Qimo 2.0 Beta 1 now available (Updated)

Qimo-and-Illa-daylight-beta1
We are please to announce that the first beta release of Qimo 2.0 is now available for download via bittorrent.  This released includes all of our new Illa backgrounds, and packages pulled directly from the Ubuntu repositories.  For those of you currently running betas of Ubuntu 10.04, you can install the qimo-session package from Synaptic/Aptitiude to enjoy Qimo in your current installation.

As always, any bugs you encounter should be reported on Launchpad.

Update: The Big Reboot has created a direct download of the Beta 1 ISO, for those of you who can’t get it through Bittorrent.

Also, as requested, here is the MD5 and SHA1 hashes for the ISO:

MD5:  58cbc9866c5d3119072c375d292d0035

SHA1:  dd8552246901212dd6159adb91057ce4034a633c

Illa Desktop Theme

Illa_Desktop

The new Illa theme is being added to Qimo 2.0!  Designed for our new character Illa, this theme’s pink and purple color color scheme is a girl-friendly compliment to existing blue and white Qimo theme.   Look for the new theme and other improvements in the Qimo 2.0 Alpha 3 release due later this month.

Qimo Goes to The Addy Awards

Our Qimo artwork was entered by our graphic artist, Brian Hall, into the Polk County Addy Award Competition, a competition to determine the best marketing & design campaigns by local artists over the course of the past year.

 

We are pleased to announce that Qimo won 3 Gold Addy Awards, as well as one Benny Addy Award, signifing that the campaign won Best in Category as well.   The Qimo Campaign won a Gold Addy, the Qimo Logo won a Gold Addy, and the Qimo Illustration won a Gold Addy, as well as the Benny.  We are so proud, and so incredibly blessed to have such a talented artist and marketing design guru in our midst, and we owe a great debt of gratitute to Brian for doing all of our artwork.  

 

Three cheers for Brian Hall, and three cheers for Qimo!!

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The Eskimo has Landed

Alpha2Screenshot

Qimo just flew into LAX for the Southern California Linux Expo!  We will be giving out Qimo 1.0 CDs, as well as giving a sneak peak at the upcoming Qimo 2.0 on the conference room show floor, so if you’re in town come by and see us.

If you’re not in L.A. this weekend, you don’t have to miss out on all the fun!  We are making a pre-release version of Qimo 2.0 available via BitTorrent for testing by you intrepid explorers.

Update: Qimo 2.0 has been released and is available on our Download page!

Don’t forget to file a bug report if something isn’t working, so we can fix it in the final release.

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A look at what’s coming in Qimo 2.0

It’s been almost a year since Qimo 1.0 was released, and we’re hard at work again on the next version of our friendly Linux desktop for kids.  We will be using Ubuntu 10.04 as our foundation this time, so our final release is targetted for the end of April, 2010.  But in the mean time, here’s a look at what’s coming:

Illa-Sketch-Colored

Introducing Illa!

Qimo has a brand new friend, an adorable little polar bear girl named Illa (pronounced ee-lah, it is Inuit for “friend”).  Illa will be the focus of a whole new theme for girls, featuring shades of pink and purple, to match the boyish-blues of the existing Qimo theme.  She’s also sure to appear in a new set of Tux Paint stamps, so your little ones can create their own arctic artwork featuring our loveable pals.

Qimo Sessions

While we’re on the topic of new themes, Qimo 2.0 will not longer limit the theme to the “qimo” user account.  Instead a Qimo session will be selectable at the login screen, just like Gnome, KDE and XFCE are today. That means you can create individual accounts for each of your children, or start using the Qimo session with an existing user.

Packages

Finally, we will be making Ubuntu 10.04 compatible packages for all of Qimo, so you will be able to install it on top of an existing setup.  This should also allow us to make an alternate install CD this time around, so it will have even lower hardware requirements.

Follow us!

You can now keep up with what’s happening with Qimo through various social networking services.  Become a fan of the Qimo 4 Kids Facebook page, follow is on Twitter or Identi.ca.  We will once again be at the Southern California Linux Expo in February 19th, so look for our booth there!

A very special Thank You.

I wanted to take a moment, to thank all of you who came out for the
Florida Baptist Children's Home build-day. We had a very, very
successful day, and without all of you, our day would have been a
colossal failure.

First, thanks to Dr. Pharr, for her
wonderful babysitting services. She was, genuinely, the keystone for
the day. Without her, I would not have been able to be at the
build-day, let alone trying to coordinate.

The build-day is one
that I will carry with me for the rest of my years. We may have others,
but there will be nothing that will stay with me quite the way this one
will. It took my breath away, to look up and see what must have
amounted to 75 people, working away together, in rhythm and sync. Half
of the attendees were residents of the children's home, and I must say,
I was incredibly proud of the way the adult participants took the kids
under wing, and really mentored them through all of the stages of
computer repair and installation. I was so proud to see everyone
working together, doing their parts and pitching in. And, at the end of
the day, our numbers proved how strong we functioned as a team. We
processed a total of 47 computers.

There were moments, in
all of this, that took my breath away. I watched a 17 year old boy
teach an 11 year old girl how to take RAM out of a junk computer. I
listened in as a young college man taught a group of teen girls about
electrical circuits, and how computers read data as 1s and 0s. I
received several squeeze hugs, and thank yous, from kids who were
incredibly excited to know they would have a computer they could play
with.


All in all, the day was an incredible success, and
nothing I write here could adequately describe how thrilled I was, or
how proud I am, to call all of the participants friends. Thank you,
each and every one of you, for touching my heart, and helping us
accomplish this goal. Maybe, hopefully, we managed to change a child's
life for the better. That's all I can ask for.

Qimo 4 Kids Computer Build Day!

We'd like to invite everyone to join us May 23rd at 9am, for the first Qimo Computer Build Day!  We're hoping to build as many computers as possible!!  Please, bring your friends & relations, any spare parts you might have lying around, and your appetite, as we'll feed you, too.  If you'd be interested in joining us, and you're within driving distance to Central Florida, please email me at michelle@qimo4kids.com for more details and location.

 

Thanks!!