Talk:Main Page

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Archives : 2006 2007 2008

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new look

It is not just that the new home page has dropped on the floor many things that are arguably important, but the fact that it was changed unilaterally, without a more general discussion on this page is really inappropriate. --Walter 07:15, 18 March 2008 (EDT)

I would like to know why the change was made, and it should certainly be reverted until there is discussin. Any major main page changes (or changes to any of the core sidebar pages) should be carried out in temporary space and discussed here first. we had a similar discussion about main page design when Kate was updating the page without discussion; I hope it doesn't come up as an afterthought again. 18.85.46.174 10:47, 18 March 2008 (EDT)

ps - aside from the prominence of the main page, which is cause to reach consensus, boldness is fine to the degree that everyone in the community feels comfortable being bold. Many people who care about the main pages aren't yet comfortable enough to revert design changes they don't like. 18.85.46.174

My apologies. The main page shift was entirely my fault and nobody else's; I wasn't aware a similar conversation had been had with Kate before (and actually, that was part of my basis for thinking "well, I guess being bold on the main page would actually be ok.") Won't happen again. Please do continue to whack me upside the head with the Stick of Enlightenment as needed.

As an attempt to begin a more proper discussion about revising the page, here some things I like about Home draft (incomplete list, but this is a rough first pass).

• Less scrolling, easier on the eyes, and other good things that come with uncluttered simplicity.
• Yes, "all content except news" from the current Home has turned into a (large) portal-style link to that content instead. The home page should not be an intro-about/mission/about-wikis/about-open-source/core-principles/support/get-involved "all-in-one, include all content here" page. Instead, it should link to those pages. They are very important pieces of information to have accessible from the main page so that people (especially first-time visitors) can see them, but being easily findable != being on; it takes up less space and allows those who want an intro to see a dedicated page on the topic (instead of a cluttered page that's also a portal for non-intro stuff) and those who don't (experienced contributors, whoever) to bypass it.
• Why should news / major new things stay on the front?

• New stuff is transient. Updating one page with news is way easier than updating half a dozen subportals with the same.
• Since new stuff changes often, the information will be new information for everyone viewing the page regardless of their interests. In contrast, a long/static "mission" text will only be new info to new visitors.
• Watching new stuff scroll by is a nice opportunity for people to see what's going on right now in other areas they don't work in, in case it will (or can) directly impact or be impacted by their work.

And a few things I don't like yet.

• As SJ pointed out, the picture is larger than warranted.
• The portals pointed to from the main page should be really well-developed and maintained; not all of them are atm.

That's for starters... other (more articulate) thoughts, complaints, comments?

Mchua 17:21, 18 March 2008 (EDT)

Colophon (or), Old, non-main-page-related discussions

Looking for an old, non-main-page-related discussion? Check the archives:

2006 2007 2008

I've moved the bulk of the non-main-page-related content - the G1G1 shipping discussions - to the discussion page of Ask_OLPC_a_Question_about_Give_One_Get_One_orders .

Two/three remaining comments (still available in the history) didn't belong here or there, so I consigned them to the history page (removed them).

Walter had archived the discussions from the page here. There was an active thread regarding Give One Get One orders, which he moved to the Ask_OLPC_a_Question_about_Give_One_Get_One_orders.

MartinDengler 17:32, 13 March 2008 (EDT)

link to cnn on Peru broken

The link you gave for the CNN article on Peru expired. This one still works (3/21/08): http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2007/12/24/technology/LA-TEC-Peru-One-Laptop-One-Village.php?page=2

How To Fix The Jerky Online Video Playback for OLPC XO

After spending hours non sleep with my new xo. Trying to discover how to do everything I usually do with my other portable internet devices. I find out most of my personal tricks also work for the XO. I am no expert, just know how to think out side the box.

Tested and working

Hello, i am samphilomath and today I am going to share with you a couple of my personal tips and tricks.

If you are like me, I know the first thing you would which you could do is watching your online movies and videos without the image stopping and jerking around. Actually you can watch them online videos smoothly like it suppose to be without download them first to your hard drive or wait for them until they finish loading just to get a glimpse of some quality (yes I tried all those, even orb).

