Julianna Yau’s blog

Today, after some bizarre yet unsurprising shipping oddities, I received my exchanged XO laptop. Somehow, Brightstar (or whoever was in charge of shipping XOs as a result of RMA requests) thought it was okay to ship my XO with a street name without a house number. Or maybe they thought I lived on the entire street? In any event, I called FedEx, got the address fixed, and they came back today. Of course, because no signature was required, they left the box on my doorstep. I was luckily planning to intercept the package around the time they delivered it, so I was already on my way homewards and was able to rescue it before a curious passer-by claimed it.

My first impressions of the XO had been near scathing, due mostly to a defective keyboard. The keyboard on this second unit is noticeably better, but also still noticeably more sticky than the one on my Eee or Toshiba. It does force me to type with my wrists up, both because it is the only way I can get close to my standard typing speed and because it doesn’t cause my wrists to accidentally trigger the touch-pad. The space-bar is still unusually difficult to register.

This XO seems to have shipped with an updated version of Sugar. I have not yet browsed the forums and wikis to learn how I can confirm that, but I do notice that the interface is a bit different from the first time. One major improvement is that clicking a “Browse’ button on a website will actually trigger a browse window (which I couldn’t get it to do last time).

Some other noteworthy items:

• the default system time does not match my actual time zone, and seems to be about 16hrs ahead (I will need to figure out how to fix that)
• still no right-click functionality, even with a USB mouse
• the SD slot seems to have more resistance on this machine than my first one
• image browsing is clunky, at best (must go to the journal, view the list of items, then launch each image in a browser)

The keyboard is still the most difficult thing for me to deal with. At Yaacov Iland’s talk yesterday I met Jason Shim, a fellow G1G1 donor who had already received his laptop. I brought my Eee with me, and upon using it, Jason remarked on how much better the Eee’s keyboard is compared to the XO. I’m glad it’s not just me! A summary of the presentation will come in a few days (probably after Jason uploads the video he took).

If it was almost love at first sight with my Eee, my relationship with my XO is definitely one which demonstrates persistence and determination.

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• XO laptop shipping in Canada begins (?) (2)
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Like the XO, I needed to have my Eee exchanged for another due to a keyboard problem. But unlike the XO, the problem was mostly cosmetic (the left side of the space bar was slightly warped) and I was able to take the Eee to the retailer to be exchanged. Not being a consumer product, the XO naturally has a disadvantage because it has no retail store. That was to be expected. But the fact that I needed to pay a total of $32CAD in shipping and $48USD in brokerage and surety bond fees was a total surprise. That added another $80 to the price of the laptop, with no guarantee that the one I would get in exchange would be fully functional.

That’s not to say that the keyboard of the Eee is perfect. Like any keyboard, it requires a bit of time to become accustomed to it. Because of how cramped the keys are, I really notice any extra length on my fingernails because I’m typing with the very tips of my fingers on the main A to L row of keys. The placement of some keys is quite awkward, particularly the “1”, which is more easily accessible with my ring finger than my pinkie. The “e”, “i”, “c” and “m” keys are often missed due to how I need to curve my fingers and apply pressure to the keys. Surprisingly, this is more noticeable for single words than when typing entire sentences.

The touchpad, like any other, is a painful alternative to a mouse. Luckily, the Eee’s operating system (Xandros, a flavour of Linux) auto-recognizes the two Logitech mice I have. Linux does not have great support for more than just the scroll-wheel and left- and right-click buttons, but this is not something unique to Xandros and is something I don’t really need.

I did have some permissions issues when trying to install new dictionaries for OpenOffice.org…it seems that I could only get to the “super user” access through the terminal. This may be a strange glitch in the way I have customized my Eee, because I have not seen this problem reported by other users. Once I was able to install the Canadian dictionary, the spellcheck was an invaluable feature of OpenOffice.org. Because of the idiosyncrasies of the keyboard, it is invaluable to be able to correct many typos quickly.

Adding more software to the Eee is not always an easy task. From what I’ve seen, “Easy Mode” only allows for updates to the software, and any adding or removing of software needs to be done in “Advanced Mode” (i.e. full KDE desktop for Xandros). Because Xandros does not have the same market penetration as SUSE, Fedora or Debian, it doesn’t have quite as many pre-compiled applications available. Many users have reported that most Debian packages are compatible with Xandros, but those packages do not seem to be supported for Xandros by either the Xandros folks or the Debian folks.

When showing off the Eee to friends, they’re always struck firstly by how tiny and light it is, and then by what a familiar feeling they get from the “Advanced Mode” interface. When using the Eee in public with little fanfare on my part, I found that many onlookers were extremely curious, but stopped short of actually asking about it. The Eee received many glances which I assumed were intended to be discreet attempts at determining what the heck it is (and possibly who makes it).

The power adaptor is both a blessing and a source of frustration. Because of its size, I was able to toss it into my purse along with the Eee itself. But the placement of the prongs relative to the bulk of the adaptor resulted in two instances where I thought I could use the adaptor…but couldn’t. In the first instance, there were two free ports on a powerbar, and the length of the adaptor was greater than the space available for two more compact plugs. In the second instance, the outlet was on a hub attached to a table at a lecture hall and the prongs were too far down on the adaptor for it to nestle into the L-shaped space allowed for the adaptor. In both instances, I was dearly missing the compactness of the actual connective parts of a standard laptop adaptor.

