My XO laprop is here from the One Laptop Per Child program! it actually came before Christmas, but I haven’t tinkered with it too much yet. I did figure out right away how to install the Opera web browser, because the default Firefox-based browser doesn’t have JavaScript enabled. Too many of my web activities require JavaScript to do without it. Opera has a few quirks, but does the job.

The other learning curve is typing with the very small keyboard. I did manage a movie review with only a few typos, and I’m using it now. Once I get going I can type pretty quickly, but fixing mistakes is still a bit slow.

Wireless networking is handled nicely. Mesh networking with other XOs is built in – it would be cool to try it with other PCs, but I haven’t figured that out yet. There are lots of software toys I have yet to play with, like music editing TamTam, photo and video tools, and lots of other stuff.

Most importantly, a kid somewhere in the world will get an XO just like mine. My first computer at 10 years old changed my life forever, and I hope at least some of the kids in this program will have a similar experience.