Built-In Verizon EVDO on a T61p with Debian

This is the first in what will be a short series of posts of what I’ve had to do to get Debian (Lenny – currently the ‘testing’ distro) working fully and smoothly on my new T61p.

The key options in my T61p package:

39T4822 	VBB WWAN
42V9332 	SBB WAN:VERIZONSIERRACDMA2000
42V8603 	SBB INT.WWAN ANTENNA 15.4"
42V8659 	SBB CL.PLATE T61P WL WWAN
42W7002 	SBB FCC-ID/LABEL FOR WWAN
42V8675 	SBB VERIZON OPTION

That all translates to a slickly built-in Verizon card and antenna:

$ sudo lsusb -v | grep Sierra
Bus 006 Device 002: ID 1199:0220 Sierra Wireless, Inc.
  idVendor           0x1199 Sierra Wireless, Inc.
  iManufacturer           1 Sierra Wireless, Incorporated
  iProduct                2 Sierra Wireless MC5725 Modem

Here is the only officially unofficial official public documentation I could find for that card on Linux.

Before setting this up with Debian, I’d recommend getting it working with Windows if you haven’t reformatted over it yet. The card and connection pretty much ‘just works’ on Lenovo’s preinstalled Windows. This will mostly eliminate Verizon as the source of the problem if things don’t go right with Debian.

A default Debian install provides a number of tools you can use to configure and automate your connection. I like gnome-ppp (essentially a GUI frontend on wvdial) best. I’ve also set it up with gnome’s network-admin applet (System->Administration->Network), but it doesn’t provide good user feedback on the connection process or status. And by ‘good’, I mean ‘any’. Perhaps future versions will have better integration of dial-out connections, now that they’re coming back into style with EVDO and 3G networks. In any case, I will provide instructions for both these two tools here. (Note this is an either/or. There is no reason to bother setting this up with both tools, other than to test out the GUI’s.)

First, GUI configuration. Here’s your key points:

  • Username: YOURPHONENUMBER@vzw3g.com
  • Password: vzw
  • Phone number to dial: #777

For gnome-ppp, you want to:

  • Use the ‘Detect’ mechanism. It worked perfect for me. Try it.
  • Under Options, enable ’stupid mode’ to speed up the connection process substantially. You’re also calling Verizon stupid, in a extremely passive aggressive manner… ummm, feels so good…. stupid stupid stupid.

For network-admin:

  • Set the Modem port to /dev/ttyUSB0.
  • Check the ‘Set modem as default route to Internet’ option or your machine will just drop your outbound packets on the floor.
  • No remote authentication. In the file /etc/ppp/peers/ppp0, add a line ‘noauth’ to disable your authentication of the verizon servers. This means that if someone successfully hijacks Verizon’s ‘#777′ number, you will have no way of knowing, and they will have complete control over your traffic. (gnome-ppp does this ‘noauth’ for you automatically, for better or for worse.)
  • Do not set the modem volume. In the file /etc/chatscripts/ppp0, comment out the line that has a command like ‘AT&FH0XX’ where XX are wildcards depending on your GUI settings. Issuing this command causes the modem error out, reporting ‘NO CARRIER’ on the ensuing ATDT (dial) command.

And that’s it! For debugging, your friends are tail, /var/log/syslog, /var/log/messages, gnome-ppp’s GUI log display, cat, echo, /dev/ttyUSB0, minicom and or course, good old google.

August 29, 2008 | Mike Fogel | Tags: , , , | No Comments »

America’s Most Beautiful Ride

No really, that’s what they call it.

tahoe from a bike

72 miles with about 2600′ of elevation gain/loss.


