Robin Etc

I just bought a Blackberry Storm from Verizon, and wanted to use it as a tethered modem for OS X. Verizon will provide no support for this configuration, but you can do it anyway. Here is how: (Note that you still have to pay for the tethering plan.)

You will use your Blackberry Storm as a bluetooth modem. This means that you have to have bluetooth on your mac. However, if you’re using a MacBook or MacBook Pro, chances are that you already have bluetooth. If not, you probably have some kind of wired internet and you don’t need to tether your phone in the first place.

The general plan goes like this:

1. Ensure your Blackberry Storm is configured for Dialup Networking.
2. Pair your Blackberry Storm with your Mac.
3. Create a bluetooth serial port which your Mac will use as a modem.
4. Set up the modem.
5. Connect!
6. Caveat (Unfortunately)

You may run into some problems when you try to use it later. On my MacBook Pro, the bluetooth serial port sometimes disappears for no apparent reason. I do not know why this happens, but it is not difficult to fix. If your Mac tells you that it cannot open the communications device, repeat step 3 and recreate the bluetooth serial port. As long as you give it the same name (“VZW”) as you used in step 3, you will be fine.

Note: These instructions may work with other models of Blackberry, and even other non-Blackberry bluetooth phones. I make no guarantees, and have not tested them on anything else because I do not have any other phones. I have previously written a guide to setting up a Samsung SCH-i760, which uses roughly the same instructions. If this helps you get your non-Blackberry Storm phone working, great! Otherwise, tough cookies, I can’t help you.

Enabling Dialup Networking on your Blackberry Storm

For this part, I am unable to provide screenshots, so you’ll just have to follow along. It’s not difficult.

1. Open the bluetooth preferences: From the home applications screen, open “Options”. It’s near the bottom, and has a picture of a wrench.
2. The 5th down is “Bluetooth”. Click it to get to a list of paired devices. If your Blackberry prompts you to add a device, cancel it.
3. Press the menu key and select “Options”. Scroll down to the bottom and make sure that “Dial-Up Networking” is selected.
4. Press the menu key and choose “Save”.

Pairing your Blackberry Storm with your Mac

Again I am unable to provide screenshots for the Blackberry portion, but it’s simple enough. If your Blackberry is already paired with your Mac, you may skip this step.

On the Blackberry:

1. Open the bluetooth preferences. Follow steps 1 and 2 from above.
2. Press the menu key and select “Add Device”. From the popup dialog, select “Listen”.

On your mac:

1. Open the System Preferences, and select the “Bluetooth” pane. Click on the “+” button in the list of bluetooth devices on the left:
   

   This will open the Bluetooth Setup Assistant:

   

2. Click “Continue”, and follow the directions to pair your Blackberry with your Mac.
3. Select “Any Device” as the device type, and continue.
   
4. Select your Blackberry from the list of devices and click Continue.
   
5. Continue with the pairing process following the instructions in the Bluetooth Setup Assistant, until you get to the service selection screen. Uncheck “Access the Internet with your phone’s data connection”. We will set this up manually. Click Continue.
   
6. Finish the pairing process. You should now see your device in the list of devices in the System Preferences’ Bluetooth pane.
   

Creating a Bluetooth Serial Port

1. Select your Blackberry, click the gear icon, and select “Edit Serial Ports…”.
   
2. Remove the Dialup Networking serial port, if it is there. Select the serial port from the list, and click the minus button:
   
3. Add a new Dialup Networking serial port. Click the plus icon.
   
4. Set the name, protocol, and service for the port. Select “Show in Network Preferences”. When finished, your screen should look like this:
   
5. Click Apply. The serial port for the modem is now set up.

Set up the modem

Now we will create the network interface for your Blackberry’s bluetooth modem. You will use this like any modem connection to use your Blackberry’s internet connection.

1. Select the “Network” pane from the System Preferences. You should be prompted with a “New Interface Detected” dialog:
   
2. Click OK.
3. Select “VZW” from the connections list.
4. Set the telephone number to “#777”. Set the account name to “your_phone_number@vzw3g.com”. Set the password to “vzw”. “vzw” must be lower case.
   
5. Click “Advanced…”.
6. From the “Modem” tab, set the vendor to “Generic” and the model to “Dialup Device”:
   
7. Click “OK”.
8. Back in the Network pane of System Preferences, click “Apply”:
   
9. Your modem is now set up! Click “Connect” to test it out. You may have to confirm the connection on your Blackberry; you can get rid of this prompting by setting your Mac as a trusted device from its “Device Properties” from your Blackberry’s bluetooth preferences.
   

Caveat

Verizon’s tethering support is pretty flakey. Now and then, for no apparent reason, your internet will suddenly stop working. You will not be informed that it has stopped, and your modem will not hang up. Everything will just stop working. If your connection seems to have stalled, just try going to www.google.com and see if it is working. If that doesn’t load, you will have to disconnect and reconnect your modem connection. Disconnecting seems to take a long time, but again I do not know why.

