I recently signed up for Cingular’s $20 MEdia Works package, which includes unlimited data usage. However, it has been a nightmare setting it up with my PowerBook and V600 via bluetooth. It’s taken about two weeks of collecting data and multiple failed attempts at getting a connection that doesn’t drop with web or mail usage. These instructions are based on several assumptions: you have a working Mac running 10.3.4 with Bluetooth (May work with older versions, but I’m not going to go checking), you have a working Motorola V600 with Bluetooth turned on and in range of your Mac, and a working connection to the internet to download the modem scripts. So here’s the steps involved in getting everything to work:
- Be sure to have paired your V600 with the computer, if you haven’t go to the Bluetooth menu extra and select “Set up Bluetooth Device.” A program will launch and walk you through pairing it. Do not select the option where you can setup the connection for the internet, it doesn’t work
- Go to this site and download the “Scripts For Motorola GPRS phones” file
- Once you download and decompress that file, go into the decompressed folder and take all of the modem scripts and move them to /Library/Modem Scripts (note that this is the root level library, not the user level library)
- Go to System Preferences under the Apple Menu and select the Network button
- Go to Location and select “New Location.” Give the location a name you’ll recognize, like “Bluetooth”
- Go to “Show” and select “Network Port Configurations.” Uncheck everything but Bluetooth and drag the Bluetooth port configuration so that it is at the top of the port configuration list
- Go to Show and select Bluetooth. Select the PPP tab
- Enter the following information into each field:
- Service Provider: Cingular (you can enter anything you like into this field)
- Account Name: WAP@CINGULARGPRS.COM (The case matters!)
- Password: CINGULAR1 (The case matters and the save password field will auto check, which is fine)
- Telephone Number: wap.cingular
- Click the “PPP Options…” button and uncheck “Send PPP echo packets.” Click OK
- Click on the “Bluetooth Modem” tab. Select “Motorola GPRS CID1″ from the “Modem” drop down menu and uncheck “Wait for dial tone before dialing”
- Click on “Apply Now” at the bottom of the window
- Click “Show All” at the top of the window to return to all the preference buttons
- Click on the Bluetooth button
- Make sure that Bluetooth is turned on
- Check “Support Non-Conforming Phones” and quit out of System Preferences
- Go to your Applications folder and open Internet Connect
- Click the Connect button and watch it connect (or not if something doesn’t work)
Using this setup, I was able to connect to Cingular’s GPRS data network and maintain a stable connection until I got bored and disconnected after 45 minutes of browsing the internet and checking my mail. I’ve read several comments on Howard Forums where some areas don’t support TCP header compression, which is where requests for sites will simply fail. You can disable this feature by going to System Preferences, clicking on the Network button, double click on the Bluetooth configuration, go to the PPP tab, click the “PPP Options…” button, uncheck “Use TCP header compression,” click OK, and click “Apply Now.” You should be good to go! If things work fine without disabling this feature, leave it on as the connection is faster. Hope this works for everyone.
Update (11-4-2006): I use the Motorola 3G modem scripts from the site in the instructions and these instructions work with my MacBook Pro and Razr.
I’m posting this from a Palm Tungsten T3 via bluetooth thru my Motorola V600 cell phone. Cool eh?
We’ve now got multiple, big, blue blow dryers spread out throughout our house since a stupid hose broke in our bathroom yesterday. These blow dryers sound like jets. The noise is somewhat acceptable with the door to my room closed. Still sucks. I get a consolation prize though! I get the G35 for work tomorrow 
Stupid cat just knocked over the trash can. She seemed to want out of my room, but she stops as soon as she hears the noise when I open the door. These fans also make it really hard to use the bathroom 
Oh yeah, I heard from my room mate yesterday after the system finally started working! Seems cool enough. And I’m thinking a lot harder about dropping syndication to LJ since comments can’t be synced back here. The designs at LJ are total crap too (unless you fork up cash to get the paid user stuff) and I won’t pay for something that I’ve already got that works better.
So, it’s now “later this afternoon” and the Tech housing site still has its “The online roommate information will be available later this afternoon” crap up. 
Arghh, I hate waiting.
