Archive for the 'Tech Toys' category

A roundup of news about the new HP TouchSmart 310 and the HP TouchSmart 4.0 software

September 20, 2010 10:16 pm

[Update 2010-09-22: A few more unique mentions have come in; see links and quotes below marked [Update] ]

Only a little vanity post; a collection of links to stories and other potentially interesting tidbits.HP's new TouchSmart 310 all-in-one features a new design and updated TouchSmart software.

These were some of the first mentions of the HP TouchSmart 310 with HP TouchSmart 4.0 software, unveiled on September 20, 2010.

Most of these have no real reviews yet, they just “wordsmith” the press release or other people’s “wordsmithing”. But that won’t stop me from highlighting “good stuff”.

CNet: http://news.cnet.com/8301-17938_105-20016921-1.html

The new case is graceful enough, and the $699 starting price for its low-end AMD CPU and 20-inch display is fair, but the biggest news for this new all-in-one may lie in its software. [My emphasis]

First, HP has tweaked the main TouchSmart software interface to streamline the way you access and organize media and applications using touch. In addition to organizing applications in a carousel layout, now you can also "pin" apps and individual media files to a more dynamic background featuring various parallax-animated environments. HP says this design lets you organize your touch software in a more natural manner, akin to how you might organize a desk.

In addition to the new background, HP has also updated the specific touch applications to the TouchSmart suite, most impressively with a new Marvel Comics streaming service, from which you can buy touch versions of more than 8,000 titles from the Marvel library. That number dwarfs the 500 Marvel titles available from Apple’s iPad application. The Marvel app and the entire TouchSmart suite, dubbed TouchSmart 4.0, will also be available for download by owners of current TouchSmart all-in-ones.

Hot Hardware: http://hothardware.com/News/HP-Debuts-Omni-100-And-TouchSmart-310-AIO-PCs-Along-With-New-tm2-Notebook/

hp-310[1]

ZDNet “The Toy Box”: http://www.zdnet.com/blog/gadgetreviews/hp-rolls-out-omni-100-touchsmart-310-all-in-one-desktops-20-hd-widescreens/18143

VentureBeat: http://venturebeat.com/2010/09/20/hp-launches-fancy-touch-based-desktops-and-an-app-store-for-touch-apps/

The latest software transforms a user’s boring Windows desktop into a “magic canvas,” which appears to be an overlay on top of the computer screen. You swipe your hand across the display to move the transparent overlay. You can drag applications, music, photos, videos and other web content directly onto the overlay. HP refers to these objects as “magnets” since they are just like the magnets you put on your refrigerator with notes attached to them. You can pick multilayered wallpapers to bring the illusion of 3D depth perception to a screen. You can also browse through material via the carousel at the bottom of the screen — all with the touch of a finger.

You can use existing TouchSmart apps such as Twitter, Hulu, Netflix, Recipe Box and the HP Music Store powered by Rhapsody. All of those apps can be started and used via finger taps on the touchscreen. You can use the webcam to film a personalized video message and post it directly to your friend’s Facebook wall.

The HP TouchSmart Apps Center has a small collection of apps available now. You can access them via a TouchSmart Carousel. Some of the apps contain a lot of content, such as the Marvel Comics app and the Cartoon Network app. The Marvel app gives you access to more than 8,000 comics. You can tap on them and read them page by page on a a beautiful high-definition display. The Cartoon Network app offers news updates on shows and characters.

PC Magazine: http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2369352,00.asp

The TouchSmart interface is much more advanced than the competition, including Sony, MSI, and Gateway.

TG Daily: http://www.tgdaily.com/hardware-brief/51618-hp-launches-new-much-cheaper-touchsmart

HP has rebuilt its TouchSmart software for the 310 model, making it easier to organize and play back media from the touchscreen, as well as adding enhanced everyday computer applications as well. When the first TouchSmart computer debuted, its touchscreen technology was more of a novelty than anything else. Since then, gadgets like the iPad have made touch more relevant and important than ever, and have shown everyone that it can be a powerful computing tool.

Also added with the new TouchSmart announcement is a deal between HP and Disney to offer digital Marvel comics. TouchSmart users will now be able to stream special versions of classic comics, and then literally thumb through them with on-screen controls. More than 8,000 Marvel titles are available, which HP says is the most extensive digital collection ever offered from any content partner.

HP is also launching a new "app store" interface for touchscreen programs and games, making it easier for developers and consumers to take advantage of the PC’s touch capabilities.

