Hey mate, if you can find out the shipping costs to Ecuador I might take 'em off your hands.
Let me know how many you got and the shipping costs from where you are.
I wish Canon would have the same policies here. Seven emails, three phone calls and a letter. Maybe their Latin American branch aren't that bothered. I've had the same problem with LG who ship a lot of goods down here. They seem to think a warranty in South America means that it'll work in the first five minutes of opening the box, then you're on your own.
Panasonic are excellent down here but the printers are damned expensive. Seems like toners are cheap to refill as a good compensation.
Just out of interest, which kodak model is it? They sell kodak near here but I never saw them in the UK.
The problem is, is where I am living. The refilled carts here are only for epson c42/62 and canon s200. I think there is something wrong with this ip4300. I bought my Canon printer from the largest computer chain in Ecuador and Canon still won't honor my warranty. On top of that, the first black cartridge I tried to use I had to change straight away because the printer kept reporting an unofficial cart installed. Canon wouldn't change this either. If they expect me to be paying though the nose for carts, they could at least make sure my Canon products work first.
I will never buy anything Canon again, which is a shame, because the store I owned in England sold over $180,000 of Canon goods in one year and I don't want to put more money in their pockets now..
As for the paper, it's Xerox high white for inkjets; its the cheapest we can buy here. I appreciate the problem with contrast though, terrible for professional docs but for code it's a blessing, takes the strain off the eyes.
I agree, inkjets are rubbish. I own a Canon IP4300 and have to get a bank loan every time I need cartridges. A full set here in Ecuador is $145, $20 more than the printer cost. The cartridges last about 150 pages and absolutely saturate my paper. I tried different software to control it with but to no avail. As I mostly print code out I now print on an Epson LX300 24pin dot matrix. It cost me $30 from a dodgy repair shop down the road. The ribbons cost me $2.00 and print about 1100 sheets without fading.
It will be interesting as to whether they actually get these speeds at these prices.
In Ecuador, where I am living now, 1Mbit is just about unheard of. I'm paying $45 a month for 256k and thats with pressure from the government to drop internet prices; it used to be $73 a month.
As far as I can understand the maximum transmission on ADSL would be 12Mbit but our ISP's know they can make more money out of us.
On top of that, it's been taking me almost seven minutes sometimes to get a response from a DNS, but once the connections been made the speed goes back to normal. I think this is an example of the companies not having the technical knowledge to run their own systems properly.
Gimp's not exactly half assed software and as a programmer I don't really feel that it was designed for programmers either. Adobe has got a lot of cash to spend on a lot of developers, how many has Gimp got? I really think you need to look at what the developers have tried to create with Gimp because there's no other software on the market apart from Photoshop with the same amount of features, regardless of how naff the interface is.
Don't get me wrong, I really don't like Gimp - too many windows and when I need the whole app bringing up from the task bar I spend all of my time opening windows. I can't believe that it's so bloody hard to just draw a simple square with a colour fill on it either. Then there's Photoshop. How many items on menus can a program provide? For someone who is not Photoshop bred, navigation is a nightmare. You also seem to need a monumental number of plugins if you actually want to create good graphics rather than just manipulate photos.
I have created a fair few websites as favours for business clients and they're all happy with the results, as well as their customers. Believe it or not it has been easier to use TuxPaint and to get the graphics I needed (none of the websites are child orientated by the way).
I had to send six different xorg configurations to Ubuntu and the post is still on the bug reports without a solution. It's receiving about twelve hits a day with possible solutions or further bugs related to this so if you've got it sorted could you post on their forums cos a lot of people would like the solution.
I noticed that the issue is with Intel 82945g chipsets, Debian based distros, LG/Samsung/AOC/Soyo & CTX monitors though all those with Dell or Viewsonic seem to have corrected the problem but their solutions don't work for anyone else. Unfortunately you can only buy LG or Samsung within 1000 miles of Ecuador.
I agree, it's great for servers but pathetic on desktops. I have the one of the worlds most common integrated graphics chipsets from Intel; every Debian based distro I have used cannot configure any kind of widescreen monitor display with this chipset. It's not just me, all the people I have spoken to on seven different forums can't get it to work either.
