Bluetooth Tethering via BlackBerry Bold

Ever since I've inherited the BlackBerry Bold, I've fancied tethering a laptop to its 3G connection via Bluetooth.

Recently I've tackled this and succeeded. To be honest, I hacked away at this off and on for months. I've referenced forum posts and blog entries all over that were very helpful. I can't give you a single step by step process to get there. What I can give you is a set of references and what my Bold and Asus Eee 1000H look like when I'm done and connected.

Pinstack Probably the most comprehensive
PortlandITGuy Good links to other sources
CrackBerry Not using Bluetooth

I didn't use the BlackBerry Desktop Manager nor the AT&T Communications Manager. While these may have made the process simpler, I didn't want the result to be dependent on another piece of software.

I also didn't add tethering to my AT&T plan. So far, I've only tethered to prove the concept. If I use this regularly I plan to add this $30/month feature.

This document doesn't cover pairing the 1000H and the Bold. That was routine and similar to pairing with a headset.

When I was done with the pairing here's what it looked like on the Bold.


By the way, I captured these BlackBerry screens with CaptureIT.

I didn't have to tweak any settings on the Bold.

It's another story on the 1000H.


The password is CINGULAR1.



Uncheck all of these.

















This is after I'd clicked on "Query Modem."

You have to set this!


Now that you've waded through all these screen captures, I'm sure you're dying to know "How's it work?"

Great!

I don't have Flash on the 1000H so I used InternetFrog's speed test.

You can see that it showed almost 700kbps down and not quite 100kbps up. The QOS figure does NOT represent dropped packets but rather consistency of speed during the test.

Just to validate that test, I ran the same test on my ThinkPad connected via 802.11g to my (alleged) 3.0mbps AT&T DSL link. It tested at not quite 2.0mbps. I then retested the DSL using SpeedTest.net and got the expected 3.0mbps.

One way to read this is that InternetFrog is conservative or wrong. The other read is that SpeedTest is optimistic or wrong.

Regardless the Bluetooth tethering via the BlackBerry Bold ran somewhere between 700kbps and 1.0mbps down. That's very satisfactory to me. It feels quick.

If I left something out that you need, leave me a comment and I'll add it to the post.

VirtualBox

One of my goals for the Big Honker was to support virtual machines.

I had thought I would run VMware's ESX on the raw metal and then have everything virtualized under that. I found that this was very limiting, first in specific hardware support (after all it's really for servers) and second in support of USB devices being passed through to the virtual machines.

I compared VMware's Workstation to Sun's VirtualBox. Besides VirtualBox being free and VMware's Workstation costing $189, VirtualBox seemed to be more flexible and simpler, at least for what I needed/wanted.

VirtualBox's download and install was easy. It bounced the network (warning me first) to install its virtual network adapter in the TCP/IP stack. More on this a little later.

One of the first uses I tried was to install Windows 98 SE which is not officially supported. There is a good dialog on the VirtualBox forums about installing and running Windows 98. After holding my mouth just right, I got it to install but could never get it to access external data, e.g. CDs or USB drives. Perhaps I could have eventually overcome this.

But I moved on to just using Windows XP Pro. This is an officially supported environment. When I went to create the virtual machine, XP was on the menu. It gave me a recommended configuration and I was ready to go.

When I finished the normal XP install, there's a drop-down in the VirtualBox menu to install Guest Additions. These are software and device drivers that aware of the virtualization going on and enable some enhanced support, things like cursor focus being transparent.

With regard to getting access to external data, XP was much easier. I just set the network adapter to be bridged and the XP virtual machine appears to be on my local network. I can also assign any USB device to the virtual machine and it has complete access to it.

Access to the virtual machine is simple. VirtualBox has a built-in server for the Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP). This lets me invoke an RDP session from my laptop and go full-screen. It's like I'm there!

My next goal is to get my XP virtual machine where I want it relative to software, tools, and patches and then "clone" it. Then I can create cloned virtual machines from that base and play with them. There seem to be a couple of choices from simply duplicating the virtual hard drive to snapshotting and creating "differential" disks with just the changes from the snapshot.

This is fun!

Blackberry Remote Stereo Gateway

You know I'm an avid podcast listener.

