Support meetings/20071230

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Sunday, December 30, 2007

4 - 5:30pm EST

Attending

Aaron Konstam, Steve Holton, Kate Davis, Phil Bordelon, FFM, Caryl Bigenho, Austin Appel, Sandy Culver, Greg Babbin, Michael Burns, Bernie (Bernardo Innocenti), Arjun Sarwal author of Measure, Adam Holt

Minutes

1. Team introductions: let's hear each volunteers talk for *1min* about how they survived the week.

Several folk away on vacation this week.

[Personal Info Redacted to Protect Volunteers' Privacy..BUT POST YOUR OWN HERE IF YOU WANT!]

1.1 Preview Topics We Discussed

  • "B4" means earlier hardware ... G1G1 laptops are "MP" hardware (mass-produced) similar to "C1" and "C2".
  • What should volunteers do if http://RT.laptop.org ever fails hard? Contact: Noah or Ivan AT laptop.org
  • Sugar can get emulation but have to load a lot of stuff. Can get for Mac too...Sugar jh-build. breaks a lot. Need to join Sugar channel #sugar. May be able to load from a "live CD". Most broken or out of date.
  • Writing in Python, all you need is an editor. New stuff for Pippy coming out soon. Pippy is mostly for kids. Majority of activities are written in Python. Some are written in things like "Ruby", Perl, C# etc.
  • Fedora applications can be used right out of the box. But problems with too many windows / popus, EG. "Pidgin" chat application fails. Some people have used "window managers" downloaded via "yum" with success.
  • Extended argumentation on "su" vs "su -" vs "sudo" etc. Use of sudo will help mitigate support disasters, going forward, when sudo proliferates post-650 builds. (Some plz contact Holt to clarify our plan here! So he & others can properly edit the Support FAQ)
  • Site Map desired for Wiki! Everyone wants better Navigation / Ambient findability?! Interim suggestion: google search etc.
  • Announcement forthcoming about some motherboard batteries popping out during shipping / dropping, due to bad battery holder. Coincidentally, firmware update will help. Expect formal announcement later, clarifying impact etc.
  • Updates coming can use USB stick or olpc-update. Need an easy upgrade path for "AOL Grandmas and Grandpas". 653 still hasn't had enough QA, advanced users can help! Upgrading with olpc-update doesn't destroy 650 regardless. Can still boot 650, by booting and holding down the "O" game key. Wireless will work better in 653. But: if you have 2 builds installed, the computer can be fill up, and refuse to boot, due to a bug that will be fixed in later builds.
  • Technical discussion of using Fedora(?), problems, of using and possible suggestions.

2. What are we doing wrong?

  • Where can you find charming phone volunteers? (NOT DISCUSSED YET... all of us are charming!)
  • Where can you find perfectionist documentation volunteers? (KATE volunteered to help!)
  • How can OLPC better support its volunteers? (NOT DISCUSSED YET)

3. All bow down and pray before Vulcan Mind Meld http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Support_FAQ Last week we spent ~4hrs working on this after the Noon Sunday mtg a week ago!

  • Each of us has suggestions on seeding/growing into a more searchable/archival KnowledgeBase. And a weekly argument always helps keep the family together, even if it's the same drama every week! But where CAN we be in 30 days? Even if NOT organic & hierarchical, Swahili & English, versionable to the most relevant builds, more searchable than http://mit.edu/answers -- and grown from 100% natural fair-trade coffee beans? (BRIEFLY DISCUSSED AGAIN)
  • Can we assign editors to each large section going forward? (NOT DISCUSSED YET)

4. Asterisk.org virtual call center update from MOG -- details will have to wait 'til he returns from vacation soon -- but for now...

  • Our 617-area-code number should be live within days...more telco news to follow in coming days.
  • Anyone who wants to help with the phone let Holt know. There will be a 617 phone number call-in and say I want to start my shift. It will send you support calls from all over US and canada with ~2 min separation. When have to stop say My shift is over and you will be logged off.
  • It will tell caller the approximate wait time, how many volunters working at a time, when might be the best time to call back...etc.
  • How Do We Make Telephone Volunteering Fly? Test at first with a few volunteers. Need to work around the number of callers vs the number of volunteers.
  • OLPC will pay ~2 cents/min when connected and ~1 cent when on hold. User has to call the 617 number which may be long distance.
  • Proposal Liked By All: Have callers engage us by email first before calling (so RT ticket seeds context around their very first call, and we can help them far more efficiently with our limited volunteer staff).
  • How can we triage calls into advanced and beginner? KD.. 2 levels of users i.e. developers and the "user" group. Maybe 3 classes... the third would be those who want to install other things e.g. games.
  • How a physical call center of MIT volunteers/interns might help over January...informing documentation. (NOT DISCUSSED YET)

5. Other Ideas:

  • Can someone like Kim Quirk provide us a coherent summary of Build 653's advantages over 650?
  • FFM: A Searchable wiki, a better KnowledgeBase. Bernie: May cause problems because of conflicts of information.
  • Coordinate RT answers (25 RTFM's for now, some stale!) from wiki's up-to-date Support FAQ...would take a volunteer to do it! (PLZ Contact Holt!)
  • Other sources of information out there... we already have a lot of them. Different folks like different things. Good to have a variety.
  • How much overlap will there be between G1G1 donors and rest-of-the-world kids/users -- especially if G1G1 goes to Europe? Unresolved -- but this will determine how fast our best docs/FAQs will fork/splinter for different demographics.

THANKS TO ALL VOLUNTEERS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

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