I just hope that the Philipine weather stations can find standard ratio monitors in the shops because otherwise their maps are going to be a real funny shape (in most countries in South America you can't buy standard aspect monitors anymore).
I've been a PC Gamer and I'm glad I went back to a console. I live in South America and console games are bloody expensive here (pirate stuff is available but I'm a programmer in the day and I'd be pretty p'd if I didn't get paid for my work). For this reason I only own five games but it's great not to have to turn on a computer and just to have my game load up, no complications.
When I was gaming on my PC it was hell trying to get graphics card drivers working right - even the manufacturers have trouble. Then I was having to patch at least 40% of my games to stop them from crashing or misbehaving. Memory is like diamonds here. You pay for it by the milligram. I had to change my motherboard and memory three times in two years just to play a couple of strategy games because the installer reported low memory problems and the games kept crashing. Try paying for 2 gigs of ram ($230) these days on $400 a month salary.
New PS2's here (in Ecuador) are still almost USD$300 with games and $225 without, but at least the games are still being produced and there is a vast library of existing titles which considering the simplicity of just popping in a disc, far outweighs the expense and trouble of firing up a PC for the same thing.
As for games programmers, they are far from lazy compared to many of those who program the OS. We spend a lot of time trying to push hardware to it's limits and finding ways to bypass restrictions. Not an easy thing to do when some knucklehead at MS can't even get a filesystem optimized properly.
One last thing, I know most of you hate them but please can any entrepreneurs reading this please bring us a decent new up-to-date joystick to the market that works on all consoles (and PC's, just to keep the PC gamers happy).
mmmm.... looks like confused and crap code for a confused and crap operating system then?
To be honest actually I've found my pre-release of Server 2008 to be the best OS Microsoft have come up with since 3.11 for Workgroups. It boots twice as fast as Solaris, it's a damn sight more understandable to use than Linux (did I just really say that?), it's got a good command line and really does work properly. In fact, due to the lack of decent network functions S2008 should be the next desktop OS. I really mean that because as a working OS it's like having a fresh *nix install that you can do anything with. Unfortunately it doesn't feel very good as a server OS.
In my book MS should withdraw Vista and use Server 2008 for desktop use and discard any idea of using it on a proper network. I'm sure that someone could create a good desktop GUI for this system and then at least Linux would have some competition.
You may not agree with commercial software and that is fine, but don't try and pass it off as less than it is. I think the whole idea actually is that Adobe Creative Suite is pretty good software and there are plenty of Linux users who would gladly pay for it, if only Adobe would port the bloody thing. Don't just presume that all Linux users are against commercial software or paying for anything.
With the SAR ratings of current mobiles I'd be suprised if a Nokia 6080 couldn't pick up a signal from Jupiter. Mind you my Motorola L6 doesn't seem to transmit any kind of useful signal any kind of useful distance...... it took me almost five hours to get a good signal walking through the valleys of Guam the other day.....
I agree, design should be not just encouraged but enforced with programming. My design skills are useless but I've been trying to get to grips with it for two years now. It's obviously the root to success because OS X is flying now and the hardware is bloody expensive for what you get but OS X has got the feel.
I don't think we should necessarily work for free though. Microsoft needs to encourage more programmers to develop for Windows platforms and help them make them better. The recent announcement from them about opening up some products was a good move. I don't think Windows products should be free but the tools to develop them are just too expensive for most to get involved. Likewise, Linux attracts a lot of programmers because the tools are free, it's just a shame that most are like me with the graphical skills of a five year old. It also winds me up when I see so many Linux programmers barking on about open source this, open source that. Linux is just an alternative OS. Yes it has a good open source free software background but some companies like Turboprint have been slammed for limiting open source software and charging for a product. Like you and me, if we have put the time into something we still need to be paid. As an independent I would find it difficult to support my software all over the world so couldn't charge for support. If people just copied it willynilly I would sell about five copies.