Existing TouchSmart users will also have access to this and the other enhancements being made for the 310, with the release of a sweeping software upgrade. TouchSmart 4.0 will be downloadable for anyone who owns a legacy TouchSmart computer from HP.

Softpedia: http://news.softpedia.com/news/HP-Releases-Three-New-TouchSmart-and-Omnio-PCs-157124.shtml

TechConnect: http://www.tcmagazine.com/tcm/news/hardware/30503/hp-intros-touchsmart-310-and-omni-100-all-one-pcs

Geeky Gadgets: http://www.geeky-gadgets.com/new-hp-touchsmart-310-only-699-20-09-2010/

Waleg: http://www.waleg.com/techgadgets/archives/020976.html

Electronista: http://www.electronista.com/articles/10/09/20/hp.intros.omni.100.touchsmart.310.all.in.one.pcs/

Digital Trends: http://www.digitaltrends.com/computing/hp-touchsmart-310-pc-offers-improved-touch-based-software/

IC Tech News: http://ic-technews.com/laptop/1493-hp-touchsmart-310-priced-at-price-just-699-a-complete-software-redesign

Chip Chick: http://www.chipchick.com/2010/09/hp-touchsmart-apps-center.html

Product Reviews: http://www.product-reviews.net/2010/09/20/new-hp-touchsmart-310-review-specs-and-release-date/

Financial Times: http://blogs.ft.com/techblog/2010/09/touchsmart/

Engadget: http://www.engadget.com/2010/09/20/hp-announces-touchsmart-310-and-omni100-all-in-one-pcs/ [Love all the trolling and spewing of prejudices on this one…]

SlashGear: http://www.slashgear.com/hp-touchsmart-310-omni100-and-touchsmart-tm2-get-official-20103191/

[Update]

GottaBeMobile: http://www.gottabemobile.com/2010/09/22/hp-touchsmart-software-gets-more-touchable/

The Touchsmart’s UI is much more fluid and touch applications are no longer required to run in full screen, offering a little breathing room.The Touchsmart’s UI is much more fluid and touch applications are no longer required to run in full screen, offering a little breathing room.

[…]

The new revision of the software looks like a big improvement compared to what’s on my TouchSmart 600xt, which my wife and I use as our bedroom PC.

eWeek (with Slideshow): http://www.eweek.com/c/a/Desktops-and-Notebooks/HP-Omni-TouchSmart-310-TouchSmart-tm2-Unveiled-175093/

Tom’s Hardware: http://www.tomshardware.com/news/TouchSmart-Omni-HP-All-in-Ones-AIO-touchscreen,11332.html

DesktopReview: http://www.desktopreview.com/default.asp?newsID=1222&Review=HP+TouchSmart+310+Multitouch+all-in-one+First+Look

HP has what appears to be an ingenious solution. After a program is launched, a couple of fingers swivelling across the screen automatically shrink the application into a cube and paste it onto the TouchSmart’s background. The background itself can then be scrolled through, just by touching it anywhere on the screen.

One really cool aspect of engineering the software like this is the parallax effect that HP added to the wallpaper. As you scroll through the desktop, items in the foreground move at a different rate relative to items in the background.

While we didn’t see it demonstrated, an HP rep also mentioned that the TouchSmart will ship with software to generate these movable backgrounds with pictures that customers take. The effect won’t be as strong as the ones included by HP, but being able to customize it even that much is a nice bonus.

Windows Experience Blog: http://windowsteamblog.com/windows/b/windowsexperience/archive/2010/09/21/hp-updates-their-touchsmart-software-amp-all-in-one-pc-lineup.aspx

To couple the new hardware, HP is revving their TouchSmart software to offer a number of new capabilities.  They’re saying that with it, the desktop transforms into a “Magic Canvas” where users can easily drag apps, and content – even web content – directly onto the desktop.  There’s also a new multi-layer wallpaper that gives the machine a lot of depth.  I haven’t had a chance to work with these new features directly, but I have seen a demo and it looks really nice.

