[TriLUG] BlueTooth dongle purchase

Steve Litt slitt at troubleshooters.com
Sat Aug 11 13:23:48 EDT 2012


On Fri, 10 Aug 2012 19:29:52 -0400, Danielle White said:
> On 08/10/2012 01:32 PM, William Sutton wrote:
> > tether to your cell phone for internet connectivity?
> 
> That's what I do when I'm on-call; I refuse to let on-call mean
> having no life so I carry an old AspireOne netbook (running Windows
> as it's my partner's and she's said "no" to Linux on it) with a
> low-profile BlueTooth dongle that I usually leave in the port. When I
> receive a page, if there is WiFi I'll use that, otherwise I'll BT
> tether to my work-provided smartphone, establish the VPN connection,
> and do what I need to address the issue.

Hi Danielle,

I just want to make sure I understand what you're saying. What I hear
you saying is you can plug your bluetooth dongle into your laptop to
communicate with your bluetooth-enabled cell phone, and then use the
cellphone as your notebook's Internet on-ramp, even when there's no
other wifi or wired network around. Did I understand that correctly?

If I understood that correctly, that's the only justification I would
need. That's phenominal. I have a Walmart "Straight Talk" cellphone.
For $45/month I get unlimited talk and text, and *I think* data too. It
would be great not to have to worry about where I can and can't get
wifi.

My one worry would be security, given that this Bluetooth goes
300 meters, meaning the guy in the hotel next to yours can pick it up.
But if I could solve that, wow!

Thanks

SteveT

Steve Litt                *  http://www.troubleshooters.com/
                          *  http://twitter.com/stevelitt
Troubleshooting Training  *  Human Performance




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