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[eden]

I wanted to do G1G1 again this year.  I saw Zimi's Story (at http://olpc.dailymotion.com/video/x7f7jj_one-laptop-per-child-zimis-story-fu_school and became even more determined.  I wanted to give another laptop, but I also wanted a friend for mine because I haven't met any other XOs owners here near me.  I felt more confident with Amazon doing the storefront and shipping.  Sure enough, although I did the free shipping and was given an estimate of delivery between December 8 and 12, it only took 4 days from the time I ordered it.  It arrived today and here it is:
You can also see the boxes it came in from Amazon: and

I did have a problem: it wouldn't boot.  It powered on and hung at the first dot.  Holding down the gamepad buttons and rebooting revealed that it had firmware Q2D16 and who knows which version of the OS.  But this whole year of pulling my hair out over my first laptop prepared me for this.  I knew all I had to do was flash it with a USB stick and all would be well.  I did this http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Activated_Upgrade in case you are interested.  To my dismay, I saw I had 19 bad blocks--more than four times what my other XO has.  And there is some weird thing on the screen--it almost looks like a spill that can only be seen from an angle.  It won't wipe off.  What's up, Quanta?  You're not getting sloppy are you? 

Petty weirdness aside, the new XO works.  I can share activities now and I'm sure I will learn even more things as I experiment with the possibilities.  And that's the point: an education for another child somewhere in the world and for me!

edit: added one more box photo

[Wayan Vota]

Sad to hear that XO quality has dropped, but happy your G1G1'ing again.

[eden]

Sad to hear that XO quality has dropped, but happy your G1G1'ing again.

I hope mine is an anomaly.  Hey, this might encourage me to take it apart and see what's up with the screen. Looking at it straight on I don't notice the mark.  And I know I could probably protest and return it, but what a bother.  And what would a child in Mali do if his or hers came this way?  So I plan to stick with it and see what can be done.  I am tickled to have two!

Edit: here are three photos: last year's XO (with a little dust but no blotch):

and two different angles on this year's xo (the blotch is not a shadow): and


I tested the screen with the backlight off and there was no blotch visible.  Weird.  I'm curious.

[Directive0]

maybe its a bubble in the plastic sheeting on the glass panel?

[eden]

Hi Directive0.  I didn't think about that.  I looked at the Disassembly instructions on http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Disassembly_top  Is there some sort of plastic coating on the back of the screen, then?  Hmmm.  Thank you.

[Directive0]

I'm just guessing. 

[eden]

I'm just guessing. 

Me too.  I am not yet ready to take apart the XO to see!

I found out today that only some of the activities can be shared and only in certain ways.  That's what I've been up to: testing out Browse, Chat, and Record, and Distance.  Distance thinks my house is 25 meters long.  I wish. 

I also learned how to mesh the laptops without using a wifi point at home.  This is fun!   

[Dinky]

Eden

The "blotches"  look like my XO's that received some water damage (fire)--  water wicked into the edges of the display assembly.  Yours might have resulted from condensed moisture during shipping.   

I attempted to clean (mostly dry) my fully disassembled display -- do not recommend.

The actual display assembly consists of a glass pane with about six sheets of plastic (polarizers) held together by a metal snap frame.  The moisture or residue was between the sheets. The "blotch" might have been caused by just the sheets sticking together  -- even after drying .    I attempted to clean with with 50 % isopropyl alcohol -- bad idea.  First, tested on a spot and the spot developed a slight white haze.  Finally, I just blotted everything and reassembled. Uneven, very light, shadows remain, but the display is fully functional.

If there is ever another time (never), I would try rinsing the sheets with just distilled water and sling dry / blot.   Any scratching of a sheet with the edges of another sheet during assembly  will be visible on a bright display.

Do not disassemble.

[eden]

Wow, Dinky, I see your point!   

[Wayan Vota]

Dinky,

I'd love to have a write up of your disassembly adventure for OLPC News.  I know mine on taking the keyboard apart was quite the joy for others to watch.

[eden]

More screen stuff: I thought the picture quality or resolution was different between the old XO and the new one.



This was from screenshots while Browse was on the page to request a developer key.

Do laptop screens change over time?  Or maybe this is related to the weird screen on the newer laptop?

I didn't edit the images other than to cut and paste them.

[eden]

I have a new toy for my XOs to play with--I got a solar panel for my birthday!  It's a really cloudy day here in Utah but I plugged it in anyway and propped the panel in my office window.  When the sun comes out every so often I can hear a little whining/humming from the XO.  Only once did the charging LED light up.  In a little while, I'll turn on the laptop and check the status.  It was at 79% of full charge when I turned it off and plugged in the panel. 

It's a 10 Watt 14 Volt GP Solar panel just like AuntiMame sells at XOexplosion.com

Update: about three hours after I started trying to charge it while it was powered down, I turned it back on.  It had lost 2% charge, perhaps just from starting up.   I also had to pop out the battery and reseat it before it would turn on again.  This reminds me of the other posts about the solar panels: http://www.olpcnews.com/forum/index.php?topic=3943.msg26773#msg26773
So much for trying on a cloudy day.  Tomorrow is supposed to be better weather.  :-)

(See above link to thread about panels for later progress.)

[eden]

Today I changed the boot animation and the shutdown warning screen to pictures of my best friend.  I used the Gimp to make the pictures the correct resolution (1200x900 pixels) and save them to a .png format.  I made a backup copy of the original images from the laptop.  Then I followed the instructions from the wiki on http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Tweaking_the_boot_animation and http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Replacing_the_shutdown_screen and it worked.  I showed it off and got a laugh out of her.  These little things that I can do with the laptop are both educational and fun.  I learned about the 565 image format and the XO boot process.  Kudos to C. Scott Ananian http://wiki.laptop.org/go/User:CScott for making the boot animation tweak process possible for a non-computer-science person.