[/Update]

A little promo video of the new TouchSmart 4.0 software:

 

Product Marketing Manager Ken Bosley presenting the TouchSmart 4.0 software on YouTube:

 

The HP Video channel with tutorials:

http://h30429.www3.hp.com/?fr_chl=ce319b479b9d330ec6ef5a60bd25d2567c423f97&rf=bm

 

For developers:

TouchSmart 4.0 SDK: http://www.touchsmartdevzone.com/download/3369/HP-TouchSmart-SDK-4.0-English/

And I may have some details to add myself if and when I find the time…

Recover from BAD_POOL_HEADER blue screen errors after upgrading hard drive

July 27, 2009 10:00 am

I noticed recently that I’d get logged off from my computer over night. I’d leave the system running at night without logging off, and in the morning I’d have to log in again, with all the previously running programs gone. I had recently added a SATA controller in order to be able to run three SATA drives on this particular system (it only has 2 SATA ports on the motherboard), so I thought the culprit was a bad driver for the new card. Turns out that wasn’t it.

My computer runs backups over night (I use MozyHome), which shouldn’t be a problem, really. But as part of the backup, a volume shadow copy snapshot is made, and this step caused the blue screen error.

In addition to adding a SATA controller, I had also bought a bigger hard drive to hold my ever expanding collection of pictures, vacation videos, etc. When I installed it, I cloned the old drive (which was a PATA drive) to carry all the information forward onto the new drive.

Apparently, after you install a cloned a hard drive, some information is retained on the system about the old drive, and this affects volume shadow copies.

I had to go to Device Manager and turn on “Show hidden devices”:

image

Then, under Storage Volumes, I had to delete one in particular that seemed to have gotten a corrupted name (something like Generic Volume□□□ [not shown in this screenshot, since it’s fixed now]):

 image

Just for good measure I deleted all of them (although they didn’t seem to really disappear), ignoring the request to reboot after each prompt to do so.

When I was done, a couple of reboots of Windows recreated the necessary information about these volumes from the (old and new) hardware. After that the volume shadow copy snapshots no longer failed and I was able to run my backups without blue screen errors.

Credits for this find go to the folks in this thread: http://www.techspot.com/vb/topic94820-2.html

Pictures in my Windows 7 Theme Pack

January 28, 2009 10:29 am

In case you’ve seen my Windows 7 Theme Pack, here are the pictures that are in it. You may want to know if they’re worth it before you download the 12+ MB of .themepack file.

Old, eroded brick wall 

Clouds in the sunset

Sunset 2

Fireworks!

A huge mural of Peanuts comics

Downtown skyline with Mount Rainier in the distance

Loom heddles 2

Dale Chihuly's glass ceiling at the Bellagio hotel in Las Vegas.

View from the Crab Shack

Grand Canyon sunset

Freshly cut strawberries

My first Windows 7 Theme Pack

January 27, 2009 11:21 pm

Just so I can say that I jumped on a bandwagon once: Mike Swanson inspired me to create my very own Windows 7 Theme Pack. It contains 12 pictures I’ve taken over the past year or so with my trusty old Canon PowerShot S30 (yes, I’m still running around with a camera that only does 3 megapixels.)

I’ve included a few photos in the pack that I managed to have included in the Spring 2009 software for the HP TouchSmart PC. They’re in the Personalize – Background area, should you be interested in finding them. Here’s one you may recognize:

Downtown Seattle, Mount Rainier and the harbor

While I didn’t put this one in the Theme Pack, I did pick a similar shot of downtown Seattle. Come to think of it, maybe this post will be inspiration for doing a “picture of the day” type of thing. Hmm. Been wanting to do that for a while.

All I can do now is hope the size of the pack (12 MB or so) won’t blow my bandwidth allowance…

Crayon Physics is out now!

January 9, 2009 7:48 pm

Just in case you haven’t seen it, this is probably the neatest geek game out there right now (next to World of Goo).

Crayon Physics Deluxe from Petri Purho on Vimeo

Go get it at www.crayonphysics.com.

Perfect for the HP TouchSmart PC, by the way!

HP TouchSmart development on .NET Rocks!

December 2, 2008 11:54 pm

Check out the interview with some of the HP TouchSmart folks on .NET Rocks! It just went live earlier today.

http://www.dotnetrocks.com/default.aspx?showNum=399

The parts for developers are mostly in the first 15 minutes. I have some PDF slides that might illustrate things for people who are just looking for a quick visual and not a whole lot of depth. If you’re interested, let me know and I’ll post them here.

Listen to your hard drive’s S.M.A.R.T. status – part 2

September 9, 2008 11:12 pm

In which I learn that even though the SMART status and drive self-tests report “No problems found”, you can’t trust them all the time.

To make a long story short: Even though I’ve mentioned in the past that it’s a good idea to monitor your hard drive’s SMART status to detect potentially impending doom, sometimes that’s not enough (in my last post on the topic, I replaced a drive based on SMART data.) You also need to look into the Windows Event Log to see if Windows silently is logging read errors (but not telling you in so many words, like “Hey, I can’t read your hard drive. Get a new one before this one goes all disc grinder on you!”)

