Minibook & K3565 pay as you go Vodafone broadband dongle

[looplu]

1) Is there any way of finding out how much allowance we have left while on the CnM? - I couldn't find anything. Presumably I could transfer the stick to an XP machine and find out, but sadly at home in rural Suffolk we have no 3G coverage, so that is a non starter!

I only ever use my onet for free internet access (rule of mine, while I'm out and about) but my Macbook has a similar problem(no  pull down info. firmware is windows only), but to check my balance, I've set up a vodafone account (with a windows machine , you'll need to do this to pick up the sms security pin, they send you) and register the dongle, so when ever i visit the account that  tells me how much vodafone cred I've got, as it's info kept on an online sever, it's not OS dependant. works for my Mac can't see why it wont work for your minibook, also don't see any bar's to gprs, setting this up..

the signal strength thing, relating to these minibooks ...dunno apart from the light status (green gprs, blue 3g. light blue g3+) on the dongle, and you kinda get a feel for the signal strength by the way pages load.   

email ..dunno never tried ..

I think you can again receive sms through your on line account.  SIM card , yeah it's not the slot in the side (thats for an add on ) It's at the top by the USB connection , press it in and it should just pop out.

hang on is it gprs or grps lol , well you know what i mean ...

[waldgrun]

Having read various threads, I feel this is the right one to post my question(s),
last week I purchased a  Vodafone K3565 Top Up & Go dongle as a Birthday present for the other half, and with our combined brains have not been able to connect. Both our machines are running the standard O.S. on kernel V70 so the drivers should be in place. I have followed the instructions on the  CnM Lifestyle website and tried all permutations of the Access point names. Could the problem be the phone number given by Cnm as *99# ?
 Still I haven't yet been able to get the dongle to connect using our main machine!

May be slightly strange quoting ones self but discovered on our two machines the modem will only connect if plug into the rear USB port with the supplied extension cable! Also the modem will not fully function in our main machine unless connected in the same way!

[Freddie]

Thanks for all your help guys - my main problems now SORTED!!!

Whiskers - thanks for that. Sending email has been a stumbling block for me when using free WiFi - I guess I will have to give it some serious attention as I find webmail rather clumsy!

looplu - thanks also. In my ignorance I had thought the dongle was just 3G (read on), but thanks to waldgrun I find I have GPRS here after all and have managed to register! I can see where the SIM card is - just can't shift it, but now I have finally sorted most of my problems (see below) I don't need to.

waldgrun - thanks for the note about using the back slot and cable... saved my bacon again!

Using an old XP laptop I finally got there... (sort of)

My confusion was that because I bought the dongle in London and used it there on my CnM I thought it was only a 3G device. This seemed to be confirmed when I tried to use it at home in rural Suffolk and the dongle would not connect. All this was with the dongle plugged in the rearmost right hand usb port.

But following waldgrun's advice, I plugged it in to the rear usb port via the cable, and hey presto up came GPRS Vodafone! That gave me hope...

So I got out the old XP laptop and plugged the dongle in. After an age (maybe 15 mins?) it loaded the drivers and connected, and provided me with the vital info of my phone number and my balance.

The phone number is required for the registration process so sadly GCHQ now know who is using this dongle!!! As part of the process Vodafone send you a security code as an SMS (cost me 1p to collect!).

But now I am registered I can check my balance via my account details on a webpage, and even one day (hopefully not too soon ) maybe top up my account. Hopefully some kind person will someday provide extensions to the Linux s/w to emulate the XP s/w and answer the rest of my previous questions, but meanwhile I can get online wherever I go (almost)...

[Whiskers]

[...]

Hopefully some kind person will someday provide extensions to the Linux s/w to emulate the XP s/w and answer the rest of my previous questions, but meanwhile I can get online wherever I go (almost)...

Vodaphone do support Linux, somewhat, although they don't shout about it or include Linux software in the dongles.  The Linux software is still in 'beta testing' and can be found at <https://forge.betavine.net/projects/vodafonemobilec>.  I don't think it will work on the CnMbook et al with the original operating system, though; they seem to be releasing only pre-compiled binaries for selected distros (including Debian). 

I discovered this in Linux Format magazine, Christmas 2008, which also said that the Vodaphone software even works on other networks.  I have yet to try 'mobile broadband' though, so I can't speak from experience.

[Freddie]

Thanks for that Whiskers but I think I have now got my CnM to a useable state with the Vodafone dongle.

The story on my Acer Aspire One (Debian Linux) is rather different - like no-one has managed it yet - and the one you refer to seems to have spent rather a long time in beta!

[looplu]

Thanks for all your help guys - my main problems now SORTED!!!

looplu - thanks also. In my ignorance I had thought the dongle was just 3G (read on), but thanks to waldgrun I find I have GPRS here after all and have managed to register! I can see where the SIM card is - just can't shift it, but now I have finally sorted most of my problems (see below) I don't need to.

hey your welcome Freddie, glad your almost at that place you wanna be ...

