Crimson Crux

A few days ago, our new airconditioner unit was installed in my bedroom-turned-home office, literally breathing fresh air into my work-from-home freelancing ‘career’.

I initially bought the aircon (yep, my first appliance unit purchase) to prevent potential overheating damage to my laptop. Funny thing is, Corsarify’s keys actually froze half an hour after the aircon was first turned on!

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After almost nine years of putting up with dial-up connections, we’ve finally jumped ship and availed ourselves of BayanTel DSL’s 768 kbps plan. The DSL modem was installed just last Thursday, and now I’m happily torrenting away some good stuff (don’t ask me what).

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This is one of those posts where you just want to talk about other people and their gadgets. Congrats to my dear friend and colleague Ia Lucero for finally getting herself a brand-new laptop, which she has christened Risk. Believe it or not, Ia bought her new toy while Typhoon Milenyo (Xangsane) was brutalizing the metropolis! Talk about risk, indeed.

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I’ll be going on another brief family reunion slash vacation tomorrow to Kalibo, Aklan. As with my last trip to our home province, I’ll be attending a wedding (and playing some rounds of DoTa, I guess). But this time around, I’ll be able to take my work with me, courtesy of Corsarify.

Needless to say, my laptop’s first out-of-town trip includes passing through the airport security checks. This begs an important question: Is it safe to let my laptop through the X-ray machine? Wouldn’t my data be obliterated, my job wrecked, and my life ruined? (Ok, I’ll stop.)

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Introducing, Corsarify*! You might crucify the name, but there ain’t any other that fits the bill. I bought the sleek-looking thang last Friday at SM North Edsa’s Cyberzone, from a shop that offers Build Your Own Notebook (BYON) units. In Cyberzone, the shop goes by the name Computers & Options (CNO), while you can find it as Think PC in Gilmore and Taft.

Forgive me if I’ll boast of the laptop’s specs here — right now I’m just thrilled by them. The unit’s powered by a 2.0 GHz Intel Pentium M processor and 1GB DDR RAM. (more…)

(Photo courtesy of www.macworld.com)
Specs: Linux OS, 500 Mhz, 1GB, 1 Megapixel, Wi-Fi and Cellphone-enabled, USB-capable

Reading last Saturday’s issue of Business World, I came across an article on a 100$ laptop being developed in the MIT Media Lab. Yep, that’s right. One hundred US dollars. Barely 6000 Philippine pesos. And I thought a Php 30K laptop was dirt-cheap.

Anyway, the said laptop isn’t meant for commercial distribution — it’s meant to educate children in developing nations. It doesn’t take a genius nor a saint to appreciate the nobility of this pursuit. In UP ACM’s essay for its winning bid for Outstanding Community Service, I wrote:

[In] a Third World country such as the Philippines…some of the more expensive physical resources, i.e., computers, are luxuries. These tangible assets must give way to an intangible one — knowledge. In our country, knowledge is of the utmost value — it has no price tag, but it is priceless. It does not crash, it does not break down, and it will serve you for life. Practicality dictates that in lieu of supplying people with computers, we must educate them about these machines.

With the advent of these 100$ laptops, basic computer know-how for children is fused with day-in, day-out hands-on practice. That’s a powerhouse combination.

To know more about the 100$ laptop, drop by MIT Media Lab’s official website for the project. Kudos to these brilliant researchers!