Rodfather Mobile

What colors does your OLPC XO logo have?

I took a snapshot of the Neighborhood view using alt-1. There’s quite a few people in the mesh now.
If you just received your OLPC, here are the instructions for connecting to the xochat.org jabber server.

I’ve set up a shared Write activity called ‘3 Word Story’ since the start of the jabber server and it’s quite popular so far. XO users have been joining and submit their 3 word entry to try to form a dynamic and potentially endless story. When I set up a similar thread in the Second LIfe forums, it was very popular, so this seemed a perfect exercise in the collabortive environment of Sugar’s mesh.

Oh ya..this is officially my first blog post from the OLPC XO. I saved the snapshot to a USB stick, fired up Opera, uploaded the photo to flickr, and now writing this in the wordpress admin.
This whole process does take time since this is all running on a 433Mhz AMD Geode processor with 256MB of RAM, but hey it’s working.

Hot water pots, originally uploaded by Rodfather.

Checking out Zojirushi hot water dispensers at Mitsuwa

Cool little dictionaries, originally uploaded by Rodfather.

At Kinokuniya bookstore in San jose

If you’re a Day 1 G1G1 donor, you may know the whole shipment situation of the OLPC’s has been rocky.  Communication has been almost non existent and the arrival of OLPC’s has so far been completely random — a far cry from their statement that it’s first come, first serve.  There’s been reports of people who ordered on the 2nd day or beyond already receiving theirs, with or without an order confirmation, further leaving Day 1 G1G1 donor bewildered.  T-Mobile hotspot account info hasn’t been sent out to most people.  Canadian donors are in the dark when they will get theirs.  One dude received an empty box…

.. while another at least got theirs, but it ended up a brick.

One very disappointed person was charged but isn’t even showing up in the system and is ready to "..  contest the charge of $423.95 that was placed on [his] Visa – as is the case with any credit card scam online – and let [OLPC] take it up with XXXXXXXX’s lawyers, who presumably will receive a response."

Meloukhia in the OLPC News forums pretty much summed up how OLPC is blowing it in this post.

I feel real bad for this guy. OLPC has been shipping units via Fedex but not requiring a signature. So while Fedex tracking shows the unit was delivered, it was not found at the door. He’s not the only one with this situation.

The list goes on and on…

*****

As for me, I am one of those folks who didn’t receive a order confirmation.  I ordered mine November 12th, the morning right when the G1G1 program started.

All I received since then was a Pay Pal receipt and a welcome email from OLPC on November 28th.

So I finally called the OLPC Donor Services number (800-201-7144) per instructions from this thread.  After an hour wait, I was relieved to find I was actually in the system and they not only had a confirmation number but a Fedex Tracking number as well.

I should be getting mine tomorrow the 21st. 

JKK has done it again.  This time he installed a touchscreen, bought from eBay, into his black Asus Eee PC

Now he has a serious argument for the Eee PC to be nominated for GottaBeMobile’s UMPC of the Year.

Our Stories
While waiting for the OLPC to
arrive, I’ve been messing with Sugar OS on VM Ware.
One of the interesting ‘Activities’ in
development is called Our Stories.
A joint project by UNICEF, OLPC, and
Google; it strives to allow anyone-
anywhere to share their stories with
the use of an OLPC. On the main
site, there’s a Google Maps mashup
with stories that have already been
posted.
So far, it appears the activity simply
records audio and archives it for now.
It’ll be interesting to hear stories
from around the world that will
enter the ‘cloud’ with the help of
an OLPC.

—–
Here’s their welcome message presented by Queen Rania of Jordan:

My First U810 Inkblog
I thought l should try ink
blogging at least one time on
the U810. It’s just very difficult.
First of all, there seems to be a
delay when you first make contact
with the screen. So you end up
writing the first word of the
sentence over.
Second, the screen is very light
touch. I’m training myself to
not place my palm on the screen
which isn’t difficult due to the
5.6" screen.
3rd, the screen is too smooth.
It’s like trying to write with a
pen on glass. It’s taking time
to get used to writing on
a smooth surface.
Last, the pen is too thin. Not
easy to get a grip on it.

Wow.  I am very sad about Marc Orchant’s passing.  My heart goes out to his family and friends.