Cooking With Linux

Halloween night is now the official time of the year I start my Christmas shopping. Having seen a really cool toy on TV I thought my youngest nephew would like I went to my local Toys "R" Us and began to search the store. When I found no sign of the object of my attention it was time to look a bit for me. Even a 38 year old uncle likes toys.

So I went into the electronics section and asked about Wii availability. Then a nutty idea came to me, in a toy store yes, I asked, about "sub notebooks". The guy said that we didn't have anything except "kid computers" I looked over in the direction he was pointing and saw the "Eee" display. "Kid computers", I thought? Happy to see them I noticed the white Eee701 ...

Part of me thought how naive the sales guy was. I thought back on the desire to give him "what for" in the form of a verbal 5 minute educational lecture, but I didn't. Bringing myself back down to the best obtained level of civility I have in me, I realize that many people are just like the sales guy, unaware of what a Eee PC can do even in it's diminutive state.

I wonder though, is this what people think of when they hear "net books" or "sub notebooks"? Do they think of these devices as kids stuff... toys... not serious computers for doing serious work? Is the sub notebook market destined to have the stigma that Linux has tried to shake off since it's inception, "It's a geeks computer not meant for real people"? My heart aches at that concept.

When I come across situations like this I try to look at it from multiple angles. This is why I don't respond right way but take my time when answering. So I tried to find a positive to the phrase "kid computers". I'm sorry I didn't ask how old the kids were that bought (or the parents bought) the computers. But hey if the Eeee pc is being marketed to kids, and they are buying them... OK I'm down with that. And hopefully they are buying more black 701s (cool color, cool OS). Can a 7 or 10 year old kid get into a Linux computer, understand, and be the future? Can kids bring the percentage of Linux users dramatically higher in the coming years? This would be great, as the annual "{insert year here} ... Year of the Linux Desktop" is about to be sent across the web, yet again. Perhaps taking sub notebooks to the younger (yeah not always brighter) masses will push them to be brighter, and give Linux and Open Source more footing.

Though this was a roller coaster ride last night, I think I feel more positive to the idea of "Kids Computers" then negative. Perhaps some of the bigger kids who aren't so techno savvy will get into sub notebooks and realize that even kids stuff can get the job done.