[OLPC-Philippines] OLPC Ph Jan.31 meeting

[Carlos Nazareno]

Hi all. Sorry I couldn't attend the meeting. I had been looking
forward to it for so long too :-/

Last Jan.31, I collapsed and had to be brought to the hospital earlier
in the morning due to lack of sleep, stress & overworking. I just got
discharged and am still getting up to speed on the topics discussed
during the meetings. I've read some of the notes, but I have yet to
finish watching the UStream recording becuase I have hundreds of email
backlog and my current work project to attend to.

My thoughts:

for deploying XO-1s to students of an older demographic,
cross-platform/browser based content might be the best type of content
to develop. As for complaints on the size of the keyboard keys being
unsuitable for highschool or college level: I've had absolutely no
problem using the XO's keyboard with my tiny Asian fingers ;)

While Sugar is well suited to young children, as the students grow up,
they're going to need something a bit more in line with existing
systems. This is in no way raising kids into MS Office-Windows MS Word
and Powerpoint-pushing drones as many in the OLPC community have
argued; this is reality and facing facts.

I'm going to be blunt here (sorry, Bernie, Mel :-/), but as we
discussed in the developer list last year, Sugar has major problems
interfacing with other systems because the concept of files (which is
central to almost any existing computer system) has been removed and
replaced with the journal system (which has its own problems, key of
which is being flooded with unnecessary entries over time).

Also, I am for the exploration of alternative OSes/UIs to XO OS
(Fedora + Sugar). Although Sugar presents a clean UI, the speed at
which applications launch is... um. slow.

Anyway, given all the current upheavals at OLPC, the fact that the
XO-2 is probably now under development, and the speed at which
hardware/software tech evolves, I'm looking more towards the
least-common cross-platform denominators: web browsers, Java, the
Flash Platform (which includes Flash Lite and AIR) for content
development.

IMHO, it's a good route to take and will benefit more communities and
systems as any content we create with these platforms in mind should
be forward compatible and would run on other systems well since any of
the apps we create will be made with a low CPU & Memory footprint in
mind. Thus, any stuff developed with this in mind should run on Linux,
Mac & Windows - practically everyone who has a computer! (and
hopefully smartphones too)

Okay, the 3 Flash-dev XO units entrusted to me by 1CC for Flash dev
are named after the Ninja Turtles (for obvious reasons). I've got
Leonardo & Donatello for testing Adobe Flash and Gnash with (when I
get free time, I'll test to see if Adobe AIR for Linux will run on
'em). Michaelangelo is now with John.

I've also installed Teapot's Ubuntu Linux 8.10 Intrepid Ibex
(http://olpcnews.com/forum/index.php?topic=4053.0) on Leonardo via an
8GB LiveSD card and have been taking him everywhere as he fits in my
manpurse.

No complaints so far and it pretty much serves a lot of my travel
purposes. It even runs http://processing.org (albeit a little slowly,
pretty much the same speed as my PC 6 yrs ago), runs MP3s w/ playlists
& DivX movies via VLC, Opera browser runs fine and dandy, Javascript,
Flash & Java can be turned off with a few simple dropdown menu clicks
for surfing speed.

Another nice thing about Teapot's LiveSD card is that it's
nondestructive and doesn't touch the XO's internal NAND so I can
immediately switch back to XO OS just by removing the SD card after
shutting down the unit.

Anyway, as I said, XO OS (Sugar) is not very suitable for older users
(nor quite compatible with other systems because of the removal of the
file & file manager paradigm). As such, maybe we can try and customize
alternate Linux builds for the XO-1?

I was also talking to Ed Cherlin and Yama Ploskonka and Mel Chua from
the developer lists and I suggested that maybe the XO could also be
used to jumpstart entire communities and help scientific projects and
not be restricted to the just the use of education of small children.
We also discussed possible usage to aid in electoral polling.

Maybe other customized lightweight Linux flavors could be tested/used
for projects such as geotagging and cataloguing ecological diversity
(the Philippines is a biodiversity hotspot)? And even cataloguing
language, culture, music, dance, oral tradition, etc as the
Philippines is very rich in culture.

I was also talking to Gabby Dizon, president of GDAP (the Game
Developers' Association of the Philippines) about possible development
of content on the XO by local game developers (and not just 1-3 day
game jams! we mean quality indie games!)

Anyway, those are some thoughts.

Ed & Yama immediately advised me to fill out a contributor's program
form to apply for units for some of these projects as some like
working with universities & DENR (the Philippines' Department of
Environment and Natural Resources) for the cataloguing of Philippine
biodiversity as results from such studies would immedately benefit the
world science.

There's so much we can do with the XO-1 to change our country and
change the world.

