Matt Brubeck

Well, it looks like we have a white Christmas after all. Seattle is very pretty in the snow. We had a long morning of opening presents and visiting. Eleanor loves her new ride-on dump truck and toy telephone. She hasn't even gotten to all of the other new toys and books yet.

The XO has also been a big hit. I'm most impressed with the TamTam suite of music activities, which includes an analog synth lab, a multi-track composer, a drum/loop sequencer, and "TamTamMini," which just turns the keyboard into an electronic piano. Eleanor loves using TamTamMini to make animal and car sounds. I've mostly used the Browse, Write, and Read activities, and experimented with the collaboration features using Tom Hoffman's public Jabber server.

Eleanor is now walking confidently, eating constantly, and reading tons of board books. New baby sign words: airplane, bird, baby, ball, book, car, dad, library, eat, water, pants, shirt, sleep, swing, tortoise (Eleanor likes going upstairs to visit John's pet tortoise.)

I ordered my XO laptop on November 12, as soon as the "Give 1 Get 1" program started accepting donations. The XO is the $200 computer created by the One Laptop Per Child Foundation for students in developing countries.

One part of me that wants the XO is the mobile Linux geek part. The only portable computer I own is a Nokia 770 tablet, which is great but has limited functionality. My ideal device would have a slightly larger screen, long battery life, good video and audio playback, convert between tablet and notebook modes, maybe have a camera and GPS; and would still run free software, weigh less than three pounds, and cost less than US$500.

That device doesn't exist yet. I've been watching the XO, the Eee PC, the Neo1973, the N810, and various other Linux portables to see which comes closest to my ideal. Despite being designed for children, the XO looks like the winner of this round. It doesn't have GPS or a touchscreen, but it does have a camera, and the screen swivels into an "book" mode for reading. It's lightweight, rugged, has super-long battery life, and an unusual 200-ppi display with a reflective mode for outdoor use.

The other part of me that's interested in the XO is the Geekdad part. HyperCard on the early Macintosh was a formative part of my childhood, and like many others I've never found anything to replace it. Since Eleanor was born, I've been thinking about what makes a good introduction to computers as a tool for thinking and creating (not just to deliver entertainment). After thinking and reading about this topic for about a year, I've discovered that all the ideas I developed from my own experiences had been expressed better by Alan Kay in 1968 (in the Dynabook project) and by Seymour Papert in 1980 (in his book Mindstorms, which helped inspire the Lego Mindstorms robotics system).

The XO follows the constructionist examples of Kay and Papert—in fact, it uses software based on Kay's Squeak SmallTalk and Papert's LOGO. In my opinion, it's today's best bet for a worthwhile computer for younger children. And since it's built with 100% free software, I'll be able to use some or all of it with Eleanor when she's old enough, and modify it to fit her needs. I'm already playing with the sugar-emulator package for Ubuntu, which is a painless way to try out a version of the OLPC interface without the XO laptop hardware. (But note that the sugar-activities package at the link does not include all the activities that are available from OLPC.)

Parents and Linux geeks: you have until November 26 to order your own XO. Half of the US$400 cost is used to donate a laptop to a student.