Is there an easy way to encrypt mail on an IMAP server after the fact? For example, could I tell an email client to go through all of my gmail and encrypt it using my PGP key?

My -- that is my *daughter's* -- XO is very low power. Whether it's the power savings across the whole chipset, the ability to enter certain sleep states while keeping the display on, no hard drive, whatever: it's got a tiny power supply, charges quickly (bonus: with a wide range of input voltages!), and never gets hot. Seems really freakin' low power to me.

Of course, others have pointed out that it's rugged. (If you haven't handled one, it's easy to fail to appreciate this fully.)

The keyboard is fine. Not great, but fine. And certainly tough. If you're a kid, it's great. No, you're not going to break any world records for typing speeds, but that's not what it's for.

But all this ignores the software. I'm not a fan of Sugar, but I do see just how much it buys you from an educational perspective. If you wanted to get a kid to start learning to program, this computer is *ideal*. The programming activities are just begging for you to tinker, and the fact that it's all Python means that as you learn, you can start modifying the interface.

The basic activities draw in even very young children very quickly. My daughter at 2 liked hitting keys on the keyboard of the mac and the linux Thinkpad. She *loved* playing with the music activities, or even the simple text-to-speech program, on the XO. Sure, you could replicate the functionality on a netbook with linux. Unless you installed Sugar, however, you would have a *lot* of work to do to make it as inviting.

Again, I say this despite the fact that I don't like Sugar. IceWM and no journal trying to index 8 gig flash drives suits me fine. But to get kids seriously involved in computing, the software is as impressively put together as the hardware.

It's easy to say they should have sold them at $250 each. They thought they were going to get millions of orders from developing countries, and they didn't want to get distracted trying to serve the developed world. They didn't realize that Microsoft/Intel would undermine their efforts in the ways that they did. They were idealistic and focused and didn't foresee certain things. I'll cut them some slack, since their focus did result in something so beautifully engineered.

Bummer if they don't ship many millions of XOs, great that they showed what is possible in the neighborhood of $200-$300.

Even with the dropping prices of netbooks, I'd still say that an XO is worth $400. If your child would otherwise get a PS3, no question.