I was reading /alternative-ways-to-participate-or-why-i-probably-wont-be-at-midwinter/
It’s comment box seems to be turned off, so excuse me for posting here. It is kinda semi related.

I’m not a librarian. Just a bit of a geek who is hoping that some .org in the US librarian space might get a “platform for collaboration” up so the global groups with (your) similar interests might get the kind of communication network that you seem to be trying to stitch together. It’s the same everywhere. ArGhh!

So, because i think WJ holds a bit of hope and they’re renovating, I’ve been bashing ears down there. http://webjunction.org/forums/

I really do think that you’ll hit a nerve if you give this a bit of a push now. I live on forums around the global traps as they tend to be community hubs. Blogs drive me crazy = so many similar, disjointed & half complete conversations scattered around the web don’t help people inside death stars understand what common communication bits might be better shared than run independently.

So could i suggest a bit of advocacy around the banner of “Community Hub”. http://docs.moodle.org/en/Community_hub

If we can get OCLC and the ALA to get serious then maybe we could also get a few other silos (like the ALIA in Oz, and the DDC in the UK) to consider that this is WORLD wide web, and we only need ONE platform which could be shared.

Reading your community’s blogs, it seems like they know what they want. So please could we have a spec (for WJ)?

Sorry about your cloud book but it sounds like you found an easy fix.

btw have you noticed that your cloudbook gets hot? I ask because I read about that in another review….

cb88

gOS is based on Ubuntu, so I thought that it would at least work somewhat OK. It didn’t, and I suspect the big reason is the drivers that it shipped with.

Unless the latest beta version of Ubuntu has updated drivers, I don’t think it will do all that much better than gOS did.

Meredith needed a machine that Just Worked with zero futzing, so as soon as I saw that Everex had posted a complete set of WinXP drivers, I just jumped on it.

You should play with it if you make it to CIL. It’s a pretty cool little machine now that the software is fixed up.

Good question! I initially thought it wouldn’t work properly at all.. fortunately for Meredith, it did

I copied the WinXP install CD to a USB key, changed the bios to boot from the memory stick, and away I went.

The only problem was that it would not boot without the USB stick, as the boot.ini file on the cloudbook’s HD was pointing to the wrong disk. Changing that one file to Disk 0 instead of Disk 1 resolved the boot problem.

I’ve been working with linux since about 1993 (Yggdrasil, etc..) and have installed it on all types of servers and desktops. I’ve never seen a less fit-for-purpose version than gOS.

It is supposed to be a dead-simple OS for people who just want to write a few documents and surf the web. It is NOT supposed to be for techies. As installed on the Cloudbook, it is — to put it bluntly — a hot mess.

* The UI doesn’t scale properly for the small screen, with windows falling off edge. This is not only annoying, it can actually prevent applications from working properly (like, umm, the setup app that you see when booting the machine for the first time!)
* The wifi driver is hopelessly broken, making it difficult or impossible to attach to base stations 3′ away. Even when it connects, there are frequent dropouts and poor performance.
* It takes forever to boot
* It takes forever to come out of standby or hibernation, and apps crash as it comes back alive.

As painful as it is to admit, installing XP on it turned the computer from a doorstop into something that’s really useful and cool. I think Everex sells this machine in Europe and Asia with XP on it by default, as they posted all the necessary drivers on their site. They work flawlessly.

So, if you have $399, a spare XP license, USB pen drive, and the better part of a weekend, it isn’t a bad little machine. Out of the box, forget it.

It’s a lovely essay, and not at all irrelevant to the current trajectory of the OPAC.

I’m going to be at CIL2008 as well. I’ll try to come up and say HI! I do enjoy reading your blog.

Battery life is about the same as my MacBook Pro, which isn’t bad (3 hours), but it’s nowhere near 5 hours. Even without the wifi on, it’s not close to 5 hours. I’ll definitely be buying an extra battery once Everex makes them available.