[olpc-help] I think my laptop is defective

[Richard A. Smith]

Melanie Light wrote:

> This is the most frustration I have ever had with a computer. I don't  
> get how kids in the bush can even deal with this.
> I THINK I'm connected to the net, but every search I try yield a Page  
> Load Error message.

Melanie,

Wireless can indeed be a frustrating deal.  There's a LOT of complexity 
hidden under the hood. But don't fret, there are helpful people on this 
list that can work with you to solve (or at least identify) your 
wireless problems.

"In the bush" it works quite well.  The reason is that the deployments 
are able to plan their wireless setups.  OLPC has a set of "best 
practices" for wireless deployment.

For the average consumer this is not the case.  "In the wild" of the 
G1G1 program there are hundreds of different types of access points and 
each one can be using one of 3 different types of encryption, with a 
wildly varying RF environment.

The big companies spend huge amounts of money on testing trying to make 
the wireless stuff "Just Work".  Despite that I've still had to help 
many, many people get their "normal" laptops connected via wireless.  So 
its not a problem thats unique to the XO.

Children also don't have quite the frustration level that adults do when 
it doesn't work.  They just poke about until it works, ask another kid, 
  or go do something else.  Its quite amazing to see how fast they learn 
to work around the various things that pop up.

The 8.2 release made large improvements on wireless connections for the 
G1G1 audience but there are sure to still be a few snags.

Hopefully the links Adam pointed you to will solve your problem but if 
not just keep posting here with your details and we will get it worked out.

-- 
Richard Smith  <richard at laptop.org>
One Laptop Per Child