I suggest we start pooling ideas for programs and usage of XO-1s for
the Philippines, and then make combined contributors' program requests
addressed all in one go to a single address for convenience of 1
Cambridge Center (and as per 1CC contributors' program guidelines).

So we need an address where the dev XO units will be stored and then
lent to developers and accounted for library-style.

As for the use of XOs in classroom settings, again, I recommend
starting pilot programs with private schools for reasons of security,
staff support and infrastructure. In fact, I even recommend that the
pilot programs be done first in top-tier schools because there,
better-educated faculty can perform controlled scientific studies on
best practices for 1-to-1 computing as it still a relatively new
concept on such a massive scale here in the Ph.

One good deployment target might be Xavier School. Take a look at this link:
1-to-1 Computer-Based Instruction Lesson Plan Design Contest
http://w3.xs.edu.ph/?p=5088

Also, Xavier School has just dumped Windows for Linux ;)
Dump Windows, save millions
http://www.chinwong.com/index.php?/site/comments/dump_windows_save_millions/

Again, I wasn't at the meeting and haven't watched the UStream yet,
but although jumping headfirst into the poorest communities with
laptops seem like an incredibly noble effort, IMHO it would be slight
shades of blind leading the blind. So again, I suggest start with
controlled environments where 1-to-1 computing best practices can be
developed, and then knowledge transferred to further communities.

I hope that I'm not raining on everyone's parade but although there
have been many success stories about 1-to-1 computing, there have been
a number of horror stories in the U.S. as well like students IMing
each other and cheating, a school left with laptops and no idea how to
effectively use them in a classroom setting when the faculty member in
charge of the laptop program up and left, difficulties in making the
laptops relevant to school curricula, and even horror of horrors:
students using the laptops to access porn on the internet.

Furthermore, the XO or any laptop or computer + networks are simply
delivery systems.
What is our payload? Educational content/curriculum. Without properly
contextualized educational content, these laptops a lot of their
potential would be wasted.

Regarding Sugar, since Sugar has been built to be very lightweight and
CPU-friendly from the get-go, what I'd like to see is Sugar
installable and can be run on top of other OSes like Mac and Windows,
very similar to http://scummvm.org or educational CDs with plenty of
educational games and activities for the user. This would be quite
challenging, but if sugar can evolve be transformed into a
cross-platform runtime environment, it would really change the game.

As it is, typical Linux programs cannot just be launched from
sugarized icons in Sugar, they still have to be sugarized and this has
become a bit difficult because of the XO's Rainbow security system and
not all apps can be sugarized. I hope the sugarization can be modified
to be more sugarization-friendly for the many, many existing
non-sugarized apps out there. After all, XOs can be jailbroken and
kids who have access to the XOs also have root control of their Linux
systems. I like this ethic of "you own the machine, you can do
anything you want with it" as it encourages experimentation and
curiousity-encouraged creative hackery.

Kent, I think you used to do package building for Vector Linux right?
I wonder how fast it would be if ported to the OLPC XO... same if a
version of Damn Small Linux or Puppy Linux with the 2.6 kernel could
be created...

Doc Mana! If you have time from your busy schedule, maybe you can
modify Teapot's XUbuntu XO version:
http://olpcnews.com/forum/index.php?topic=4053.0

Another very game-changing tech would be the ability to utilize
Internet-enabled celphones as data modems via USB like the newer Nokia
devices. Now since celphone coverage is very ubiqiuitous in the
Philippines, this would bridge the digital divide between haves and
have-nots even better.

Anyway, food some for thought.

I hope I haven't stepped on anyone's toes or rained on anyone's
parade, but in todays toughening economy, we have to be very
pragmatic.

Nyt all!

-Naz

P.S. the XO's wifi range is unbelievable. It's a wardriver's wet
dream: whereas normal wifi devices pick up 3 hotspots somwehere at
Araneta Center, the XO picks up 10. In fact, when driving in a car, it
picks up private residence and internet cafe signals on the go :P

P.P.S. I haven't been playing hanky-panky with Leonardo, promise!
John, I had lent Donatello to DISCS for some time, but I had to get
him back for proper research and benchmarking because wiping Leonardo
then installing/uninstalling Flash & Gnash was already getting very
ridiculous.

P.P.P.S. John, when you're done experimenting with Michaelangelo,
maybe you could lend him to Dr. Manalastas for a while. (saksakan din
muna natin ng Ubuntu para makita mo diperensiya) Ubuntu on the XO
really changed things for me as an "average" user. Anyway, I really
need at least 2 units to do proper comparisons and benchmarking.

P.P.P.P.S. Jerome, Rowen, the guys at the devel list said that Ubuntu
on XO's power consumption may have cut battery time in half because
some of the special AMD Geode power-saving instructions hadn't been
placed in the Ubuntu XO yet.

-- 
carlos nazareno
http://twitter.com/object404
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