Back in tech-publishing...

Guess who the new co-editor over at OLPCnews is? Yes, that would be me. :-)

I am honoured to be able to take over the site from the one and only Wayan Vota who built this prime OLPC community over the past 2 years. Over the course of this week the transition from Wayan to the new editorial team consisting of me and Bryan Berry from OLE Nepal will be made. Earlier today Wayan posted this comment which was followed by a joint statement from Bryan and myself where we give a brief overview of our plans for the near future. I'm very much looking forward to taking OLPCnews into the "post-1CC" era, highlighting all the great things that are happening in OLPC communities around the world and I'm sure it will be a great experience.

On a more personal note, I find it interesting that after being the assistant manager (yes, I choose that title myself) over on EPIACENTER.com for the better part of the past 5 years I only managed to stay away from tech-publications for a couple of months. As previously mentioned there's something about writing articles and comments on technology related subjects that I really enjoy. Looking ahead to the coming weeks and months until university starts again on October, 1st I'll be spending most of my waking hours writing one thing or another:

• two feature articles for work
• OLPCnews
• additions to the OLPC Activity Handbook
• updating this blog

These tasks should certainly keep me busy for awhile. Not that I was ever afraid of being bored! :-D

04/02/2008 - Washington, DC

I know I've been kinda quiet these past few days but once I get home and sit down in front of my machine I'm simply too tired to start writing something up. Call me a *****, but getting up at 7 a.m. every day and working for 9h (mostly doing database-entries and related research) is kinda exhausting. And no, I can't really go into more details into what my job involves, mainly because I signed a contract that keeps me from doing just that.

Anyway, I've been spending my evenings in a relatively quiet way. On Monday and Tuesday me and my collegue went to a place close to work that comes with a happy-hour until 7 p.m. (beer at $2.50:-). Afterwards I went home to spend some quality time in front of the TV or getting to know my housemates. Today the routine was a little different, we were already on our way to the happy-hour when I suggested heading to Chinatown here in DC. Well, Chinatown is basically just a block of houses (well, frankly speaking rather only half a block) with some Chinese shops, restaurants and Chinese signs on the wall, nothing really to call home about. However what did make this night special was that it marked by first visit to Hooters, now don't judge me, it wasn't even my idea. Only having heard of Hooters in American TV-shows I wasn't really sure what to expect. And yes, the girl's outfit is quite appealing, but again nothing to call home about. At the end of the day I went their for the wings, not the legs. However I have to say that the waitress worked extra hard for her tip, I mean just look at the cute text and smiley on our bill, who wouldn't want to tip her? (And yeah, admittedly she was hot.)

On our way to the next Dunkin Donuts (I know which people will laugh at this point because they were the ones that traveled with me in Lima, Peru back in February 2001;-) we also stumled across these fellas who were livin' it up with some cool beat-boxin' and improvised drums made of buckets and traffic signs. Good stuff indeed and again they also deserved the buck I threw into their bucket. (Now I wish I had taken a short video or at least an audio-recording of their performance.)

Then I met up with the one and only Wayan Vota (from OLPCnews.com) and his significant other. Of course I had had dinner already so I only sat there and drink beer while they enjoyed their 'pescado entomatado' and whatnot. As always I learned a lot (this time about taxes, the price of housing in DC, salaries, etc.) by talking to Wayan and it was definitely a very nice chill-out for an otherwise rather busy day.

Well, I guess this will have to suffice for tonight, I'm off to watch some TV with my housemates... Take care everyone and speak soon.

Posting from OLPCnews.com HQ

I know I haven't posted in quite a while but life has simply been too busy these past 2 weeks... However I do intend to get back to regular posting over the coming days as I'll be documenting my 6-day trip to the United States which started earlier today and took me straight from Vienna to the OLPCnews.com HQ here in Washington, DC. Thanks to the kind invitation by the one and only Wayan Vota (could there be a better welcome than a cold beer and a 2h discussion about OLPC, I don't think so) Aaron and me will be attending the first meeting of the OLPC Learning Club DC which takes place tomorrow, December 18 at 7 PM in "Mayorga Cafe & Lounge" (3301 14th. St. NW - Google Map). Come join us for an evening dedicated to OLPC, I'm sure it's going to be a blast! :-)

Early on Wednesday we're going to move on to Boston for a couple of meetings with the fine OLPC folks. Then we fly back home on Sunday evening. That should definitely make for a busy and great week!

I actually wanted to leave you with an impression of the Christmas decoration by one of Wayan's neighbours but I'm just to tired to even take out my camera. So good night everyone!

OLPC News 100 Laptop XO Fundraising Drive

OLPCnews.com or more specifically Wayan Vota and Alexandre Van de Sande from OLPCnews have started a fund-raising campaign to support one local OLPC effort via the OLPC's "give many" initiative!

I'm not going to go into any details here because you can find them in Alexandre's article but basically they want to collect $21.400 which leaves exactly $20.000 after the processing fees of $1.400 have been paid. Thanks to "give many" 20K gives you 100 X0s, 60 of them will go to whatever educational institution you (or rather your local OLPC "learning club" - as they call it) decide on and 40 go towards a school designated by OLPC. The great thing is that the OLPCnews.com readers will have a say in the decision of where the 60 laptops as they're involved in the decision and discussion process surrounding the campaign.

They have even created a very nice video to promote their efforts and I've embedded it here for your viewing pleasure:


I certainly think this is an outstanding initiative and once I receive my money for December I'll certainly be making my $100 contribution via their Fundable page.

However I also have to add that this initiative shows that there's clearly a need to improve the current distribution- and purchasing-system that OLPC is using at the moment. I definitely think there are many aspects that need to be improved. The three most important examples for me include:

(a) bring "give 1, get" 1 to Europe and the rest of the world
(b) improve communication with the public about G1G1, especially when it comes to details such as estimated (and realistic) time of shipping
(c) set up a program that allows developers, educators, universities, students, local groups (such as OLPC Austria, etc. to have easy and reliable access to X0 hardware when needed [on a sidenote I'd say that the immediate demand we here at OLPC Austria have in order to improve and facilitate our own developments and to support various groups that are forming at universities are at least 10 ~ 15 laptops; however I also know that OLPC is currently working on setting up a new developers program and I hope to have more information about that in ~2 weeks]

Anyway, I hope you'll also support the "OLPC News 100 Laptop XO Fundraising Drive" for now!