Using a cell phone as a modem and using OneNote in the real world again

So my "two week" navy training lasted just shy of four weeks this year.  I was very busy, but can't remember anything I did…

One challenge I had was trying to get an internet connection working.  My phone, a T-Mobile Wing, has the old $6/month data plan available, and it can browse the web.  I knew there was a method of sharing the internet connection somehow, and I finally got it to work in a very limited fashion.

First I read an article on Howard Forums to get the proxy server IP address.  I knew I would need this to set it up in Internet Explorer 7.  Next, I started the internet sharing application on the smart phone, and it immediately complained that it would not work if ActiveSync was running.  Why it did not close ActiveSync automatically is not clear to me, so I had to go to the phone settings and shut down ActiveSync.  Based on other newsgroup recommendations, I tried  216.155.165.50, port 8080 in Tools | options | Connection | LAN settings for the proxy server, and that allowed Windows to get an internet connection established.  I could use IE to get to CNN, for instance.  I could also get email in Outlook via RPC over HTTP.  I could NOT access Outlook Web Access, though.  The data plan I have is http access only, and OWA uses https.  Likewise, I could not download music to Zune, and I presume ftp would not have worked either (I did not have time to try).  I had no shared notebooks available, so I could not test much with OneNote.

The modem speed was only 40K bps, so I would set it up at night.  Overnight, I would let Outlook sync, and since I had connected the phone to my tablet via USB, the phone would charge as well.  The phone would never get fully charged - I guess because I was getting to sleep so late and getting up so early.  In any event, I was able to read email now and then.  I did not get a chance to reply until I got back.  I had a small backlog of email coming in through this blog, and at this point, I should have managed to reply to it all. 

While I did not get a chance to sync notebooks using my slow connection, I did use OneNote for collecting weather reports and tide and current table data.  The tide changes are not much where we were - only about a foot and a half per day, but still had an effect on when we could operate without restrictions.  It was incredibly convenient just to be able to send the web pages straight to OneNote for reference later.  Since my connection was so slow, I wanted to minimize time online and sending the pages to ON definitely paid off.  I had all the data I needed for a week or so at a time available. 

It's great to be back at work and testing OneNote. 

Comments, questions, concerns and criticisms always welcome,

John