Also, I don't have a problem with Microsoft charging for tools or applications but $1000 for a development suite is a bit much, especially when the average salary in South America for instance is $200 a month. Not everyone lives in the EU or US and if software was better priced (only an example: $30-$80) Microsoft could shift a lot more units and still benefit those of us that don't work in the same economy as Redmond.
I'm not bitter and if I'm honest I hate programming for *nix. There's f&%kin' bits everywhere and I can't program "hello world" without a dependency problem but someone's got to do it. Not because Linux has got to survive against all odds, or that it's supposedly superior to Windows but if all us programmers end up programming the Microsoft way then productivity will be one of many things that we won't understand.
As for you feeling that I personally attacked you it is only because of the way your post is written:
Me, I don't want to figure it out Most programmers would respond with "well that's what I get paid for". Technology moves forward and I agree it would be nice to have some tools that moved forwards after 30 years as well but VS as an example is crushing the improvements in technology. Rather than increasing productivity and range VS is saying 'You've got to program like this, for this system, this OS, and this type of application'. Before I programmed for unix I used Visual Basic and Visual C to produce Microsoft stuff. They charge you for the development software, they charge you for the training, they charge you to sell it afterwards for your own work. If Microsoft really gave a damn about your productivity then VS would be free for all.... and no shitty lite/express/flimsy versions but proper professional , enterprise class stuff with a 'distribute it however you want to make Windows better' attitude. Maybe some of us could also put Vista right in the same throw.
There you go, Microsoft bashed. Please don't take my previous post personally, there's not enough of us with the patience to be teaching others programming anyway, in whatever environment.
errrr, they both speak Spanish, whichever one you meant. Stallman has lived in Venezuela for quite a while.
I can see the good old vi vs Emacs flames igniting in this story again. Personally if you bunged decent syntax highlighting with nano there wouldn't be much use for either. I've used Emacs for ten years now for programming and scripting and I'm bored with the complexity. Having said that, with all this stupid mode switching Vi is in a league of it's own, mainly because no other programs operate the same way and you have to learn the entire system for the sake of using one application.
Syntax highlighting is great if it is done well and nano is a quick, simple editor. Combine the two with a bit of user customization (schema etc) and I would never use another editor again. It would also come in at under 800K.... Stefen and Yidong take note!
rather humbling given how I started programming back in the early 80's!
Strange, I started programming in the early 80's too, at the age of five on a ZX Spectrum, and I've found it kind of important to learn new stuff rather than humbling. My apologies though, I've never had your obviously superior skills of super-fast learning to understand an entire development environment in one afternoon. Never fear, tomorrow I will start on Visual Studio professional and I'll be demanding my huge paycheck by Friday......
Get real mate, if you were a real programmer then an afternoon of experience ain't gonna cut it, in VS, in Eclipse, in Netbeans, in whatever.
Click, type, compile, collect paycheck. I think that sums it up, basically what MS programmers have been doing for years. It's a shame they don't program what they type themselves before they compile, maybe then the bug list might be a little shorter. When I collect my paycheck I didn't realise I'd got to miss the Link...Test, Recompile, Test, Recompile, Test, Recompile..... bits and it's probably why I didn't get my bonus this year.
VS is a good piece of software and it's great that MS is giving this to students for nothing. I'm a mainly a UNIX programmer and as an independent coder (no big corporate backing) it would be nice to get this free as well but as it is just students again getting the benefit it looks like yet another propaganda programme by Redmond. If VS compiled code in a standard manner for many architectures and mainstream platforms then it would be almost be worth paying for anyway.
What happened when I was testing it I always used the mouse scroll wheel to scroll down the list while other people just clicked the scroll bar to drag it down and caused a lost focus on my control, causing the menu box to go away. The fix was easy but the issue was I never though of testing it that way because I do things a particular way consistently. Without being funny, if you are producing code commercially then you should be testing from every perspective, your own preferences being last. I agree, with something the size of OSX this is a big job and just about impossible to do even for the likes of Apple but the example you have given is like a pro web designer saying "my web page works in IE7 so everything will be fine for every other browser".