A couple of posts ago I discussed my quest for a cable for my Bold. That has been working well but...

I wanted a less intrusive way to do this. I noticed that some Bluetooth hands-free units supported A2DP. That would let the Bold send the audio output to the hands-free which could then relay it to the car via an unused FM frequency. Interesting but complicated.

Then I came across the Blackberry Remote Stereo Gateway.
What this gadget does is provide a Bluetooth A2DP connection to the Bold and convert it into a 3.5mm jack that feeds the "Aux" jack on my car. All I have to do when I get in the car is press the "Pause" button on my Bold and the podcast starts playing through the car's speakers. I just leave the Blackberry Remote Stereo Gateway gadget in the console box where the "Aux" jack is.

The Blackberry Remote Stereo Gateway is powered by a mini-USB plug like almost all other Blackberry devices so I plug it into a cigarette lighter to USB converter in the console box. Incidentally, I have a cigarette lighter splitter in the console box! The cigarette lighter plug for the Asus Eee PC is in there too.

Cigarette Socket Power Splitter

As you can imagine, my car kinda looks like my desk at home - a real tangle of wires. When I got my new car I tried to clean it up a little.

What I needed was a cigarette lighter splitter for my console box. I found one at Meritline for $4.99 (now $3.99) with free standard shipping (from Hong Kong).
This has worked fine. Some plugs are a little loose in the sockets but I haven't found that to be a problem so far. Notice that it has a USB power socket too.

Windows 7 HP Printer Drivers

This is really more an HP issue that an Windows 7 issue but I ran into it because of Windows 7.

In my research for the Big Honker, I looked for drivers for all my peripherals. This resulted in having to buy a new scanner but my HP printers were good.

I have an HP DeskJet D4260 and an HP LaserJet 1020. Neither is brand new but not more than a couple of years old.

The HP support pages for each showed that there were Windows 7 64-bit drivers available so I downloaded and stashed them away for the install. I was a little cautious as the LaserJet 1020 driver was only released in November 2009.

When I actually did the install, I was surprised that the DeskJet D4260 driver was already loaded and it worked immediately. I loaded the LaserJet 1020 driver and both were working. They worked from my XP laptops using the existing drivers as well.

Or so it seemed.

My wife had a color page she needed to print from her laptop. When she did, the colors were off, blues were grey, yellow was pink, etc. Of course you immediately suspect that you're low on ink. I went to the Big Honker and printed a test page and it looked Ok but it really doesn't have much color.

Then I created an image in Paint on my laptop that had big blocks of primary colors. When I printed it, the colors were off there too so it was off to WalMart. $18 later for a color cartridge, I was back.

Same problem. Hmmm.

I recalled that the test page printed from the Big Honker was good. So I printed my wife's document from the Big Honker. Worked fine. So that meant the driver that came with Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit wasn't compatible with the previous drivers.

I installed the new drivers that I had downloaded earlier on the XP laptops (they worked on XP also) and all was well. Why would HP change the color mapping of the drivers?

The Big Honker

My main desktop PC (which I call SERVER) is getting long in the tooth. It is a refurbished HP Pavilion 522c that I bought in 2003. It has an Athlon XP2000+ 1.67GHz processor. I'd upgraded it along the way with memory (256MB to 1GB), a DVD burner, 2 bigger hard drives, even a Firewire card.

I did my typical drop the partitions and install a clean version of XP Professional right out of the box. But I had never refreshed it. It was getting a little flaky.

When I started looking for replacements, I wanted to stay with HP since I've had such good luck with them. I wanted something that I could run Windows 7 64-bit since I think that's the new standard for home. I also wanted something that supported virtualization. That turned out to not be so easy.

Intel calls its virtualization VT-x. AMD calls theirs AMD-V. AMD's is pretty simple. Pretty much anything you can buy supports it. Intel's is another story. wikipedia says "Intel uses the feature to segment its market." I would add "and to confuse."

All the Core i3/5/7 processors support VT-x but systems with those processors are expensive and you know how I am. Core 2 Duo/Quad was more my price.

So go look at this page from Intel. Many of them don't support VT-x outright. The rest refer you to their SPEC details. That doesn't help either. I ended up with an E6300. Way too confusing.

