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A tale of two tethers

3 June 2011, 1:08 pm

Those of you using your Android phone as an internet connection may be paying more than you need to pay. Many phone companies here in the US charge extra to enable tethering capability, either by providing their own OEM tethering app or by enabling the phone to serve as a Wi-fi hotspot.

With some experimenting, I found that my Motorola Droid 2 Global from Verizon can be tethered just fine right out of the box, and without paying anything extra.

Recently I’ve been playing nursemaid to my ill mother, so I frequently take my work along with me on overnight shifts. I’ve settled on connecting to my main desktop machine via remote desktop, and using my 15″ laptop as the client.

The remote desktop connection works great. My 3G connection is noticeably slow, but it’s very workable. Since I’m working on my office computer, there’s no need to sync anything, and I can pick up from one place right where I left off in another. In a pinch I can even use my phone as a client (using an inexpensive remote desktop client from Xtralogic).

To get my internet connection, I installed Motorola’s drivers on my Windows 7 laptop, then enabled the Bluetooth controller on my phone and paired it with the laptop. Now I can connect my laptop to the internet via Control Panel simply by connecting to the phone as an “Access Point”, as shown below.

Connecting to my Droid 2 Global via Bluetooth

I don’t know whether this technique works for other phones or other carriers, but it has certainly worked well for me.

Filed under Personal, Technical. Tagged ,
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RIP Alan Kalameja

9 March 2010, 1:05 pm

I saw in the March 8 edition of the TenLinks Daily newsletter that Alan Kalameja passed away at age 55. Condolences to his family. Alan hired me to write test questions for an AutoCAD certification exam in the early ’90s (I don’t recall which version, but probably either R12 or R13). That was one of my first real contracting jobs. Although it wasn’t very glamorous, it made me feel important, and undoubtedly helped focus my fledgling consulting business on AutoCAD. Thanks, Alan, for giving me that opportunity.

Filed under Business, Personal. Tagged 
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Evil Banks

11 November 2009, 3:10 pm

A lot of you are probably having to cut back on your expenses to make ends meet in this economic downturn. I’ve drastically reduced my discretionary spending, postponed the purchase of new office equipment, and investigated less expensive alternatives to a lot of my monthly expense items. I’ve also been streamlining and reorganizing my finances, which inevitably involves a lot of contact with banks.

Kean Walmsley’s post about his recent bank customer service issue motivated me to post about one of my recent bank experiences.

First of all, I’m here to tell you that banks do make mistakes. I’m sure that the vast majority of the time when your check book doesn’t balance, it was you that made a mistake, and not the bank. But if you are cursed like I am, then banks delight in creating phantom overdrafts and charging you exorbitant overdraft fees, then, when confronted with their error, apologizing and refunding the fees (after the damage is done and all those bounced checks have caused you to incur returned check charges from your creditors). That has happened twice to me in the past two months, with two different banks and two completely unrelated accounts.

In both cases, the bank eventually fixed the error, but I’m still out the returned check charges and whatever damage that has done to my credit rating.

One of the “returned” payments was a credit card payment. Of course, I did not get notified about this until the day after the payment due date, so it was too late to fix the problem in time to prevent another exorbitant late fee from being charged by the credit card bank.

Obviously the returned check triggered some alarms at the credit card bank, because I started receiving phone calls begging me to make a payment immediately. Irritated, I decided to make the credit card bank wait until the next due date before making the replacement payment. I figured my late fee bought me that extra time, so I might as well use it. My patience paid off: after a few futile attempts at collecting their late payment, the bank offered to refund the late fee if I made an immediate payment. That’s what I’m talking about!

Filed under Business, Personal, Philosophy.
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Ed Foster: Loss Of A Legend

29 July 2008, 10:35 pm

InfoWorld columnist and legendary consumer advocate Ed Foster died over the weekend. Ed was a tireless crusader for consumer rights in the digital age, and he will certainly be missed. For many years Ed has authored GripeLine, where he called companies and politicians to task for abusive anti-consumer practices.

I’ve written before about how Ed exposed and publicised shamefully lopsided software license agreements, including Autodesk’s and Adobe’s. Recently, Ed commented about the May, 2008 Vernor decision (see my CAD/Court web site for more information about the Vernor case).

It will be no easy task to fill Ed’s shoes. We can be certain, though, that his work must go on.

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The Magic Baseball Bat

27 June 2008, 10:48 pm

This is a story about my 11 year old son, Nick, and a father’s pride.

I coached Nick’s Little League baseball team this year, and now that the regular season is over I’m coaching an 11-12 year old All Star team. Being the youngest on the team, Nick struggles with his self confidence even though he’s an excellent baseball player. He’s not the tallest player, but he’s faster and more athletic than many of his older teammates. Even so, he doesn’t want to take any risks or make any mistakes, and his insecurities often prevent him from performing at his best.

A few weeks ago in the league tournament Nick hit a ball against the fence, just short of going over. That was the closest he came all season to hitting one out, and was perhaps the first time he started to believe that it was possible. A few nights after our team was eliminated from the championship tournament, a kid hit a walk off grand slam with 1 out in the bottom of the 6th, down 9 – 6. Nick and I were there to watch it. I heard that the same kid hit one more out of the park later in the tournament. Those were very likely the only two over-the-fence home runs all year in our local league.

Sometime during tournament time, Nick’s baseball bat disappeared from the trunk of my car. I suspect he didn’t close the trunk all the way one night, and someone stole it during the night. The following week, in exchange for Nick agreeing to mow the lawn this summer, I bought him a shiny new baseball bat, a new bat bag, and new cleats to replace the old ones with holes in their toes. Nick was itching to play again so he could try out his new toys.

Fast forward to the all star team’s second scrimmage earlier this week. In his first at bat, Nick got walked (then stole second, third, and home over the course of the next few pitches). In his second at bat, Nick hit a hard line drive into the gap, and got to second with a stand-up double. It was just a scrimmage, there was no pressure, and Nick was feeling good about himself, perhaps even daring to feel confident in himself.

His third time at the plate, Nick crushed the first pitch well over the center field fence amid groans from the opposing team. There was a mixture of surprise and elation among the other players on our team. Some had never seen a player at this level hit a ball over the fence, and I even had to remind them that they were allowed to enter the field to greet Nick as he crossed home plate.

The excitement was soon forgotten as the game moved along, until Nick came up to bat again and everyone jokingly told him to hit another home run. And then, with two strikes, two out, and two on, he did it again!

It’s amazing how much difference a shiny new bat can make.

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