If you are an experienced unix user, you may speed up the disconnect process by typing “sudo killall pppd” at the command line. This will cause the disconnect to immediately finish, and then you may reconnect sooner. I will not provide any instructions on how to do this, though; if you don’t know what the command line is and how to use it, stay away from it.

robin Internet

robin Internet

So I just downloaded this new theme for the site. It looks nice. Of course, I rarely have contact myself with the site itself; I blog from a dedicated client app.

robin Internet, Robin

Well, I’m taking a week-long hiatus from #intj. I’ve had enough for a little while, and it would do me some good. Also, it will help me pay more attention to Lauren. Having something that is sometimes interesting often enough to constantly check in the background isn’t always a good thing. So, goodbye #intj for now. Probably not permanently, but I’m cutting back.

robin Internet, Robin

Our internet is back, which is nice. I like having my high-speed net access. Of course, however, I’m not able to use it much at present; I’ve been house-sitting for a while now, and will be again later this weekend. Two weekends spent at the in-laws’ house.

But I took the time to set up the wifi for the landlords, as well as to get the port forwarding I needed set up. Paradox (one of my computers) is back in business. SSH tunneling FTW.

robin Internet, Robin, Technology

We’ve still got no internet right now. I’m not entirely clear on whether it is Comcast or just the wifi, though. Comcast, I think, since they apparently had a tech here for a couple hours yesterday who couldn’t figure out what was wrong. Word on the street is that it will be back on the weekend.

That will be nice. I like my phone, and I specifically got it so that I could use it as an internet source. I just wish I didn’t have to. I was thinking of places like the beach house, not at home.

Oh well.

robin Internet, Robin

Comcast has been down for over a day now. Good lord, this is ridiculous. Internet over my phone comes only at DSL speeds. I WANT MY CABLE BACK!

robin Internet, Rants, Robin

Apparently I have more visitors to this blog than just my fiancée. Some of the members of #intj have professed to glancing at it a few times. I am famous now.

robin Internet, Robin

It is possible to use a Samsung SCI-i760 as a modem with Mac OSX. Verizon Wireless will be no help here, but hopefully I can. After literally months of hunting around, I have figured out how to do it. Here’s how:

You will need three files for this. They are Verizon Wireless’s VZAccess program, BTModem.exe, which creates a dial-up networking bluetooth interface, and VerizonWirelessModem, a modem script. I am not certain that VZAccess is required, but I had it installed when I managed to get this to work, so I’m going to recommend that you install it as well.

First, install BTModem.exe on your phone. Copy it over any way you can, such as with a memory card or using the Obex FTP application on the phone. Run it. It will create a bluetooth serial port to which your computer will connect and use as a modem.

Next, install VZAccess. The steps for this are pretty obvious.

Finally, you need to install the modem script. Unzip it and copy it to “/Library/Modem Scripts”.

Then, you need to set up the serial port. I assume that you have already paired your phone with your computer.

Go to the System Preferences and choose the Bluetooth pane. Select your phone, then click on the gear icon. Select “Edit Serial Ports…”. There should be one listed already, named with the bluetooth name of your phone followed by “-i730ModemS-1″. If there is not, click on the plus icon, and it will be added.

Select the serial port, and set the Protocol to RS-232. Set the Service to “i730 Modem Serial Port”. Check both “Require pairing for security” and “Show in network preferences”. Here is what mine looks like:

Next, back in the System Preferences, choose the Network pane. Select the “-i730-Modem-S-1″ interface, and name it something like “VZW”. Click Create.

Now to edit the modem settings. Use “#777″ as the telephone number. Account Name is “(yourphonenumber)@vzw3g.com”. For me, this was “5402728159@vzw3g.com”. The password is “vzw”.

Next, click on Advanced. Set Vendor to “Other”. Once you have done this, set “Modem” to “Verizon Wireless”. Click OK.

Now, disconnect your phone from the net if it is connected. Your modem is now set up.

Disconnect any other active network interfaces, such as an Airport. If your computer is already connected to the net, it doesn’t seem to work. Click “Connect” to try it out. :)

A side note: I have discovered an intermittent problem that undoes some of this connection stuff. Occasionally, for no apparent reason, my mac forgets that the serial port, “i760 Modem Serial Port”, exists. When this happens, go to the “Edit Serial Ports” dialog from the Bluetooth preferences, and click the “+” button below the list of serial ports. It should show up immediately. If you have already set up the VZW network interface, you don’t need to do that again after re-adding the serial port.

Side note 2: Sometimes, for example when you get a phone call while connected, OS X seems to hang on the disconnect step. It will say it is disconnecting, but never finish, and not let you reconnect either. Internally, this is the PPP daemon getting hung on a suddenly gone serial port. The solution to this is similar to the note above: If it hangs on disconnect, go to the bluetooth preferences for the device, click “Edit Serial Ports…”, and then remove the serial port. Click apply. Suddenly the stalled disconnect will finish. You can then re-add the serial port and connect again.

robin Internet, Robin, Technology