banana jr. 6000 - bloom county

“What is it about a computer that turns old people into infantile morons?”

– Steve Dallas from Bloom County


Oh crap, my OLPC/XO-1 just arrived. So much for getting anything else done today…! (via Twitter @ 3pm)

That probably wasn’t the reaction one would expect from moi, the gadget-dude. But I was just finishing putting XP on my two Mac-Intels, when I found out from my apartment manager that I had a box and I knew that whatever plans I had were going to be changed. Ha, what’s time anyway, except something to be spent on such things… So, the XO-1 feels very solid and seems to weigh more than I expected, but it weighs considerably less than my MacBook Pro. The keyboard is tiny, pretty much impossible for an adult to touch type on. But then it was designed for kids. The interface was a little confusing and there was no documentation beyond a single sheet explaining how to open the device. I got the hang of it and started up the web browser. No go… seems that little XO’s wireless is not compatible with my router’s industry standard encryption (WPA). Damn. That kind’a threw off the experimentation for the night. I guess I could turn off my encryption just to see if the XO works…. They said that they plan to roll out WPA compatibility at the end of January Or I could look into find a USB-to-Ethernet connection. Damn. Anyway, I love the design: lots of USB ports, an SD memory slot, built-in video-cam, mic and game controller-buttons. All I need to do is get the thing online. Looks like I’m making a Radio Shack/Fry’s run tomorrow. Ack. Onward and upward. Check out my unboxing pix here. jbb

p.s., it works… click the “read the rest” link..

All I needed to do was turn off my wireless router’s encryption and “boom!” I was online… of course, so would anyone else in my apartment building (not something I’d want to do for any length of time). But it works.

2008-01-03 JBB's Desktop on the OLPC

JBB’s Desktop article about the OLPC on the OLPC. Talking “meta.” Yeah.

2008-01-03 OLPC video cam

I was checking out the web-cam feature. Don’t know how to get the pix and video off the device, though. Damn.

Music: Pretending from the album “Journeyman” by Eric Clapton