XO OLAP

An XO Laptop Christmas Present for Drew's Wife

Posted on December 13, 2007 by Wayan Vota

The best G1G1 advertisement

I've just had an interesting talk with Drew, the First Day Donor who wonders what to do with an XO laptop.

He first heard about One Laptop Per Child from the original 60 Minutes episode and while watching the program, his wife said

"That's what I want for Christmas!"

Now Drew's wife is not necessarily a computer geek. She was a Mac user before but only to surf the web and write emails. She wanted her own laptop because their three children kept hogging the family desktop computer.

Drew was excited about the XO because of Sugar (Aquatic Sugar perhaps?).

"I wanted a stable Operating System that doesn't crash or get bloated with spyware. With three kids in the house, our Windows desktop is a mess. I also liked Sugar as it promises to be intuitive and my wife wouldn't need to jump through technical hoops to do basic stuff."

So Drew called in his order to OLPC very early on November 12, and last night, with no email warning, the XO laptop arrived on his doorstep.

An OLPC XO Christmas

He's now experimenting with the computer to make sure he knows how to use it when the Misses opens the box on Christmas morning (that's right, this is supposed to be a surprise, so shhhh!).

Last night, Drew started up the laptop, and while he didn't expect a Windows experience, he was a little confused by Sugar and what he should do with the laptop. If you have suggestions, please help him here.

His experience suggests a larger issue though. While many G1G1 donors will be giving their laptops to children, there will be a good number that are like Drew - buying the XO laptop for a whole other use case: adults.

• What About Adult XO Users?
• OLPC XO Laptop Applications for Adult Computer Users

Drew and I discussed what might happen on Christmas Day if his wife didn't like the XO, a possibility now that Drew has seen the XO up close and thought about his wife's technology challenges.

As hoped, Drew would definitely give the laptop to his children for their use. They are 15, 14, and 8 years old and Dew thinks TamTam and Draw will be quick favorites. If his kids really like it, he may even buy a second one.

Worst case, he is well aware of the OLPC eBay sales aftermarket.

source : olpcnews.com