Technobiography: Puzzle: 1 phoneline, 2 laptops

Wednesday, July 06, 2005

Puzzle: 1 phoneline, 2 laptops

Help with a puzzle, anyone?

I'm looking for a solution to the puzzle. I'm giving out a prize for the best solution. My criteria: Simple and Cheap.

Prize is: a 10-day unlimited access WorldPass card trial account. You can use WorldPass for Globe's WiFi hotspots, dial-up or broadband access. (See GlobeQuest)

Puzzle

Our Mandaluyong home has two laptops. Mine is Kurdapia, an old Toshiba Satellite with a PCMCIA WiFi card. Maya's is Fiona, a new Toshiba with built-in Celeron WiFi capabilities.

Puzzle is:

How can my wife and I have an Internet connection simultaneously on two laptops at home?

Our regular Internet connection is dial-up to PLDT Vibe via our PLDT landline.

Both Kurdapia and Fiona run WinXP, both have an ethernet LAN port and a telephone port and USB. Fiona has an IR port, Kurdapia doesn't.

Deadline: July 20.

What's your solution?

Ka Edong
MoBlogging in the MRT

Btw, PCMint has a new home = home of Kuya B's family

Search Technobiography for previous real-life puzzles

14 Comments:

At 7:46 pm, Jepoy said…

add another PLDT line. hahahaha!
At 9:59 pm, Unknown said…

ka edong,

sacha's suggestion of using ad-hoc mode would be ideal. everything you need is already there since both laptops had a wifi device. on windows just allow sharing on the ppp/dialup device (modem) and choose the wifi adapter as the other device (can't remember what it was called). now the other laptop must be configured in ad-hoc mode too. you can enable wep if you want.

cheerios!
At 8:04 am, Anonymous said…

ang gagaling naman mga tau na itu..
ka edong pag nagawa mu ituro mo naman sakin..
para pati si ermat nakakapag net din..

salamat!
At 10:51 am, Anonymous said…

The ad-hoc wireless mode would be the most ideal solution, this does not require you to have anything else to connect both laptops to the net.

Actually, the ad-hoc wireless and a cross cable is what allows me and my friends to connect to a single internet connection at seattle's best :D
At 10:56 am, Edwin "ka edong" said…

> the ad-hoc wireless and a cross cable

Hi Anonymous,

what is a cross cable? will the cross cable work without the ad hoc wireless?

ka edong
At 12:25 pm, Jepoy said…

cross cabled wire, kabaligtaran ng straight thru. hehehe. used to connect/network similar devices.
At 1:14 pm, Edwin "ka edong" said…

> used to connect/network similar devices.

ah, okay. A type of RJ45 LAN cable, right?

keep the ideas coming! ...

ka edong
At 3:39 pm, Anonymous said…

yung cross-cable po eh iba yung pagka crimp ng dulo ng rj45.. standard eh ganito:

white orange|orange|white green|blue|white blue|green|white brown|brown

sa kabilang dulo naman eto ang crimping:

white green|green|white orange|blue|white blue|orange|white brown|brown
At 4:30 pm, Nick Ballesteros said…

To see if your cable is crossed, just put the two RJ45s (or RJ11s) beside each other. If the colors on both jacks are lined the same way, straight yun. If not, crossed yun o mali ang crimping :-) I was thinking of a solution to the puzzle but Sacha's is looking to be the most convenient one :-)
At 1:13 am, Anonymous said…

three options you can do ka edong.

Option 1. use the wifi capability of your laptop.
- Goto the properties settings of the wifi card, look for the connection mode or something.
- Then select ADHOC mode. AdHoc mode is simply just like connection between two laptop only.
- Enable the "share internet connection" in the Laptop with internet.
- Once both laptop are connected na, you can surf the net na.

