Configuring La Fonera 2.0n to work in South Africa

in this post I am showing how to configure Fon's router to work with South Africa's Vodacom network & 3G USB modem.

What is La Fonera?

According to www.fon.com La Fonera is a great router with the capability to your existing 3G dongle internet connection into Wifi. Check out their website for more detail.

Hardware Used

Prior to receiving the La Fonera 2.0n, I used to connect my laptop to Vodacom via the Vodafone branded 3G USB modem - Huawei K3750, using the packaged Mobile Partner software for Mac.

While that worked without any problems, the configuration of the La Fonera 2.0 was not a simple plug & play. It took me a good deal of research and hard thinking to determine which steps I am missing and what I would need to do in order to establish an internet connection via the La Fonera 2.0n

Step by Step

First of, you need to download a DEVELOPER image of the latest firmware in order to allow login via ssh. This is required to make changes to the configuration files which are otherwise not accessible.

Download the latest version of the firmware here: http://download.fonosfera.org/LATEST/

Make sure you are downloading the _DEV.tgz file, the .img file will not work.

Next, we need to login to the La Fonera router (http://192.168.10.1 in your browser, the default password is "admin"). Under Dashboard >> Settings >> System browse & select the downloaded firmware file --> wait until the firmware is updated and reboot the device.

When you log in again, you will see that the logo on the top right hand side has changed to show FONOSFONERA beta - update successful :)

Next we can start

Configuring the Settings:

Plug in the Huawei K3750 and set-up the modem via La Fonera's dashboard (Dashboard >> UMTS/3G >> Configure). For Vodacom the following CUSTOM CONFIGURATION needs to be set-up here (without the quotation marks):

CUSTOM SETTINGS

APN: "internet"

PIN: your_SIM_PIN_goes_here (leave blank for no PIN)

Username: ""

Password: ""

(Username & Password are not required to connect to Vodacom in South Africa).

After entering these details, nothing seemed to happen... ;)

Now, ssh into the router (ssh root@192.168.10.1 - the default password = "admin") and edit the following files to make them look as indicated below. The settings might have to change slightly depending on your network and hardware.

1) cd /etc/config

vi umtsd

(press i to get vi into edit mode)

(amend the file to hold the information below)

(after editing press "Esc" to exit edit mode and "wq" followed by "Enter" to save the changes; w=write & q=quit)

/etc/config/umtsd

config 'umtsd' 'umtsd'

option 'pin' 'YOUR_PIN_HERE' <-- (enter your SIM PIN)

option '_country' '_custom'

option 'apn' 'internet'

config 'umtsdstate' 'umtsdstate'

config 'umtsdevice' 'option12D11003'

option 'vendor' 'Huawei'

option 'device' 'K3750'

2) cd /Apps

vi umtsd.lua

(press i to get vi into edit mode)

(amend the file to hold the information below)

(after editing press "Esc" to exit edit mode and "wq" followed by "Enter" to save the changes; w=write & q=quit)

/Apps/umtsd.lua

... (@ about 10% of the file you should see the following)

-- some dummy data

local data = "/dev/ttyUSB0"

local cmd = "/dev/ttyUSB0" <-- used to be ttyUSB1

local type = "Huawei" <--

local user = ""

local pass = ""

local apn = ""

local pin = ""

local since = 0

local mode

... (@ about 75% / 78% of the file you will see)

print("ABORT \"NO CARRIER\"\n"..

"ABORT \"NO DIALTONE\"\n"..

"ABORT \"ERROR\"\n"..

"ABORT \"NO ANSWER\"\n"..

"ABORT \"BUSY\"\n"..

"\"\" \"+++atz\"\n"..

"OK \"ATE0V1\"\n"..

"OK AT+CGDCONT=1,\"IP\",\""..apn.."\"\n"..

"OK \"ATD*99#\"\n".. <-- access number (*99#)

"\"CONNECT\" \"\"")

f:write("ABORT \"NO CARRIER\"\n"..

"ABORT \"NO DIALTONE\"\n"..

