any ideas? :0)

Falkorre

OK, heres the problem.
Aunt of mine (very Tech-silly), has just bought herself a new laptop..... And we are teaching her how to use it online.

HOWEVER, she hates cables and leads, and wants a wireless connection (over dial-up), she does *not* want to go via another pc, literally she wants the laptop to be wirelessly linked to a transmitter of some sort upstairs connected to her phone line to connect to the net.
As cheap as possible too.

Now, I *know* how to connect a laptop wirelessly to another pc to get online, but is there anyway to bypass the PC an go str8 to phonline?

Any Ideas?

B

tomk

What you need is an AP with a 56k modem built in - like this, for example. Not cheap, though.

If you feel like a bit of DIY, you could set up a PC somewhere out of the way, and use it to share out the connection. Persuade your aunt to go off somewhere for the day while you set it up, and she need never know it's there.

Capt'n Midnight

Price £ 203.57 Ouch - that is expensive !!

Also if it gets hijacked by a war driver then it is pence per minute.
Also if windows is not configured right then any number of apps would auto dial.
-windows update
-adobe
-symantic live update
-DNS
Also if the password changes the modem will auto dial (eircom charge you for a call) fail to logon and try again immediatley - more fiddly settings.

Would be cheaper to get broadband if any chance of the above ever happening esp. since you might not find out till the next phone bill.

Tell her the truth, you can get cheap ADSL / Wireless stuff because that is what the rest of the world uses. But here in the eTub of europe we use dial up and there is virtually no demand for a wireless dial up modem in the rest of the world. Also tell her that you can't guarantee 100% that even if the laptop is turned off , wrapped in thin-foil and posted to Namiba that the phone call made by the modem will end since she can't simply hang up since modem is not on the laptop.

Tom Dunne

There are bluetooth phone adapters around - there have been several threads on it before. These gadgets do exactly what you want, but of course you will have to buy a bluetooth adapter.

happydude13

You might be able to rig something up if you can get a dect phone
that has a line out and just hook up the laptop modem to that.

I'd imagine there would be lots of duct tape involved though

Fibonacci

The Apple airport base station (compatible with Windows) includes a 56K modem which can be used to create an AP. Again not cheap ($199), but a newer version is out, so you might be able to pick up a cheap one second hand.

http://store.apple.com/1-800-MY-APPLE/WebObjects/AppleStore.woa/71508/wo/tA2PkmLAWWIB3Zvc3oXKl6WmxaX/1.3.0.6.10.3.1.1.15.0

parsi

Have a look at this thread http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=176665 it talks about the bluetooth 56k modems etc...

Falkorre

Thnx guys, still checking them all out, very hard to find a solution that will work for her. Shes a v nice woman, but unfortunately still thinks that a laptop should majickly be somhow connected to the net.
In a way shes kinda right, she paid 2500 to pcw to get the thing, there *should* be a way to get her wirelessly online without having to buy another pc to go thru. We can clone a sheep after all lol

B

Capt'n Midnight

Falkorre wrote:

there *should* be a way to get her wirelessly online without having to buy another pc to go thru. We can clone a sheep after all lol

If you were in a major urban area in any other OECD country it would be trivial. The problem is that you can't get affordable broadband or fixed rate alternatives so you have to be bloody careful about disconnecting as you WILL be charged if you stay connected. If Eircom provided a similar service to most other foreign telco's it would be easy.