I came to it, like the virgin to the child (as we say in germany).

[15:02:55] amette_: where is the morcego source btw?
[15:03:06] batawata: for creating a new tab, for example, you make an object that extends tab
[15:03:20] batawata: there's one copy at tw cvs :-)
[15:03:30] batawata: but we use svn at arca.ime.usp.br
[15:03:41] batawata: want a developer account? :-)
[15:03:49] amette_: ok, thanks - didn't look that closely - just yesterday thought, it would be good to have a look :)
[15:03:56] amette_: hmm... why not!? ;)

morcego is the 3D-browser, that is e.g. used for browsing Tiki Wiki-pages in 3D and since lately also the freetags, see here. It's written in Java, developed in SVN and built using maven.

There's a lot of new stuff for me to learn! :)

I once wrote in a paper of mine, that the theory of scale-free networks will be important for the future understanding and development of Open Source. With morcego, we are getting nearer to this. batawata already implemented morcego browsing of the TikiWiki friendship network with a little workaround to get clumps resolved. This is some very fascinating material to work on! Surely it will take me a lot of time to get into morcego-coding, but I see big things coming at the horizon! :D

UPDATE: I added the mentioned paper to the file gallery. It's german sadly, but don't worry - it's scientifically crap! :P Never the less a short, fun read for in between. amette_HSIM_20030606.pdf

I have it working, yes - but only some programs can access it reliably. The little nice script I use for upload to this site doesn't work alwys... and that pisses me off. It seems to work with GnomeMeeting reliably (I just can't do calls with the FritzBox in between, but local capturing works well all the time). Other programs work, too - like for example 'camorama', but camorama again gives some veery bad picture. It all seems to boil down to my personal lack of understanding of the v4l2-system. I thought of getting a Labtec webcam - but now I hear, that it has problems with low lighting... :(
Webcams and Linux seem to be a pretty tricky subject...

Tiki Freetag Folksonomy Tagging (TFFT ;) ) is now a full-blown feature in 1.10 HEAD. It has pretty much everything, that it needs:

• feature
• perms
• Admin screen

On top of that you can really check out HEAD and use it - and even FreeTags is a stable feature. It's really different compared to the times, when I started with Tiki - back then HEAD was hell. An installation of it gave you already at least five errors on the homepage.

Thanks to batawata for bootstrapping folksonomy in Tiki (well, I did that - but he did the coding ;) )!

It's hard to guess, how long this took. Bata had an 18h session to get 3D-browsing etc. working, I today around 6h for making it a complete feature. Bata does a lot in between and he did the rewrite of the FreeTag-library. I think, we are around the 2-man-week-mark right now.
Not bad...

