[olpc-help] I think my laptop is defective

Melanie Light mellight at sbcglobal.net
Mon Nov 24 20:18:30 EST 2008


Dear Richard,
Thank you very much for responding.
I can get a connection. In fact, I can get connected to my home  
wireless as well as the mesh, but the pages will not load.
No matter what I do, I keep getting "Page Load Error".

I am actually fairly handy, having re-built my car engine and so on.  
In fact, I used to work in the UCB computer
science department and by learning from the PhD candidates around me I  
then got a job as a system administrator.
Granted that was some time ago.


Your suggestion that I find someone to help is excellent, but it took  
me about 2 hours - I had to go through the onelaptop site which  
doesn't address my issue, then find groups, sign up, etc.
If I were a kid in the bush my guess is that I would have some grown- 
ups who gave me the laptop who could show me how to use it. In addition
to not having the computer work, not being able to find someone in a  
timely fashion to help me is the source of a great deal of my  
frustration.
My guess again is that if no one in the bush could get online to get  
information about how to get online they would pretty much be stuck.
My only saving grace is that I have another computer.

I agree that generally speaking adults have less patience; their  
brains are hardwired already and not as
adaptable. However, I really do think this computer is defective.  I  
would
like to know if I can return it or get another one.

Yours truly,
Melanie Light

On Nov 24, 2008, at 2:26 PM, Richard A. Smith wrote:

> 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
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> community-support mailing list
> community-support at lists.laptop.org
> http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/community-support



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