Share your OQO stories

[Guest]

[Stuart]

I was on vacation for a couple of weeks, and as several times in the past, the power gods new I was gone and we had a 6 hour power outage two days after we left.

Fortunately I took the OQO with me and I was able to remote into all the PC/servers at home and get them all cleanly rebooted and running smoothly again.  I also maintain a PC on the local water system and I was able to log in and reboot it as well, fixing an email notification problem.

In all, I used VPN, SSH, RDP, as well as the usual browsing.  It was a good test of the OQO for real "full PC" work that I couldn't have done with a PPC, and it was a great success.  In previous power outages I've had to get friends to go to the house and walk them through server reboots over the phone.

[Ronc]

It was a good test of the OQO for real "full PC" work that I couldn't have done with a PPC, and it was a great success. 

What is a PPC? (All I could find was Power PC chips used by Macs before they switched to Intel in 2006.)

[Stuart]

PPC == Windows Mobile Pocket PC

[2disbetter]

Well...
It was one of my first school days with my Model 02, and I decided "Why not study my biology notes?". We were in class board or student council elections [can't remember which] and were just sitting around, having already voted. I pulled it out of my pocket and started loading my notes, when my class dean, Mrs. Cannarsa, came by, and not knowing what I was doing/what it was, confiscated it, and refused to return it, even though I was in desperate need of it for spanish class, the next block. About half an hour later [after me and my friend followed her through the halls to see what she was going to do with it], she finally walked into my spanish class and returned it to me, telling me that "I have to present it to all of my teachers and promise them that I am not using the internet in class". She disliked me enough at this point, so, figuring she had looked up the computer on the internet, I decided not to point out that there was no antenna for WAN on my computer.
The moral of the story?
Well, there isn't really one, but I have to thank the OQO website for being designed well so that she could look up the computer without having a huge hassle, saving me from having to actually WRITE my notes.
Sorry, I know this story is a bit silly, but it is true.

my kid would NEVER have an oqo for school. This story demonstrates why. All this effort, and the notes could have been already written down and read the traditional way.

An oqo in a high school environment is just a toy.

College, different story.

2d

[MiKeN]

An OQO for high school can still be used for more than "a toy". I'll admit it isn't a necessity but it is good to have an organized central place. I can easily write down something and read it just as fast as if I wrote it "traditionally".

[Bungee]

Agreed that the OQO is overkill for high-school and not the target demographic for that device. Also, giving something that expensive to a kid for 'note taking' would also impart questionable values.

When I was a kid (and when dinosaurs roamed the earth), I would get into trouble with my Dad if I were caught buying any of 'those fancy coloured ring binders' for note taking, instead of using the school issued nondescript jotter books.

As a parent today, I'm totally appreciate what he did. My kids will not have OQOs for high school... ok, maybe an OLPC or an Eee PC. 

[provodnik]

I got my OQO 2 in February. From the beginning it seemed hot after just a short time of work. To make it possible to hold it in my hands for long periods of time I had to by a case for it. That helped.
The problems started in April. After the unit gets hot, the mouse movement becomes jerky - it moves and stumbles and moves again. In May it started freezing and I had to press/hold the power button. After a couple of days of this, Stand By option disappeared from the shutdown menu. I thought, it's a loss but I can live without it.
In June the story repeated itself: hangups, power button press/hold, jerky mouse movement. This time Hibernate disappeared, checkdisk started running on every boot, WiFi stopped detecting any and all wireless networks, hangups continue, SMM initialization error on every reboot. Re-imaging did not help but Tech Support continued insisting on doing it again and again. After speaking to a supervisor I was able to get an RMA and sent it for repairs. After a few days the unit came back with ALL problems intact. They only corrected SMM init error. Now they want me to troubleshoot it again as if it is a set of new problems. They take the unit, fix one problem, send the PC back and now want to troubleshoot again what should have been corrected in the repairshop on the first try. The tech support person was condescendingly pointing out that he worked for Western Digital and knows a thing or two about hard drives and suggested to run check disk and mark all bad sectors so that they are not used any more. How about marking half a disk as unusable? He said all disks have bad sectors, it is normal. Maybe for somebody else's disk it is normal. I want all 120GB be usable. That's what I paid for. You can never get a supervisor on the phone. The standard answer is "the supervisor is on a conference call". It doesn't even matter whether you call in the morning, afternoon, or evening. They are on a conference call.
Seems like I made an expensive mistake. Stay away from this UMPC guys! The idea is great, the implementation and tech support are bad.

