User:Rostauber

OLPC, you can ignore my email the day after I opened my XO-1. Somewhere in Wiki I thought I read my G1G1 XO-1 was "no longer supported". I emailed for help commenting i felt a little had. Also the XO right off had struck me as tedius in crucial areas ... which frustration I am dutifully overcoming. Naturally we USA softies are concerned about a program determined to put third-world children at a console and cruising the net and funding violent games and porn rather than learning to spear lizards for the pot ... and soccer of course ... in their own real communities and families. It's a toss-up how to imagine things. And their little eyes will suffer. But be that as it may, I feel OLPC on the ground anywhere will be all to the good regarding progressive efforts of all sorts.

As my little XO-1 works its magic I am constantly in wiki and went further than expected in Forth lessons one afternoon. Let me say I do not intend to spend my remaining years peering at code. I want to participate however, and prize these early stages of understanding based on use of the XO-1, and of course wiki and the Community ... what any child or adult would find of most interest about the machine given proper guidance and reading skills, and indispensible to my own usefulness. I am getting to love the keyboard but when the ERASE gets stuck watch out if you're editing! I'm a heavy hitter not a tentative infant and will the keyboard hold up to adult heavy-hitting as a regular laptop? We're gonna see. Why not a glo-in-the-dark keyboard since it's green anyway. The board could be lit by a single led? Maybe the XO can jump cars.

With no power management (until January?) I use hi-contrast up one notch. I'm getting shortcuts down. No "alt-left-arrow" and no "alt-right-arrow" to go back and forward on-line? And what made me think I was getting a touch-screen when I sent off $400 plus shipping? Makes my hope for a tablet wi-fi larger than my N800 vanish. Oh and order me up a couple of those $10 batteries. Why can't ERASE delete in every context? A manageable "Favorites" that survives re-boot. The drop-down list with BACK is nice but I look forward to Microsoft's SD if its cheap to free. Happy with a USB Key.

Just introducing myself. At 71 my short term memory sometimes pops a blank ... a senior moment they call them? ... sometimes having to do with what I wanted to think about but most often I notice it when I turn to get a tool or check some process that comes to mind when I am doing the physical things which all these years have fed my ego and self-esteem. But the lapses can occur on the desktop using XP and on-line. It will be interesting to see if navigating wiki and becoming adept with the XO-1, let alone doing some config in Terminal ... if I will see reduction in such lapses of focus.

I was slow figuring out "Mode" back in thwe day of DOS and 3.1 then didn't use it much anyway after I changed a few colors and moved on. Always enjoyed showing kids a little d.bat and c.bat on the root or in \windows, how it made them computer geeks instead of just game goons. However GET GORILLA ON THE XO-1!! I always fought for PC rather than Apple in public schools as I felt keyboarding and shortcuts and commands put the kids into a kinetic tactile self-learning mode in a way the mouse with its separation and delay didn't do. And self-esteem seemed to me what the computer could be all about for these urban youngsters. As well as the ability to relate to the wider world of adult occupations. I was a a while a Book and Audio-Visual Clerk at a public HS, right when the IBM XT hit the scene and nobody knew much about anything computer and I had the time and the manuals where the teachers had a classroom full of of testy kids. I was able to self-teach myself Lotus and would paste up outside my door up-dated sorted lists of books that had been retrieved from the halls, playground, cafeteria, etc. Students would see their issued book number and would then save the replacement cost ($25-35 bucks a pop!) when their teacher insisted they have a book on their desk. Now th could get a new book free as my list was proof their assued book had been re3turned to school inventory. The administration didn't like it 'cause once a year when the kids checked out they all had each other's books and tried to turn them in as their own but their parents had to pay the lost-book fees anyway, and nobody bothered to straighten out who went with what book number that late in the game. Just dunned the kids and the parents. Eventually I became responsible for the annual building inventory worksheets and reports.

