Bicycles: Traffic Lights, Drive-Thrus, etc.

I found this article on INSTRUCTIBLES http://www.instructables.com/id/Trigger-GREEN-Traffic-Lights/ - using small but powerful Neodymium magnets, you can complete the electrical circuit to trigger a green light for traffic stops, use a drive-thru window at banks, etc. while on your bike.

This explains how the circuits work, where to get the magnets, and everything else you need to know so that your bike is no longer a second-class vehicle on streets !

Project Rwanda: Coffee and Bicycles

Project Rwanda (http://www.projectrwanda.org)
is an excellent way to get some good coffee bean, help family coffee farmers in Rwanda, and help the general economy of Rwanda.

The "bicycle part" of the project:
Coffee grown on small family farms in Rwanda is taken to market on wooden "bicycles". They're actually more push scooters made completely from wood - even the wheels are wood. One of the bicycle projects is to replace these with low-cost specially-made bicycles that can replace the wooden bicycles.

The "coffee" - you can order it from a U.S. partner in Project Rwanda (located in California). It ships as vacuum-packed whole beans and is quite good - it has a very 'earthy' taste.

XO (aka "OLPC") - getting started

I haven't had as much time as I expected to explore the wonders of the XO, but I'm starting to work on it. The first challenge is to ignore everything that you learned in order to function with MS Windows, Apple, and commercial Unix systems. Also - it helps to pretend that you're 9 years old. "What would a 9-year old do in this situation ?" is a very helpful mantra.

Internet Connectivity
The first thing I noticed is that the XO, as shipped, does not handle WPA network encryption. Since we all have (at least) WPA encryption, this is a pain in the neck. According to the FAQ at the official OLPC web site, WPA encryption will be supported by the end of December 2007. You will probably have to load the patch to another PC, and make the transfer via a USB-access device (flash memory, etc.).

In the meantime, the Support FAQ page http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Support_FAQ#Connectivity_and_the_Internet

lists several work-arounds:

• Using your (initially) free T-Mobile hot spot account (requires that you hike over to a T-Mobile hot spot location, but that should we easy with this ulta-portable XO). Support for this approach starts on this page: http://www.laptopgiving.org/en/pin.php



• Getting right into the Linux roots of the XO and manually setting up WPA access. Support for this approach starts here: http://wiki.laptop.org/go/WPA_Manual_Setting



• Avoid wireless entirely: get a USB-to-Ethernet cable. Although, I'm not sure how that will help you connect to your DSL or cable modem.

Since I want to make the XO connect to my home network, I'm going for the WPA Manual Setting. The directions were simple: the hard part was guessing which WPA version I have - the directions indicate "guess 1; if that doesn't work, try 2".

Results: I did everything, and it all looked fine. As promised, my home network showed in the XO "neighborhood" without a lock symbol (indicating that a password wasn't needed). However, I had to go through the process twice: one with WPA version 1 and once with WPA version 2. Both times, it still asked for the network password.....It's still not working - it asks for a password for the AP..... According to some responses on the wiki, I may need to update the firmware on the DSL modem. Not a pleasant task, but I'll try that next....

OLPC has arrived

The green computer baby arrived this morning. Here it is on my desk between two 'normal' sized laptops. I haven't done much with it yet except navigate and look for other mesh networks.... here it is - between its big brothers.

The keyboard is really small, which I expected. but it's so light I might use this for traveling, if all of the functions are there.