[00:05:59] batawata: I think issues like this object, search, wysiwyca, etc, need a tiki2 to be solved
[00:06:32] amette: or a rethinking of tiki-development model
[00:07:03] batawata: also. imo, tiki2 should start with a version 2 of philosophy
[00:07:16] amette: That definitely!
[00:07:22] batawata: technical stuff goes after
[00:07:44] batawata: maybe we should start thinking about this now, and talk about in trollparty
[00:08:13] batawata: we'll have mose and marc together there :-)
[00:08:20] amette: Luis says: "It was started like that, it stays like that!"; Linus says: "What users do, is never wrong!" - now you decide about the development that happened in those two projects!
[00:08:39] amette: Well, I don't know, if trollparty is a better place than tikiwiki! :P
[00:08:44] batawata: when did Luis say that?
[00:08:45] amette: They are both here, too! :)
[00:09:02] mose: what luis said that ?
[00:09:05] amette: Well, ok - sorry! To make it clear! He DIDN'T say it like that!!!!!!!! 
[00:09:10] batawata: yes, that's true, but face-to-face makes a big difference
[00:09:40] amette: It was just a short-sum-up of e.g. the bitweaver-incident - to get it into one line!
[00:09:45] mose: oh, again the tiki2 syndroma, I see
[00:09:50] batawata will ask luis personally why all these and why the tikipro fork
[00:09:56] batawata: hehe
[00:10:00] amette: :)
[00:10:09] batawata: not syndroma, just thoughts :-)
[00:10:17] mose: recurrent thoughts
[00:10:35] mose: but like some other topics, no answer come from the talking
[00:11:07] batawata: well, we grow from thoughts, and more thoughts help to reach an answer :-)
[00:11:22] mose: no. in our cae only code is an answer
[00:11:42] mose: we can talk and agree on whatever about tiki2, what counts is effective coding
[00:12:00] mose: we don't talk before doing, but after
[00:12:09] batawata: yes, but we also must have talk before code, otherwise it gets like damian's tiki2
[00:12:14] mose: so, anyone can do a tiki2 and propose it
[00:12:30] mose: tikipro also was candidate to become tiki2
[00:12:56] mose: tiki2 from damian have been aborted more or less
[00:13:00] batawata: isn't it anymore?
[00:13:07] mose: no it's not anymore
[00:13:18] batawata: why's that?
[00:13:23] mose: because they choosed to disregard compatibility with tiki
[00:13:33] batawata: ah, ok
[00:13:50] mose: for design reasons that can be considered as decently serious
[00:14:36] batawata: serious design issues with tiki?
[00:16:17] mose: not exactly in tiki, but in what they wanted to make with tiki
[00:17:11] mose: anyway now the tikipro fork is another software, not a fork anymore
[00:17:22] batawata: yes
[00:18:09] batawata: but I also wonder if we also need version 2 of three rules
[00:23:07] oc_trebleganger [n=OmniColo@2907.artic.edu] hat IRC verlassen: Read error: 110 (Connection timed out)
[00:23:44] amette: Well, it's a more basal underlying question, if we need v2 of 3rules....
[00:24:04] amette: ... if you see Tiki as a software, that has had it's time at some point - we surely _don't_
[00:24:25] amette: ... but if you want Tiki to evolve and still live in ten years - we surely _do_
[00:24:32] amette: I would love to hear Luis on that
[00:24:41] amette: I would like to know, how he sees Tiki.....
[00:24:47] mose: I hope in 10 years we'll have something in more than http for sharing data
[00:25:44] mose: tiki goal is not eternity
[00:25:51] amette: well, we have already - and nothing stops us from integrating other protocols into tiki, but the 3rules somehow
[00:26:11] amette: Tiki-community is no real _learning organization_ in the real meaning!
[00:26:13] mose: the 3rules is a consensual point
[00:26:18] mose: would be hard to question it
[00:26:23] amette: That's some interesting discovery actually!
[00:26:44] mose: the tiki community goal is not to educate coders
[00:26:45] amette: Because FLOSS is more or less in a wider sense about learning!
[00:26:53] mose: but to maintain and evolve a software
[00:26:56] amette: I don't say that
[00:27:13] mose: learning is a personal individual duty but can't be enforced
[00:27:19] amette: Ah, yes, maintain, right - but evolve.... 
[00:27:31] amette: learning isn't personal - learning can be organisational
[00:27:41] mose: not with adult people
[00:27:53] amette: Yes, or what do you think is CVS?
[00:28:06] mose: it's an old shit, we shoul d use svn ;)
[00:28:22] mose: and it's not a learning tool
[00:28:29] amette: Yes, we should - but it wouldn't change the general principle of organisational learning!
[00:28:37] mose: it's a common facility
[00:28:52] amette: organisational learning is any change of the knowledge base of a organisation
[00:28:58] amette: you say, that our base is the code
[00:29:04] amette: I say - we learn by CVS
[00:29:11] amette: doc.tw.o is minor
[00:29:26] mose: you individually learn by cvs
[00:29:33] amette: yes, that, too - of course
[00:29:33] mose: many others use other means
[00:29:47] amette: Tiki learns bottom up mostly!
[00:29:54] amette: Individual users/devel learn!
[00:30:00] amette: And from that the whole organisation learns!
[00:30:06] mose: they do each one his stuff
[00:30:14] amette: That's natural due to the open nature of Tiki community
[00:30:15] mose: it cannot be taken as a whole
[00:30:33] mose: it cannot be something we sync on it
[00:30:36] amette: Well, the product "Tiki" is the manifestation of us everybody learning
