Recent buy

Bought a multipurpose bench for exercise during a recent midnight sale:

It's an Impex Marcy SB240. The two small foam handles seem to be a nuisance but I understand their purpose, they're there to grab onto when doing leg raises. I do wish there was an additional stop between the topmost and mid position settings. I couldn't buy a more substantial bench, i.e. one which could hold a barbell since my residence is an old wooden house and a heavy bench could collapse the thing, so this would do. Used this last night and it was good.

Sports

Congratulations to the Pacman and the Celtics in winning their respective matches recently.

Wifi-ed Smart Bro a.k.a Smart Bro Share it

Saw this in the papers today. Nice but only postpaid at the moment and dunno if its a ZTE or Huawei unit. Most probably the former.
UPDATE: It's pretty much looks like a Huawei B933 or B932 from the huawei site. ZTE site doesn't show anything like this.

Improved after firmware update.

So its been more than a week since I updated the firmware of my E160s which I found through this site. Previously, I had disconnects after 30-40 minutes, erratic signal strength reporting (it wouldn't connect at 90% signal but would connect at no signal!) , and the dongle itself would get hot, yeah, really hot! But after the update it's been smooth sailing. I know that there are E160s shipped with this firmware installed and I know there are other places where one could get the same firmware, but the mentioned site is the first to confirm that this update does not re-lock the dongle to a particular service provider.
Now people may recall that the Huawei E220 could be unlocked with a firmware update and using the unbranded Huawei Mobile Partner software. Since I also have a locked E160, I tried updating it with the above firmware and swapped SIMs, result -- no juice, updated but still locked.

Huawei E160 internals...

Hmm, I bought another (locked to Globe Telecom) E160 after the earlier one seemed to be slower than my Nokia 6120c. Remember, I unlocked the first one so the warranty was void so there was no use returning it. This time on Globe it was faster and cooler even after several hours of use. So I'll just use this and if the network goes down I'll switch to Smart using the Nokia. The thing got cheaper too since I bought the first one and I was curious so I decided to open it (and possibly make an antenna for it). I tried not to mar the casing as much as possible. Here's how I did it -- Using a ViseGrip, align it such that it bites about half the cross-section, then turn the screw at the end of the handle. One can see the case open up a bit...

...insert a jeweler's screwdriver into the opening, prying it open...


...pry it some more...

...and here's the E160 disassembled...

...there are two PCBs in there...

...the E160 employs a diversity antenna, which means there are more than one antenna inside the device, I suspect here is one. It looks like a chip antenna similar to one inside my usb wifi dongle, however this is waayyyy bigger...or I could be wrong on this...

... a small connector (probably for test)...

...here is the antenna or is it?...

...its other side...wait-a-minute, there's only one lead on this!!

...the proprietary CRC9 connector...

...another view of the connector...using a multitester I found that the leads are all shorted together, unless one inserts something through the hole, in which case only one lead is live. Where that live connection goes I have no idea.

New Huawei E160 3G modem

I just bought a Globe Visibility Prepaid pack for P2500 a few days ago. I had my sis look for the E220 model in the big city but she couldn't get one. So I just got the E160. Unfortunately while I could connect to Globe at HSDPA speeds, in reality the data transfer left much, much to be desired. Ping rates were 2000ms or longer and the thing sped up only after being connected for 40 minutes, then after 10 minutes died off. There's also what I thought was the 'Huawei disconnect' problem but right now think it's more due to the long usb extension cable I'm using.

Since I wasn't satisfied with Globe's signal, I had the thing unlocked via DC-Unlocker (also unlocking any form of a warranty :-) ) and am now back on the Smart network, here is the Mobile Partner connection software screenshot...


...man, I just had the signal just died on me again, though it didn't disconnect - it went to zero and stayed there! But wait, look at the lower left corner - two bars and yet I'm getting 100Kb/s, but the zigzagging is not ideal. Maybe an external antenna would solve that so I'll be on the look out for one or make one.

Globe 3G: Failure to Connect...

I've been using Smart 3G as my ISP for my notebook PC with my Nokia 6120 classic (as a USB modem) for quite some time now. But their signal is weak at times and if I'm farther inside the house it goes dead completely. Now I've noticed that with a Globe SIM in the fone,the 3G signal is still on so I thought I'd give it a try and then buy their dongle if it does work. However while I could browse on the fone, I couldn't do it on the notebook, swapping the Smart SIM back in and some fiddling makes it work again but with Globe I only get this...

...and so far I'm out of ideas. Though maybe a reinstall of the entire OS would help with the drivers and all, but I'm not yet ready to do that. I'll try and see if their custserv would say.

UPDATE: It's been awhile, but after I bot a Globe Visibility Prepaid 3G dongle, the custserv rep hinted that I should use APN:http.globe.com.ph instead of internet.globe.something. It did work but Globe's signal was pathetic at my location :-( so it's back to Smart.