We’ve been told that Category 5 TV, an online technology show, will be featuring Qimo on tonight’s episode.  Tune in at 7pm Eastern to watch it live, or any time after on their website.

(Update: The recording of the live shows is available for viewing here: http://www.category5.tv/episodes/224.php)

And even if that weren’t enough reason to recommend ZaReason, this Invenire itself is a great machine. It may not look like it was designed for kids, but trust me on this one, it will get their attention and their interest.  The transparent, illuminated window invites questions about what the different pieces are and how they work, sparking a desire to learn and explore that is so very fitting for a Qimo desktop.

Enough talk, let’s see some pictures!

It arrives!

I’m glad that the box was marked “Fragile” in multiple places, our UPS delivery guy has a tendency to launch packages from halfway down the driveway to our doorstep.

Securely packaged inside the outer box appears to be the original case manufacturer’s box.  Given how widely known and talked about ZaReason is, it’s sometimes easy to forget that they’re a small business who painstakingly assemble these machines by hand here in the USA.

ZaReason sent instructions as well as the initial username and password for signing in to Qimo.  I particularly liked the first trouble-shooting step: “Try to figure it out.  The more you play with your system, the more you know about it”.  That pretty much sums up how we want kids to approach Qimo too.

This was my first “wow” moment.  I somehow forgot that the Invenire 1220 has a transparent window on the side.  And not a little one either.

Did I mention it has a big transparent window?  I think I did, but I just can’t stop looking at it.  The irregular shape seems to add to it’s intrigue.

Oh, and it lights up too.  There is a blue LED bar hiding just below the bottom edge of the window.  A switch on the back turns it on and off, and there a button that cycles it through various blinking patterns.  It’s certainly an attention grabber, especially for those under 10.

And it’s not just a gimmick.  My kids were immediately drawn to the window and started asking me what all the components were.  I spent about 10 minutes explaining what everything did and how they worked together, before we even got around to playing with Qimo.

Ready… Set… Go!

This machine has more than just good looks, it’s blazing fast too.  Qimo booted up to the login screen in 20 seconds flat.  And that’s good, because if there’s one thing kids aren’t, it’s patient.

All of the games started fast, ran flawlessly and sounded great.  Everything just worked, out of the box, the way it should be.  I won’t go into all of Qimo’s games or post a bunch of screenshots, because this review is about the machine itself.  Suffice it to say, though, that this is pretty much the Qimo experience I want other people to have.

There isn’t much more to say, except: Thanks ZaReason!  Thanks not only for lending us this terrific machine to play with for a few days, but thanks also for taking the time to evaluate Qimo, for making sure that it runs perfectly on this hardware, for building a quality, affordable machine, and for just being an awesome company.

Not that the Invenire 1220 is a lightweight when it comes to hardware, it sports a 1.8 GHz processor, a full gigabyte of memory, and a whopping 500GB hard drive.  It’ll take an awful lot of TuxPaint drawing to fill that much space.

For inventors, explorers and all those who love to discover, we built a desktop that gives you a glimpse into the beautiful guts of your machine. Peek through the clear plastic side to see what makes this computer run.

Designed for students of all ages, this desktop is packed with features specific to learning. While many distros run on this machine, if it is being purchased for a younger student we highly recommend that you select Qimo. It features large icons and easy-to-use menus so children can easily learn to navigate on their own. Qimo is useable by children as young as three years, but it remains engaging and versatile for older children as well. If purchasing for an older student or teen, feel free to select Ubuntu or another sophisticated distro.

We’re doubly excited because ZaReason is loaning us one to evaluate ourselves!  Expect a thorough write-up with plenty of pictures once it gets here.

But the time has come to move onto our own servers (or more precisely, instances on Amazon’s EC2 cloud service), and with that we are moving from a Windows web server running Dot Net Nuke to an Ubuntu 10.10 Server running WordPress.  We appreciate your patience with any difficulties that come up because of this move, and we hope to finish the transition as quickly and smoothly as possible.

How are you using Qimo?  Drop us an email and let us know! 

Elder Project – The Pikangikum Experience

ELDER Project in Poplar Hill

We were first approached by Linucity.com after Scale 8x, and they immediately started offering both a desktop and laptop customized with Qimo at an affordable price.  

Just last month we also added Homebuilt PC to our list of vendors, they also offer both a desktop and a netbook running Qimo.

We plan on adding more vendors to our lineup in the near future, so keep an eye out for updates.  If you are are a vendor and are interested in offering Qimo on your own line of PCs, send us an email at info@qimo4kids.com.

You can find links to these PC vendors, as well as links to purchase printed Qimo CDs and apparel at our Shop Qimo page.

After much hard work, and some delay, we are pleased to bring your the second version of our popular Linux Desktop for Kids!

Special Thanks

First off, I'd like to thank Brian Hall for once again providing the amazing artwork that makes Qimo so special and appealing to children of all ages.  I would also like to thank Jonathan Carter for patiently helping me learn how to create Ubuntu packages and get them uploaded into the official repositories (more on that below).

What's New

We have introduced a new character to Qimo, her name is Illa, a cute and cuddly little polar bear.  Illa (pronounced 'ee-la') is an Inuit word that means "friend", and we know she'll find her way into the hearts of your kids.  She also has her own wallpaper featuring the artic landscape at dusk, filled with hues of pink and purple with the Auroa Borealis shining in the sky.  Choose from a variety of Qimo and Illa wallpapers to find the one that is just right for your child.

Have more than one child?  With Qimo 2, they can each have their own user account!  The Xubuntu session is still there too, so you can create an account for yourself as well.

If you are already running Ubuntu 10.04, there's no need do a fresh install to get Qimo.  Now you can add the qimo-session package from the Universe repository using Apt-get or Synaptic and you'll get all of the games, artwork, and desktop session installed.

We have had one game change in version 2.  Replacing eToys on the launcher is Laby, a very simple and easy game that will teach even the youngest aspiring programmer all the basics.  Tested on an actual 5 year old, Laby has proven to be a very approachable and effective teaching tool that we hope will inspire a new generation of software developers.

Download

Our direct download mirrors are busy updating to the new release.  If you can't get through to one of them, you can download it via Bittorrent.  Our Download and Shop pages will be updated as we hear from our partners.

Torrent: http://www.quinncoincorporated.org/qimo-2.0-desktop.iso.torrent

MD5: fcc629f107e8ca8766b15bc6e5c32e5c

SHA1: 3e328b74b2eb9fcc179b2fa93afeccea55b59ca6

Direct downloads are available on our Download page!

Press

We have produced a collection of screenshots from Qimo 2.0, including the desktop, installation process, and each of the included games.  Feel free to use these images when talking about our new release. Please contact info@qimo4kids.com for additional information or comments.

screenshot_tour.zip (5.19 mb)

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