N900 Tethering Via iPhone 3G

I had to take a quick trip to Virginia today. It's about a 3 hour drive and once I got there I was going to have about an hour of downtime. Always preparing for the worst, I brought my iPhone (with SIM) and N900 (w/o SIM) to tinker around with while I waited.

I first scanned for wifi connections and there were plenty available. Many of them were open as well which would make things easy, but the easy road isn't always challenging. I wanted to try something different.

My iPhone is jailbroken with PdaNet installed. For those who don't know, PdaNet is a shareware application that allows you to tether your iPhone's Internet connection. There are two modes available: WiFi Router Mode and USB Mode. USB Mode wouldn't work for me since that requires PdaNet desktop installed on a PC. WiFi Router Mode requires the connecting device, in this case the N900, to create an ad hoc wifi network. This happens to be very simple to setup on the N900 much to my delight.

On the N900 go to Settings > Internet Connections. Click on the Connections button and click New. A prompt will come up asking you to tap Next to continue. After doing so, we finally get to the Connection Setup. For the Connection Name I entered N900, but you can enter anything you like. Click Next and the N900 will ask you to scan for WiFi networks, click No. The next series of questions go into more detail:

Connection Setup: Wi-Fi
Network name (SSID): pdanet
Network is hidden: Unchecked
Network mode: Ad hoc
Security method: None

Save your settings and return to desktop. Click the Battery, Clock, Time in the top bar and click Internet Connections. Your new connection will appear as N900 (if you named the new wifi connection that). Be sure to click on it and return to the iPhone.

On the iPhone, open PdaNet and check WiFi Router Mode and click Done. PdaNet will scan for a connection in which your N900 will appear as it's SSID, pdanet (if you followed my example). Press the name once it appears and PdaNet will connect. Now you can return to your N900 device and do whatever tinkering you need to do using your iPhone's 3G connection. Fulfilling and satisfying, isn't it?

PdaNet is one of many tethering apps for the iPhone. I chose it because it was the only one that worked when I was looking to tether my phone. But feel free to use similar settings with the other (free) tethering apps out there. Finally, be sure to turn off PdaNet WiFi Router Mode when you are done surfing on your N900 to conserve battery on your iPhone.

N900 Bluetooth DUN on AT&T

I'm very happy to see apps like Philip Langdale's Bluetooth Dial-Up Networking V1.0-2 available at maemo.org. Simply put, this app allows you to share your cell phone's connection to the Internet with your PC or Mac over Bluetooth.

Setup is easy. On the N900, download and setup the app via Application Manager. Done.

Pair your phone with your Mac which makes available Bluetooth PAN and Bluetooth DUN network adapters. Using the Bluetooth DUN adapter enter the settings shown in the screenshot below. The Password is CINGULAR1.



In Advanced Settings I have the following options under the Modem tab:



Press Okay after making your changes and press Connect. Voila! You're connected and surfing through your N900.