[Freddie]

I love my Vodafone dongle - it is great for keeping in touch when away from home... and so cheap to use too!

BUT I have yet to be able to SEND emails from the email client in the standard distro when using it. And Webmail is SO clumsy 

Has anyone actually managed to do it, and if so, can they spell out exactly how they did it?

I have tried every which way (and more) and tried to follow Whiskers advice above and in the 'Error 501 sending e-mail, but only with mobile broadband' thread, but I only ever get as far as the dreaded 'Error 501'

Thanks in anticipation

[Whiskers]

I love my Vodafone dongle - it is great for keeping in touch when away from home... and so cheap to use too!

BUT I have yet to be able to SEND emails from the email client in the standard distro when using it. And Webmail is SO clumsy 

Has anyone actually managed to do it, and if so, can they spell out exactly how they did it?

I have tried every which way (and more) and tried to follow Whiskers advice above and in the 'Error 501 sending e-mail, but only with mobile broadband' thread, but I only ever get as far as the dreaded 'Error 501'

Thanks in anticipation

What SMTP server are you using?

[Freddie]

Sorry about the long break - I forgot to come back here when I cracked my email sending problem.

Just a reminder - you can't send SMTP with this dongle -unless you have a Vodafone account (?)

Thanks for the various suggestions about 'relay'. Fortunately one of my ISPs has the 'relay' option, so I have been able to send emails OK - so far so good

But in one particular geographic location (near a university) I frequently get
'Error 550  No SMTP service for unauthorised users'
or even 'Error 554 Sorry your non-local IP address is not allowed to send mail via me'

At first I thought these only came when I was running on battery, but now I find that it comes up randomly - even when running on the charger. But disconnecting and reconnecting seems to get through OK next time

Has anyone else had similar problems?

[fantasyfirebird]

If I see another time out blah blah message I will jump on the darn dongle!!  We took it along with the web book and my windows laptop to bonny scotland!!  Good job we took the laptop because no matter what we do and what we type in it just won't have it.  I had hoped once we were back home we would be able to sort it out but NO.  we have tried pp.internet, we have tried vodaphone.co.uk unless we are doing something completely dense then I am ready to throw in the towel!!
Can someone put it all out in idiot language because somehow the holy grail of internet connection via the vodaphone pay as you go seems forever out of our grasp.
What bugs me is that the sales people at carphone warehouse will happily tell you yes it works with Linux no problem, when they don't even know what I'm asking them!!

[Freddie]

Hi fantasyfirebird

I started preparing this a while ago but never put it up. See if it helps you out. I love my Vodafone dongle...

Vodafone dongle - SUMMARY of received wisdom

Thanks to all who have contributed to this thread, but I thought it worth consolidating all their wisdom in one place for people using the standard distro...

Firstly, Vodafone 3G coverage is probably among the worst - it seems confined to big cities and drops off rapidly outside. But the GPRS coverage is good and the speed adequate for emails.

Using the dongle I have had some problems sending emails when the battery is low (Error 550  No SMTP service for unauthorised users) but it always seems to work when plugged in to the charger!

Also you will have problems sending emails unless your ISP supports 'relay' mode.

Problems sending emails. Everyone should be able to RECEIVE emails, but some (most?) people will have difficulty SENDING via Sylpheed and may find it best to use some form of webmail. This seems to be because Vodafone detects that the mail is not coming direct from one of its customers and rejects it as a likely source of spam with: 'Error 554 Sorry your non-local IP address is not allowed to send mail via me'

The exceptions are where your ISP uses ‘Relay’ instead of ‘SMTP’ for sending - then you should be able to send OK.

1. SETTING UP THE DONGLE

Follow the instructions at http://194.150.201.35/cnmlifestyle/downloads/vodaphonesetup.htm
BUT note that the Access Point Name needs to be pp.internet or pp.vodafone.co.uk

2. PLUGGING in the dongle

It seems to work best on the extension cable and plugged in to the USB port at the back - but be careful not to plug it in to the ethernet socket!

3. SETTING UP SYLPHEED - the email client

From the menu bar select the ‘Configuration’ tag and then from the drop down menu select ‘Edit accounts’ (or ‘Create new account’ if you have not set one up yet)

On the 'Account preferences' page, edit your account details under the following tabs. NOTE: Items marked ‘*’ are critical!

Basic
Enter the following info:
- Full name:
- Mail address:
- Server for receiving: pop.your ISP
- SMTP server (send): relay.your ISP *
- User id
- Password

Receive
- Check the bottom box: ‘Get all - checks for new messages...'

Send
Check the following boxes
- Add date header field
- Generate Message-ID
- SMTP Authentication (SMTP AUTH) *
- Authenticate with POP3 before sending *

Compose
Nothing critical

SSL
Check both ‘Don’t use SSL’ boxes *

Advanced
Check 'Specify SMTP port' and enter 587  *
Check ‘Specify domain name’ and enter something like: freenetname.co.uk  *