I got the E6300 in (another) refurbished HP Pavilion p6112p from buy.com. It has a 2.8GHz Core 2 Duo, 8GB of RAM, a 1TB hard drive, a LightScribe DVD burner, gigabit Ethernet, and a bunch of other bells and whistles. It came with Windows Vista Home Premium 64-bit but was eligible for a free Windows 7 upgrade. The motherboard details are here.

On Christmas Eve buy.com had it for $399.99 with free shipping.

I did my normal process of dropping the partitions and doing a clean install of Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit.

I put one of the leftover 400GB hard drives from my Drobo in it and added a second DVD burner.

It's up and running and doing fine. I haven't had the first problem with Windows 7 64-bit other than one program from the early '90s won't run. How I resolved that will be explained in a later post.

2010 Maxima RearView Monitor

My wife just bought a 2010 Maxima. It came with the monitor package which includes a "RearView Monitor." This consists of a 7" color screen in the dash and a camera just above the license tag.

From the owner's manual:

When the shift selector is shifted into the R (Reverse) position, the monitor display shows the view to the rear of the vehicle.

The system is designed as an aid to the driver in detecting large stationary objects to help avoid damaging the vehicle. The system will not detect small objects below the bumper and may not detect objects close to the bumper or on the ground.

This soooo understates what this thing does.

I took pictures tonight when I was backing into a parking spot. These pictures were taken with my Blackberry Bold so I apologize that they are not very well focused or framed but you'll get the idea. You'll need to click on the pictures to get the full-sized versions.

In this first picture, I'm just beginning to lineup. Notice that there are two separate boxes in the image. The multi-color box (green, yellow, and red) is where the car will go if you continue with the wheels straight. Green indicates that you have a safe clearance. Yellow indicates that you are getting close and red that you are really close.

The orange box is where the car will go if you continue with the wheels turned as they are now. See how the orange box is curved?


The second picture is as I'm entering the parking space. I'm not straight with the parking space as the orange box still crosses the stripe on the parking lot. The car already parked is still in the green area.


In the third picture I'm getting close to being parked. The parked car is in the yellow area approaching the red area. The orange box is now aligned with the multi-color box indicating my wheels are straight and not too far over the stripe.


Parked! The fourth picture is when I'm done. Look carefully near the crossed white stripes on the ground to the right and you'll see where the multi-color box transitions from yellow to red. There's a red indicator there that indicates that you should stop.


That's amazing. Every car should have this.

Now my wife wants one looking forward!

elog

I saw a link on a Wave blip that referred to elog.com.

I think they explain it better than I can.

elog.com is a public service that enables anybody to create and update their own web page just by sending an email with the content for the web page.
You do not have to formally register with elog.com, no password is necessary, there is no minimum age requirement, and you can create as many web pages as you want.

elog.com is ideal for quick updates to simple web pages. However, email applications have become very powerful - words can be bolded and colored; links, pictures, and videos can be included, etc. In other words, the email application that you use everyday is probably capable of building a very nice web page.

To create your own web page, just send an email to newpage@elog.com. Your email can have pretty much anything you want in it and your new web page will look just like the email you send. You will be issued a public web page, e.g. 1993.elog.com, that others can view immediately. To update your web page with new content, just send an email to it, e.g. 1993@elog.com.

elog.com is registered with Google and Yahoo, enabling them to regularly crawl and index any web page at elog.com (such as your web pages).

Pretty cool.

Odd Laptop Problem

Each week I volunteer at a mid-sized non-profit in Memphis. I basically do break/fix stuff. When I arrive, they have a pile of PCs for me to fix/reimage.

Two weeks ago, they had a Compaq 6510b laptop that had had a hard drive crash. They had sent it out to have the drive replaced and my job was to reimage and install the local applications, e.g. Acrobat, Java, Office 200x.

I dove right in but immediately notice that the system was slow, REALLY slow. It is a Core 2 Duo 2.20GHz with 2GB or RAM so it shouldn't be slow.

Since it had a new hard drive, I suspected that. I ran HD Tune's benchmark and as expected the HD was much slower than the other reference systems I had. The facility manager returned the system to the provider who had replaced the drive.

