pacing oneself

[Mikus Grinbergs]

The "visual speed of operation" of palette opening/closing on the 
screen is noticeably slower on the OLPC than on a workstation. When 
the OLPC user fails to "slow down" with his actions, unintended 
consequences can result.


Was working (Joyride 2177) in Terminal with a removable storage 
device.  Issued an 'umount' command - it was rejected with "device 
is busy".  Went to the Journal, selected that device's icon, and 
(rapidly) invoked the pop-up palette to unmount that device.  But 
(being spastic, and not pausing to make sure where the cursor was 
positioned) I had managed to click on the 'base' of the palette 
instead of on the 'Unmount' entry.

Not realizing what had happened, what I *did* notice was the XO 
becoming extremely unresponsive.  Went (took a long time) back to 
Terminal, and issued 'top'.  It showed Journal taking 100% of the 
available CPU cycles.  Decided to wait out whatever was going on. 
After two minutes or so, the high Journal usage stopped.  Went over 
to Journal, and *now* I saw what I had done - Journal was showing me 
the files on that device.  [Apparently it had taken Journal a couple 
of minutes to "scan" that device.]  Switched what the Journal was 
showing to "normal", clicked (more carefully) on the 'Unmount' of 
the removable device, and all was back to what was supposed to be.


I am *not* posting for help.  But I *do* wish to point out that 
(particularly when dissimilar functions are visually adjacent -- 
e.g., "unmount" vs. "show"), failure to 'pace oneself' on the OLPC 
can bring on the unexpected.


mikus