One laptop, virtually
Part of the shopping process is the search for information. What fun is there when the total time from see to pay can be measured in milliseconds? Instead, I like to stretch out the process, asking questions, reading, testing. Adding the XO laptop to our household is still not a “done deed”, but I’m better informed now than I was a few hours ago.
The working group had the civilized idea of setting up a wiki for their efforts, and I now have had a chance to see pictures from the original inception through to a shipping product. The list of installed applications is now clearer, and I realize that this is one laptop that will fit easily into my knapsack; it’s not as large as my Dell.
I finally have a use for the VMWare virtual machine player, and after updating the package, I downloaded a configured virtual XO to play with. For those who function well with icons, this “machine” will satisfy. There’s no razzle dazzle. A user should be able to put together a simple report, mail it on via the web and settle down to read a good eBook.
I’ll have to figure out how the link to the USB ports functions in VMWare, and the sound capability is still a question mark, but surfing the web and drawing a picture were pretty much “easy as could be”. The wireless setup over an access point with encryption is listed as doable; remember that this is Linux, and my own experience with 802.11 has been less than satisfactory under Slackware and Ubuntu (I know, blame Dell).
That alone has real possibilities. I’m comfortable with reading from a screen; I do it several hours a day. If I can get one of the crank attachments, this could be the answer to reading at night in a tent after the flashlight has gone to sleep.