DiscGrinder

My new tale involves a drive that didn’t show any signs of bad SMART data, didn’t report any trouble when analyzed with the manufacturer’s tools, but caused trouble anyway. Over the course of several months my main workhorse computer developed an annoying habit of booting slowly, sometimes to the point of freezing up entirely before getting all the little background programs loaded that I’ve amassed over about three years without reinstalling the OS.

I suspected the motherboard to be faulty at first, so I switched that out, with the result that I had to re-activate XP, which was annoying. I thought that had worked, but no, things kept being bad. Then I figured that I’d have to somehow test whether the hard drive controller on the mobo had gone bonkers. Well, since I have two other drives on the same chip, that didn’t seem possible.

Next, I thought “How about doing a benchmark on the hard drives?” So I found this pretty cool free (for personal use) benchmarking program called HD Tune (which, incidentally, also reports SMART data), and guess what – it would sometimes abort the test with a “read error” message. And sometimes the benchmark graphic would look like this:

Bad drive

Believe me, you don’t want it to look like that, blue and yellow all over the place like a shiner! What you want is something more like this:

Good drive

A nice and steady drop-off in speed (blue) and increase in access time (yellow).

Anyway, the read error prompted me to check the Windows Event Log, and sure enough there were disk read errors quietly reported regularly over the past several months. So I decided it was time for another hard drive replacement. What I learned from that is “meat” enough for another post. Good thing I keep all my data on a physically separate drive (and online at Mozy).

The moral of the story is: “Check your hard drive’s SMART status, but be suspicious anyway!”

The cat’s finally out of the bag – The new HP TouchSmart IQ500 has been announced

June 10, 2008 4:18 pm

The big day is here and gone. The new TouchSmart PC has been announced to great fanfare on the web, and I’m sure there’s more to come. The blogs are full of praise and criticism already, of course. Since I was closely involved with the creation, I’m happy about all the praise and hope that we’ll be able to address the criticism over time (especially regarding the software). In other words: there’s never enough time to get any piece of software 100% smack-dab perfect for everyone’s taste.

I’d like to write a little about things that may not be well known yet. Yes, there is actually limited “dual-touch” in the new software. You can resize the upper row of “tiles” using two fingers. You can scroll using two fingers once you’ve gone into the “Browser”. Due to how the touch screen works you need to make sure your fingers are a certain distance apart to get it to work right. It’s “limited” dual-touch because of the natural laws of time and resource constraints on the development team: we ran out of time to do more.

Oh, and nowhere in the HP TouchSmart software do you need to “double tap”/”double click”. If a single tap doesn’t do it, the touch screen saw too much movement of your finger during the tap and turned it into a move action instead. That’s the challenge with using optical technology that sweeps just above the glass. It sees your finger a little before you actually touch the screen. (Think Vincent Cassell in “Ocean’s Twelve” or Catherine Zeta-Jones in “Entrapment”)

We’ve had feedback from users in the past, asking for tutorials around the software. I’m personally really happy that we managed to put two tutorials on the system for this new incarnation of HP TouchSmart. And they are available right from the lower row of “tiles”. Here’s a small taste of how the tutorials were created:

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As you may be able to see, there’s a lot of work that goes into even such a small thing as creating tutorial videos. I certainly had no idea how involved the process is before I had the chance to help out with the production in a (very) small way. I feel lucky to have worked with and met so many great people. You can find the tutorials here, starting with the basic one in English.

For those of you who read this blog because of the WPF topics I’ve touched on in the past: yes, central parts of the software were created using WPF. I don’t mean to be a fanboy, but I’ve said it in the past, WPF is powerful stuff. The ability to have separate people working on styling the software while other people work on “business logic” is incredibly valuable. At the end you get full visual fidelity of the design for virtually no added work.

Before I close (and this gets much longer), let me put a question out there for software developers. If it were possible to write software that could end up as “tiles” in the TouchSmart software, would that be interesting to you? If not, why not? Don’t take this question as any indication or promise of what the future may hold. I’m just curious about your opinion. Comment away, please.

And for those of you who just stumbled upon this by chance (or dug through the sea of noise out there) and are curious about certain aspects of the new HP TouchSmart PC or the software, I’ll try to answer questions within certain limits in the comments as well.

