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Friday, 14 April 2006 |
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I've had this idea. It might be a stupid one, it might be a great one but in my eyes it'd sure as hell be useful.
As I write this, it's getting on for 3AM. I'm bored, I can't sleep and my dodgy net connection is driving me mad. I'm down in Dorset for a few days with the missus for a wedding and we're staying at her parents. On the way down in the car (with the cat!) I was happily surfing t'internet on the laptop with the Exec being used as a 3G modem. However, as we pulled into the drive the Exec suddenly gave me the old "no service". I was used to this as reception for any network is very poor here but I knew I'd prolly get one or two bars when we got in the house. Fast forward to the now and I'm in the lounge with the laptop. The Exec is upstairs on the window sill in the bedroom plugged into the mains and I'm using it now as a Bluetooth GPRS modem. It's not 100% reliable but it's working.
So, I was thinking, seeing as the Exec can run Linux and seeing as my WRT54GS (router) is Linux based (now running DD-WRT), surely someone out there could rise to the challenge and somehow allow the HTC Universal to be used as an access point? It has high speed wireless lan hardware, it has high speed data communication hardware, it can be used as a Bluetooth modem so why can't it be used as a Wi-Fi access point? You can ad-hoc to your computer and share it's net connection, why can't you ad-hoc to your device and share it's net connection?
Maybe I'm mad but I think turning the Universal into a simple Wi-Fi AP/router is a great idea. Not only would you be able to use that speedy 3G connection to the max. wirelessly (Bluetooth only uses about a third of it) but you'd have more control over the connection, allow other devices/computers to connect to it and maybe even be able to view important device stats remotely such as battery life, signal strength etc.
So, how about it developers? Think you could pull this off? You might be thinking "yeh I could probably do this but what's in it for me?". Well, to be honest, not alot really. Although you could well end up becoming a hero to the community with masses of Kudos and if it works well I might even donate something gadgety as a reward although that depends on how skint I am at the time. I am a poor student after all ;)
If you think you're up to it then let us know by clicking the "got news" button. If I can help I will and I'm sure that goes for the rest of the team here at MSMN. Between us we know alot of people in the WM community so if we can't help then we'll probably know someone who can.
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