Pentankh Eternal’s Blog

Since I keep forgetting how I’ve done this if something happens and I have to redo it, I’m posting it here to remind me.  I have a PC with a LAN connection to my ADSL2+ modem and a WiFi card inside the PC sharing out WiFi to my iPhone and visitors. The connection is best set up as "Connect to PC to PC Ad-Hoc networks".

Set up your SHARED+WEP ad-hoc Wifi connection:

The thing I kept forgetting is to SHARE my LAN connection which goes to my ADSL2+ modem.

The circled option is the main point. Without this, your iPhone will not get an IP Address (as shown in the iPhone screenshot above). This was driving me crazy trying to figure out why it had a ‘169′ address. 169 means the DHCP didn’t work.

You will find out, if you use something like Air Sharing on your iPhone, that the iPhone IP Address changed a very large number of times. I think possibly when it goes into screensaver mode it gives up the IP. When you try the Wifi next it gets yet another IP Address.

Note that from what I can work out Ad-Hoc networks can ONLY be encrypted with the easily-breakable WEP encryption method. But, something is better than nothing, right?  You need to chuck on a 5 letter password anyway, so without that it’s a bit harder for the Average Joe.

The only issue I find is from time to time my Windows PC will pause a second or two when browsing webpages while the Wifi connection is enabled. If I disable the Wifi while not using it, my web browsing is instantaneous.  However, when I try to re-enable the Wifi while the PC is on I get an error ‘10′ cannot start and I have to reboot the PC.

 Today I listened to Podcasts for most of the day at work. From 7:30am on the train until 5:30pm when I got home. It was on most of that time.

I also used the Telstra free WiFi connection in the Queen Street Mall for 50 minutes and played with a couple of games.  

When I got home and plugged in the iPhone into my USB port the screen shows I’ve used not even 1/3rd of the power of the battery. Sweet!

That’s gotta be a good result.  Tonight I’m going to test more free applications. I will wait until next pay to get an iTunes card from Coles and rent a movie or two. Jo says Chris liked the original Hellboy so I can rent that for $3.99 and watch it on my iPhone. Should be a good test.  I also want a Texas Hold’em Poker game and Apple themselves wrote a really great looking one called Texas Hold ‘Em for iPhone.

There’s a review on the Ars Technica website. "The other cool feature is a multiplayer option that lets you play against up to eight other actual, live iPhone or iPod touch users over a Wi-Fi network."

Yesterday I went to the local Telstra shop and bought my 16Gb black iPhone. Last night I updated it to the latest firmware and software. The first attempt failed so I had to do a restore and it worked. Then I spent the evening downloading free applications from the iTunes applications store and Googling hints and tips.
Right now I am typing this on my iphone in the Queen at mall on my iphone using the funky free WordPress client using the free Telstra Wifi access. This is nuts and totally fun!!!