Worldfocus.org’s OLPC Rwanda Video | One Laptop per Child

Worldfocus.org’s OLPC Rwanda Video | One Laptop per Child: March 30, 2009: Worldfocus.org has produced a good video report that describes OLPC Rwanda’s plans to provide computer access to the country’s 2.3 million schoolchildren. Note the discipline and pleasant respect shown by the children. How does this compare to those in the Australian educational system? Which group even speaks English better, and is better spoken? Which group shows more courtesy, respect and self discipline?

Linking to an OLPC XO via vnc

This screenshot is taken from my desktop, running the Vinagre vnc client on Ubuntu Intrepid. I can move the XO's mouse cursor from the desktop PC, and hovering over menu items pops the menus open. However that is as much control as I can currently achieve. I cannot send keystrokes nor mouseclicks from the desktop PC to the XO, so I cannot control the XO from the desktop PC. It wold have been especially nice to be able to use teh desktop PCs keyboard. Perhaps I should forget the vnc approach, and just plug a USB keyboard directly into the XO.

OLPC XO testdrive

This post is created on an OLPC XO. The keyboard is far too small for an adult touch typist though, so the rest of this post will be done from a standard PC.

Now editing from the 'safety' of my normal PC.
I have borrowed this XO from the OLPC Club Gold Coast to check it out, and see what if anything I might do with them, especialy to support development of software for them, or support their adoption in general. Findings so far ...

0. The XO found our local wifi router, and accepted the WPA passphrase. On reboot it's automatically reconnecting - nice.
1. My PC here has a normal keyboard, so I can touch-type. One downside of the XO is that it might give rise to a generation of kids that type via "hunt 'n peck".
2. The XO has just been tested in sunlight, where ...
2.1 ... I downloaded the vnc server "Activity" (ie software package) from the OLPC support wiki. This should allow me to control the XO from a vnc client on my desktop PC.
3. It's not fast, and its not hard to have it appear to freeze while its beavering away in the background trying to play catchup. This must be a plan by the OLPC folk to teach kids patience.
4. There is no point 4, mate. :-)
5. The camera tool (Activity) is nice. I took the pic shown onscreen, and shared it. I guess the other 3 or 4 nodes that I see in the 'mesh' view might be able to see it.

Gary Hamel on Managing Generation Y - the Facebook Generation - Gary Hamel’s Management 2.0 - WSJ

Gary Hamel on The Facebook Generation vs. the Fortune 500: an interesting article on where progressive ideals embodied in the Web 2 world contrast with traditional concepts embodied in the traditional commercial world. The big unknown of the current age is what does one do that could be called 'productive' or 'valued' work, and if value is not recognised, why would you get paid anything? So then what do all the people do who are not needed in the workforce - ie there is no work of value for them to do. Is the next age to be one of a new type of communism: from a select few rather than from each according to their ability, yet still to each according to their need?

Making the Future Happen In Linux - Linux Today Blog

Making the Future Happen In Linux - Linux Today Blog seems to be a nicely written piece on why many people could find Linux better than Windows on their PC. What i like especially is the sentiment "joining the 'wah, Linux isn't 100% ready for me yet, and dangit someone needs to do something about it' chorus isn't the best way to get there". In this day and age too many people are mindless passive consumers. Consumerism is at the root of today's economic mess, and needs to be countered. People need to educate themselves to not be mindless consumers. The Open Source approach implies an anti-consumer approach which is not implied in commercial systems. The Open Source and anti-consumer approach is what we need in order to slow the cycle of mining, manufacture, consume, destroy that is now failing badly on this planet from both a commercial and an environmental perspective.

Exetel ADSL - Whats the best way to get naked

We are now running naked ADSL here :-), and I have also helped a friend via the Exetel User Help Forum - Whats the best way to get Naked ADSL from nothing.

So phone calls here are all working nicely via VOIP. The VOIP service providers I am using are Exetel, & Gizmos5, and the for client VOIP apps I use Ekiga, and Gizmo5.

Inside A Google Data Center

Your data and much of your software need not reside on any specific PC anymore. Just leave as much as you can up in "the cloud", eg up here somewhere, where its free, secure, and accessible from wherever you might be.

Twouble with Twitters

Just what I have been since about 10 days after I started using it. (See http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PN2HAroA12w)