🚀 go-pugleaf

You are invited to the next meeting of the Washington Area Computer User 
Group (WAC), scheduled on Saturday, September 13th from 12:30 PM to 3:30 
PM at the Fairfax County Government Center, 12000 Government Center 
Parkway, Fairfax, Virginia. The meeting is free and open to the public.  
Preregistration is not required to attend.

At the September meeting, WAC member Michael Coyne will discuss and 
demonstrate the XO-1 laptop computer, developed for the One Laptop Per 
Child (OLPC) project. According to their mission statement, OLPC 
"creates educational opportunities for the world's poorest children by 
providing each child with a rugged, low-cost, low-power, connected 
laptop with content and software designed for collaborative, joyful, 
self-empowered learning."  Michael will give the XO-1 specs, and discuss 
some of the radical hardware OLPC produced. He will give a short history 
of the organization and the strong-willed ideological developers who 
built the XO-1, fought among themselves, and occasionally resigned. The 
computer has resulted in dozens of discussion forums, even more “how do 
you?” instruction forums, and thousands of hackers (in the good sense of 
the word). Major hardware developers have suddenly decided to produce 
their own computers for the digitally-deprived world and software 
developers have jumped in with their own plans. Microsoft is now working 
to port its XP operating system to the XO.

Also at the September meeting, member Kathy Perrin will demonstrate 
Webkinz, a virtual online world designed for kids. Webkinz plush animal 
toys come with a secret code that allow children to enter the web site 
to play games and take care of their virtual pet.

WAC is a non-profit general interest computer user group that supports 
the Microsoft Windows and GNU/Linux operating systems. For more 
information, visit our web site at http://www.wacug.org/ or e-mail info 
(at) wacug.org.