The Song Fight Bulletin Board

this thing is so cool! And green. The squishy keyboard will take some getting used to though.

That is very cool! Is it true you can put it in B&W mode to save batteries?

ps - I also have the cd in the bottom pic. Good choice.

I'd love to hear about your experiences with it. I wish I had followed through on the impulse to order one myself when they were available.

Lunkhead wrote:I'd love to hear about your experiences with it. I wish I had followed through on the impulse to order one myself when they were available.

Well, it's got a bunch of games, Firefox, a music program that lets you jam with other XO users, gmail, chat and a bunch of mesh network stuff I don't know much about. And some other stuff. Apparently there aren't any others in the hood yet, since they would show up as little X kids. I can't wait to find another one and chat with them.

Where's the Guitar Hero? ohhh maaaannnnn!

The kids love it. They spent a lot of time on it the last few days. They'll probably want to bring it to Mexico next week.

I predict this will be a status symbol in Starbucks, as the Newton was back in the day. You get a year t-mobile hotspot account, which is handy.

roymond wrote:Where's the Guitar Hero? ohhh maaaannnnn!

You could try to get the open source knockoff "Frets On Fire" running on your XO:

http://fretsonfire.sourceforge.net/

Remind us how this program works, or worked. Is it still available? I really should have gotten one for my nephew.

Billy's Little Trip wrote:Remind us how this program works, or worked. Is it still available? I really should have gotten one for my nephew.

The way it worked was that you paid for two, one of which was sent to you, and the other of which was donated to somebody. I'm pretty sure they've stopped offering that deal. As far as I know, it was the only way for "normal" people to be able to get them.

Billy's Little Trip wrote:Remind us how this program works, or worked. Is it still available? I really should have gotten one for my nephew.

You buy one and they send one to a child somewhere in the world, all for $400. You also get a year of t-mobile hot spot mobile access, which is $375 so I've canceled my Boingo account. But I think the deal is over now.

Ahh, thanks.

Lunkhead wrote: it was the only way for "normal" people to be able to get them.

Billy, if you really want one of them you need to send one of your kids to school for a year in Peru or Uruguay.
Ray just got off easy.

There ya go.

And keep in mind, it's not like this is a fast computer that lets you switch between chat and games and web like you're used to. Tame your expectations if that's what you're looking for. But it is great for kids and has tremendous cool power.

roymond wrote:I predict this will be a status symbol in Starbucks, as the Newton was back in the day.

The Newton? That's a pretty old Starbucks. And a pretty pessimistic view of the XO.

I'm really curious about how well it takes a beating. How old are the kids?

roymond wrote:There ya go.

And keep in mind, it's not like this is a fast computer that lets you switch between chat and games and web like you're used to. Tame your expectations if that's what you're looking for. But it is great for kids and has tremendous cool power.

Actually, what I was interested in is getting it for my 7 year old nephew, and if I can help some less fortunate kid somewhere, even better. But I will admit, I'm not very trusting in these types of charities. Too much scum in the world.

I hear you. Who knows how well or otherwise this will be managed and how long an effort they'll wage. But sometimes there are large-stroke concepts that deserve some support. And in this case there's a cute take-away toy to boot.

Here's what I keep thinking - that little thing has no fans or hard drive in it, it must be silent or pretty close to it. And it has usb2 ports. Doesn't that make it pretty much ideal for recording audio tracks?

obscurity wrote:Here's what I keep thinking - that little thing has no fans or hard drive in it, it must be silent or pretty close to it. And it has usb2 ports. Doesn't that make it pretty much ideal for recording audio tracks?

Well, some of the sound stuff is pretty impressive. SF Brooklyn should expect some live XO jam comps from roymond