"ABORT \"ERROR\"\n"..

"ABORT \"NO ANSWER\"\n"..

"ABORT \"BUSY\"\n"..

"\"\" \"+++atz\"\n"..

"OK \"ATE0V1\"\n"..

"OK AT+CGDCONT=1,\"IP\",\""..apn.."\"\n"..

"OK \"ATD*99#\"\n".. <-- access number (*99#)

"\"CONNECT\" \"\"")

...

3) Log Out of the ssh session and in your browser go to Dashboard >> Settings >> System and choose "Reboot".

After rebooting, the USB modem should connect within 30 to 60 seconds.

4) Just to confirm - /var/state/umtsd

when entering "cat /var/state/umtsd" in the terminal you should see something like

umtsd.umtsd.attached=1

umtsd.umtsd.device=option12D11001

umtsd.umtsdstate.state=ONLINE

umtsd.umtsdstate.tx=0

umtsd.umtsdstate.rx=0

umtsd.umtsdstate.online=0

umtsd.umtsdstate.vendor=

umtsd.umtsdstate.model=

umtsd.umtsdstate.provider=65501

umtsd.umtsdstate.signal=16,99

umtsd.umtsdstate.signal=16,99

umtsd.umtsdstate.signal=16,99

umtsd.umtsdstate.signal=16,99

This has been working for me ever since...

Thanks to all contributors (many of them unknowingly) - as I have been following the advice of:

http://boards.fon.com/viewtopic.php?f=33&t=6037

http://wiki.fon.com/wiki/Huawei_K3715

http://boards.fon.com/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=7336

http://wiki.fon.com/wiki/FON2-Tweak-3G-Irish3

http://wiki.fon.com/wiki/Fon-ng:_Get_Involved

http://wiki.fon.com/wiki/Firmware_Update

http://trac.fonosfera.org/fon-ng/wiki/sshflash

http://download.fonosfera.org/LATEST/fonera2.0n-FON2300/

Google's Community

Mr Korbik wrote in his blog about his worry that Google Lacks Stickiness. Stickiness is what he refers to by Google's current practise of coming out with new beta versions of programs on a daily basis which might or might not attract a community.

as put in an article by Steve Bryant in "A Competitor's Guide to the Internet, Part II"

BASELINE DATA
Google:
2005 Revenue: $6.14 billion (up 92.4% from 2004)
2005 Unique Visitors: 94.6 million per month averaging 32.3 minutes on sites

Yahoo:
2005 Revenue: $5.26 billion (up 47.1% from 2004)
2005 Unique Visitors: 120 million per month averaging 244.9 minutes on sites

Microsoft:
2005 Revenue: $39.79 billion (up 8% from 2004)
2005 Unique Visitors: 110.4 million unique visitors averaging 176 minutes on sites

I am a big Google-Fan myself and I really like their products even though I wish that most of them would have moved out of beta by now... BUT I agree with Kobrik in a way of having difficulty to obtaining a clear understanding of Google's business and its competitive advantage.

Todate it is mostly Google's supreme internet search capibilities (again being subjectiv here) which attracts people to Google and NOT any other of the services. For Microsoft and Yahoo it is to some degree their search BUT MUCH MORE OTHER OFFERINGS. If there would ever a newer, slicker, more advanced search engine come up to revolutionise internet search, WHY would people still use Google instead?

It is true that Google's numbers do NOT look bad in terms of unique visitor BUT in terms of time on site (which is a major measure of the community strength) it LACKS behind Yahoo and Microsoft by far. This will have to change if Google wants to really profit from its community and turn it into $$

On a closing note... I hope that more people will get to try Google products and hopefully stick around to use them. I wish I had more of my personal contacts using Google's other products - it would make life much easier for me (and many others).

Gmail - Multiple Automatic Filters / Labels

That gmail has the capibilities to automatically filter incoming mail and label it accordingly is basically common knowledge. The use of this technique for todo-lists or as a depository for notes to have them all the time and everywhere available, can be found at many different places on the web as well. But what if I have an important todo item that additionally I want to keep writing some notes on the topic? Do I then have to write multiple messages one for each filter / label?

