Interview: Eliot Lipp talks electro
Weekendist: Cuisine festivals, creativity workshops, charities and more!
Extra! Extra! Police and prostitutes, journalists and propaganda departments, and kids and condoms
Around Shanghai: Malones, martinis and Moreno!
Olympic condoms are faster, higher, stronger
We simply got tired of waiting for the optical cable guy to arrive. We also started experiencing the internet withdrawal shakes had some research to do. A man can only organize his Gmail inbox so many times. So we laid down some cash and got things working again. Here's how.
The Taiwan earthquake broke undersea internet cables — that's why your ADSL connection likely can't reach many foreign websites right now — but certain wireless internet services appear to work fine. We opted for CDMA wireless service from China Unicom, Yao Ming's service provider of choice. (You can also get GPRS wireless service here ... perhaps someone can leave a comment with info about that.)
We went to the electronics market on the corner of Huangpi Lu and Huaihai Lu and didn't waste much time comparison shopping. Not sure we had many options, anyway — we were told the only USB CDMA adapter that works with Macs is the Vtion V1810. We bought one for RMB 850. Looks like there are some cheaper ones at Taobao. We also have a friend who is doing the same thing on a Mac using a CDMA phone and a USB cord. He bought his CDMA phone used for RMB 400. If you don't have a Mac, there are cheaper options. But really, why don't you have a Mac?
We bought our service from the same guy who sold us the adapter and paid RMB 1,300 for six months of unlimited access. It's cheaper, obviously, if you don't need unlimited service. You could get a three month plan with 60 hours a month for RMB 450. We were told that to get an unlimited plan you had to get a non-Shanghai CDMA card. We're not sure of the validity of this statement, but that's what we ended up getting. (This wireless service should work nationwide — good for those who travel a lot.)
Perhaps we paid too much. Perhaps the normal internet will start working again this minute. Perhaps we spend too much time on the internet.
We don't care. We can finally peruse photos of men who look like Kenny Rogers again. And that's what it's all about.
We realize the people who would benefit most from this post likely can't see it. So if you can see it, copy and paste and send it to someone in Shanghai.
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Well, things do seem to be getting better. I am leaving this comment using my Shanghai ADSL connection. Kind of slow, though. And some other sites still don't load completely.
The feeling of relief at being able to read SHist, The SMH & access my email this morning was like that of a junkie getting his daily methadone hit at the clinic. Just enough to get rid of the shakes.
I'm now off to enjoy this small period of digital afterglow while trying to figure out how to get FTP moving at a 'normal' speed for Shanghai ADSL.
Burn
I've got the proxy Garden (花园代理) installed and I haven't had any problem accessing overseas sites all week.
There is always mutt, Lynx with the Blynx (blind-help)
settings, w3m, links and other such text based
tools. Faster, and you don't really need pictures.
Try it for a day.
Are you still using the wireless connection? Is it FAST, or just barely usable?
I work for a small web design company here in Shanghai and we're having a terrible time communicating with clients, uploading files and such post Taiwan quake...
I'll probably run down to "Cyber" tomorrow to pick up the wireless modem your running. I NEED to get back to broadband speeds or I'm going to be loosing some clients.
hi dan,
good to hear that there are other mac users in town who bought the vtion cdma usb device as well. would be great to hear how you managed to install the PC software with the modem info on your mac? any suggestions would be phantastic!
cheers florian
No software installation necessary. Pretty much plug-and-play. You need to do a little fiddling in Network Preferences though.
And Ryan, I wouldn't label it "fast" but it has been consistently reliable.
Can you describe the network preference settings you used to set this device up? I've just had one delivered to my office and the guy who is supposed to help me do so has never seen a Mac before, has so far called his boss 11 times, has given me 8 different options for the username and password, then resorted to trying to get me to cross town to his office where there is someone who has SEEN an apple but is also not sure...
Also, do you know what the little headphone and mic jack on the side of the device are for?
Hi, Dash,
I just stumbled onto things and these worked for me (not sure if there is a "better" way of doing things.....
In Network Preferences:
PPP tab: Account Name is CARD and Password is CARD; PPP Options button: tick connect automatically when needed
TCP/IP tab: Using PPP
Modem tab: Null Modem 115200, tick Enable error correction and compression in modem, tick Tone, tick Show modem status in menu bar
As I say, not sure if all this is the "correct" way (or if there is a "better" way) but it works for me and that's the main thing!
As a final tweak, using TextEdit, I edited the Null Modem file (found in Library/Modem Scripts) to increase the speed to the maximum supported by the Vtion V1810 of 230400 as follows:
@ORIGINATE
@ANSWER
serreset 230400, 0, 8, 1
@HANGUP
exit 0
Not sure if I am actually getting the 230400 speed, but everything works!
David,
You seem to really understand this. I've just bought a V1810 and I can't get it working on my MAC. The plug and play just isn't happening and I am not exactly sure how to properly configure it using "Network" in the system tools.
I know this is a super late post, about 8 months have gone by since the last response......but if anyone can lend a hand it would be greatly appreciated.
Cheers,
Ryan