View Larger Map

Most of the ride has at least an acceptable shoulder. This is pretty typical.

somewhere near tahoe city, biking

For a good 20-30 miles on the California side of the lake there’s a full-on separated bike path. Sweet! Unfortunately it’s then generally clogged with families and beach cruisers… so most of the time we stuck to the highway anyway. But it’s a step in the right direction. And it’d be a great place to take anyone who’s not yet solid on highway riding.

tahoe bike trail

We started from South Tahoe, and went clockwise around the lake. If you follow that route, your first treat is Emerald Bay, which you definitely have to earn with some steep climbs. But riding along the ridge between Emerald Bay and Cascade Lake is… stunning.

emerald bay

Looping around the west side heading towards Tahoe City: share that road!

and by share, I mean 'please don't cream my ass

From somewhere on the north shore. We got lunch in Incline Village.

tahoe from the north shore

Coming down Hwy 50 on the Nevada side is probably the most sketch part of the whole trip. Shoulder is non-existent, traffic is fast and so are you (we maxed out at just under 45mph) and there are large drainage grates that extend halfway out into the lane. We started by swerving around them, and ended by hopping them. Bunny hopping with a road bike – that can’t be good for your frame.

tahoe more biking

And… back in South Tahoe with a total riding time of just over 4 hours for the loop. A beautiful end to a beautiful ride.

south tahoe casinos

August 28, 2008 | Mike Fogel | Tags: | 1 Comment »

Get the Gum out!

Got gum stuck on your nice pants?  Like say you sat on some at the bachelor party?  Whatcha gonna do?

vinegar!

Vinegar!

First test the vinegar on a inseam or something to make sure it doesn’t discolor your pants.  If that’s ok, then…

Pour some vinegar on the gum.  Wait a few moments for the vinegar and gum to fight it out, then wipe it all with a towel.  Some little bits of the gum will come off.  Repeat this process a dozen times or so, throw the pants through the wash once to get the vinegar smell off, and you’re good to go.

August 24, 2008 | Mike Fogel | Tags: | No Comments »

Commute Practice

I’ve spent the last 6 months passively scouting (bike) commute routes up and down the Peninsula, in preparation for my upcoming move back to San Francisco and continued work/study at Stanford. I know I’m not alone in this – there’s a fair number of people who live in the city these days and commute down to the Silicon Valley, and a fair number of them are cyclists, and a fair number of those cyclists would bike to work occasionally if there was a decent route. So let’s find (build?) a route!

Unfortunately, I don’t believe there is a silver bullet of a route to find. This is the best I’ve came up with thus far… it’s reasonable. Most of the route I’d rate at a 3 (out of 5) or better in terms of cyclist safety. Excluding the intersection of Ceasar Chavez, Potrero, Bayshore and 101. That’s bunk.  That gets a 2.


View Larger Map

There’s one part of the route that google maps can’t really handle. Along San Andreas Lake and the Lower Crystal Springs Reservoir, there’s an awesome mixed use path.  The path does have a 15mph bike speed limit – but the alternative is to add a couple hundred feet of climbing along with a short (but legal) stretch on 280.  Ouch.

So, this route took me 2:17 today without commute bags, which would probably add another 20 lbs and 20 minutes.  Doing this commute by car is generally 40-50 minutes, depending on the traffic.  Add another 10 minutes on each side of that for parking.  I guess to be fair, we should add 15 minutes of bike prep time, and 30 minutes for shower time at the far end.  So ~1 hour by car, ~3 hours by bike.

Any ideas for improving that get-out-of-SF part?  Or any other part of the ride for that matter?  The MTC has a set of ideas, but those are more long-term big picture ideas. I’m looking for a fast, safe route now… or as close to that ideal as possible.

August 17, 2008 | Mike Fogel | Tags: , | 1 Comment »

Strings Attached

I while back I wrote Caltrain a ‘passionate’ letter about how they’re focused on the wrong issues when it comes to bikes and Caltrain.  The situation has evolved a little since then, a little good clarification and a little new nomenclature.

