OLPC XO Boots Both Sugar and Windows XP

First Footage: Same OLPC XO Boots Both Sugar and Windows XP

I guess I never thought I would see this happening. There are some interesting comments about the XO and how long it takes for Windows to boot. I did put XP SP2 on my eee pc for the time being and with the help a nice N-lite tutorial. The load time on my machine is roughly 45 secs, but that is with 512mb RAM.

I think the XO is going through a weird growth and development at this point. Does running XP on a 2GB machine with only 256 ram seem worth it other than to say that XP can run on a machine that small? Are really that many more people (countries / Dept of Education) going to buy the green machines?

EEE pc review - Part 1

Time is always a funny thing. It just goes and goes and goes. With all the work this semester between subbing, teaching, and working in the class, my time has been pretty short.

Through out most of the semester, I have been using the EEE pc by ASUS. Through my work on the Adventures in Classroom Tech website and dummy class, I have been able to get a feel for what this little machine can do. The screen takes a little bit to get used to with only 7 inches or so of viewable space. I have found that I get a feel for it pretty fast. The same goes with the keyboard size. However, I was the proud owner of a hand-me-down Phillips Velo 500, and a Dell Axim, so the keyboard feels like a extra handheld keyboard, with the same kind of "little click" response and common "fat-finger" key mashing problems. The Shift key on the right side is in a funny feeling place, squished in below the enter key. The space on the hard drive is okay, at about 4 GB with half of that used up by the rescue OS.

There are plenty of options for customization for the machine. I did a live CD run of eeeXbuntu which run well. I wanted to still play around the stock OS, so I didn't commit to the install. As for the options for the stock OS (Xandros), there are plenty and the forums have been a great resource to answer questions.

Through the forums, I was able to locate the information on how to install other programs that are distributed through the regular repositories. Audacity, VLC, and a few screen capture programs were located. As well as a few tweaks for not having the machine shutdown when the lid is closed and allowing the USB and SD cards have executable programs and letting the system automatically write to those drives and not only the main drive. That was a big help, as with recording, the raw sound files can get pretty big.

Recording was nice. I liked having this little machine and a little mic in my bag ready to go when I needed it. Being able to just grab it all when a teacher had a minute to talk was great. For editing and production, the EEE handled everything fine. While I wouldn't recommend recording your mix album with it, having Audacity in the machine did save a lot of the hassle of transporting the files over to another machine and doing the work there.

The WiFi works great. Once a signal is locked into, the signal is not dropped. Using the security passwords is not an issue either, once the profile is saved, connecting doesn't require entering in the hex-code again.

New semester, new focus

The new semester has started and with that a new area of exploration that I am figuring out. The main focus the last few months has been actual classroom technology that can be used in the hands of students, as well as teachers. I will still address some of those areas, as I am now the proud owner of a EEE pc. My wife was nice enough to get me one for my birthday this past January. So far so good with the little machine. I will write a more comprehensive review later in the semester as I am using the machine for a number of different tasks. Mostly school work and planning for the class that I am teaching this semester.

This semester I am focusing on content management systems, mostly Joomla. We are using that CMS as a gateway for the Adventure Learning project I am working on in a group. Our focus is using the content presented in a pre-service teacher class and moving it into a hybrid on-line, classroom environment. Working with Joomla is proving to be quite a challenge for me. I think I really need more of a plan for the whats and the hows of the project. I need to formulate a better plan for the lessons and see how the technology can better enhance what it is that we are trying to teach to the pre-service teachers and give them an experience that they haven't been through before.

I have also started a twitter feed. It is integrated underneath my profile.

District response to last posting

Big Spring School District

Just put a stamp of sucker across my forehead.

(directed to from Digg)

Mark one for the closed-source (minded)

Ha: High Schooler Gets Detention for Using Firefox?

This is a sad day for the open-source movement in the classroom. Well, not only for open-source, but for allowing the student's to use tools to get work completed. What ever happened to meaningful learning and an engaged classroom/student.

FresnoBee.com: Local: Kid-size computers

Apparently, I was on to something with my tech purchase ideas.

FresnoBee.com: Local: Kid-size computers

Actually there has been a lot of items from gizmondo about the Eee pc and XO laptop. I guess an article in the Wall Street Journal just slammed the XO. It sounds like the power of the purchase will determine the winner. At this point, with the XO only available to the US and other "developed" nations for another month, the little Asus machine will win.

Source Material and the "Remix"

I was subbing the other day and one of the English teachers was talking about how to convey mood and setting in his film and media class. About that time I was setting up my Youtube account so I could embed my "How to request a Sub" video. I came across the "Scary Mary" Mary Poppins trailer. At first, I thought, "That is so neat." I then thought about the mood that had to be set up in order for the video to be effective. In the school all of the students are taught about using iMovie, so couldn't creating a new trailer for a movie be away to show how well the students understand creating mood and even evoking emotion. The other video clip is a remix of The Incredibles, which I think is even better than the Mary Poppins.


The Incredibles Recut (sorry, the person turned off embedding)

Scary Mary

From the Youtube Description:

This contains the musical piece "A Violent Attack" composed by Caine Davidson for the film 'An American Haunting,' "Stay Awake" written by Richard and Robert Sherman for Disney's 'Mary Poppins,' and stock sounds from iMovie.