The rest of this post is mostly a collection of links I gathered on the day of the announcement, with a little added commentary for myself. What a splash!

HP TouchSmart PC gets slick upgrade (Slashgear, Promo pics)

HP TouchSmart- bringing touch to the iMac form (jkOnTheRun, Promo pics)

HP TouchSmart PC gets refreshed, unboxed (Gearlive, unboxing [http://www.gearlive.com/gallery/category/C67])

HP’s TouchSmart 2 in the wild (Engadget, Promo pics link)

HP Touchsmart IQ506 Brings New Interface, Bigger Screen (Gizmodo, tutorial video embedded, press blurb)

Preview- HP TouchSmart IQ500 Series PC (Hardwarezone Australia, prototype pics, specs)

HP updates TouchSmart with TouchSmart IQ504 and IQ506 PC (Krunker, promo pics, iMac comparison quote)

HP Touchsmart IQ506 and 504 Touch PC (Techfresh, promo pic)

HP launches TouchSmart all-in-one PCs (TechChee, promo pic)

HP Touchsmart IQ506 and 504 Touch PC (HawtGadgets, promo pic)

HP TouchSmart IQ500 hands on PC (Five.TV, promo pic)

HP Launches new touch-screen PC (Nudjit.com, Stage pic, embedded tutorial video, showing the precise touch action needed to avoid accidental “moves”)

HP TouchSmart update tackles iMac, Gateway (electronista, Promo pics)

http://www.kickstartnews.com/2008/06/hp-announce-new-pcs-and-laptops.html (Promo pic)

http://www.hp.com/hpinfo/newsroom/press/2008/080610xb.html?mtxs=rss-corp-news (HP press release)

http://blogs.msdn.com/mthree/archive/2008/06/10/touchsmart-2-061008.aspx (MSDN, Promo pics, link to PC Mag article)

http://hpcorp.feedroom.com/?fr_story=1a61d0307fcbf0b5a167dd7e419f65b157125a75&rf=rss (HP video site, fingerprints video)

HP Connecting Your World Keynote – Live (Gizmonews, LiveBlog from the Berlin event, lots of stage pics)

http://blogs.yankeegroup.com/2008/06/10/hp-wants-to-be-touched-but-not-groped/ (Promo pic)

http://vantan.org/archives/2008/06/hp_launches_tou.php (Vanessa Tan, lots of Berlin stage pics, one YouTube video)

http://site-designer.blogspot.com/2008/06/news-hp-targets-wider-market-with-new.html (Mostly a press release rehash)

http://crave.cnet.com/8301-1_105-9963859-1.html?part=rss&subj=Crave (Crave, Promo pics)

http://techdigest.tv/2008/06/hp_unveils_touc.html (One promo pic)

http://hdtvprofessor.com/HDTVAlmanac/?p=705 (Promo pic)

http://stuff.tv/News/HP-slims-down-Touchsmart-allinone/10203/ (One promo pic)

http://news.cnet.com/8301-10784_3-9964073-7.html?part=rss&subj=news (One promo pic, link to gallery of all HP products launched)

http://xzx.g8online.net/2008/06/10/wow-hp-touchsmart-to-redefine-home-computing/ (Promo pics)

http://www.electricpig.co.uk/2008/06/10/hp-touchsmart-pc-causes-finger-frenzy/ (Small promo pic)

http://www.gadgetusers.com/hp-touchsmart-iq506-and-504-touch-pc/ (Promo pic, link to ubergizmo gallery of promo pics)

http://www.livemint.com/2008/06/10142732/HP-targets-wider-market-with-n.html (Mostly press release)

http://www.lowyat.net/v2/latest/touchsmart-to-redefine-home-computing.html (Promo pics, seems there’s no original content here)

http://gadgetsaddict.com/hp-touchsmart-pcs/ (Promo pics)

http://www.blog4it.com/index.php/hp-brings-touchscreen-to-pc.html (no pics, very short)

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2319417,00.asp (One small promo pic)

http://www.gottabemobile.com/Introducing+The+New+HP+TouchSmart.aspx (One pic)

http://news.cnet.com/2300-1042_3-6241247-3.html?tag=ne.gall.pg (Picture)

http://news.cnet.com/2300-1042_3-6241247-4.html?tag=ne.gall.pg (Picture)

http://blip.tv/file/979499/ (Richard Walker demo)

http://blip.tv/file/979518/ (Joan Jett ad)

http://blip.tv/file/979452/ (I could defend the problems you see in this video with operating the touch screen, but I think that would be futile, so I’ll just leave it. Trust me when I say it takes a little getting used to, but it works pretty well after that. We did lots of usability studies on this puppy.)