In 'us programmers' defense and in agreement with this post what I will say is that all of you who have moaned about Apples glitches should try learning some programming skills and helping us put the problems right. As part of a small team of *nix OS component developers I can say that it takes weeks sometimes to correct small chunks of code to get the desired effect time and time again in every circumstance.
I've just moved to the UK, and the incompetence of various companies has absolutely astounded me. I've just set up
Banking
Phone
Internet
Mobile Phones
Insurance As a UK national and resident for thirty years I can confirm that this is not just a problem at setting up time. Given another twelve months and the list will be three times longer. At least OLPC will probably not have any direct debit problems (you've got all the fun to come;-)
Welcome to the UK, keep everything with a direct debit guarantee on it.
Solid foundation is the key term here. I am relatively new to Java, but I have been programming since I was 6 years old (on a trusty ZX Spectrum, 1982). Too many students miss out on the basic skills of programming; those kind of skills built up in the age of retro coding. It's kind of like the current generation of processor engineers that AMD and Intel are familiar with. Many of them know how to use another computer to manipulate existing architecture to design a new chip. Hardly any of them could design a new chip from the ground up. Most new Java programmers these days understand how to piece code together..... just like the Sam's book says, but haven't got a clue what a stack is!
I remember joining the Open University six years ago to try for a degree in computer science based on programming. The course materials required a system wipe and installation of an obscure OS called the P-System. It was like something from a Mission Impossible episode, any older and I would have installed from reel-to-reel. I gave up after six weeks because the material was so old fashioned. BIG, BIG, BIG mistake. If I had stuck at this course I would have realized (or remembered) how important the basics were.
My advice to most rookie coders (regarding the article) is this: The article is right, Java isn't going to give you a solid foundation in programming. Once you have the SF, then Java is a fantastic way of becoming an unbiased programmer; especially a paid one. Technology moves fast but if you try to jump in at the latest level you're going to miss a lot of important stuff. Please don't flame me for this but, Python is great to start with. It teaches you how to coordinate yourself with programming. C (not C++) will ensure that you have learned everything that programming will almost ever require apart from tidiness and simplicity.
Don't rip this article apart. The professor has been teaching computer science for a long time and clearly understands what the technology industry needs. In England these days experience is replaced with a $3000, ten day course and a guarantee of a job. This pis$%s off most of us until we realize that we still have a job after six months and we don't have to open our own mail.
So Negroponte's ego is a problem?
Without an ego this big the project wouldn't be able to stand up to the likes of Intel. If the only thing being used as payment for these laptops is the cost of materials and Negroponte's ego I can't see how the third world is going to suffer.
I live in Ecuador and the OLPC would be a great benefit to the kids here. The only available processors here are Intel and they are double the price of the same units in the UK. Intel seems to have a great knack of making their profits from the people that can't afford it, and the OLPC situation is no different.
I would allegedly suggest that MS have had some involvement with this as well. BBC news reports about the Intel Classmate being used in Nigeria. Wasn't this the subject recently of $3 copies of Windows being used instead of Mandrake on government systems?
The OLPC project is a fantastic way of helping children (who have probably never used electricity) to understand how technology is evolving in the world around them and to provide a link to educational resources which cannot be easily provided by 'free' teachers and libraries. All they need once OLPC has taken off is some great free eduacational websites (on their mesh network) to help them with maths, cultural sciences, language and basic skills like building and design, environment and nature.
Lastly, maybe if they pick up some programming skills they will be able to contribute productively to their own technologies and provide the world with some new ones without using the same old reorganised blocks of recycled crap code that the developed world treats as revolutionary.
Slashdot Mirror
Hey mate, if you can find out the shipping costs to Ecuador I might take 'em off your hands.
Let me know how many you got and the shipping costs from where you are.
I wish Canon would have the same policies here. Seven emails, three phone calls and a letter. Maybe their Latin American branch aren't that bothered. I've had the same problem with LG who ship a lot of goods down here. They seem to think a warranty in South America means that it'll work in the first five minutes of opening the box, then you're on your own. Panasonic are excellent down here but the printers are damned expensive. Seems like toners are cheap to refill as a good compensation. Just out of interest, which kodak model is it? They sell kodak near here but I never saw them in the UK.
