I have a Vodafone dongle - an early-is one which gives me 1 GB of data-transfer for £15.
While this may seem expensive, it has its advantages...
Firstly, the early models had rollover, and my first fifteen quid kept me in touch for six months - very little web browsing, true, so mostly e-mail and Usenet. Even now, I'd seldom use one GB in a month, so I was relatively happy.
I say 'relatively' because I only have a GPRS signal where I live, so I'm not tempted to wade amongst the websites.
Then...
It stopped working on the Eee, though it was fine on the Acer when it was in XP mode. I don't like using it under XP because it means I must keep AVG up to date, and that download alone takes a vast bite out of available credit, not to mention the clockface.
Earlier, I'd become used to doing some shopping, finding wi-fi in The Fat Cat and elsewhere, or connecting over 3G with the dongle. When the dongle stopped talking to the Eee, and I couldn't get it to work with Squeeze (on the Acer), I just spent ages drinking tea and noshing cakes, sausage and/or bacon sandwiches etc in the Tea Room (*Highly recommended*).
Recently, I stuck the dongle in the Eee's USB port, and lo! It worked.
And its still working (touch wood).
Anyone got any idea why/how the Eee refused to play nicely for - oh - nine months or more?
On 10 May 13:14, Anthony Anson wrote:
Recently, I stuck the dongle in the Eee's USB port, and lo! It worked.
And its still working (touch wood).
Anyone got any idea why/how the Eee refused to play nicely for - oh
- nine months or more?
During the period between, did you do any software updates at all? Because it was probably an update to usb_modeswitch or udev that would have fixed it.
Brett Parker wrote:
On 10 May 13:14, Anthony Anson wrote:
Recently, I stuck the dongle in the Eee's USB port, and lo! It worked.
And its still working (touch wood).
Anyone got any idea why/how the Eee refused to play nicely for - oh
- nine months or more?
During the period between, did you do any software updates at all? Because it was probably an update to usb_modeswitch or udev that would have fixed it.
I wondered about that, but AFAIK all automagic updates are switched off.
It has developed an irritating (but unimportant) habit of not finding the dongle on my trying to connect, and presenting a pane demanding I identify the device I'm trying to connect to, and I have to cancel it and remove the dongle, then replace it, and then all's hunky-dory.
This is a Vodafing, not a Xandros one, and used to happen before if I tried to connect too soon. Howsomedever. now the Eee's playing ball again, patience doesn't seem to be rewarded any more.
On Thu, May 10, 2012 at 08:17:19PM +0100, Anthony Anson wrote:
I wondered about that, but AFAIK all automagic updates are switched off.
I wonder if in XP it got a firmware update of some kind, I've got a ZTE usb stick that with some magic prodding with AT commands means it always reports as a modem rather than having to do the usb_modeswitch nonsense.
Adam
Adam Bower wrote:
On Thu, May 10, 2012 at 08:17:19PM +0100, Anthony Anson wrote:
I wondered about that, but AFAIK all automagic updates are switched off.
I wonder if in XP it got a firmware update of some kind, I've got a ZTE usb stick that with some magic prodding with AT commands means it always reports as a modem rather than having to do the usb_modeswitch nonsense.
Mine usually reports as flash memory.
The dongle always searches for updates in XP, but AFAIK has never found one.
But something's certainly happened, as it's *still* (touch wood) working.
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Adam Bower -
Anthony Anson -
Brett Parker