Phone as a Wifi access point!

aaron — Sat, 19 Apr 2008 21:34:57 +0000

This is pretty much the coolest thing in the world! I am posting from my laptop which is connected to my cell phone’s wifi connection, using Sprint’s EVDO connection to the internet. The software that enables me to do this is called wmwifirouter. Earlier this month they released their first final version of the software, and started charging for it. It’s not outrageously priced, but you can still find the earlier free versions on the internet if you search for versions 0.90 or 0.89.

Sprint’s EVDO connection is actually pretty speedy. Of course it’s not like having a cable connection, but it’s definitely faster than dialup. I downloaded a 2mb file at a solid 85kb/s. Also see below for a traceroute to this server.

C:\Documents and Settings\Aaron Parecki>tracert blog.neverusethisfont.com
 
Tracing route to blog.neverusethisfont.com [67.18.176.91]
over a maximum of 30 hops:
 
  1     6 ms     2 ms     3 ms  192.168.0.1
  2   141 ms   124 ms   124 ms  68.28.57.69
  3     *        *        *     Request timed out.
  4   131 ms   132 ms   134 ms  68.28.59.55
  5     *        *        *     Request timed out.
  6   121 ms   120 ms   121 ms  68.28.63.5
  7     *        *        *     Request timed out.
  8   135 ms   129 ms   128 ms  68.28.59.18
  9   136 ms   123 ms   128 ms  sl-gw20-phx-0-0-0.sprintlink.net [144.224.27.5]
 10   143 ms   130 ms   243 ms  sl-bb21-phx-11-0-0.sprintlink.net [144.232.23.199]
 11   141 ms   142 ms   138 ms  sl-bb25-ana-6-0-0.sprintlink.net [144.232.8.74]
 12   169 ms   131 ms   138 ms  ggr3-p330.la2ca.ip.att.net [192.205.33.189]
 13   156 ms   154 ms   156 ms  12.127.3.210
 14   154 ms   151 ms   151 ms  tbr1.dlstx.ip.att.net [12.122.10.49]
 15   153 ms   151 ms   154 ms  12.122.100.49
 16   150 ms   151 ms   152 ms  12.87.41.150
 17   324 ms   207 ms   203 ms  te7-2.dsr01.dllstx3.theplanet.com [70.87.253.10]
 18   160 ms   155 ms   151 ms  7e.fd.5746.static.theplanet.com [70.87.253.126]
 19   163 ms   154 ms   154 ms  vl1.car02.dllstx2.theplanet.com [12.96.160.12]
 20   154 ms   153 ms   150 ms  theia.parecki.com [67.18.176.91]
 
Trace complete.
C:\Documents and Settings\Aaron Parecki>

Cell phones hurt my brain

aaron — Fri, 11 Apr 2008 21:32:35 +0000

But not in the radiation kind of way… in the omg-too-many-things-to-think-about kind of way.

I’m in the market for a new cell phone and provider. I’ve been on a Verizon family plan for the last 5 years, always with the free phone that comes with the plan. I’m switching to my own plan when the family contract is up. I’ve been pretty happy with the quality of calls on Verizon, and coverage seems to be great wherever I need it. But I’m definitely open to switching to another provider.

One of the hardest parts is figuring out how to start looking for a phone and plan. I think I’m going about this the wrong way. I have vague idea of what I want in a phone, but mostly I’ve just been reading lots and looking at lots of different options.

I’ve been hearing a lot of talk about Sprint’s SERO plan. For $50/month I can get 1250 minutes, and unlimited text and data. That’s hard to pass up. On the other hand, there are some features I want that none of the SERO phones seem to have.

It’s time to take a different approach to this, since I seem to continuously waste hours on end reading about phones. I’m going to use the MoSCoW Method to figuring out what cell phone I should get! The MoSCoW Method is used in software development to help prioritize features the client wants.

Must	Without this, the project is a failure
Should	Should have this if at all possible
Could	Could have this if it does not delay Shoulds or Musts
Won’t	Won’t have this in this version, but Would like in the future

While this method was not exactly intended for this, I am going to prioritize my wishlist of cell phone (and service plan) features into these categories. However, the “W” doesn’t really seem to apply here, so I’ll leave out that category.

Must	Should	Could
> 1000 Minutes Text messaging Must NOT have ONLY a touchscreen	Unlimited text messaging Picture messaging Google Maps Access to my Gmail account Unlimited data plan Bluetooth tethering for access to the series of tubes anywhere! QWERTY keyboard	Integration with Google Calendar, or at least iCal, either in the form of a calendar app on the phone, or web access to Google Calendar A real GPS receiver so that I could run something like the Google Map Cell Phone Tracker An Internet browser

Some things I’ve been reading:

So far it looks like either the HTC Mogul or Palm Treo 755p are at the top of my list.

Never Use This Font » cell phone

Phone as a Wifi access point!

Cell phones hurt my brain

Must

Should

Could