  1. The bike plan they’re developing is no longer called the ‘Bicycle Master Plan’. Which is good, because it never was a bicycle master plan. It’s now called the ‘Bicycle Access and Parking Plan’. Again, good, because this means that we can forget this non-problem sooner rather than later and move on to developing a sorely needed ‘Bicycle Master Plan’.
  2. The first draft of the plan is out. Some of the URL’s and such still say ‘Master Plan’, but if you search that pdf, the word ‘master’ never comes up in there. Read it, comment about it, but don’t get your hopes up for a response.
  3. Why is Caltrain focusing on this non-issue right now?  Strings!  They’re attached!  On page 7 of the draft:

    In 2006, Caltrain secured a federal grant from the California Department of Transportation (Caltrans) to develop the agency’s first plan to address station access and parking issues for bicycles…

    Well, I’ll give you that in 2006 there wasn’t such a problem with bikes on board. But something is wrong with the system when we’re spending money (even if it is federal hand-me-downs) on a non-problem when there are other, very closely related, much bigger and more pressing problems. Is it the responsiveness (or lack thereof) of the system? 2006 to now – that’s a time scale of years between decision and action. Is it the locality (or lack thereof) of the decision makers relative to the issues? This is federal money, which was allocated to Caltrans for bike/pedestrian/transit, then Caltrans at the state level decided what specific local issue the funds were to be spent on.  To much focus on infrastructure improvements when service improvements are what’s really needed?  I’m not sure.  But it is clear the system is running in a state that is far from optimal.

The final plan will be presented to Caltrain’s Joint Powers Board on October 2nd for approval/rejection.  Stay tuned.

August 15, 2008 | Mike Fogel | Tags: , , | 1 Comment »

O-v-e-r Computing

I’ve played out this script like too many dozen times:

friend: “I need a new computer!”
me: “why…?”
friend: “cause it’s slow.”
me: “have you tried reinstalling windows?”

Actually, even better than reinstalling windows is to switch to an operating system that won’t bog your computer down with unnecessary fancy fades, transparencies, drop shadows and the like.  But this requires a little more than a ‘little’ effort.  However, as a testament to how much more power can be milked out of a machine than we like to give credit for, check it out:

OmniBook 900

Running my RSS reader, (and firefox, thunderbird and like 8 copies of vi in the background) that is an OmniBook 900 which I bought for $50 2 years ago. It’s an 8-year-old machine. Count them… 1… 2… 8!

$ cat /proc/cpuinfo | grep '\(vendor_id\|model name\|cpu MHz\)'
vendor_id      : GenuineIntel
model name     : Pentium III (Coppermine)
cpu MHz        : 498.469
$ cat /proc/meminfo | grep 'MemTotal'
MemTotal:       321332 kB

Albeit a little slowly, it’s running all the stuff I normally use a computer for on a day-to-day basis. (I’m blogging on it too! omg ponnies!) And it’s got less power than my phone. Not to say we should all be running 8-year-old laptops, but it is to say that computing is not headed toward more and more power, but rather toward more and more mobility, integration, and ubiquity. Funny how some of the big guys don’t get it.

And it is also to say, next time you’re thinking about replacing your machine cause it’s running a little slow… what you’re really trading off is the time and effort it would take for you to reformat & reinstall your existing machine versus the $2k it’ll cost you for a brand new one. But even that brand new one – depending on who you buy from, they may throw in pre-configured malware for you at no extra asshole-fee… so best practices would be to immediately reformat & reinstall anyway.

Moral of the story? Just don’t pay for extra computing power so that you can run your malware and your drop shadows and your anti-virus (arguably an even better resource hog than the malware itself) all on top of each other. Reinstall your windows one or two times a year – that’ll do more to keep you moving fast on your machine than buying a new one will. And while you’re clicking ‘yes I’m sure’ for the googlith time, think about switching over to the side of the penguin. It burns a little at first… but grows with age.

August 1, 2008 | Mike Fogel | Tags: , | No Comments »