Because of the size of the screen I would not recommend the Eee as the only computer you own. It’s great as a portable second computer, but is less than ideal for extended use and extensive work (particularly anything involving graphics work). The operating temperature of the Eee is also a persistent concern. Although it seems to level out at a “hot-but-not-too-hot” temperature, I often worry about it overheating.

Overall, I love my Eee. I just need to find a way to make the adaptor …more adaptable.

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I received my new camera today yesterday and am both glad and sorry I waited so long to buy a new one. Although the price of a good digital camera has finally dropped into my price range, the difference between my new and old camera is astounding.

My old camera is the Pentax Optio LF33. Although it’s quite sufficient for snapshots, I have needed to do all sorts of extra things in the setup of my photos to get decent pictures of my sculptures. I can’t believe how much time I wasted to make up for the camera’s shortcomings.

The A720 passes my intuitive-use test, which basically involves me snubbing the manual (at least until I need to learn the more advanced features, and figure out what that button under the lens does). I did, however, need to pull it out of the box to figure out which way the batteries should be inserted. It wasn’t until later that I noticed the battery icons which were inside the casing, and further down than I expected. The icons were not visible from all angles when looking into the battery compartment.

Opening the cover for the batteries and SD card was quite easy…the first time. The second time, I couldn’t remember how I did it and had that squinty, furrowed eyebrow face while I wondered what I did the first time.

The test picture of one of my sculptures turned out very well, considering it was a “candid” shot rather than one setup against a backdrop and with more controlled light:

This is much better than the “candid” photos using the Pentax Optio (no flash on left; with flash on right) with equivalent manual settings:

The video feature was a bit frustrating because I initially thought the audio was…well, crap. It turns out that you get static in the background of videos shot with the A720 in some players. It seems Kaffeine (the default player for my installation of OpenSUSE) is one of those players. The video was fine in other players, and I need to figure out how to add a watermark to my videos.

The only thing I miss is having a swivel-display. The Pentax Optio had a display which would fold and twist in many ways.

The A720 has an exposed display, so I’m a bit paranoid about using it before my magical screen skin arrives in the mail. I need to learn to order those at the same time I order new gadgets, because I’m one of those crazy people who are terrified of scratching displays/screens.

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After a bit of browsing through different options for video hosting, I decided to use DivShare, which is the host I use for the Facebook Privacy Primer I wrote (which will be updated when the finally release the friend list privacy options).

I chose against most other YouTube wannabes because I wanted a host, and not a social network. And, of course, I chose against YouTube because trying to get help was like chasing down a lion before pulling its teeth. DivShare actually lets you contact a real, live person through email or a contact form on their website! I wanted to clarify that I still retain copyrights to anything I upload (provided I was the original copyright owner), and got a response the next day confirming that is the case (their TOU does not speak to that directly).

They have the option of converting almost anything uploaded into Flash, which is nice.

I uploaded two files today, both just over 30MB, which took around 9 minutes each. I’m not sure how that compares to YouTube, but it seems reasonable to me. According to the calculations/numbers in this review, it would have taken a half hour on YouTube…but I’m not sure if the upload times have improved since those numbers were provided (and can’t find a time stamp on the article).

After each video was uploaded, I received the following message:

We’re converting your video!
The file you uploaded has been recognized as a video, and we’re now converting it to a DivShare Flash Video so you can watch it on the download page and embed it on your site. The process will take a few minutes, and we’ll e-mail you when it’s done. You can also download the original file at any time.

I’m not sure what “a few minutes” is, but am not holding my breath, considering the size of the video. I’ll have to adjust my camera settings so the videos aren’t so big in the future. I’ll post conversion times later. I love that they had the foresight to build the email notification for the conversion completion!

Update Jan 10, 2008: Flash conversion took approx. 4 hours for those videos, and I received an email with the notification, a link to the Flash-converted file, and their support email address so I can contact them for questions.

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I finally found some time to read Russell McOrmond’s review of Canadian Copyright: A Citizen’s Guide. He has spoken highly of the book, and it is now on my reading list (two or three books from Wired Shut, which is the one I’m very slowly working through…not because of readability but the limited reading time I have).

Some of Russell’s comments are a bit concerning, with the misunderstanding of Creative Commons being the most concerning for me. I know many people who kind of know that there’s this thing called Creative Commons and that it has something to do with alternative copyright licensing, but few have a good understanding of how it works. I’ve been distressed by people who present it as something which makes that type of license possible rather than the fact that Creative Commons licences make using that type of license much more accessible. I’ve also been distressed by a lawyer explaining that it has a code which allows the license to follow the work, in terms of something similar to a digital rights management technique rather than a licensing provision. I’m sure it’s all a result of a broken-telephone transmission of information, but it doesn’t excuse people from not going to the source to check their facts.

Although I have used the term “copyleft” in the past, after some discussions with Russell I am better understanding the complications which can arise from using the term. Russell’s comments on the term in his review of Canadian Copyright: A Citizen’s Guide are quite concise, and our discussions leave me puzzling over a more suitable term.

In reading the comments on “harmonization”, it became clear to me that the problem is creators want to be (and should be) treated equally in the Copyright Act. Unfortunately, it seems that well-meaning but ill-informed persons end up using harmonization to achieve equality. I have been guilty of that breakdown in logic in the past, but have been slowly moving away from that perspective. In my continual thoughts on the fact that not all creative works are the same, it is becoming more apparent that equal treatment needs specialized attention rather than harmonization (which could potentially do more harm than it was intended to).

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