Before I start with the how to, I am sorry to announce that I dropped the VLC player for mplayer-gui. I actually spent more than 16 hours last night trying to get the right configuration for the vlc to stream an avi file smoothly with a good quality on the XO. I recognize vlc got a lot of potentials. well let just say its to much potentials for the XO.

Anyway. Lets move on.

This is how I watch smooth good quality online video on the XO (with Sugar).

For all the Flash Based websites like YouTube, Dailymotion, Crunchyroll, and so on...

The fastest and easiest way is to go to http://keepvid.com and drag their Keep it! button to your Bookmarks Toolbar. Thats it. There are other way to, but this was the easiest for site like Youtube.

Now you can go to any of your favorites Flash based video websites, play the video or the movie you want to watch and click on Keep it! , this will automatically open Keepvid with a Download url.

- Right click on the Download URL

- Click Copy Link Location

- Open mplayer-GUI > Right click > Select Open > Click on Play URL

- Right click in the URL box and paste the Download URL

- Click OK

Yes the video will play nice and smooth, no wait for download either . The instruction seem longer in writing, thats because I did not left any details out. If you can't follow this simple instruction, well.

Enjoy

The How to for the websites with the other formats (avi, divx, mov, mpge, rm, and so on...)

Well, for those websites its even to easy. Just add the Firefox extension called MediaPlayerConnectivity. Once correctly installed, The embedded Media will play normally with no fuss. simple click and play. Streaming or Downloads work fine. Tested for hours in multiple pages.

Those Tips and Tricks were tested by me. If they don't work, its just you.

How To Instal mplayer-GUI (not mplayer)

Open Terminal

Type su and press enter

Type wget ftp://rpmfind.net/linux/fedora/updates/7/i386/libdvdnav-4.1.1-3.fc7.i386.rpm and press enter

Type rpm -ivh libdvdnav-4.1.1-3.fc7.i386.rpm and press enter

Type yum install mplayer-gui and press enter

Type Y and press enter when you get the option between Y/N

Type exit

To run mplayer-gui just type gmplayer on the terminal.

Sugarize your mplayer-gui after all this and enjoy.

---

How to install Firefox Bowser

1. Open Terminal. 2. Type su press enter 3. Type cd /etc/yum.repos.d and press enter 4. Type vi olpc-koji-ship2.repo - this will open the repo file in the vi editor. 5. Press the i key on your keyboard - this puts you into Insert mode in vi, allowing you to use the erase key. 6. Arrow down to the exclude line, and erase firefox from the list Use the erase key on your keyboard to delete the word, and one of the commas that was surrounding it. (to make sure you don't leave two commas in a row in that line.) 7. Press the ESC key on your keyboard . - this exits Insert mode. 8. Type :w - this saves the new edited file. 9. Type :q - this exits the editor.

Type yum install firefox follow the directions When completed, type exit

Type firefox and press enter to run Firefox on the terminal.

---

How to sugarize firefox and mplayer-gui

su

wget http://www.catmoran.com/olpc/libsugarize.so

chmod 755 libsugarize.so

wget http://www.catmoran.com/olpc/sug

chmod 755 sug

After that download new or use the .svg file located in /usr/share/activities/*.activity/activity/*.svg

Explination: su log you on with user administration access to your computer wget download the url for you chmod 755 before the software name, install it for you svg is the icon extension name just like a jpeg, png

Type exit at the prompt let you out from su

Now to run the sugarize app in the terminal

- Type su again to log in if you did exit and press enter - Type ./sug (this a . a / and sug) to start and press enter - Put the name of the app you are sugarize and press enter - Put the name of the icon file desired (if you type ff.svg it will use the icon with 2 ff in it) and press enter - Put the command you usually use to start the program you are sugarize in the terminal and press enter - Put the organization path for that program you are sugarize, just type org.x if you dont know the organization path and press enter - Type exit and press enter

Close the terminal, reboot the computer. You'll find the app installed on the activity tool bar. Click on the left or right arrow to look for it.

Sugarize Mirrors

- Main Page http://www.archive.org/details/Sugarize

-The HTTP http://ia341002.us.archive.org/3/items/Sugarize

-The FTP ftp://ia341002.us.archive.org/3/items/Sugarize

Here it is. I made the instructions as simple as I could.

Enjoy the XO