They replaced the drive and returned it. I retrieved it and the power supply and began working on it. It was still running extraordinarily slow. The hard drive benchmark showed that it was as slow as before. I checked all the Device Manager settings as well as the BIOS settings with no solutions.

Finally I Googled "compaq 6510b slow hard drive" and on the second page came across this link:

http://www.itwriting.com/blog/985-hp-laptop-go-slow-caused-by-power-supply.html

This describes a user who had a problem with the power supply giving an incorrect signal to the laptop making it think it was about to run out of power and hence "cutting back on CPU/mainboard frequency to conserve power."

It seemed too simple but I unplugged the power supply. The laptop was transformed. Opening a new tab in Internet Explorer was instant. Plug the power supply back in and it once again slowed to a crawl. On battery, the hard drive benchmark now reported more than 60MB/sec.

How odd.

Apple Tax

The hand-me-down Bold has a slightly recessed 3.5mm headphone jack. My old 3.5mm-to-3.5mm cable had fat plugs and won't work consistently.

One day I remembered that there had been a similar situation with the original iPhone. There's an Apple store nearby so I dropped in looking for a cable.

I found one.


$19.95! I left it in stock.

I did notice that it was made by Belkin. So when I got home, I went and looked at Belkin's site. This looked like the exact same item without the Apple brand.

$14.95. Headed in the right direction.

I finally bought it at Amazon.


$8.45.

Now that's an Apple tax.

TinyMailTo

Sometimes it's the simple things that make your day. Just go to TinyMailTo. You'll understand.

The Drobo Is Hungry

Two years ago, I got a Drobo for my birthday. It is still serving me well.

Initially I populated it with 2 400GB drives.

That gave me 371GB of protected storage.

Then I added a pair of 500GB drives.

Bingo! 1.2TB of protected storage.

Looking towards Santa's visit this year, I bought a 1TB drive on Black Friday. To install it, I just popped out one of the 400GB drives. The remaining 3 drives began blinking orange. I slid the 1TB drive into the now open slot. In a few seconds all 4 drives were blinking orange and green. After about 6 hours, they were all green again.

This only took me to 1.3TB of protected storage due to the asymmetry.

After Santa makes his visit, I'll replace the remaining 400 GB drive with a second 1TB drive.

Ah! 1.8TB protected storage.

That's nudging right up against the 2TB limit of USB 2.0. Although the Drobo will present 2 drives to the host if it goes over 2TB.

But wait, if I replace one of the 500GB drives with a 750GB drive I get 2TB protected storage.

Dear Santa,
...

PS. Here's the Drobo Capacity Calculator.

BlackBerry Gmail App

With my new (to me) Bold, I wanted to try the Gmail application for the BlackBerry. My first impression was WOW!

I loved that it pushed to the BlackBerry. You could archive from the BlackBerry and it would be archived on the Gmail server. You could even see sent messages! And messages were presented in conversation view. It even put an alert in the profile that you could manage just like BlackBerry e-mail, i.e. it'd blink the notification light.

But there are downsides. First the new message formatting isn't very good. This is a message that I wrote on the BlackBerry as it is presented in the Sent label on the Blackberry.

Ooops! There's a spoiler in there.

When you view it on a PC, this is how it is rendered:

The top of this conversation thread was composed on a PC. This shows the contrast between the compositions. It looks like the Gmail application inserts a hard carriage return at the end of each line. Not shown here is that the Gmail application doesn't honor the Labs "Signature tweak." It does honor your signature, just not the tweak.

I also use Google Voice. When I got a Google Voice voicemail notification, I went to click on the "Play message" link in the e-mail.

It isn't a link! It is in the standard BlackBerry e-mail client. To play this message I had to go to the browser and login to Google Voice and play it from there. There is a Google Voice client for the BlackBerry that I haven't played with.

In Media (including View Pictures in Camera) you couldn't choose the Gmail client to send pictures. Worse, you couldn't attach anything in the Gmail client. So I had to setup the AT&T BIS just for that.

The "push" from Gmail wasn't more or less timely than the AT&T BIS push.

Now back to the spoiler. On my Curve, most of the time I could go 2 days between chargings. With the bells and whistles of the Bold I wasn't expecting so much. I got worse. By the end of the day, the battery indicator on the Bold had turned yellow. I asked my son-in-law about this and he said that he had often been able to go 2 days. Hmmm. Wonder what it was? I stopped the Gmail application and at the end of the next day the battery was at 70%. I think I found it.

