A future Sea/Tac XO cluster
We'd like OLPCNews readers to know that there's a Seattle area XO user group being formed. SeaXO. (Expect great T-Shirts, btw)
Even beyond Seattle, we hope to attract people from all over the Puget Sound region.
Since we're just starting out, I'll tell you a bit about the organizers. Essentially, there are five of us that are very good friends who actually first got together 23 years to do something pretty much like this: to found a user group. (Wayne, Chris, Bill, Glenn and myself: Tim)
The group quickly became a big success and quite naturally over time we all moved on many years ago to other things. But, the friendships remain, as well as the love of exciting technology and the five of us still stay in close touch. So, when the OLPC project came along we were all enthralled with the goals and the technology of the XO.
Some of us, and myself in particular had been watching the development since the very beginning. When the G1G1 program came up, that was all the encouragement we each needed to grab one. And, we figured that with our experiences in getting these things going we thought we might be able to help the XO project by jumping in to nudge along the formation of a Seattle area group.
Though we've not seriously set down to organize (After all, we don't even have our computers, yet) I know that we hope to bring imany others together on three levels:
- People that are interested in the unique technology and want to explore and share the experience.
- People that want to make the best use of the XO with their own children and
- People that have the interest and perhaps the skills to contribute meaningfully to the OLPC project for developing countries.
A group website is up and we have a Forum Board. Once the computers are in hand we do hope to get together to try out some of the XO's abilities. If you are in the Seattle area, please keep in touch.
Thank Tim Celeski for starting the SEAXO and submitting this Guest Post to OLPC News.
Seems that eventually there will be numerous local XO communities. Seems inefficient for everyone to register a domain, set up a web site, find server space, etc.
What I would like to see is a single XO group portal, through which you could easily get access to a particular community. This portal would host the groups web site, forum, etc. Should be customizable to account for local taste and need. By default each community's site would look the same, providing a constancy that everyone could come to expect and feel comfortable with,
For instance, I live in Portland, Oregon but I go to Seattle often. A single XO community portal would make it trivial to touch base with that group. Additionally, it would also be trivial to setup or join a group for my city.
Continuity would make the whole XO space more accessible.
Just my $0.02US
It would be nice if there was a prominent link to the forum on the main page, as well as an option to view older posts at the bottom of the page.
>> It would be nice if there was a prominent link to the forum on the main page
Agreed!
(And keep up the good work, Wayan!).
Sounds wonderful to me. Good Luck!
I wish someone would do the same for the So Cal area.
The link to the signup page is broken.
Jeremy,
A group portal and matching sites would be a cool idea, but that sounds like a lot more formality than OLPC is giving to the user group concept.
Caleb,
Will add the link, and am working on the forum design - remember that its been up less than a week so far and I have a day job too.
bananascanner, you can help us create one at http://olpcnews.com/forum/index.php?board=11.0
It looks like this weekend we will be having a group of people visting Saturday House with OLPC machines.
Saturday House is a geek collective that meets most of the day on Saturday in SODO.
Our address is 1952 1st Ave South Suite 5 Seattle WA, 98134
-Rob
Greetings
I am setting up a mailing list for South East Asia
http://groups.google.com/group/sea-xoolpc-user-group