The problem is, is where I am living. The refilled carts here are only for epson c42/62 and canon s200. I think there is something wrong with this ip4300. I bought my Canon printer from the largest computer chain in Ecuador and Canon still won't honor my warranty. On top of that, the first black cartridge I tried to use I had to change straight away because the printer kept reporting an unofficial cart installed. Canon wouldn't change this either. If they expect me to be paying though the nose for carts, they could at least make sure my Canon products work first. I will never buy anything Canon again, which is a shame, because the store I owned in England sold over $180,000 of Canon goods in one year and I don't want to put more money in their pockets now.. As for the paper, it's Xerox high white for inkjets; its the cheapest we can buy here. I appreciate the problem with contrast though, terrible for professional docs but for code it's a blessing, takes the strain off the eyes.
I agree, inkjets are rubbish. I own a Canon IP4300 and have to get a bank loan every time I need cartridges. A full set here in Ecuador is $145, $20 more than the printer cost. The cartridges last about 150 pages and absolutely saturate my paper. I tried different software to control it with but to no avail. As I mostly print code out I now print on an Epson LX300 24pin dot matrix. It cost me $30 from a dodgy repair shop down the road. The ribbons cost me $2.00 and print about 1100 sheets without fading.
It will be interesting as to whether they actually get these speeds at these prices. In Ecuador, where I am living now, 1Mbit is just about unheard of. I'm paying $45 a month for 256k and thats with pressure from the government to drop internet prices; it used to be $73 a month. As far as I can understand the maximum transmission on ADSL would be 12Mbit but our ISP's know they can make more money out of us. On top of that, it's been taking me almost seven minutes sometimes to get a response from a DNS, but once the connections been made the speed goes back to normal. I think this is an example of the companies not having the technical knowledge to run their own systems properly.
Gimp's not exactly half assed software and as a programmer I don't really feel that it was designed for programmers either. Adobe has got a lot of cash to spend on a lot of developers, how many has Gimp got? I really think you need to look at what the developers have tried to create with Gimp because there's no other software on the market apart from Photoshop with the same amount of features, regardless of how naff the interface is. Don't get me wrong, I really don't like Gimp - too many windows and when I need the whole app bringing up from the task bar I spend all of my time opening windows. I can't believe that it's so bloody hard to just draw a simple square with a colour fill on it either. Then there's Photoshop. How many items on menus can a program provide? For someone who is not Photoshop bred, navigation is a nightmare. You also seem to need a monumental number of plugins if you actually want to create good graphics rather than just manipulate photos. I have created a fair few websites as favours for business clients and they're all happy with the results, as well as their customers. Believe it or not it has been easier to use TuxPaint and to get the graphics I needed (none of the websites are child orientated by the way).
I had to send six different xorg configurations to Ubuntu and the post is still on the bug reports without a solution. It's receiving about twelve hits a day with possible solutions or further bugs related to this so if you've got it sorted could you post on their forums cos a lot of people would like the solution.
I noticed that the issue is with Intel 82945g chipsets, Debian based distros, LG/Samsung/AOC/Soyo & CTX monitors though all those with Dell or Viewsonic seem to have corrected the problem but their solutions don't work for anyone else. Unfortunately you can only buy LG or Samsung within 1000 miles of Ecuador.
I agree, it's great for servers but pathetic on desktops. I have the one of the worlds most common integrated graphics chipsets from Intel; every Debian based distro I have used cannot configure any kind of widescreen monitor display with this chipset. It's not just me, all the people I have spoken to on seven different forums can't get it to work either.
I just hope that the Philipine weather stations can find standard ratio monitors in the shops because otherwise their maps are going to be a real funny shape (in most countries in South America you can't buy standard aspect monitors anymore).
I've been a PC Gamer and I'm glad I went back to a console. I live in South America and console games are bloody expensive here (pirate stuff is available but I'm a programmer in the day and I'd be pretty p'd if I didn't get paid for my work). For this reason I only own five games but it's great not to have to turn on a computer and just to have my game load up, no complications.