Option 2. second option is to buy "Cross over cable" , crossover cable is just like an ordinary lan cable but the transmit and receive pins are interchanged.
- you can ask any computer to assemble it for you. it will only cost you
1 meter utp cable=P15
2 pieces rj45 connector = P16
- Share the "internet connection" in the laptop with internet connection.
- connect both laptop using the crossover cable.
- start surfing

Option 3. Subscribe to SmartWifi P788/month
- buy linksys WRT54GS router cost around P4k
- connect the smartwifi to the router WAN port
- Setup the router(read the manual)
you can also ask for help or read the posts at PinoyWiFi.Com
-enjoy surfing with your laptop wirelessly!

i prefer the 3rd option if youre willing to spend.

if not then the option1 will do.

Goodluck ka edong!
At 1:17 am, Anonymous said…

oops sorry typo error in option2 post above:

Option 2. second option is to buy "Cross over cable" , crossover cable is just like an ordinary lan cable but the transmit and receive pins are interchanged.
- you can ask any computer SHOPS to assemble it for you.
At 11:49 am, Edwin "ka edong" said…

hi all,

Thanks for all your suggestions. I've tried out a couple of your suggestions and so far I haven't been able to make them work.

I've tried using the Wireless Network Setup Wizard (start > control panel > Wireless network setup wizard) referred to by the articles in Sacha's suggested links.

I've tried using the auto-config via Flashdisk. I also attempted the manual configuration. I've tried doing it on both Kurdapia and Fiona (with one running the wizard and the other being the computer being added).

This is the error i'm getting on kurdapia:
ERROR - Microsoft Windows XP - KURDAPIA (this computer, Depending on the wireless software running on this computer, the Wireless Network Setup Wizard might not work. For details, see article 871122 in the Microsoft Knowledge Base on Microsoft.com.)

Microsoft Windows XP - YOUR-ba3boXXXXX (Computer)

I'm now at the 871122 article on Microsoft. Still reading through ...

I'm thinking I might be encountering the error because of the MSI LAN Utility software running PCMCIA WiFi card.

My next steps:
1.) try to figure out WiFi ad hoc connection
2.) try out a cross cable (which is less of an elegant solution, but may be the better one for me after encountering the errors above).

I haven't tried sharing the internet connection. But that should be the easy part.

On with my WiFi butingtingation...

ka edong
typed on fiona as kurdapia looks on, still lacking an internet connection ....
At 5:33 pm, Unknown said…

Using a flash disk to setup the wireless network? That's when you have an access point that can be configured using a USB flash disk. :)

Here, try this one.

I don't have wireless so I use a crossover cable, and I don't rely on Windows' ICS. I use a light-weight proxy server, like AnalogX; fire it up in host box; connect the client through the cross-cable; set both IP addresses statically; point the client's web browser proxy settings (and gateway) to that of the host; and voila! I'm surfing the net.

But, yeah, wifi would be a more elegant solution... :)
At 11:02 pm, Edwin "ka edong" said…

iandexter,

The document you gave me has been very helpful. Pang-idiot siya, tulad ko, step-by-step. ;-)

I was able to create the ad hoc connection between fiona and kurdapia (fiona ang host). What's weird is, kurdapia indicates that it's connected to a security-enabled computer-to-computer network. But when I look at Fiona's connection, it says Fiona does not have any wireless networks.

Bakit kaya?

I also tried sharing the internet connection on Fiona:
right click the dial-up connection > properties > Advanced > Allow other users to connect through this computer's Internet connection (Wireless Network connection

But, Kurdapia couldn't surf the net when Fiona is on the Net despite the apparent Ad Hoc connection.

Question (pang diagnose lang): How do I verify whether Kurdapia is indeed connected to Fiona via ad hoc? And vice-versa. (e.g. ping or view network computers or something)

Next attempt: to try to assign static IP addresses

(but my concern is, with all the settings i'm changing, 'di ba mas mahihirapan ang users to connect to WiFi hotspots when in public places?)

ka edong

p.s. thanks also to ka april who put together a recipe for me from memory.