I was surprised to read that Birmingham, Ala. is spending $3.5 million dollars for some 15,000 computers for their students from 1st to 8th grades. The project also includes a wi-fi system for the students. This is the first US school district that has purchased OLPC computers for their students. This change of direction by the OLPC indicates that the computers will also be sold in the US as well as to foreign countries. In a press release it states:

Mayor Larry Langford arranged the deal for 15,000 laptop computers at almost $200 apiece. Since then, Negroponte has announced that he will launch One Laptop Per Child America to sell the laptops in the United States.

On Friday, Negroponte named political consultant Mike Ford of Washington the head of the U.S. project. Birmingham is the first item on Ford’s list.

Birmingham officials, who spent much of last week in Boston at a One Laptop Per Child seminar, are trying to figure out how, exactly, to deploy 15,000 laptops to all first- through eighth-graders in the city school system.

After hearing stories from other countries that have the computers - Nigeria, Brazil and Uruguay, to name a few - Birmingham educators at the seminar said it may not be as easy as handing them out to every child all at once.

One Laptop officials said it would be next to impossible to send all the computers to Birmingham at once. The machines will likely be shipped in phases, they said, as they were in other countries.

Hopefully these computer purchases will help the OLPC gain momentum throughout the world and increase sales as well.

Comments welcome.

Full article is here.

Tags: olpc, computers, us, sale, alabama, birmingham, computers, laptops, machines, shipped

On the Microsoft Windows Team Blog, information has been posted that indicates that for some language packs, the release of SP1 could be delayed for Ultimate users. On the blog it states that users of the English, French, German, Japanese and Spanish should have no problems. But others who use a different language could get this message when installing SP1:

Windows Vista Service Pack 1 cannot be installed on your computer because the language of Windows Vista you have installed is not supported or you have installed a language pack that is not supported.

Windows Vista Service pack 1 can only be installed on computers running the English, French, German, Japanese and Spanish versions of Windows Vista or computers running only those language packs.

In looking through the comments I noticed this post from a disgruntled Ultimate user. Though it does not specifically address the language pack issues, it does hit the nail on the head for us Ultimate users:

Using Vista is a kick in the pants compared to XP.

Using Vista Ultimate just adds insult to injury.

Not only have you defrauded your users who paid more for non-existent or extremely lame “extras”, but now many users who may have installed the language packs have to wait even longer for a Service Pack that will (we hope) reduce the pain of using this problem-riddled OS.

When presented with the meager extra lists, I’m sure many users simply installed all of the available extras just so that they could feel like they got something, anything for their extra cash. Now they pay the price.

You and your team should be ashamed of yourselves.

I think the lack of extras as originally promised from Microsoft for those who purchased the Ultimate editions, may come back to bite the software giant in the butt.

Comments welcome.

Microsoft blog article is here.

Tags: microsoft, vista, ultimate, language, packs

It has been well over two weeks since I originally decided to give Commodo 3 firewall a try, after reading some reviews indicating that the latest offering has been improved dramatically. So with this in mind I ventured over to the Commodo 3 Web site and downloaded its latest offering.

During installation I did nothing except to choose the recommended settings that the software company has provided to see just how well these default settings would work. I also didn’t want to change any settings that could skewer the results and cause any problems. With this in mind I just left things alone and let the software do its own thing. For you die-hard tweakers this may be hard to do.

The installation went smoothly and, after a reboot, Commodo 3 was on the job. The first thing I noticed when I opened up any software on my system, a Commodo 3 box came up stating it was learning the setting[s]. This can be turned off if you wish, but like I said, I was going to stick with the defaults as long as possible to see how everything would function without any user changes.

Well so far, so good. My system has been working fine and Commodo 3 is still handling all of the traffic without any noticeable incidents. But it is still early to see if all is really well, so I will continue to use the firewall for another few weeks. If for some reason things go bad, I will report that as well.

Comments welcome.

For those of you who may want to block the installation of Windows Vista SP1, Microsoft has provided a Service Pack Blocker you can use. In addition the tool can also block service packs for Windows Server and Windows XP for a period of 12 months. On their site Microsoft states:

Overview

A blocking tool is available for organizations that would like to temporarily prevent installation of Windows Service Pack updates through Windows Update. This tool can be used with:

• Windows Server 2003 Service Pack 2 (valid through March, 2008)
• Windows XP Service Pack 3 (valid for 12 months following general availability)
• Windows Vista Service Pack 1 (valid for 12 months following general availability)

This toolkit contains three components. All of them function primarily to set or clear a specific registry key that is used to detect and block download of Windows Service Packs from Windows Update. You only need to use the component which best serves your organization’s computer management infrastructure.

• A Microsoft-signed executable
• A script
• An ADM template

The executable creates a registry key on the computer on which it is run that blocks or unblocks (depending on the command-line option used) the delivery of a Windows Service Pack to that computer through Windows Update. The key used is: HKLM\Software\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\WindowsUpdate.

The download is available here.

Comments welcome.

Bill Gates seems to feel that Google doesn’t get it when it comes to the needs of business. Slamming Google Apps, the once head of the Microsoft empire stated that:

“In terms of Google, not to overstate it, but they really don’t understand the special needs of business. Today, their economic model is based on consumer search. They have done an incredible job there and obviously we’re investing in challenging them in that space …

“If you’ve seen … the Google tools that have tried to do productivity type things, they really don’t have the richness the responsiveness. You can see that relative [to] the success they have had there. Most of these Google products, to be frank, the day they announce them is their best day and then after that ….”

He also stated that whether Microsoft gets Yahoo! or not, it is ready to challenge the search field on the Internet. Interesting points. But will Microsoft really be able to challenge Google? Time will tell.

Comments welcome.

Complete article is located here.

If you haven’t taken advantage of this offer as of yet, time is running out since the offer will expire on April 30th, 2008. Students can apply to download Microsoft Office Ultimate 2007 and receive a product key all for just $59.95. Microsoft describes those who are eligible as:

Promotion Eligibility:
This offer is good only to eligible students who possess a valid email address at an educational institution geographically located in the United States. This offer is non-transferable. Limit one purchase per eligible student.

The following conditions serve to define student eligibility for the Promotion:

.

Individual must possess a valid e-mail address at a U.S. educational institution which contains the domain suffix .edu; AND

Individual must be a student at a U.S. educational institution and must be actively enrolled in at least 0.5 course credit and be able to provide proof of enrollment upon request.

Microsoft or an appointed vendor may contact you to verify that you are a current student. If documentation is not provided indicating that you are a current student, you will be liable to reimburse Microsoft for the full retail cost of the software ($679).

Website and details are located here.

Comments welcome.

Tags: microsoft, office, ultimate, students, contact, promotion, download, $59.95