[00:30:43] mose: because it's too various depending the people
[00:30:45] amette: No, we don't sync - we collaborate
[00:31:18] amette: Yes, we are the next generation of learning organisations! We are a science matter, that hasn't been looked at enough, yet!
[00:31:21] mose: I don't follow the goal of your claim actually 
[00:31:46] mose: we are not an organisation
[00:31:56] mose: how could we be a learning one ?
[00:32:06] amette: Why do we then claim to be an "Open Organization"?
[00:32:21] mose: we are not an organisation, even if you add the word 'open'
[00:32:31] mose: we don't openly manage any governance system
[00:32:36] mose: we use raw consensus
[00:32:45] luciash: we ?
[00:32:48] luciash: claim ?
[00:32:48] amette: Yes, exactly - organization doesn't mean governance!
[00:32:50] luciash: :)
[00:33:08] mose: I refered to the document about open organization in tw?o because hopped it could give ideas
[00:33:12] mose: but it didn't stick
[00:33:14] batawata: what would be the goal of tiki community?
[00:33:18] amette: A group becomes an organisation by explicating rules and codifying them to agree to act by them....
[00:33:24] amette: .... are we an organisation?
[00:34:07] mose: I don't want to be in any organisation more than legally required
[00:34:29] amette: well, I stick to those rules - but it's hard, you're right, because other people don't know/follow them... you run into emptyness, when believing those rules too much
[00:34:46] amette: ok, then you can agree on my definition of organisation
[00:34:48] mose: the goal of the tikiwiki community is the sum (or the overall result) of the uindividual goals of tiki users and (more visibly) coders
[00:35:00] amette: organised by 3rules
[00:35:14] mose: yes, rules are reduced to the maximum reduction possible
[00:35:22] mose: onelined
[00:35:27] amette: yup, yup
[00:35:34] mose: on that we can stick
[00:35:44] batawata just read big log
[00:35:58] amette: yes, exactly - and that's the thing - those rules make us an organisation
[00:36:10] amette: don't prejudice - it's nothing pyramidal - it's nothing bad
[00:36:13] amette: it's just a fact
[00:36:17] amette: organisation is no bad word
[00:36:26] mose: good
[00:36:28] amette: and to drop that organisation thingy
[00:36:32] batawata: learning can't be enforced, but we can have a learning environment in software development process with no enforcement
[00:36:44] mose: do it :)
[00:36:53] amette: those 3rules forbid this 'organisation' to unlearn
[00:36:54] batawata: organization is similar to organism, it might be good :-)
[00:36:57] mose: building a learning environment is work
[00:37:09] batawata: yes, it is work
[00:37:15] amette: oh, batawata - we have a learning environment - and one of the best actually!! That's one of the reasons I joined here!!
[00:37:19] luciash: batawata: these are the goals: http://doc.tikiwiki.org/tiki-index.php?page_ref_id=2717 :p
[00:37:21] H0ney: Title: TikiWiki Documentation : d.tw.o : Cíle (at doc.tikiwiki.org)
[00:37:33] amette: But this environment has one problem: It doesn't allow collective unlearning!
[00:37:41] amette: &whatis 3rules
[00:37:41] H0ney: amette: '3rules' could be (#1) the ruleset of Tikiwiki development : 1/ preserve environement 2/ commit early, commit often 3/ make it optional, or (#2) http://tikiwiki.org/3Rules
[00:37:54] amette: 1/ preserve environement 
[00:37:56] mose: the learning is an effeect of tikiwiki community, not a cause
[00:38:08] amette: we don't kill code - we can't unlearn
[00:38:09] amette: that easy
[00:38:23] amette: unlearning is necessary for learning new things
[00:38:30] amette: or do you still burn witches?
[00:38:35] batawata: I do have the learning as a cause in someway, because that's the way for software evolving
[00:39:00] batawata: and also the learning as a greater cause but that's personal :-)
[00:39:36] aholmes [n=Aria@toronto-HSE-ppp4268991.sympatico.ca] hat IRC verlassen: Connection timed out
[00:39:58] luciash: well, that was in czech ;-p here's better link: http://doc.tikiwiki.org/tiki-index.php?page=Goals
[00:40:01] mose wonders what witches he's burning
[00:40:02] H0ney: Title: TikiWiki Documentation : d.tw.o : Goals (at doc.tikiwiki.org)
[00:40:51] amette: well, here in germany we burnt witches during medieval times - I guess you did, too
[00:41:05] hotte [i=auftrags@dslb-084-057-012-049.pools.arcor-ip.net] hat IRC verlassen: Connection timed out
[00:41:57] mose: witches hunt refers also to more recent macartism in usa
[00:42:33] mose: but I don't feel I'm in that type of position
[00:42:35] amette: If we wouldn't have un-learned to burn witches - we couldn't today have women as neighbours, who have black cats! That's the essence of organisational unlearning!
[00:42:57] amette: And I have a neighbour with a black cat - and she's nice! :)
[00:43:22] mose: racism about cats is long time gone :)
[00:43:31] mose: but it still persists about human beings
[00:43:35] amette: Yes, because it was unlearned! :)
[00:43:51] mose: is racism a knowledge you have to learn ?
[00:43:56] amette: Yes, it is!
[00:44:07] amette: At least I don't believe, that you have it by nature!
[00:44:11] mose: maybe I'm confused by your use of the word 'learn' as I am by your word 'organisation'
[00:44:31] mose: fear of the unknown is inate
[00:44:32] amette: If you grew up in Southern Africa twenty years ago - you surely had another thinking about racism as here in europe
