[Olpc-philippines] Introduction

[James Shields]

Mel,

Thanks.  My wiki username is fozzbozz.

Spare partition ... what's that?  :)  I need to create some space and plop
down another machine.  Gah, not looking forward really to learning enough
about Linux to get it onto a network.  Multiple learning curves going
forward.

I Googled patintero and it looks to be a game of tag ... not sure how one
would translate that into a computer game.  Although, putting words into a
dictionary I can certainly do.  I need to get myself a decent
English-Tagalog dictionary anyway.

How does emulation need more help?

Sorry about the questions ...

James Shields


-----Original Message-----
From: Mel Chua [mailto:mel at melchua.com]
Sent: Thursday, October 18, 2007 11:07 PM
To: James Shields
Cc: olpc-philippines at lists.laptop.org
Subject: Re: [Olpc-philippines] Introduction


Welcome, James! What's your wiki(.laptop.org) username?

The best way to get started is to pick something you're interested in
and just jump in (...like all open-source projects, really).

Since you're interested in developing, the first thing I would do is to
grab a spare partition and install Fedora Core 7 and sugar-jhbuild to
emulate the laptop, as you suggested (see
http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Emulation - or as we usually abbreviate wiki
pages here, [[Emulation]]). Emulation itself is something that could use
some work, if you're interested in diving into virtual machines and
development tools rather than enduser apps.

Playing with Python sounds great. Keep in mind that the XOs won't have
visual studio .NET installed ;-) If you have experience developing
distributed apps, one thing you might want to look into is pipes on
python, the thing that allows python applications to easily collaborate
over the mesh network.

On the more Philippines-specific side, one thing that doesn't exist that
will eventually be needed is a translation effort. There's no content in
Tagalog, no games in Tagalog or about Filipino culture, and so on. If
you or someone you know is inclined to spend a few hours pitching in to
put Tagalog words in ZdnekBroz's dictionary project or whipping up some
Filipino-themed content/games, that would be awesome. (Imagine playing
patintero over the mesh.)

-Mel (currently in San Juan, off to Cagayan de Oro in the morning)

James Shields wrote:
> Hi folks.  My name is James Shields.  I signed up to help about a month
ago,
> but due to a couple of family tragedies, I'm only able to start helping
now.
>
> I've developed software for various machines since the early 1970's.  Now,
I
> specialize on .NET development for Windows boxes.  But, I can pick up
other
> languages as required (I'm considering downloading the tools for Symbian
> OS60 so I can make nifty applets for my Nokia N95).  In the past, I've
> worked with PCs, Apples, Commodore PETs (that's going way back), early DEC
> PDP machines, military avionics, embedded microprocessors in medical
> monitors.
>
> I really like the idea behind the OLPC.  And, now that they've reached the
> stage where I can help (software), I want to help.
>
> I'm planning on picking up two XOs for myself with the Give 1 Get 1
program
> (so, buying 4, getting 2).  Not sure which units they're be ... C-1?  B-4?
> In any case, I should have two laptops here when that program hits.
>
> Until then, I'll emulate the machine under Windows.  There's a new Python
> release for Visual Studio .NET, I might look into finding a way to use
that
> to make apps and content for the laptops.
>
> Really, whatever the team needs, I'll try to do.
>
> James Shields
>
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