It is hot in Lakuri Bhanjhyang, the site of Bashuki School, approximately 29 C every day. That’s 95 Fahrenheit for you Americans. AND it is very dry and extremely dusty. If you leave your XO alone for 20-30 minutes, it will have a fine layer of dust a top the keyboard when you return. These factors may be contributing to the first significant technical problem we are having in the pilot so far, the dreaded jumpy cursor. You know, that’s where the touchpad doesn’t follow your orders.

We are seeing the jumpy cursor on approximately 25% of the XO’s at Lakuri Bhanjhyang.

Rabi reports that the cursor seems to jump to either the upper-left hand side or to the middle. The kids find it very frustrating. The ‘four finger salute’ which typically works in our office isn’t working out at the school. Rabi says the problem clears for a while after he reboots the machines but not for very long. He has also had the kids clean their hands but the problem still occurs. Rabi has run the command ‘test mouse’ from the firmware and had interesting results. Apparently, the firmware shows that pressure is being applied after he has raised his finger. Hmm, interesting.

Bishwamitra is not manifesting the same problem but it is not nearly as dusty nor hot as Bashuki.

I have been sick in bed much of this week but now I am back in action. I will be spending much of the next 2-4 days trying to resolve these issues. I have gotten some good advice from Bernie Innocenti, Steve Holton, and Andres Salomon that I will have to read through carefully.

I have been playing w/ two XO’s from Bashuki that Rabi said showed persistent problems. Unfortunately, they are working perfectly fine in the office. I may have to steal some sand from a construction site tomorrow to try to replicate the environment at Bashuki.

A little background: We are running Build 703 w/ firmware Q2D14.