Recently I bought  a Huawei U7519 phone on the Wind Mobile service. The phone tethers using Windows but what use is that to me?  Here is how I made it work using Linux.

As root:

echo "option"  >> /etc/modules

edit /etc/rc.local and add before exit 0: echo '12d1 101e' > /sys/bus/usb-serial/drivers/option1/new_id 

Download and install the software as per the instructions at this link: http://www.draisberghof.de/usb_modeswitch/

You should be able to plugin your device and will have a /dev/ttyUSB0 (which you can confirm with ls /dev/ttyU*

Now you can right click your NetworkManager in the panel and edit connections > mobile broadband > add t-mobile internet then edit that profile like so: mobile broadband > apn = internet.windmobile.ca

You can also select connect automatically on the mobile broadband tab.

Surfs up!

I'm blogging on this since I use Thunderbird as my email/calendar client on OpenSolaris (it's the default anyway).

It's easy to enable bi-directional integration of Google Calendar within Thunderbird Lightning, so here it is.

1. I'll save you abit of a chase, download the Google Calendar Provider is here: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/thunderbird/addon/4631

2. Now that you have d/l'd the extension, open from Thunderbird: Tools > Add-ons > Extensions > (bottom left corner Install), which will provide you with a window to select the location you downloaded to, select it and you're done installing, other than the restart. On to step 3., the configuration.

3. Now you can add your Google Calendar by going to Calendar > Add new calendar > (select the On the Network radio button) > (select the Google Calendar radio button) and enter the location, which will be the ical link of your google calendar. You will be prompted for your login information.

You should be good to go, go ahead and make a test calendar entry from Lighting and check your Google Calendar via a browser for the test entry.

Together with Sun's Teresa Giacomini, a number of Global OpenSolaris User Group Leaders and myself we had our first simultaneous IRC/conference calls this last week. Really very rewarding, to see something we've been going back and forth on the OpenSolaris mail-lists come to fruition in a relatively short time.

So what, you may be thinking, it's a conference call .. big deal. Ah, if you notice above I said "Global". When I'm up others are asleep and so on. Yet after a number of back and forth and forth and back emails regarding the time of the call(s) we finalized the dates. Co-operation and community, can you dig it open sourcers! 

Talking live to each other was great. We 'scribed from the call to those on IRC unable to call in (there's that co-operation again), vocalizing their written questions & comments back. Good ideas regarding our groups and the framework for our future calls .. even a few jokes. It flowed easily .. other than a recurring question, "Who's first?"