Give me Freedom ...To trust a Nigerian
After getting tired of the cat and mouse game i had to go through to get my ipod touch to play well with my Ubuntu .. i finally gave up sold it and ordered the Nokia N810. The iTouch by its self is a cool device. I had no problem with it. But I run basically A free Operating system which the iTouch was not build to support. Although I could get it to sync with Amarok and Gtkpod with the help of jailbreak and some special hacks it wasn’t ideal and I would have to be within a wireless network for the hack to work. Add that to the guilty conscience that comes with using the most proprietary device ever made by man. i never had this feeling of community and ownership I get with my Ubuntu box. And although I could use it relatively without the risk of been locked in a proprietary system like Mac or Windows. i was not completely free because if my iTouch firmware got corrupted then I would need to reload using iTunes running on Windows or Mac.
Selling the ipod proofed to be the easy part . I posted the specs in Nairaland (a large on-line communities of Nigerians) and got a buyer in no time . However getting a replacement for it wasn’t so easy. I settled for the Nokia N810 .my choice wasn’t hard it does just about everything the itouch does plus its runs on a free OS and runs Maemo a port of Debian for Mobile device what else could I ask for. Now the hard part .getting hold of the Tablet . I tried searching the length and breath of Nigeria. Called every Nokia store, all the back street of Computer Village ( a huge open market were computers devices are sold in Lagos). Nothing . There was no chance in hell for me to order one on-line . Everything on-line transaction by a Nigerian in Nigeria is banned for reasons we all know .so I didn’t even try. Just when I was about giving up hope . I met a Nigerian based in Canada who promised to help me buy the tablet for a fee and ship it down to Nigeria. Hmmm sound like a scam to me .. only that there was something about this guy that was different . I couldn’t place it but I didnt have any problem trusting him . Sent $460 to his account cost of Device + a pouch + an 8gb micro sd card plus shipping. It was a stupid thing to do I know ..i broke the eternal rule (trusting a stranger on the net and not just any stranger a Nigerian ) and I was going to get burnt. Has if this was not bad enough I also ordered for the dell xps m1330 with Ubuntu pre-installed and paid over $1541 to his account for the dell notebook and a couple of accessories . Right now am keeping my fingers crossed and in two weeks time we shall know whether my extreme attempt to support free and open source software has blocked my sense of reason. I could easily get a dell m1330 running vista from a local store here and easily load Ubuntu on it . But for the first time I want to vote with my pocket and support a hardware company that support Linux . Even if I risk being duped . If in the end am scammed of over $2000. would it be worth the effort .. I guess we shall know in two weeks time .