Brian Jepson’s Weblog

VladS,
writing in alt.cellular.gsm.carriers.voicestream, has an explanation
and suggested solutions for people encountering trouble with T-Mobile’s
GPRS service.

Dashboard looks pretty cool.
I managed to get it up and running on Mandrake 9.1 by installing mono 0.26 and gtksharp 0.10 from source,
and then installing the latest
Ximian Evolution (so I could get libgtkhtml 3.0.2, which Dashboard
depends on). Once I had those pieces in place, these
instructions for getting dashboard up and running worked for me.

After reading the README that comes with Dashboard, I also installed sqlite and made sure I
had the the SQL Lite Data
Provider (it’s included with the mono-0.26 release, and you should
be able to find it in
/usr/local/lib/Mono.Data.SqliteClient.dll) sqlite is needed to create
the full-text index, which probably won’t be all that meaningful until
I’ve lived in this Linux installation a little bit longer, so I copied a
bunch of .txt files into ~/Documents and ran these commands (this
assumes the dashboard source lives in ~/src):

mkdir -p ~/.dashboard/backend-data/text-index/sources
cd ~/src/dashboard/index
make
mono text-indexer.exe -i `find ~/Documents -iname "*.txt"`

Finally, I launched dashboard and ran this modified version
of the clue script as root, which sniffs all my Google queries (using ngrep) and hrefs
inside web documents and sends the data as clue packets to dashboard.

Geekzone:
“It came to my attention while approving submitted links the existence
of two Linux Bluetooth stacks.”

I signed up with MightyPhone today
because no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t get iCal
and my 3650 to play well together (well, it worked once and then it crapped
out after that). MightyPhone is a web-based application that lets you enter
contacts, appointments, and todo items using a web browser, and then you sync
over the network using SyncML. To use it, you’ll need to download Nokia’s SyncML app.
After you install this app, don’t bother setting up a profile; MightyPhone will
send your phone a couple of SMS messages that help automate the configuration,
and their web site will walk you through the setup when you sign up for a trial
account.

All in all, MightyPhone looks like a cool service. I really like the idea of my
calendar being decoupled from any particular machine I own. If it proves to be
reliable and doesn’t have any nasty bugs that bite me, I’ll probably stick with
it.

These are the notes I took to get this working today. I’ll update it if I
learn anything new, because as with everything, there’s probably an easier way
to do this. I’m using a Thinkpad A20m, Mandrake 9.1, a Socket Bluetooth card in
a PCMCIA caddy, and a Nokia 3650 with service from T-Mobile. A big thanks to Schuyler Erle who steered me in
the right direction on this!

Before you do anything, check out Tom’s attempts to
get GPRS working over bluetooth with his laptop to get to a point where the
scripts in this entry will be useful. In particular, be sure to set up
/etc/bluetooth/bluepin as directed in that article. Next, edit your
/etc/bluetooth/rfcomm.conf as shown here:

rfcomm0 {
  # Automatically bind the device at startup
  bind yes;

  # Bluetooth address of the device
  device YOURDEVICE;

  # RFCOMM channel for the connection
  channel 1;

  # Description of the connection
  comment "Nokia 3650 GPRS Modem";
}

Be sure to replace YOURDEVICE with your phone’s bluetooth
ID (something like 00:11:22:33:44:55). Use the command sdptool search
DUN to figure out that device’s number. Then, add this command to one of your startup scripts:

rfcomm bind rfcomm0

Now, set up an /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/chat-ppp0 script
with the following:

  TIMEOUT         5
  ECHO            ON
  ABORT           '\nBUSY\r'
  ABORT           '\nERROR\r'
  ABORT           '\nNO ANSWER\r'
  ABORT           '\nNO CARRIER\r'
  ABORT           '\nNO DIALTONE\r'
  ABORT           '\nRINGING\r\n\r\nRINGING\r'
  ''              \rAT
  TIMEOUT         12
  OK              ATE1
  OK              'AT+cgdcont=1,"IP","internet3.voicestream.com"'
  OK              ATD*99***1#

and set up a /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-ppp0 script
with (this is based on something I found here:

  DEVICE=ppp0
  CHATSCRIPT=/etc/ppp/chat-gprs
  ONBOOT=no
  MODEMPORT=/dev/rfcomm0
  LINESPEED=57600
  AUTH=no
  DEBUG=yes
  DEFROUTE=yes
  PERSIST=no
  HOLDOFF=10
  DEMAND=no
  PHONE='*99***1#'
  HARDFLOWCTL=no
  PEERDNS=yes
  MRU=1500
  MTU=1500
  RETRYCONNECT=yes

You can then fire up the connection with
/etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifup ppp0 For reasons I haven’t
been able to figure out, it takes three tries to get it working. The first
time, you’ll see this in /var/log/messages:

  ...
  Aug 14 08:04:53 camfrancium chat[2989]: Failed ( NO CARRIER^M)
  Aug 14 08:04:53 camfrancium pppd[2971]: Connect script failed
  Aug 14 08:04:54 camfrancium pppd[2971]: Exit.

the second time, you may see this:

  ...
  Aug 14 08:05:12 camfrancium pppd[3017]: Serial line is looped back.
  Aug 14 08:05:12 camfrancium pppd[3017]: Connection terminated.
  Aug 14 08:05:13 camfrancium pppd[3017]: Exit.

and finally, you’ll see this (success):

  ...
  Aug 14 08:05:22 camfrancium pppd[3077]: primary   DNS address 216.155.175.170
  Aug 14 08:05:22 camfrancium pppd[3077]: secondary DNS address 216.155.175.171

So, in theory, all you need to do to make the connection is:

  # rfcomm bind rfcomm0     #(only once until you reboot again)
  # /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifup ppp0

I can’t remember where I came across this (weblog? Google search?), but I
added it to my aggregator the other day, and it makes for great reading
and a good source of mental notes for my next trip into the city: NYC EATS.

MobileTracker: Samsung
et al hop on ultrawideband

Russell
Beattie on megabyte limits, Blaster sneaking in over GPRS, and more.

There’s been a
lot of
discussion about a feature called “EN MOU” (Express Network Minutes
of Use), where callers on a standard Verizon plan such as America’s
Choice could get on the Express Network (CDMA2000 1xRTT) using their
minutes (including their unlimited nights and weekends). Over the past
couple of days, the forum threads have mentioned that this was only for
users with camera phones. I got the same story from Verizon’s
Wireless Data Technical Support:

“We sincerely apologize for the confusion on the Express Network Pricing
plans, however, at this time there is no Pricing Plan which enables you
to use Express Network just using your airtime minutes. This feature
that was recently explained was only designed for sending pictures from
our customers with the Vx6000 camera phone. This is not designed for
connecting to Express Network. We apologize again for the confusion.”

ah, well… I’m bummed out by that… I really had my hopes up. Still, the plans aren’t all that bad, but I wish they had something like
T-Mobile’s unlimited GPRS ($20 a month instead of Verizon’s $80).

Wi-Fi Networking News: UWB Beats Up
Bluetooth…by 2007