My new XO laptop! Let me show you it!
I’m still figuring it out and seeing what 3rd party apps can be installed, so I really do not have much to say yet. The keyboard takes a little bit of getting used to. For me, the size was not difficult to adapt to, but the keys sort of have a squishy feel to them and I sometimes end up double-typing letters.
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What is it and why do you have one and also what’s the point and finally why do you have one the end.
It is the One Laptop Per Child machine–for kids in nations that have enough money for food, but not much else (including education)–made by those rocket scientists at MIT. I have one mainly to mess with and partly to see into writing software for it.
In fact, this response was written entirely on the laptop!
My Mom actually asked me if this would be a good travel computer for my parents to take in their trailer on trips. But i wasnt sure it was really something that would be easy for them to work with. They still use AOL…What do you think?
I think the XO falls more toward the toy or specialized-tool end of the spectrum. For someone used to a general purpose PC, especially with an AOL layer atop that, there will be a lot of unlearning to do followed by relearning the new methodologies. It’s actually a pretty smart computer, just probably not really geared toward old folks.
Depending on what they are looking for, you might want to check out the Asus Eee PC which contains similar technology, but is oriented much more toward someone used to Windows (although it does run Linux under the hood.) It has Firefox, OpenOffice, Skype, and a bunch of other stuff built in. It runs like an “appliance” or “kiosk” computer, in that you don’t really have direct access to most of the filesystem and you can only install apps that are specially packaged for the Eee PC. It’s more than enough for writing and checking email. I’m not sure if it will pull pictures off of a camera, though (which I know is an important thing for most “travel computers.”)
you are *so* my hero!