One Laptop per Child (OLPC) has launched their sales initiative to introduce a new type of laptop (XO Laptop) for children who are less fortunate and are living in developing countries. They are encouraging people in Canada and the United States to purchase a laptop for a child and they will receive one as well. I am quite excited about this initiative and the laptop is amazing!
The question I want to pose is … why hasn’t anything like this been introduced in the normal consumer market? The idea is brilliant and the cause is worthwhile. I realize the Linux operating system and many other aspects of the laptop’s technology have not been around for very long, but it still puzzles me as to why very little initiative was made to develop such an efficient and effective little laptop for children or tweens with regards to the common consumer market.
Sure, there are the Fisher Price or Fisher Price-like pre-school laptops and some other edutainment software/hardware that has been put together for the older children, but they lack the real substance that allows children to explore and learn. These are also incredibly expensive for what they are capable of whereas something like the XO Laptop is around $400 for two laptops that are solidly built and were designed for children to experiment, learn and expand their minds.
I would like to believe that ultimately the cooperation and goodwill of numerous tech companies and the collaborative hard work of people from around the world allowed for a solid product to be brought to fruition. If that is so … then it can be a prime example of how innovative business can be performed while truly helping others.
As you may already know, I love animation and when I ran across this … I had the gut feeling that it was brilliant. Directed by Jeff Lew, the Lead Animator of Matrix Reloaded who quit his job and pursued his dream of creating an amazing looking film — Killer Bean Forever. All I have to say is that I am definitely looking forward to watching this film whenever it is out …
Kudos to you Jeff for all that effort and time! I will be one person to definitely support your film!
I just ran across Earthbound Magazine, and I noticed a photograph of mine was being used (they asked for permission). Surf on over and check out their latest November/December issue.
Have you ever noticed how mainstream media, animated movies, have embraced and promoted the personification of squirrels? Of course they are nearly adored in all parts of the world … I am sure some may consider them larger rodents. Nevertheless … the cuteness of the squirrel never ceases, particularly with photographers. Tourists come to Canada to run around chasing after squirrels, trying to photograph them. Does that mean we should start promoting Canada as a squirrel-filled destination rather than only focusing food, culture, and the CN Tower? Well one little town in Ontario has done so — Exeter has been promoting that they have white squirrels.
Even the squirrels know that a little marketing on their behalf won’t hurt!
Social media is all about connectivity and what better way to embrace connectivity by making sure it is easy for users to embrace and use your social medium by utilizing from elsewhere. I didn’t initially find Twitter useful, particularly since Facebook provided status updates but here’s why I’ve changed my mind.
1. Twitter is plain and simple. No extras necessary. It’s all about conversation.
2. Integrated. The integration of Jabber/Google Talk is brilliant — this means I use it constantly because my gmail is almost always open. What’s in gmail? Google Talk! Twitter can also extend into the Facebook application. Bonus! I don’t need to log on to Facebook in order to update my status (which is really the only thing I do there).
3. Twitter is lightweight and people can take the social medium and spin it to something else. For example: Foamee, where people can give IOUs to one another for beer. ‘Nuff said.
Ultimately aside from the beer … twitter is a time saver … not a time consumer. Granted Facebook and other social media websites are striving to keep people on their sites for as long as they can in order to gain advertising sales but ultimately I’m a busy guy and to me … everything is about time management.
In between work, school and all the other stuff I do, I just finished coding a friend’s website. She is an amazing graphic designer and I encourage everyone to check out her work. When she asked me to code her website, I was honoured to help showcase her work. The design of it was pretty much her idea … she simply asked me what was possible and watched as I flinched or scowled as I listened to all the minute details involved — she is a graphic designer after all! I just knew what was painful and what was not
Overall the website was not complicated to code. I only wish CSS wasn’t such a pain to configure as all the web browsers out there seem to have their own quirky personalities for interpreting CSS. In some cases, I am forced to make compromises. At the moment the rollovers are just javascript, but I hope to switch them over to pure CSS rollovers in the near future for efficiency’s sake. I also implemented Lightbox 2 into the website with a little editing in the javascript and CSS files in order to modify some tiny details to Carolyn’s specifications. The only browser where I think this may cause an issue would be the infamous Internet Explorer 6 that is horrible at supporting standardized code. Let me know what you think!
I’ve always been a huge fan of chewing gum ever since I was young. But lately at work, I am literally … a chewing-gum fiend. I go through boxes of chewing gum like nobody’s business! My favourite continues to be Wrigley’s Excel Polar Ice.
Oddly enough, I could only find this picture online of it. It’s the Canadian equivalent line of the American counterpart called “Eclipse”.
Just earlier this week, a colleague and friend at work introduced a type of gum produced in Finland under the merchandising line of Muumi (quite the cute troll that looks like a hippo). The name is actually anglicized and changed to Moomin because apparently anglophones or allophones have too much difficulty pronouncing it? Odd n’est-ce pas? What my friend explained to me was quite intriguing as I had a growing concern to the fact that I could not easily find a sugar-free gum that did not contain aspartame. What was good about the Finnish-produced gum was that it utilized Xylitol, a natural sweetener rather than aspartame which is a synthetically produced sweetener that can cause cancer. Normally I wouldn’t be concerned due to the amount that is used per piece of gum but since I chew gum on a very frequent and consistent basis, I figure I should find a healthier solution to my chewing gum needs. If you are wondering why I chew gum frequently, it helps reduce my allergy symptoms (i.e. coughing, sneezing, stuffy nose, etc.)
As I was surfing around the web, I ran across ElimiTaste, a company that claims to produce high-quality sugar-free and aspartame-free gum. It also claims that it produces gum with 100% xylitol. Well, I put in an order to taste-test this gum and will let you know how good it really is!
Oddly enough, I could only find this picture online of it. It’s the Canadian equivalent line of the American counterpart called “Eclipse”.
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