Neighbor of mine (Scorpio) has one of those Cricket/Pocket/Sprint (some brand) “cellular” computer modems. Instant wireless network. Wherever. Another neighbor has one, and the little USB-dongle-key device is plugged into a “hot pink” netbook. Fetching. Caught my eye. Attracted my attention. Aquarius. I’ve got a MacBook Air, I’m given to toting it around, as it’s easier than regular notebook for travel and library work.
So the cell-phone modem thing looked intriguing.
Works fine on a PC netbook – but I’m on Mac. The neighbor, he said it didn’t work the first time. He just upgraded to Snow Leopard.
“I called them, said they were working on an updated rev., but until then, I got nothing.”
The next day, though, he said he had it up and running.
“I just wrote my own script.”
I thought about that. Fifteen years ago, that work around would’ve been a $100 upgrade. Maybe a dozen years ago, that script would be posted on a net discussion thread as a viable work-around.
These days? I’d package it up as a shareware kind of thing, build it a simple webpage, and charge a small fee.
“I can’t do that,” he sheepishly reported, “I just copied another script, then changed some of it, and you know, I still know some of those UNIX commands.”