[Justis]

my kid would NEVER have an oqo for school. This story demonstrates why. All this effort, and the notes could have been already written down and read the traditional way.
An oqo in a high school environment is just a toy.
College, different story.
2d

Agreed that the OQO is overkill for high-school and not the target demographic for that device. Also, giving something that expensive to a kid for 'note taking' would also impart questionable values.

When I was a kid (and when dinosaurs roamed the earth), I would get into trouble with my Dad if I were caught buying any of 'those fancy coloured ring binders' for note taking, instead of using the school issued nondescript jotter books.

As a parent today, I'm totally appreciate what he did. My kids will not have OQOs for high school... ok, maybe an OLPC or an Eee PC. 

Not really at my school. It's a private school, and usually we take at least 3-4 pages of notes per class, some of which are college level. I happen to be very good at losing papers as well, so it is very useful to me. And it's also much better than a normal laptop, because I usually have to carry 3-4 textbooks home in my backpack along with sports equipment so there's not really much room for much else.

[Bungee]

Justis, sounds like you are privileged enough to attend private school and get a OQO for school work. I doubt Dennis Moore and the folks behind OLPC had students like you in mind. Btw, you might want to try a ring-file and a locker sometimes.   

[akjill]

Justis-

I know what you mean.  The books we lugged around were HUGE and while we might not use the book in class, we were required to have it "just in case".  My friends and I shared lockers to stash text books closest to the classrooms.

Carrying one or two textbooks, notebooks (with handouts, homework etc) was tough enough- adding a regular laptop would have been too much.

I am jealous they didn't have OQO's when I was in school--- enjoy!

akjill

[Justis]

Justis, sounds like you are privileged enough to attend private school and get a OQO for school work. I doubt Dennis Moore and the folks behind OLPC had students like you in mind. Btw, you might want to try a ring-file and a locker sometimes.   

I tried using my locker, didn't work - classes are scattered and with only 5 minutes theres not enough time to make it up there. Offtopic, but maybe if the school fee was cheaper I could AFFORD a new double capacity battery .
I'm enjoying it very much, thanks
Justis

[easyvilla]

I have had my Model 2 for 15 months since upgrading from a model 01 which was great (In fact the model 2 has been great as well apart from Vista....which is not !)

Anyway, I have been embroiled in a dispute with OQO for the last few days, they trying to claim that the battery (the one that is part of the original unit supplied amd without which it is not the 'ultramobile PC' that it is sold as. Apparently is an 'accessory' even though I never bought the battery as an accessory or as part of any 'bundle'. Anyway, as this dispute ensues......the battery (which is attached to the machine but is not charging and is otherwise utterly useless) EXPLODES !!!!! Its only fortunate for me (and OQO) that I was present at the time and could isolate the mains and prevent a major catastrophe.

Has anyone else had occurences such as this, I have seen many posts about the batteries swelling (which happened with mine at fisrst) there seems to be a major potential design/manufacture problem here !

[kyone]

It's an inherent problem with Li batteries.  It's very rare they will explode.  Sony has made this issue well known with their exploding laptop batteries.

[drbf]

I use my OQO to handle my office program as well as my patient database. Fan was not working called Chris at OQO tech support, he was very helpfull as are all of your support personal. Sent my QOQ in for repair Two days later OQO back in my office. A few days latter fan stopped again. I called tech support, sent in my computer two days later back in my office and no more problems. Your tech support team is the reason I will buy the Model 3
Thanks

[Teblin]

Quote from: Caleymac on October 09, 2007, 12:48:55 PM
Please do not publicize that you can play Runescape on an OQO...I told my kids it doesn't work on my OQO so I don't have to share it with them...

Maybe we should start a Runescape on OQO topic here    My son is always looking for new friends there to go on adventures with.

Thanks for being our customer!

-- Dennis Moore, OQO

I understand that Runescape HD may not work on an OQO Model 01+ but does the low detail mode work?