It came at last My graduation present arrived at the office today, we picked it up on our way home from FASET (Georgia Tech’s Freshman Orientation). It’s a really spiffy chair, with every (?) option that you can get. It has a 12 year warranty and all that fun stuff. It’s really comfortable too, it’s made of a mesh-like stitching that shapes to fit you. A little weird for a graduation present I admit. The parents got it for me since they wanted me “sitting my butt in it studying at Tech.”
On to FASET. The first day was almost a complete waste of my time. I went to Connect with Tech, which basically sells Tech to people who’ve been accepted but aren’t sure where they want to go, so I’ve already heard just about everything they had to say. The comedian was hilarious, I wasn’t expecting anything as racy as what I heard. After that, I went with Nate and Tom to get pizza at Papa John’s. They got pizza 50% off since they work at Papa John’s. We didn’t go to Club Love, which we heard turned out to be pretty gay like the social gathering at Connect with Tech. The second day (Today) consisted of a really crappy breakfast, some good information regarding registration, getting really hot going around campus with the parental units to the bookstore, going to see a contact of the parental units who works at Tech, and sitting around waiting for my late registration. I’ve got a great schedule, I don’t have any classes until 0905 I have a late class one day a week that runs until 1925. Friday is great, since classes end in the early afternoon. Tech is going to be a 5 year thing at this point, longer if I do the Co-Op program. When there was a loophole in the housing website, I was able to check on my residence hall and roommate. The residence hall is good, they messed up on the roommate. That isn’t set in stone and Joe is working to resolve it, since we signed up to be roommates (we’re going to cluster our rack servers 
). I did get a ton of shirts though, so I should have enough to retire any non Georgia Tech stuff. Just about everyone from Lassiter going to Tech was there, which was sort of odd. Well, I’ve got to be up early (again), so I’m out.
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I got a new phone yesterday.
It’s a spiffy Motorola V600. It’s a significant improvement over my Sony Ericsson T616 in almost every area. The only place it falls short is the phone book. It doesn’t allow you to have multiple numbers under a singe contact. So you have to create a new voice recording for each each one, versus one for the person and then saying the what kind of number you wanted to dial (Home, Mobile, Work, or Other). The best feature is the fact that it’s a flip phone and I don’t have to frigg’n unlock and relock the keys. It’s bluetooth range is phenomenal, it paired with my dad’s car when I was inside a restaurant. The screen also works in daylight, whereas the T616 was unusable in direct sunlight. So far, the voice dialing has worked as well as the T616, but I haven’t used it as much as I did with the T616. A major plus is that I can set varying ringing loudness levels easily, the T616 was difficult in that respect (so I used it in either silent or normal mode).
Some of it’s other cool (read: toys) are it’s external LCD, it’s mood lighting, camera, and MP3 ringtones. The external LCD lights up a nice blue and gives you various information you’d expect. It’s got a circular ring below the external LCD that glows various colors based on what’s happening. It pulses blue when Bluetooth is being used. It glows brightly when it’s being charged. And so on. The camera is also a slight improvement over the T616; offering a higher resolution, zoom, and better lighting adaptation. The pictures still suck too much to be put on the internet for anything more than a thumbnail. And as always, the ringtones available on this phone are the best you can get- they’re MP3s. I got two ringtones from Cingular: Brass Monkey (applied to Mike for when he calls) and Longview (Currently Applied to Adam). I’ll apply them to others as I get around to it. They sound real, but not completely crisp- close enough for most though. They also cost $2.49, and like anything a cell phone company does, they nickel and dime you by requiring Wireless Internet Express (as a pay as you go option it’s 1¢ per kilobype- an MP3 being about 70 KB and taking about 8-10 KB for the stuff you don’t see that lets you download it). I’m on a bundle that includes 1MB of data luckily. It does poly and monophonic ringtones too, so I used Bluetooth to get all my old ringtones that I liked.
All in all, it’s quite nice. Adam left about an hour ago after beating me down in Halo. And I’ve got to wake up in about 7 hours and I need my sleep. Oh yeah, Spider Man 2 was much better than the first. It was a little cheesy in some places (to be expected I suppose). But overall, it was a good improvement over the first: the characters were better, the story was a little more original (not by much), and the main character was far more realistic. Worth seeing if you have the time.
I got my paycheck today too 