I've gone back to the standard BlackBerry e-mail client.

KingSpec SSD

You'll remember that I got a slightly used ThinkPad X40 and suggested that I might add a SSD drive to it? I did. WOW!

I ordered the 32GB KingSpec 1.8" PATA/IDE SSD Solid State Disk (MLC) P/N KSD-PA18.1-032MJ from MemoryC in Ireland.

This picture is of 2 KingSpec SSDs showing the top and the bottom. Don't panic seeing that jumper. Just leave it alone and it'll be fine.

Before I ordered it, I had a technical inquiry of them and it was answered via e-mail within 12 hours. The time difference worked in their favor. With that resolved I ordered it on a Tuesday afternoon and it arrived the following Tuesday, 7 days.

The end-to-end installation took 40 minutes. I booted Bart-PE with Ghost v8, created an image of the old Hitachi 40 GB HD on an USB HD, swapped the drive, and restored the image. Swapping the drive was just about the easiest hardware modification I've made. One screw to remove the drive and carrier. Four screws to remove the HD from the carrier. Put it all back together with the KingSpec SSD and you're done. Really couldn't have been simpler. Ghost handled the smaller sized drive with no problem as the 40 GB was only about 8 GB used.

And the results? With the Hitachi HD the X40 took 2:14 to hibernate and 1:05 to resume. With the KingSpec SSD it takes :29 to hibernate and :20 to resume. These aren't terribly scientific nor comprehensive but they are what I care about.

To Boldly Go...

I've loved my BlackBerry Curve. I hardly ever have to reboot it like I did the Motorola Q9h. Some people may complain about the 2G network but I never found that I wanted to browse long enough on that screen for the network to make a difference.

It's sad when you get so old that you look forward to the the hand-me-downs from your children. My son-in-law has been one step ahead of me in cell phone gadgets. He had a Treo 650 before me then when he went to a BlackBerry Bold I followed with a BlackBerry Curve.

Now he's gone to the iPhone 3GS. I'm holding out for a GSM Motorola Droid (Milestone?) but he passed on his Bold to me.

There's a great comparison here.

The Bold compared to the Curve is a tad larger at 4.5x2.6 vs. 4.2x2.4 and .8 oz. heavier.

But that screen! It's the same size as the Curve's and clearly smaller than the iPhone 3GS' but the resolution is what makes a difference. Not only is it brighter with more contrast than the Curve but it is 320x480 compared to the Curve's 240x320.

It runs BlackBerry OS 4.6 like the Curve but has Visual Voicemail. I had to call AT&T to get this provisioned on my account. There's no charge for it.

My son-in-law had had this Bold connected to his work e-mail so I had to remove the IT policy. I used BlackBerry's JL_Cmder to do this. It took 10-12 attempts to get it to "connect" so keep trying.

One of my projects is to tether a laptop to the 3G network via Bluetooth. That'll be fun.

20 GB for only $5 a year

Google has always been about cheap (even free) storage. Initially Gmail had a gigabyte of storage. Unbelievable! Then Google raised the bar. Now the storage is over 7 gigabytes. This was used for Gmail and Picasa Web. If 7 gigabytes wasn't enough Google would sell you more. An extra 10 gigabytes was $20 per year.

Now Google has doubled the storage to 20 gigabytes and dropped the price to $5 per year. For the old price of $20 per year you get 80 gigabytes!

You can read about it here. The prices are here.

Pssst! Can you say Gdrive?

Office 2007 and Wide Screen Displays

I really prefer to call them Short Screen Displays. I've had personal consternation at Office 2007's placement of the ribbon across the top of displays when displays are becoming wider shorter rather than taller. It always seemed to me that it'd make more sense from a real estate perspective to at least alternatively allow the placement of the ribbon on the side rather than at the top.

I was never brave enough to put this in writing but finally someone else did.

