connecting to the Internet ?

[John Harrelson]

How to get online with your laptop and cell phone

Last summer (2005) I decided to buy a laptop computer and connect it to my cell phone so I could “cut the cord” and be free ... free ....... free as a bird, go anywhere I wanted and still get my internet fix each day..

I could see it now .... Sitting in my canoe with fishing pole in one hand and laptop in the other ... Sitting in the fast food drive through and surfing the net..
Oh such sweet dreams man’s follies does produce.

Then the problems started coming up like pop-up ads on a porn site..

Problem #1.
My cell phone was not compatible for connecting to a laptop.
Well .... OK, I ‘ll get a new phone, after all, I’ve had the old phone since the 1980’s.

So away I go to the cellular phone store.. Now I admit that I am sometimes TOO practical in certain situations.. Here’s a classic example...

If I am going to spend money on a new phone, it would be foolish to get just another phone that will be obsolete in six months, So I tell the clerk that I want the latest, fastest, smartest, top of the line phone on the market.

I walk out with the most expensive phone made. It sings, talks, dances, plays games, emails, surfs the net, tells me the time and wakes me up with an alarm, reminds me of things like appointments, takes pictures... And only God knows what else it does..

After several long and frustrating twenty hour days of reading the instruction book and trying to understand all the things it could do and wondering why I could not get it to do those things, even though I followed the directions to the letter ...........................

I finally return to the phone store with a booming headache, blood shot eyes and a nervous tick, where I exchange it for a different phone that has the things I need but none of the things I don’t.
It was also forty dollars cheaper.. That helped my headache..

Problem #2.
Now that I have the proper cell phone, I needed the cord to connect the laptop and phone together.
WHAT .... $40.00 !!! Are you people crazy ?!?!?!!!!

I don’t want a cord long enough to reach from the computer to the telephone office, just to the cell phone.. Do you have a shorter on that cost less ?
Harummmmp.... some sales people have no sense of humor.



Problem #3.
At last, ..... I am now a broke but happy camper, I have a new phone, a new laptop and two foot of gold called a data cord.

I install the software CD that came with the data cord.
Faithfully following the directions precisely, I make my first attempt to get on the Internet..

I connect the phone to the laptop as per the instructions and click on my internet provider’s icon like I usually do when I want to connect to the Internet.

Nothing, Nada, El Zippo ...... No dial tone. No humming, buzzing, beeping or squealing like the desktop computer does when connecting..

After five days and many, many, many hours of talking with the cell phone company’s technicians, they give and I give up... They say it can’t be done.. I must have a bad computer..

I yield to the modern age of miracles and resign myself to being ignorant and start thinking about what I could do to make the old desktop computer faster, smarter and portable. Maybe a Honda generator in the car trunk ? Wonder how much that will cost ?


Then with the darkness of despair slowing enveloping me in its mist, an angel appeared and .... Ok, so it was the driver of the porta-potty truck ...... and said why not get an “Air Card”?
Huh ? Wadaheck is an air card ?

He explained, I listened, I searched, I found, I bought ... an “Air Card”
I had to travel over a hundred miles to find a store that had the air card in stock.

I once again read the instructions and installed the air card accordingly.. So I am now ready to try going on the internet again.. I click on my internet providers icon and ....
Nothing !! ..... Nope, nothing... What was I doing wrong... ?

Surely it had to be me................... It was.

**************************************


I found out that when using an air card or cell phone with data cord connection, it worked a little different from the landline way of getting on the internet..

With a landline connection, all I had to do was click on my internet provider’s icon and it took me onto the internet highway and then to my ISP’s home page automatically..

But with an air card, you are taken to the internet highway and dropped off at a bus stop. And the bus is owned by the Cellular Company that controls your air card.

The bus cost me $59.99 per month to ride. But I can ride as many times and for as long as I want to. There are no limits with the $59.99 plan.

I then have to ride the cellular bus to my ISP’s web site and change busses.

Now I am on my ISP’s bus and can go anywhere I want to on the web. There are many different ISPs on the market... Some are free, some cost a little and some cost a lot.

Some ISPs are good to you and some are like a virus that takes over your computer and only allows you to do only what it wants you to do.. (most of you know the nAme Of the internets’s Largest virus, right?)

With my ISP’s bus I can send and receive emails, go to the malls, or just spend the day riding the ISP’s bus up and down the internet super highway, stopping along the way as I feel like it..

This is how your Cell Phone or Air Card works when you use them to get connected to the internet.

Now..... I‘m at last a happy camper... Where‘s my fishing poles,.... Maybe I should stop off at the fast food drive through and grab a lunch....

Happy New Year everyone,
John.