This Saturday, XO laptop users in Washington, DC and Ottawa, Canada are going to form a very special mesh - we'll be exploring and learning XO software and hardware together via Nortel's massive videoconferencing center.
First, we'll heard reports from all the OLPC-centric activity over the last month, like the 4PC Bakeoff, OLPC Grassroots Jam NYC, OLPC Grassroots Unconference in Boston, OLPC Photo Jam 1, and more.
Next, for all those excited yet scared of Sugar Update 1, the precocious crew of OLPC enthusiasts at the Arlington Career Center will lead us through the software upgrade process. Hopefully, the amazing FFM will translate any kernel hacking acts into parent-friendly instructions so we can skip confusing code like this:
"echo 'SUBSYSTEM=="net", KERNEL=="msh*", OPTIONS="last_rule"' /etc/udev/rules.d/10-olpc-netif.rules"The Arlington Career Center has also opened a XO Repair Center that can fix any laptop hardware issues you may have. For those handy with computer hardware, the repair crew will do a laptop disassembly demonstration at the meeting, using the new repairs cookbook.
If you're in Ottawa, check out the OLPC News Canada Forum for information their attendance requirements. For Washington, DC, Please be prompt - Nortel Networks is a secure office complex so we'll be on the lookout to let people in between 9:45am-10:15am.
Family XO Mesh Meetup
Saturday, June 28th, 2008, 10 am to 1 pm
Nortel Networks,
101 Constitution Avenue,
Washington, DC 20001 [Map]
More details and event information is on OLPC Learning Club DC.
Are there pointers (links) to write-ups about any of these events? I see frequent announcements but cannot ever seem to find out what happened.
Walter,
You make a good point, we have a fun time at these meetups but we don't always give a concise outcome, mainly because most of our meetups are not outcome orientated - its more of a semi-structured exploration of XO usage than any specific goal. In addition, Mike and I are usually too busy making the meeting happen to take notes, though this time Nortel video taped sections of the event and will be publishing video on it soon.
Thanks to FFM, today we did learn that the Update 1 process needs to be much simpler for novice users (push button would be my hope) and yet its amazingly simple to strip and rebuild an XO. Mike, Christoph, and I spoke about our respective grassroots activities, and Ottawa was right full of advice on how to do a G1G1x2 better than the first.
Many of the ideas expressed in all the day's activities will come out in future OLPC News posts, OLPC News Forum topics, and (hopefully) OLPC actions.
Last but not least, OLPC Learning Club meetings are open to the public, anyone may join us, and it would be a personal honor if you were able to attend.
Thanks to Wayan, Mike Lee, Michael Connet, and Rob Long for bringing us together.
Everyone in Ottawa had a great time and learned a lot, had good discussion, and go re-enthused... oh, and learned that 4 of us in Ottawa are having battery problems (Not that we solved them; just that we have solidarity on the issue).
A few points for follow-up all around for sure... like when are we doing this again?!?! ;-)
xo CG.
Walter, I'm enjoying the steady growth and diversity of our group without some of the pressures of the quick-hit OLPC JAM approach. We're here to stay. Documentation, projects and impact will come for sure.
CleverGirl, it was our pleasure to help make the link to Ottawa. Thank you for doing the the organizing on your end. Nortel DC definitely wants to host again. Meantime, I want to continue to work out the kinks in connecting by VOIP using the Teamspeak client, which is the currently how a bunch of people are connecting via the OLPC Birmingham school server.
Here are some of my photos from the meeting:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/curiouslee/sets/72157605888327121/
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