The last few days before leaving Ohio were full of nervous energy, excitement, and last-minute testing of the technology. On theWednesday before I left, I spent hours individually and on the phone with Tim trying to re-flash an XO-4 laptop so that it could play Khan Academy videos. I have to admit that it was quite frustrating and discouraging at times when our attempts continued to fail again and again, but we finally got it to work! Only then did Tim inform me that my XO-4 laptop was only the second in the entire WORLD to be able to play these KA videos, his being the first! This success gave me the extra confidence I needed before leaving and taught me that patience is key! Sometimes trial and error is the only way to achieve something great. After my success with the first laptop, I was able to re-flash the other three that I had with me with no problem. On Thursday, our last day in Ohio, my dad and I did a full test-run of the equipment, including the Internet-in-a-Box server, router, and modem. We even used my car battery to power the devices in my own garage. We encountered a few problems that truly put my dad's electrical engineering schooling to the test, but, with the help of Adam and Tim over the phone, we managed to solve the issues. I was very glad that we tested the equipment in Gahanna, Ohio because panicked phone calls are a luxury not as readily available in Ghana! After a couple hours of testing the voltage of different wires and switching up the connections, we finally got the server to work. Now we could only hope that our first official run would be a little smoother with our practice. We added the equipment to our packed suitcases, wrapping the more delicate servers in clothing and taking them in our carry-luggage, and early Friday morning we were off!
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