So much for the past. What I want to do is participate ... in reality and not just on a page. My little neighborhood is filled with clubs and restaurants. There's another casino and hotel downtown. Soulard, MO is gentry-fying quite nicely thank you ... more infants, the grandparents with them in the coffee house on weekends, most dogs on leashes, lotta laptops. A quarter-million people parade around and debauch themselves in front of my properties at least once a year during Mardi Gras. I have great locations for an outlet, advertizing, petition-signing, exposure of breasts ... once a year for several days and occasionally othertimes as well as most weekends and evenings. I have the time, the commercial and residential property with space therein, to incubate a little OLPC start-up copy-shop and general cell-phone laptop repair and dispensory. There'ds a couple of middle-class private grade schools real close to me. But you know their parents won't want Linux on their kids laptops. Nor would they automatically see how sweet it is to let the XO turn out IT geeks, unless the parent haoppen to be geeks themselves. Even then real-word USA is not going to ever be Linux country.

I presume OLPC is self-starters who manage their own shit as well as the general mix of well-intentioned dreamers. And oh do I have a lot of good shit I've intended to eBay for years now ... good stuff I won't list here ... which could make suitable learning activity on the XO, would supply cash and make new space at the same time, give people experience in how to make their way financially in our glutted part of the world, as our little self-starter group seeks to justify, support and debug itself.

I like the idea of a rubber case. Dark grey would be nice. AND an alarm do-dad to locate one's own XO in a pile of 'em. I'm old now and there's less reason for me to get excited about the world. I think how hopeful we are about correcting things in youth and most of our lives. I'll leave the religious opportunity alone. If home-front citizens take a wide-spread role in OLPC starting with their own XO-1 learning tool and forming small neighbor-communities, keeping up each in their own way with code development, it would encourage realistic confidence in the evolutionary possibilities of the Project. Still singing to the choir of course, as various modes of resistance and corporate sabotage arise intentionally or not, we oldsters, urban sub-teens, and all the in-betweens, as we become connected and knowledgable about open-source hardware and up-dates and add-ons, especially as on-the-ground XO classes emerge world-wide, as the new learning activities are designed around if not by these actual classes and communities ... our home-front hands-on involvement would be one crucial factor in long-term establishment of the Project, creating eager able fresh new toilers in the vineyards abroad, converting our do-gooder dreams into boots-on-the-ground where carrying a laptop is worth your life. But its all about children and families, which is where our hearts so easily turn these days.

Hopefully free computers to students and homes will sweep the world as recycled electronics leach out of landfills and up on courtroom evidence tables. But will XO and open source find a major place? Hopefully Microsoph, Apple, Palm, whoever will come on strong and also noble and make what OLPC has started into an easy successful nerdification of the world. I hear cities are a lot easier to feed than people all spread out. Ironic aien't it. XO could one day be a Smartphone wireless to TV with a little roll-out (like a curtain) QWERTY as well as the normal input pad.

I was delighted to make my own USB Key and after restoring 650 once or twice ventured to up-date to 653. Is 653 stable or just official? MUCH easier to make the USB Key on my XP desktop, thank you. Hey how about some ram here? Is an inserted SD or a USB stick automatically available as memory? Just trying to drum up community in STL that's somewhat on my nlevel of novicitude.

One guy on eBay claims the XO-1 he's selling will USB to a printer. No, right? A single XO-1 gets delivered for $275 regularly off eBay. That's going to be a major source for non-G1G1. When the price hits $150 watch out. I'll get a few then for sure. But a lot of people will opt back to their XP after an initial effort. We need all the dedicated XO owners stateside we can get just to interest and inform others or atke their XO-1s off their hands. I'm going to get a bunch as the prices plummet as the word gets out that this is no improvement on N800. All my friends are curious. But its not just every kids laptop anymore. Or maybe kids will get into open source most, or if linked. How about listing instead of all icon for the links? Or a keystroke display of ALL the icon title blurbs at once. Some parents are eager to make the donation scene. Part of being green.

I'll have to learn to config in Terminal. What a drag. Forth is rough without prior experience in assembly language and syntax. Where'd they get the name? Go forth and multiply? Have to wiki and check that spelling. Fourth or Forth? May not get back to whatever-it-is ... unless I can quit editing this TALK page. I'll shut up now. 314-602-4549