my mobile broadband, let me show you it
Dec. 6th, 2010 09:15 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
julesjonesI finally cracked and bought a mobile broadband dongle this lunchtime, because we are not allowed to access personal email at work (allegedly because Things might get past the virus scanner, more likely to stop us reading it on the clock), and the hotel I got put in on this trip charges a fiver a night for access.
Setting it up was not as hassle-free as one would hope, I suspect in part because whoever wrote the software either didn't really think about XP users, or assumed that XP users are all daft enough to run by default in the admin account rather than in a user account. There was also a certain amount of wrestling with NoScript involved, because in order to use the wifi part of the package, I had to log on to one O2-related website to register the dongle, which was using some sort of cross-site interaction *and* the security certificate for another site. Add to this the fact that had I not seen somewhere on the O2 website while researching prior to purchase that the wifi is registered to a specific laptop and it could take an hour or to change the registration to a different machine, I would have been completely bewildered by the registration website telling me that I could not access wifi because that wasn't included in the package I'd bought. I eventually remembered what I'd read at the weekend, left it and went away to find dinner, and when I came back it worked. But if this little booby trap is in the instructions that came with the widget, I couldn't see it.
Anyway. I now have portable broadband, which I am in theory going to use to be a sad git and surf in my hotel room in the evening. In practice I am about to go to bed with a book and a hot water bottle, because I got up at ohgod o'clock this morning to catch a train which never arrived. Tomorrow evening I may be more interested in trying to do something useful like 300 words.
Setting it up was not as hassle-free as one would hope, I suspect in part because whoever wrote the software either didn't really think about XP users, or assumed that XP users are all daft enough to run by default in the admin account rather than in a user account. There was also a certain amount of wrestling with NoScript involved, because in order to use the wifi part of the package, I had to log on to one O2-related website to register the dongle, which was using some sort of cross-site interaction *and* the security certificate for another site. Add to this the fact that had I not seen somewhere on the O2 website while researching prior to purchase that the wifi is registered to a specific laptop and it could take an hour or to change the registration to a different machine, I would have been completely bewildered by the registration website telling me that I could not access wifi because that wasn't included in the package I'd bought. I eventually remembered what I'd read at the weekend, left it and went away to find dinner, and when I came back it worked. But if this little booby trap is in the instructions that came with the widget, I couldn't see it.
Anyway. I now have portable broadband, which I am in theory going to use to be a sad git and surf in my hotel room in the evening. In practice I am about to go to bed with a book and a hot water bottle, because I got up at ohgod o'clock this morning to catch a train which never arrived. Tomorrow evening I may be more interested in trying to do something useful like 300 words.
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(no subject)
Date: 2010-12-06 09:42 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-12-06 09:46 pm (UTC)The O2 isn't too bad, as you can buy smaller chunks than a month as and when you need access, which will probably suit my usage.
(no subject)
Date: 2010-12-06 10:10 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-12-06 10:16 pm (UTC)Having said that, we had excellent free wifi on our trip to Sweden, Norway and Latvia this summer, but I've not always been so lucky in the UK.
(no subject)
Date: 2010-12-07 12:26 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-12-06 09:51 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-12-12 05:53 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-12-07 08:24 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-12-12 05:54 pm (UTC)