Beginning today November 17, through the end of the year, the One Laptop Per Child program is inviting people to participate in the Give One. Get One. program. What this program does is allow Americans and now Europeans to purchase the little XO computer and at the same time donate a computer that will go to a child in places like Ethiopia, Mongolia or Rwanda.

A couple of recent stories on NPR about the OLPC initiative and the XO laptop:

'One Laptop Per Child' Plan Faces Challenges in the U.S.

Teens Bring Laptops to South African Children

There has been some confusion over March's meeting date... It had been tentatively set for March 23 because that's the 4th Sunday, BUT has been finalized to the next Sunday, March 30, 2008 at 2pm so that we could all observe Easter with our families on the 23rd.

We heard that a few showed up for the meeting this past Sunday and we apologize for the confusion -although we're not sure how that date got into the mix. In any event, we don't want to waste anyone's time and please accept our apologies for the mixup.

So the next meeting coming up is Sunday, March 30, 2008 (not Easter) at 2pm at Saturday House.


Chris Altwegg, Tim Celeski, Wayne Wong
Seattle XO User Group

Just about 30 people attended February's user group jam this past Sunday at Saturday House. As usual, the majority of the time was spent getting to know each other and discovering what tricks each of us could coax out of our XOs. It is always amazing to see so many multi-colored XOs in the Neighborhood screen as people powerup and start to show up in the mesh network. The gathering of so many XOs, for many of us, provides the relatively rare opportunity to test out sharing of applications such as chat and browser. Several people took advantage of the streamlined installation of the Opera web browser from a USB stick. Some just wanted an orientation to the keyboard and Activities while others explored viewing images and ebooks and playing MP3 files.

There were discussions about the (still) delayed release of the highly anticipated Update 1 of the operating system which is supposed to finally have power management, extending battery times and allowing suspend and resume. Evidently, for developers, Build 691, which is Release Candidate 2 for Update 1, has been out for testing sine mid-February. The latest updates available for non-developers is Build 656, which includes the fix for connecting to WPA protected Wi-Fi access points (actually that's a Build 653 fix) and stops the touchpad from an annoying habit of jumping the cursor to the lower right of the screen. Several of us at the meeting were running Build 656 with no problems.

We are still working on getting a local Community Jabber Server up and running in the Seattle area but the project is proving difficult and the software temperamental. It has a tendency to run out of resources and crash. We're sticking at it however because it could add so much to the usefulness of the XOs. A Jabber Server would be an internet resource that would allow mesh networking and sharing of applications to be extended beyond the physical limits of what your antennas normally would "see". Imagine, you could mesh into the Seattle XO user group meeting neighborhood from the comfort of your home or from your hotel room while on a business trip. We've got hardware and can get connectivity, we could use the help of anyone with experience with Ejabberd Configuration and XMPP Extensions.

Seth Woodworth, our resident OLPC insider, demonstrated how easy it was to take apart the XO. Not all that many screws and a lot of modules that snapped in and out. Yes, the machine did start up flawlessly after it was reassembled.

Seth also announced a couple of "local" events coming up that might be of interest:

There is a LinuxFest Northwest conference in Bellingham, WA coming up April 26/27th and it will have a OLPC/XO laptop event/presentation track during the conference. Admission and parking are free, and all ages are welcome. There are shuttles and van's leaving from Seattle and Portland to help shuttle people to/from the conference in Bellingham. For more info go to
http://linuxfestnorthwest.org
http://wiki.laptop.org/go/LinuxFest_Northwest_2008

Seth also talked about the high level of interest in the XO by various health organizations. There is now an OLPC Health Portal to help coordinate resources -see http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Health . Seth is organizing a "Health Jam" at the University of Washington April 19/20 -volunteers are needed. (BTW, a "JAM" is OLPC's lingo for a focused event around a particular topic or software category)

It was brought up that our regular schedule of meeting the 4th Sunday of each month means that the next meeting is March 23 but that happens to be Easter. (Date has moved to March 30 - see sidebar.) It seemed "do-able" at the time but, as always, will keep the latest info on the home page of the SeaXO.org website and we will be sending out an email meeting reminder as we get closer to the date.

Chris Altwegg, Tim Celeski, Wayne Wong
Seattle XO User Group

Several people commented on the little USB keyboards that Chris, Wayne and I brought to last Sunday's meeting. These little things are just about the width of the XO itself, are actually pretty good for touch typing and are certainly much, much better then the XO's child-size membrane keyboard.

(If you would prefer a weeknight meeting sometime, like Tuesday, Wednesday, or Thursday, starting at 6pm, please respond and let us know. Maybe we'll do an evening meeting sometime too!) - There's plenty of electricity and extensions, but you might want to bring your XO power adapter along. Write your name on it or on some tape, so you go home with the correct one.
- There's also plenty of WiFi
- The door on 1st Ave has a call box, press #5 and wait to be buzzed in.
- It's a couple of very steep staircases up to the Saturday House space. There's hand-rails, please be careful with coming up.
- If you can't manage the stairs, there is a freight elevator on the back of the building which is wheelchair capable. Please give me a call on my cell phone, and I'll come meet you. Chris Altwegg 206-523-6477)

Dress warmly, it can be kinda chilly in the Saturday House space. And if you need computer glasses, be sure to bring those, the menus in Opera are TINY,
but worth it! Even if you haven't gotten your machine yet, please come!

Chris Altwegg, Tim Celeski, Wayne Wong
Seattle XO User Group

Saturday House:
1952 First Ave. S., Suite 5, Seattle
http://www.saturdayhouse.org/
http://tinyurl.com/24fsa2