When I was gaming on my PC it was hell trying to get graphics card drivers working right - even the manufacturers have trouble. Then I was having to patch at least 40% of my games to stop them from crashing or misbehaving. Memory is like diamonds here. You pay for it by the milligram. I had to change my motherboard and memory three times in two years just to play a couple of strategy games because the installer reported low memory problems and the games kept crashing. Try paying for 2 gigs of ram ($230) these days on $400 a month salary.
New PS2's here (in Ecuador) are still almost USD$300 with games and $225 without, but at least the games are still being produced and there is a vast library of existing titles which considering the simplicity of just popping in a disc, far outweighs the expense and trouble of firing up a PC for the same thing.
As for games programmers, they are far from lazy compared to many of those who program the OS. We spend a lot of time trying to push hardware to it's limits and finding ways to bypass restrictions. Not an easy thing to do when some knucklehead at MS can't even get a filesystem optimized properly.
One last thing, I know most of you hate them but please can any entrepreneurs reading this please bring us a decent new up-to-date joystick to the market that works on all consoles (and PC's, just to keep the PC gamers happy).
mmmm.... looks like confused and crap code for a confused and crap operating system then?
To be honest actually I've found my pre-release of Server 2008 to be the best OS Microsoft have come up with since 3.11 for Workgroups. It boots twice as fast as Solaris, it's a damn sight more understandable to use than Linux (did I just really say that?), it's got a good command line and really does work properly. In fact, due to the lack of decent network functions S2008 should be the next desktop OS. I really mean that because as a working OS it's like having a fresh *nix install that you can do anything with. Unfortunately it doesn't feel very good as a server OS.
In my book MS should withdraw Vista and use Server 2008 for desktop use and discard any idea of using it on a proper network. I'm sure that someone could create a good desktop GUI for this system and then at least Linux would have some competition.
With the SAR ratings of current mobiles I'd be suprised if a Nokia 6080 couldn't pick up a signal from Jupiter. Mind you my Motorola L6 doesn't seem to transmit any kind of useful signal any kind of useful distance...... it took me almost five hours to get a good signal walking through the valleys of Guam the other day.....
I agree, design should be not just encouraged but enforced with programming. My design skills are useless but I've been trying to get to grips with it for two years now. It's obviously the root to success because OS X is flying now and the hardware is bloody expensive for what you get but OS X has got the feel. I don't think we should necessarily work for free though. Microsoft needs to encourage more programmers to develop for Windows platforms and help them make them better. The recent announcement from them about opening up some products was a good move. I don't think Windows products should be free but the tools to develop them are just too expensive for most to get involved. Likewise, Linux attracts a lot of programmers because the tools are free, it's just a shame that most are like me with the graphical skills of a five year old. It also winds me up when I see so many Linux programmers barking on about open source this, open source that. Linux is just an alternative OS. Yes it has a good open source free software background but some companies like Turboprint have been slammed for limiting open source software and charging for a product. Like you and me, if we have put the time into something we still need to be paid. As an independent I would find it difficult to support my software all over the world so couldn't charge for support. If people just copied it willynilly I would sell about five copies. Also, I don't have a problem with Microsoft charging for tools or applications but $1000 for a development suite is a bit much, especially when the average salary in South America for instance is $200 a month. Not everyone lives in the EU or US and if software was better priced (only an example: $30-$80) Microsoft could shift a lot more units and still benefit those of us that don't work in the same economy as Redmond.
errrr, they both speak Spanish, whichever one you meant. Stallman has lived in Venezuela for quite a while.
I can see the good old vi vs Emacs flames igniting in this story again. Personally if you bunged decent syntax highlighting with nano there wouldn't be much use for either. I've used Emacs for ten years now for programming and scripting and I'm bored with the complexity. Having said that, with all this stupid mode switching Vi is in a league of it's own, mainly because no other programs operate the same way and you have to learn the entire system for the sake of using one application.
Syntax highlighting is great if it is done well and nano is a quick, simple editor. Combine the two with a bit of user customization (schema etc) and I would never use another editor again. It would also come in at under 800K.... Stefen and Yidong take note!
