some first impressions

[Yuan Chao]

On 8/11/07, Guylhem Aznar <olpc at guylhem.net> wrote:

> Today I just received my XO after having some problems with DHL and
> DDP. I'm in France, but I had the same problem Xavi mentionned on
I also got an XO shipped to Geneva several weeks ago. Luckily I didn't
meet this problem with Swiss Custom. :)

>  - the SD is amazingly hard to remove. If no spring can be used, at
> least plastic should be removed  aroud the SD slot to ease its removal
> with bare fingers, ie without having to resort to pliers
I'm assuming you've got the same type (BTest-4) of machine as I have.
It's simply like most SD devices that it *does* have a spring, just
the slot is a bit too tight. (tested with my genuine panasonic SD
card) Maybe it's a must to avoid SD dropping out. When inserting, You
need to push SD all the way to the end and release when hearing a
click. To eject, you need push to the end, release when hearing a
click and then the SD will spring out a bit that you can grab and
remove it.

>  - there should be a direct key to go to the journal, since that is
> where the main interactions will happen
It seems that F6-F9 is not used anymore in 5xx OS image, maybe they
can be mapped to launch the key activities like browser, read, write
and journal. The reader launch icon on sugar is also gone since 5xx.

>  - Speaking of reading, comic books (cbr) and existing ebooks formats
> (plucker style from the project gutemberg, or the opie-reader specific
> evolutions rb2 format which was extremely fast while achieving great
> compression too) should also be supported by this application, to take
> advantage of the existing content. A good starting page would be the
> library (the idea of bundling a library of books, pictures, etc is
> excellent)
I guess you are also a Zaurus user. ;)
It would be nice that Plucker can be supported. Although the original
idea of plucker would be and alternative to a *heavy* browser on PDA
or as an off-line browsing RSS reader, there are tons of free resource
ready to use and would be of great help to children. The UI features
would be also worthy learned from for current PDF reader. (I still
can't understand why there's no zoom in/out function for PDF reader.
;) )

>  - BTW, where is the library now? After I flashed 546 I could not find
> it anymore. Any hint about its location? Are there language-specific
> library available? (I could certainly give a hand and write some
I've read about it has been dropped off since some developing build
but I never saw it afterwards. As 542 becomes the new stable build (or
it's my wrong understanding), maybe it should be added back?

I do have some suggestions for the Library. For example, the picture
books is not so easy to read as you always need the touch pad to
navigate (no hot keys available) and the font is too small even for
adults. To be more ideal, the framed menu sould be able to be closed
and opened when needed.

>  - Is the lack of audible feedback from the volume up/down keys on purpose?
Honestly, I would opt for a visual feedback and an instant mute key. :)


-- 
Best regards,
Yuan Chao