The answer is: NO!


All that has to be done in order to be able to use multiple filters within one message like

Recipient: Username+Filter1+Filter2+Filter3@gmail.com
e.g. Username+important+todo+notes@gmail.com

is that the filters need to be set up in a way that after the "+filter-extension" in the Filter Condition a * has to follow, being succeeded by the @gmail.com or whatever the extension is that google offers in your country.

Filter Condition:
to:Username+Filter1*@gmail.com
Username+important*@gmail.com
to:Username+Filter2*@gmail.com
Username+todo*@gmail.com
to:Username+Filter3*@gmail.com
Username+notes*@gmail.com

And that's it. From now on messages can easily be sent with multiple labels attached to them :-)

technorati tags: Google, gmail

Is Google becoming - "The Internet" ?!

Google just launched another service - a traffic analysis (see also Slashdot | Google Launches Web Traffic Analysis Service ). It is just one in a wide variety of new, FREE services Google is starting to build around its core - the data mining according to user preferences or as the average internet user would call it - Searching the Web. Adding to the services suit of recently its free wifi-service in CA,USA and starting to invade eBay-Territory with base.google.com, Google Talk (VoIP) and the oh so controversial Google Print.
It is awesome to be able to do so many things online and for free but as Microsoft has such market-power on desktops, it seems Google is aiming for dominating the Internet. I get the feeling that Google is becoming too big and too diversified for its own good. Hope they proof me wrong! As long as Google keeps "not being evil" it's all good but who says that it will stay that way? I feel a little uncomfortable seeing Google jump on every hype that is coming up these days.

Another area of concern for me is the fact that Google's P/E is sky-high and does not seem to know any boundaries. Is the next stock market hype near or is Google really worth THIS much? I can hardly see it. And while I agree with GF Colony of Forrester Research that the company has the power to define the future of software, the thought of having ONE company dominate an area as vital to everybody in todays world as the internet, still makes me uncomfortable. But then again - if someone has to dominate - then why not the "so not evil" - Google?!

technorati tags: Google, Internet

The new era of Webbrowsing - making the "social" Web2.0 reality

I recently came accross the Mozilla Firefox derivative FLOCK. Even though it is only a developer preview version, it looks very promising. Flock is derived from Firefox, so that most of the extensions (and themes?) should (with little adaption of the community) work with Flock. It has added features though which enhance it towards the social features of the internet aka the Web 2.0

These scial features manifest themselves in elements like a WYSIWYG Blog editor, which works with some popular blog services (as a matter of fact, this blog is written in Flock ;- )

Further Flock introduces favorits instead of bookmarks, which can be shared online on a service http://del.icio.us . In addition to them being possibly viewed by the world, they can also be searched and organised with the help of tags - thus making the organisation much more flexible than the old-style bookmarks.

It also includes RSS feed reader, caching and on-the-fly aggregation.

There is much more to be checked out ... http://www.flock.com

Flock certainly has the potential not only to become a major threat in terms of browser market share, but it definately holds the possibilities to revolutionise/socialise the web browsing experience.

GAIM & Google's IM Service

Thanks to Vijay Shankar Ganesh, there is a nice little description on
how to configure GAIM using the Jabber protocol in order to become a
user of Google's IM program.

http://geekswithblogs.net/vganesh/archive/2005/08/24/50949.aspx

Stream Of (Un-)Consciousness

Another day of hard (knowledge) work has passed, the mental image of myself appears rather blurred and not clear. But blogging is supposed to help - focus the mind by taking it off the most burning issues. It forces me to think, structure, and work consciously with what has so far been "just there" in the unconscious space within.

Dumping my thoughts here, should not only enable me to create a piece of reflection for myself (and possibly others) but also give me an opportunity to discuss issues with the world-wide blogging community.

I believe in gaining through sharing. True to the spirit of openness I believe that only exposition to public scrutiny can enable me to survive.

In that sense:

HELLO WORLD!
-- let's blog!