[00:45:00] amette: Well, as I said: "Organisational learning is _ANY_ change of organisational knowledge base!"
[00:45:08] amette: So, if someone commits to CVS - that's learning!
[00:45:21] amette: If someone says something here on IRC - that's learning!
[00:45:41] mose: okay okay. now can you please say clearly what is your statement ?
[00:45:54] mose: what is link to tiki2 ?
[00:45:56] amette: If no-one reads it, then for that person him/herself (it perhaps triggers new thoughts) - if someone reads it, yes, it triggers defnitely new thoughts
[00:46:01] mose: and with 3rules ?
[00:46:08] amette: ok, kewl, good.....
[00:46:34] mose: in short : what is wrong ?
[00:47:07] amette: Ah, even better! Ok, wrong is: 3rules don't allow organisational unlearning - so it is no sustainable development environment - full stop
[00:47:23] mose: what can you propose to enhance it ?
[00:47:39] mose: I don't really see what you refer to, but you probably have a fix ?
[00:47:56] amette: What I can propose without breaking 3rules would be: refactor _extremely_!!
[00:48:05] mose: try it
[00:48:13] mose: then we knwow what we takl about
[00:48:34] mose: nothing is holy, except shit when it happens
[00:48:57] amette: Another possibility is to create an interpretation of "preserve environment", that allows 'code-unlearning' - but that's tricky - and philosophically questionable!
[00:49:37] mose: would people not wishing to learn be excluded ?
[00:50:03] mose: what is the central opinion that people should learn ? who specifies it ?
[00:50:06] amette: No, people not wishing to learn, learn anyways - they can't do anything against it as long as they are part of the community!
[00:50:21] mose: so why do we need a rule if it's done naturaly ?
[00:51:04] amette: Well, you can argue about that rule....
[00:51:18] amette: ... I can't say why Luis created it (did he create it?)
[00:51:29] mose: no
[00:51:33] mose: he did create the code
[00:51:36] mose: I did create the rules
[00:51:52] mose: and I can tell you why if you want
[00:51:55] amette: ... but generally in such an environment you need rules to make people work towards one goal
[00:52:04] amette: yes, please
[00:52:30] mose: I created the 3 rules to be able to shortly inform new members about some key principles
[00:52:48] mose: quickly and linking it to the free software culture
[00:53:02] mose: by the reference to te second rule
[00:53:13] mose: actually at the begninning there was only 2
[00:53:22] mose: I added the 3rd after some practice
[00:53:25] amette: Yup, make people work towards one goal - how abstract it might ever be!
[00:53:37] amette: Ah - I always wondered - because the 3rd is redundant! :)
[00:53:42] mose: then as I was the main active recruiter, that online became a 'rule'
[00:54:01] mose: I added the 3rd one because people didn't see it clearly as a consequence of the forst
[00:54:12] amette: Yes, I can believe that
[00:54:28] mose: so the rules are not the prduct of a common reflexion
[00:54:40] mose: it's my own personnal habit that became sortof appropriated
[00:55:11] amette: And they are very good! It took me almost a year to find the 'weak' point in them!
[00:55:27] amette: Really excellent rules are made by 'common reflexion' as you said!
[00:55:44] amette: Our 3rules are excellent, too - but for a certain cause.... ;)
[00:56:13] amette: ... they are not for an evolving software, that has the potential ability to last forever.
[00:56:40] mose: the 'forever' word is not in my vocabulary
[00:56:57] mose: I don't think tiki is eternal
[00:57:05] amette: killer-phrases slip easily of you this evening
[00:57:20] mose: I'm not sure it can evolve the way you say io the setting of its community
[00:57:25] mose: that's what I mean
[00:57:48] amette: Well, I can't have a 'solution' (if that's ever looked for)...
[00:58:08] amette: ... I just can say, what's the situation... and I can say, what could be different - and what potential that could have...
[00:58:26] amette: .. I have thought a lot about that (also as a talk at trollparty ;) )....
[00:58:49] mose: without real proposal it sounds like 'imagine if the sky was green'
[00:58:50] amette: ... so, we can discuss that a lot - it's just the question: "How easily can 3rules be changed?"
[00:59:26] amette: Well, I'm not the guy to "really propose" - I'm the guy to tell stuff and ask people for opinions - I'm the guy to trigger conversations...
[00:59:40] amette: .. I'm the guy to trigger meta-evolution ;)
[00:59:57] amette: I believe in the community doing decisions!
[01:00:01] mose: trigger ok, but you need powder and a bullet as well
[01:00:17] mose: cmomunity don't do decision
[01:00:22] mose: that's my point
[01:00:35] mose: individual do decision, not the community
[01:00:42] mose: the community tried
[01:00:48] mose: but faileed
[01:00:52] mose: in many occasions
[01:00:57] loick [n=loick@APuteaux-151-1-74-135.w83-204.abo.wanadoo.fr] hat IRC verlassen: "Trillian (http://www.ceruleanstudios.com"
[01:01:00] mose: to take decision before action
[01:01:02] amette: Well, the bullet is: "Rule 1 kills!" - powder is: "Any CVS commmit that projects rule 1 further towards Tiki-stagnation."
[01:01:44] amette: Of course - individuals do decisions! But a community is a bunch of individuals!
[01:01:44] mose: I think that tiki won't eveolve without a rewriting
[01:01:55] mose: in the way you talk about evolution
[01:02:17] mose: and rewriting is not possible collectively
