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>>>> My wife and I recently visited Vanuatu (island of Santo) and fell in |
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>>>> love with it. We got to know some locals pretty well and everybody is |
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>>>> pining for laptops. Internet service is becoming widely available due |
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>>>> to Digicel and TVL cell phone signals but I didn't meet anyone with a |
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>>>> real smartphone. I promised to return with laptops and I'd like to |
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>>>> make good on that. Which ultra low-cost but functional laptops or |
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>>>> netbooks would you choose for this? I'm looking into OLPC but I'm not |
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>>>> sure how that works. |
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>>>> |
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>>>> - Grant |
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[snip] |
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> And I think there's your opening: netbooks. |
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> |
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> They are cheap and once you get past that they are much slower than what |
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> you are used to, they do work very well. And they work offline too. With |
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> one more advantage from your point of view: Windows runs very suckily |
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> one them, but a decent Linux runs rather unsuckily :-) |
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|
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This brings up another important question: Windows or Linux. These |
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folks have ultra-basic computer skills if that. They won't be able to |
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hit the forums when something goes wrong. I've only ever really used |
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Gentoo so I'm not sure how easy Ubuntu or whatever is but I'm leaning |
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toward Windows for this. It's a much more "universal language" in the |
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computer world so the chances of them finding help for a problem are |
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much higher. Plus they can install Windows programs that way. Of |
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course Windows comes with its own set of problems but I think those |
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might be preferable in this case. If I can get systems with some kind |
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of a restore partition, they could follow a pretty simple procedure to |
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restore the OS back to factory when it gets too far out. In fact the |
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owner of the place where I was staying brought me his Toshiba laptop |
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while I was there and (typically) the thing was riddled with viruses |
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and had become unusable. Luckily there was a restore partition and it |
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was too easy to snap it back to factory. He then promptly checked his |
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email for the first time in however long and opened a message from his |
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daughter in Australia which contained a photo of his granddaughter. |
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It was the first time he had ever seen her. He bought the kava every |
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night after that. |
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|
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> *Someone* has all those netbooks that Westeners ditched in favour of |
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> iCraps, I recommend you look into who is now selling them 2nd hand. |
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|
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I should look to eBay, right? |
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|
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- Grant |