In Jerry Pournelle's Computing At Chaos Manor: The Mailbag a reader wrote:

Also, the ribbon occupies some of the most valuable real estate on the modern display: vertical space. On my laptop I have a modern wide aspect display. MS Word XP displays templates, formats and similar helpful stuff off to the right, leaving me with a relatively tall text space. A ribbon would be disastrous. It's merely annoying on my 4x3 display, but I keep it minimized. Needless to say, despite having access to cheap copies of Office 2007 (two more students in our household), I will be maintaining our Office XP versions.

It's very interesting to watch a huge company make such a bone-headed decision on its flagship product. At the very least, you'd think there would be a way to run the ribbon vertically, so that it could be a sidebar, like the bookmark and history sidebars we see in some browsers. Heck, even my ancient copy of Paint Shop Pro 7 allows for vertical toolbars. And MS's own Vista developers allow for a sidebar display, with pretty widgets. They get the wide aspect business. You would think that watching Firefox get ready to destroy its classic UI to reduce the browser's vertical acreage would be a clue to avoid filling up vertical space.

Yeah. What he said!

Christmas Wish List 2009

32GB KingSpec 1.8" PATA/IDE SSD

---

Samsung CL65
about $295
Google search
Specifications
User manual

---

8GB microSDHC (with SD adapter)
around $20 - for the camera
Google search

---

1TB Internal SATA hard drive
as low as $75 - 2 would be great!
Google search

Ajay Bhatt

I'm not a big fan of Conan O'Brien. Between he and Letterman they've given me an extra hour of sleep each night.

Anyway, I came across this clip that Conan did with Ajay Bhatt.

I love his response about Firewire!

Office Web Apps

Heard about Microsoft's Office Web Apps? Didn't get in the Beta? Want to? Here's how.

Go to SkyDrive. Login. See here for how to get a Windows Live ID.

Now just go to any folder. I chose Documents. Click on "Add Files" and upload a Word document. You'll get this screen when it's done.

Look at that cute little line!

Join our preview program to create, edit, view, and share Office documents! Learn more

Don't just sit there. Do what it says. Click on "Join our preview program" and you're on your way.

Click on "Accept" and then click on "Documents" up at the top.

Hey! There's something new there - New. Pull it down and click on Microsoft Word document.

Sorry. That's not ready.

Click on "Microsoft Excel workbook" and that'll work.

Click on "Create" and you're on your way.

Pretty cool, huh?

Live Mesh

You'll recall I was a BIG fan of Microsoft's FolderShare. I used it until my wife's work blocked it.

Then Microsoft changed FolderShare to Sync. But wait, that's what Microsoft calls the gadget that Ford puts in its cars. I'm confused. I think I'm not alone.

Anyway, to get back on track, I wanted to find something to synchronize photos between my house and my daughter's house. I looked at a lot of alternatives including Dropbox and Hamachi. Close but no cigar.

Then I stumbled across Microsoft's Live Mesh. Its web site doesn't do a good job of explaining but just go with it for a minute. You need to have a Windows Live ID. Don't sweat that even with the footnote:

If you have a Passport Network, Hotmail, or Windows Live Messenger account, you can use it as your Windows Live ID.

Just click on the "Need a Windows Live ID?" and create one using your favorite e-mail address.

Login and you'll get this screen.

Click on "Connect" and you'll get this screen.

From here you can create a folder and upload (using the ugly web interface) just like SkyDrive. Microsoft seems to have at least two of everything.

This folder on your Live Mesh Desktop is a little different than SkyDrive though as you'll see in a minute.

Back up at the top of the screen, click on "Devices" and click on "Add Device."

Pick your OS and click on "Install."

Unlike most Microsoft products, this is a light client.

Now, the folder you created above can by synchronized with your PC, i.e. Device. Then you can update it on your PC and the changes will be replicated to the folder on the Live Mesh Desktop. And you can invite other Live Mesh users to share it.

But the real trick is that now you can create a folder on your PC and enable Live Mesh for it and then invite other Live Mesh users to share it. BINGO!

It works like a charm. I have created two folders and enabled Live Mesh for them and shared them with my son-in-law. One folder is for us to send to them and the other for them to send to us. One would suffice but separating is easier to think about.

Think of all the things you can do with this. You can share like we have. You can use a remote PC (think your mother's) as a backup! And if you place this folder on your Live Mesh Desktop you can access if from the web. By the way, this all works fine with Firefox!

Oh, did I mention it is free?