[01:02:20] amette: Well, Tiki could evolve - why node - code is life - you think that way as well as me - life can evolve
[01:02:30] amette: s/node/not
[01:02:45] mose: it's an author work that requires a consistency than a group can't achieve before years of mutual experience in a very productive context
[01:02:58] luciash: imho in tiki everything was evolved just by commiting individual code and acccepting it by others
[01:03:02] mose: and it's not exactly what our ground is
[01:03:23] amette: luciash is right - we have just a bunch of individual code working together!
[01:03:31] luciash: that's the way how tikiwiki works
[01:03:34] amette: And that's fascinating - that's why I love tiki!
[01:03:44] mose: yup, and each one has his own perosnaly reasons
[01:04:06] amette: I just dislike, that we only can add - that we have a metal-ball at our legs, that keeps us from running...
[01:04:21] mose: true, there is inertia
[01:04:30] superniemand [n=supernie@DSL01.212.114.235.25.NEFkom.net] hat IRC verlassen: "Quit und weg"
[01:04:30] mose: because the environment is big
[01:04:35] amette: ... real evolution can only happen, when stuff dies - sad, but true
[01:04:43] mose: exact
[01:04:51] mose: death is in the cycle of life
[01:04:53] amette: and rule1 prohibits stuff from dying
[01:05:06] mose: under the present shape, yes
[01:05:14] mose: it's why people invest in it
[01:05:19] luciash: you can change too but without breaking compatibility
[01:05:35] amette: so - conclusion of my tiki-talk: Three rules are made to make Tiki a software that has a certain lifespan and dies after that!
[01:05:44] mose: yes
[01:05:48] mose: indeed
[01:05:53] amette: :)
[01:06:01] mose: and it's not secret
[01:06:12] amette: no, but it's not official either ;)
[01:06:16] mose: the death step will be crucial
[01:06:27] mose: nothing is offical :)
[01:06:38] mose: we have no delegation system
[01:06:52] amette would rather like to see _real_ evolution - in which Tiki fights and starves for living instead of being in a cage doomed to die
[01:07:07] mose: it's not in a cage
[01:07:07] luciash: imho the death will come after 1.10 will be released (if ever) ;)
[01:07:30] mose: luciash : that's fairly possible
[01:07:42] damian: Interesting communications :)
[01:07:45] mose: but not certain
[01:07:49] amette: It's in the cage of 'not-unlearning'..
[01:07:54] amette: .. it's not completely free
[01:07:58] luciash: sure it's not certain
[01:08:05] mose: it has a defined context
[01:08:18] amette: aaah - walking on the edge
[01:08:39] amette: A defined context is: "Web-application"
[01:08:52] mose: used by tousands of people already
[01:08:58] amette: doesn't matter
[01:09:06] mose: that don't want to change software each year
[01:09:29] mose: and as they have some garantee about environemental respect with the ruleset, they involve in it
[01:09:30] amette: They don't have to
[01:09:43] amette: Well, that is true - yes!!
[01:09:49] luciash: but on the other side: i've seen the 3rules as a try to keep that monster living as long as possible
[01:09:56] mose: as the users are a part of the environment
[01:10:37] mose: the goal in tikiwiki community was to open it the more widely possible
[01:10:58] amette: Yes, and that goal was very much reached - in a developer context!
[01:11:13] amette: It's hard for me to speak about users - if not impossible!
[01:11:13] mose: my interest in tiki is in the community, the code is crap
[01:11:26] mose: I never coded something like tiki is coded
[01:11:32] amette: Tiki is really widely used - but people often stick with 1.6 installations and the like... so...
[01:11:45] mose: no that's false
[01:11:53] mose: I had stats on that
[01:12:21] mose looks for them
[01:12:34] damian: being honest the code in 1.9 and the upcoming 1.10 is total cow splats compared to 1.8 and 1.7
[01:12:51] damian: some of the more recent commits really have no sense to them
[01:13:15] damian: its why Im so bored of fighting for tiki's life in some respects
[01:13:35] amette: hmmm......
[01:14:22] oc_trebleganger [n=OmniColo@2907.artic.edu] hat #tikiwiki betreten
[01:14:24] amette has a smoke break - brb
[01:14:44] damian: the biggest issue I have is people making big changes to big libraries and huge areas of code, when they dont actually have a tikiwiki site (dev sites are not counted, they are just local playgrounds)
[01:15:25] damian: people need to use Tiki, to understand it, to be able to code within it
[01:15:35] mose: http://sec.tikiwiki.org/watch/version_stats_20050307.txt
[01:19:57] luciash [n=luciash@tikiwiki/luciash] hat IRC verlassen: Read error: 104 (Connection reset by peer)
[01:21:56] Deben [n=chatzill@140.142.198.82] hat #tikiwiki betreten
[01:23:10] amette: Those stats would be interesting for the current time - they fall into a certain whole - where 1.9 wasn't really really released - but it's good to see, that 1.6 was pretty abandoned then
[01:23:18] amette: s/whole/hole
[01:23:50] luci: yup
[01:27:21] amette thinks, that TikiWiki-community is a development-model, that has earned a place in scientific (mostly social-sciencies) studies - and additionally: two years is a huge timeframe to learn from it!
[01:28:11] luci: your studies ? ;)
[01:28:19] amette: batawata has had some very similar thoughts than me.... it would be interesting to implement deutero-learning (learningn to learn better) into that social concept, that Tiki is
[01:28:35] amette: Well, yes, luci, I have been thinking about that! :)