http://www.tweakup.dk/readmore/11757/ (In Danish)

http://www.sickofgadgets.com/hp-launches-touchsmart-all-in-one-pcs/ (One promo pic)

http://thedigitallifestyle.com/cs/blogs/ian/archive/2008/06/10/video-of-hp-s-new-touchsmart-system.aspx (Promo pics, good quality video of Richard Walker demoing)

http://thedigitallifestyle.com/cs/blogs/ian/archive/2008/06/10/hp-connecting-your-world-keynote-from-berlin.aspx (Voodoo, event pics)

http://www.notebooks.com/2008/06/10/hp-touchsmart-why-cant-i-have-this-interface-on-my-tablet/ (Seems to be down temporarily)

http://venturebeat.com/2008/06/10/hp-launches-50-plus-consumer-products-in-berlin/ (Promo pics)

http://www.informationweek.com/news/hardware/desktop/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=208403180&subSection=All+Stories (No pics)

http://www.forbes.com/technology/2008/06/10/hp-touchscreen-pc-tech-pers-cx_bc_0609techhp.html (No pics, but look at the headline. Wow.)

http://blog.laptopmag.com/hp-wants-to-bring-multi-touch-to-notebooks (One promo pic, discussion of software for laptops)

Only a few more days now to the Big Unveiling

June 7, 2008 1:45 pm

Next week Monday through Wednesday there’s an invitation-only event in Berlin, Germany where some of the stuff I’ve been working on (since the HP TouchSmart) will be shown to the public for the first time. I hear it’s going to have top billing on Tuesday.

I’ve noticed that a few bloggers have been invited to the event, which I think is pretty cool. There’s Sierra Modro from gottabemobile and Ian Dixon from thedigitallifestyle.

When you look at the agenda for June 10 on the event page, you’ll get a hint at what will be shown. It’s pretty darn cool, even if I have to say so myself, but I think you’ll agree. I hope the main page will be updated with live videos and such, like it claims. There’s also a blog (by Waggener Edstrom it seems), a Twitter stream and an RSS feed. Seeing all this for the first time as I dig into it, I wonder why there doesn’t seem to be more buzz around this whole thing. Still too buried I guess.

I’m a little sad that I’m not going, but personal plans got in the way. My boss and a colleague are there, though. The breakout session poll is also a little disappointing right now, with the “HP: A Touch Different” session lagging the field at around 15 – 16 %, far behind “The Evolution of the Mobile Lifestyle” with 30%. I don’t think there have been too many votes, though, since my one vote moved the session from 15 to 16 % just now. (Actually, as I’m writing this, the poll for Touch moved to 23%, and now 29%, now 46%, what’s going on there? Maybe someone is gaming it?)

And just for the record, before everyone starts speculating, Microsoft had no involvement whatsoever in what we came up with this time around, for better or worse.

Oh, and I think there’ll be at least one VERY interesting mobile product shown as well (via fredshouse and eBay), but that’s just speculation on my part:

Guess we’ll have to share the stage…

The OLPC arrived – see what’s in the box

March 26, 2008 10:22 pm

I had almost forgotten about the OLPC give-one-get-one campaign I took the opportunity to participate in last year. Well, the thing finally came today. I wasn’t really all that anxious to get it, so it didn’t bother me at all that it took a while. I thought it was more important that the real recipients get theirs first.

Anyway, here are a few pictures of a kind of unboxing. It’s really more of a series of pictures of the packaging/parts, since I had already unboxed the thing by the time I took these.

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Simple cardboard packaging and plastic bags for protection

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All parts arranged on the open box

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Front of welcome brochure and power brick

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The OLPC itself with the two random color elements that make it “unique”

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Back of the OLPC, with battery removed

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Battery and welcome letter

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Inside of welcome brochure

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Back of welcome brochure

The battery actually came mostly charged, which was a nice surprise. Turning the laptop on for the first time took me through a simple naming step and then right to the “hub”/home screen. It took a while to get there, but it was really, really simple. No series of screens that ask for all kinds of information, like on regular PCs.

My initial exploration of the software took me around to the Journal, Webcam app (called Recorder), Paint, Measure (seemed to enable you to analyze / show the sound from the microphone), wireless setup, Browser and a few other things. Looks very interesting so far.

Both my kids have expressed interest in fiddling with it. Should be a lot of fun.

Stop SOPA