Strange, I started programming in the early 80's too, at the age of five on a ZX Spectrum, and I've found it kind of important to learn new stuff rather than humbling. My apologies though, I've never had your obviously superior skills of super-fast learning to understand an entire development environment in one afternoon. Never fear, tomorrow I will start on Visual Studio professional and I'll be demanding my huge paycheck by Friday...... Get real mate, if you were a real programmer then an afternoon of experience ain't gonna cut it, in VS, in Eclipse, in Netbeans, in whatever. Click, type, compile, collect paycheck. I think that sums it up, basically what MS programmers have been doing for years. It's a shame they don't program what they type themselves before they compile, maybe then the bug list might be a little shorter. When I collect my paycheck I didn't realise I'd got to miss the Link...Test, Recompile, Test, Recompile, Test, Recompile..... bits and it's probably why I didn't get my bonus this year. VS is a good piece of software and it's great that MS is giving this to students for nothing. I'm a mainly a UNIX programmer and as an independent coder (no big corporate backing) it would be nice to get this free as well but as it is just students again getting the benefit it looks like yet another propaganda programme by Redmond. If VS compiled code in a standard manner for many architectures and mainstream platforms then it would be almost be worth paying for anyway.
Banking
Phone
Internet
Mobile Phones
Insurance
As a UK national and resident for thirty years I can confirm that this is not just a problem at setting up time. Given another twelve months and the list will be three times longer. At least OLPC will probably not have any direct debit problems (you've got all the fun to come;-) Welcome to the UK, keep everything with a direct debit guarantee on it.
I remember joining the Open University six years ago to try for a degree in computer science based on programming. The course materials required a system wipe and installation of an obscure OS called the P-System. It was like something from a Mission Impossible episode, any older and I would have installed from reel-to-reel. I gave up after six weeks because the material was so old fashioned. BIG, BIG, BIG mistake. If I had stuck at this course I would have realized (or remembered) how important the basics were.
My advice to most rookie coders (regarding the article) is this: The article is right, Java isn't going to give you a solid foundation in programming. Once you have the SF, then Java is a fantastic way of becoming an unbiased programmer; especially a paid one. Technology moves fast but if you try to jump in at the latest level you're going to miss a lot of important stuff. Please don't flame me for this but, Python is great to start with. It teaches you how to coordinate yourself with programming. C (not C++) will ensure that you have learned everything that programming will almost ever require apart from tidiness and simplicity.Don't rip this article apart. The professor has been teaching computer science for a long time and clearly understands what the technology industry needs. In England these days experience is replaced with a $3000, ten day course and a guarantee of a job. This pis$%s off most of us until we realize that we still have a job after six months and we don't have to open our own mail.
How do they know the received particle is the same one they beamed out?
..... oh oh I know, it's got an iPhone. No problems with identification there then!
Do they ask it questions?, take it's photograph?
So Negroponte's ego is a problem? Without an ego this big the project wouldn't be able to stand up to the likes of Intel. If the only thing being used as payment for these laptops is the cost of materials and Negroponte's ego I can't see how the third world is going to suffer. I live in Ecuador and the OLPC would be a great benefit to the kids here. The only available processors here are Intel and they are double the price of the same units in the UK. Intel seems to have a great knack of making their profits from the people that can't afford it, and the OLPC situation is no different. I would allegedly suggest that MS have had some involvement with this as well. BBC news reports about the Intel Classmate being used in Nigeria. Wasn't this the subject recently of $3 copies of Windows being used instead of Mandrake on government systems? The OLPC project is a fantastic way of helping children (who have probably never used electricity) to understand how technology is evolving in the world around them and to provide a link to educational resources which cannot be easily provided by 'free' teachers and libraries. All they need once OLPC has taken off is some great free eduacational websites (on their mesh network) to help them with maths, cultural sciences, language and basic skills like building and design, environment and nature. Lastly, maybe if they pick up some programming skills they will be able to contribute productively to their own technologies and provide the world with some new ones without using the same old reorganised blocks of recycled crap code that the developed world treats as revolutionary.