The day before yesterday 1630 cet
My girlfriend is shocked, her laptop lost the "T"-key. It was broken out and a little stud was broken away from the key. "Püppi, be cool, I'll call IBM!"

amette: "Hello..." explains what happened.
woman: "Oh, damnit!"
amette: "Can we get another T ?"
woman: "No, we don't have spare keys. But we can send you a spare keyboard! Do you have the serial number?"
amette: "Yes, of course." Tells serial number
woman: "Ok, that laptop is now more than a year old, we need the invoice to make that as guarantee. You send it by mail or by fax?"
amette: "Fax, my scanner is broken."
woman: "Ok" Tells fax-number "So, have a nice day!"
amette: "Wait! Do you need the old keyboard back?"
woman (with a voice like she doesn't understand, what amette wants): "Ehm, no - that you can throw away yourself."
amette: "Ok, great, thanks - bye!"

amette puts in the T-key so that the keyboard can be used again. His girlfriends doesn't use it though and uses an external keyboard to be sure.
Sending the fax becomes a real pain with our new communication hardware and takes almost an hour. Three(!) minutes after getting out the fax, I have an email in my mailbox from IBM confirming the issue.

Today 1200 cet - amette is still in bed
The doorbell rings. amette's flatsharer opens the door. "There's a packet for amette!" Flatsharer gets the packet - it's from IBM. Püppi replaces the keyboard all by herself - and is sooo happy, you won't believe! ;)

So: Do I have to tell the other extreme? With Acer-laptops, that you have to bring to the electronics-store, where you bought them? And you may do that three times? And they don't get it repaired? - No, I don't think so! ;)