You Can Relax Now Sisyphus, It's All Downhill From Here

It's been Geek Week here at the Myers household. Not that I'm a geek mind you, but every now and then in this modern technological age it becomes necessary for even the most balanced and well-rounded person to don that pocket protector and dig in for some good ol' fashioned geeky fun. Yes, yes, and now I'm sure you're wondering Tony, Mr. Geek Man, how exactly do you connect your pda and cell phone over bluetooth to get on the internet? Well, glad you asked, and you know you could always call your wireless company and they could tell you, but that's not the geek way is it? No, that would be too easy, and that's why you'll often find geeks searching through message boards and FAQ's and poring over manuals and help files at 4:00 in the morning, never admitting defeat and desparately attempting to avoid that dreaded call to Technical Support.

At least that's what I do. That's how you learn, right? Right? That's why you're banging your head against the desk at 4:00 in the morning and thinking "God I love technology. I'm learning so much from this experience."

But I'm getting ahead of myself so let me start at the beginning. Although it may have escaped your notice it is now official - the last person on the planet not to have a cell phone finally broke down and bought one last week. "How can that be", you ask, "it's 2005 and you still don't have a cell phone? What's wrong with you?" Well, the answer is simple. First, I don't like dealing with phone companies and second, since I'm neither mobile nor particulary professional and since I'm not the sort of person that likes to stand around and gab on the phone all day, I figured I didn't really need one. But the world keeps spinning and you have to change with the times, so, like I said, I finally decided to take the leap and go out and buy one.

Of course I did a lot of research first. Websites, reviews, product comparisons, forums...you name it I did it, and I found a ton of information out there. I mean, if your looking for information on phones and plans then all you need to do is fire up your browser and seek it out because I guarantee you it's out there (a particulary good site I found was Howard Forums, but there are plenty of others). And I found something interesting. While it's true that some wireless companies suck more than others, the consesus on the internet seems to be that by and large they all pretty much suck.

That was disappointing because I was hoping to find at least one true gem of a company, but unfortunately it seems that whether you're talking about service, billing, or support, well, there just aren't a whole lot of happy customers out there. True, people who are happy with their wireless company aren't typically the ones who go online and bitch and moan about them, but still there are plenty of horror stories and they cut across the board - Verizon, Sprint, Cingular, T-Mobile, they all have their share of unhappy customers. The situation kind of reminded me of something that Thomas Friedman's wrote in his book. Namely, why is it that people in Ghana can get better cell phone service than people in the U.S. can?

Anyways, I finally went with Cingular. "No! Not Cingular!" I can hear you saying. Well, yes, I went with Cingular. Believe me I heard all the horror stories, but the fact is that Cingular has the largest network and they have a really good deal going on the Audiovox SMT5600 Smartphone, so I went over to Amazon.com, signed up for the service and bought a smartphone. And that's all I have to say about that, and I should also add that I read many good comments about the phone and it got a particularly good review over at CNET.com.

I've had it about 4 or 5 days now and let me just say that I love this phone. Beyond the basics it also happens to be a powerhouse of a multimedia device, and in my area at least the coverage has been 3 or 4 bars all the way. But I don't want to talk about that too much. There is plenty of information on the phone out there and plenty of users who can talk more eloquently about it, both pro and con, than I. However, the best feature, and the one I was most interested in, was that together with everything else it can also be used as a bluetooth modem. That means that using this phone any bluetooth enabled computer or laptop or PDA can get on the internet even when there is no ethernet or Wi-Fi connection available. Other phones can do this too, of course, the SMT5600 isn't the only bluetooth enabled phone out there, but it was an important selling point that helped sway me in the direction of this phone.

Which takes me to tonights topic. How do you connect your PDA to your Audiovox SMT5600 over bluetooth. This is where it gets interesting because it isn't explained in the manual and there is an enormous amount of misinformation on the internet on how to get it done. I must have read 10 different opnions on how to do it and I can say, after much trial and error, that all 10 of them were wrong. Here then, as my service to the community of Audiovox SMT5600 users out there who may find themselves on the same fishing expedition I was on, is my simplified guide to connecting to the Cingular EDGE network using a bluetooth phone and a Bluetooth PDA:

Step 1: Establish a bluetooth bond between the 2 devices. This is the simple part, and no doubt you will find it documented in your user manual. In the bonding process you want your PDA to discover your mobile phone, not the reverse because you will be using the mobile phones services to make your connection.

Step 2: Make a new bluetooth connection. After you have established the bond and double-tap the mobile phone's icon in bluetooth manager this should happen automatically. If not, just tap New and run the wizard. The type of connection you want to make is the Connect to Internet via phone connection, which should be the first one listed.

Step 3: Enter throught the next screen and enter your passkey on your PDA and phone to connect the devices.

Step 4: Make a new connection and name it anything you want. There are lots of people out there telling you to give it some specific kind of name, but you can name it anything. I call mine GPRS.

Step 5: To set up your connection use the following settings

Phone number: *99#
Username: WAP@CINGULAGPRS.COM
Password: CINGULAR1

Note: These are the only settings you need. There are a lot of people out there who are telling you to use the phone number *99***1# and then telling you to go into the advanced settings and enter in an initialization string for your modem. YOU DO NOT NEED TO DO THIS! I can't tell you how many hours I spent trying to troubleshoot the connection using those settings until I finally figured out they are totally unecessary. Think about it. If you are able to connect to MediaNet, if you are able to log onto your POP3 account with your phone and retrieve your email, then your phone already has a GPRS connection set up and ready to use. You don't need to remake what's already been made.

Further Note: If you are connected to MediaNet (that is the default connection and the one that comes included with all voice plans) then you are using WAP. There are some people out there telling you to use ISP@CINGULARGRPRS.COM as the Username and that is wrong. Again, hours and hours wasted trying to figure that out. the ISP... Username is for people with Data Connect plans, not MediaNet plans. MediaNet is WAP GPRS.

Step 6: Uncheck the box that says "Wait for Dial Tone" if checked. I don't if that's necessary but it makes sense to me. Could save you a few hours troubleshooting.

Step 7: Tap Finish and you're done. Now just double-tap your new connection and I bet you'll be connected the same as me.

There, now wasn't that easy. Unfortunately you've got to sort through a lot of garbage before you finally find the right information, but once found it's an easy process to set up. Now with that all done I think I'm going to put my phone down and turn off my computer and go get some sleep. This stuff is exhausting and right now I'm feeling pretty tech'd out. I just want to go to bed and then maybe get up in the morning and do something normal for a change. It was a lot of work and the benefit, of course, is now I'm totally wired. As long as I can get a good signal then I can log on and surf. Ok, it may be a little slow but I can surf.

God, I sound just like a geek, don't I? Sheesh, I better go to bed now.