briefly involved) support is mainly supposed to be online, and within the community. RMAs will occur, but using a different system alltogether.

[Daniel ~]

I'm not turned off, just hate to see anything that might imped this thing's progress. ":O}

[cloasters]

Originally Posted by Yan

The whole RMA circus described is primarily for the "buy one get one free" customers. Not for the actual target audience in the third world, there (unless they changed the idea since I was briefly involved) support is mainly supposed to be online, and within the community. RMAs will occur, but using a different system alltogether.

This, I like!

[cloasters]

If I want to contribute a few bucks in aid of this OLPC thing, where would I send them?

[Gizmo]

If you want to contribute through AOA, just use paypal to send it to olpc at aoaforums.com, or you can contact me via PM for the relevant info.

We've already purchased two units, and have $67.87 built up toward a third. Sure would be nice to get another one out to some needy child out in the world.

[Daniel ~]

I think of these things as magic ersures... ever do something you really wish you had not?

Buy a magic erasure, see your bad feelings fade...and new story being written out of your regreats...":O}

[ccperf721p]

Originally Posted by Daniel ~

I think of these things as magic ersures... ever do something you really wish you had not?

Buy a magic erasure, see your bad feelings fade...and new story being written out of your regreats...":O}

In that case I'll take 250 of them..

[Gizmo]

We now have $79.23 in the account......

[Daniel ~]

How do I explain,... the less inclined to give you are, the more you need to.

We are doing this for us as much as we are for them... of the two, who can say which is the greater need?

In time of drought we all drink dust. But we have been given time to dig a well...

Who shall we blame if we go thristy into a time of drought when we once swam in our abundence?

This world is changing, this is a moment in which we can intervine and direct that change...

or surly, we will drink dust....

[dsio]

I've uploaded a Documentary all about Free and Open Source Software, and Linux as its being used in developing countries to bring the third world into the 21st century.

Negroponte makes an appearance along with many others. The description from AOAFiles:

This Documentary shows the Benefits of Free and Open Source Software for development countries.

The crew of the independent producers who made the film went to nearly a dozen countries around the world to see how the adoption of FOSS presents opportunities for industry and capacity development, software piracy reduction, and localization and customization for diverse cultural and development needs.

Stories from The Codebreakers include computer and Internet access for school children in Africa, reaching the poor in Brazil, tortoise breeding programmes in the Galapagos, connecting villages in Spain, and disaster management in Sri Lanka. The documentary also includes interviews from key figures around the world

300MB in DivX format. Well worth watching and very interesting.

[cloasters]

Thank you dsio!