The Braun Blog

Only a week after I had purchased the Virgin Mobile Broadband2Go USB card, I returned it to Best Buy, the exclusive reseller of this product.

Last week, I wrote about the Broadband2Go card with somewhat of a glowing review because of the fact that it was available without a contract and actually connected through Sprint’s EVDO network.

So why didn’t it survive my bag of gadgets.  It’s pretty simple. 

Windows Only Support

I use both a Mac and PC and most of them time I am using Windows on top of my Mac.  This means that wherever I go, I usually have my Mac with me so I can work on both personal and business-related stuff.

Even though the Virgin Mobile website indicates that the system requirements include Mac OS 10.3, and the modem drivers actually install on my Mac, there is no “Connection Manager” type software.  I did manage to get the modem to connect to the Sprint network, but attempts to surf the web were filled with errors and lots of slowness.

I should’ve known this from the beginning when I discovered that the modem had to activated (programmed) on a Windows PC.

Weird Connectivity Issues

I call it “weird” because I got it home and found that I only had one bar for reception off of the card in Windows.  The activation process was extremely slow – took me about 30 minutes in whole to get the card activated.  Page loads were slow.  I have never had problems with Sprint coverage in my house previously.

Questionable Customer Support

Since not working on a Mac was a deal breaker, I returned it to Best Buy.  I called Virgin Mobile to cancel my account and was greeted with someone who I couldn’t completely understand and in the end took about 15-20 minutes to close my account as he “worked on the system”.  I was holding a screaming baby for all of the 20 minutes, but that didn’t seem to make him work any faster.  When I was asked about why I wanted to cancel, I plainly told the rep that the card didn’t work on a Mac.  I didn’t expect any technical banter, but I did also mention that the Virgin website includes Mac OS in their system requirements.  In the end, my account was closed, but my opinion of Virgin Mobile, although somewhat appealing, is now questionable.

In the end…

I still wanted to have an aircard so I went back to Best Buy and purchased the AT&T Quicksilver aircard.  This aircard has support for both Mac and PC and was functional and ready-to-go when I left the location. 

Both Windows and Mac have a connection manager that gets installed as soon as you insert the card.  I found this to be handy. 

The only quirk for me was that the firmware update that was recommended required Windows to apply the firmware update.  My opinion is that if you are going to support an OS, make sure that your application and any required utilities also support the OS.  Although they clearly noted on the website that the Mac firmware update was in development, you need to have this.  If I am a “Mac-Only” user, I’m left in the cold if I need that firmware update (which according to the website connectivity issues and provides stability), things that most people would like.

If you are one of the lucky few to be attending PDC in Los Angeles, CA this week, you probably got a sneak peak at Internet Explorer 9.  On Wednesday, the IE team showed off IE9 performance and standards compliance. 

They provide some interesting data points (and charts) on performance across browser platforms.  Interestingly enough, they show that their score on the Acid3 Test, a test widely known to test for compliance in, was a meek 32 out of 100.  We’ll assume that is when tested against IE8.

You can read more from the IE team on this topic here.

I finished working on my new theme tonight, so you should be seeing the new look of my blog.  I’m still fine tuning some of what you are seeing, so things may seem a little dusty till we get all the kinks worked out.

Drop me a comment and let me know what you think of the new design or if something isn’t working as expected.

I picked up a Virgin Mobile Broadband2Go USB modem for my laptop tonight.  I travel fairly regularly and like to have access to the Internet when I am on the road.  Since AT&T hasn’t enabled tethering for it’s iPhone users still, I wanted to find an aircard that would allow me to get Internet access wherever I may be.

I thought about purchasing an AT&T card, but wasn’t crazy about having to sign another two year contract even though the hardware was free, or pay $60 per month for data access.  In addition, monthly data transfer was capped at 5 GB.

Other vendors like Sprint and Verizon offer similar plans.

The one that I found that was pretty intriguing was the offering from Virgin Mobile called “Mobile Broadband2Go”.  Virgin Mobile prides itself on not signing it’s customers up for contracts, but providing affordable hardware and service at competitive prices. 

The USB modem cost me $99 at Best Buy.  While the competitors tend to give away their hardware for aircards, they get you by signing the two year contract and put you in a position to pay an early termination fee if you decide to quit your contract early.  $60 is a lot of money on top of an existing cell bill just to provide data access.

I intent to use it both with my work laptop which is PC-based running Windows 7.  I also plan to use it with my MacBook Pro.  I thought I would activate it using my Mac, but what I found out is that when you insert the USB modem into a USB port on your Mac, it will automatically start the installation of the modem drivers.  However, the configuration of the connection is completely manual and up to the user.  The process is a little different on a Windows machine.  When you insert the USB modem, an installation for a Connection Manager is started which installs the required drivers and an application to manage the aircard connection.

The important thing here is that initial activation of the modem has to take place on a Windows PC and not on the Mac.  Since when Connection Manager is started, it brings you to Virgin Mobile’s website where you can enter all of your account information.  It in turn gives you a couple sets of numbers which have to be entered in the Connection Manager to program the modem before it is usable.  During this time you will also select a rate plan or how you want to handle the data access on your account.

Once I followed the process to activate the modem on the Windows PC, I was then able to take it out and put it into my Mac and make things work. 

Why did I pick Virgin Mobile Broadband2Go?

1. No contract commitment (and no activation fee)
2. Pay-as-you-go Plans
3. Uses Sprint EVDO Network

Why I would possibly consider another carrier like AT&T, Sprint, or Verizon?

1. Quality of network
2. 5 GB data transfer/month vs. 1 GB max on Virgin Mobile
3. Price savings on larger data transfer plans

Who is the Mobile Broadband2Go suited for?

In my opinion, it is probably best suited for the person that needs occasional Internet access while on the go.  If you are an everyday road warrior, you’ll probably find that traditional aircard plans are better suited for you.

I noticed tonight that my domain controller’s clock had creeped ahead by about 15 minutes.  Inconsistent time, especially time that differs between servers, clients, and a domain controller can throw applications like Exchange, who depend upon Active Directory for information, for a loop. 

In Windows 2008 R2 (and Windows 7), the /setsntp and /querysntp switches of NET TIME are deprecated.  W32TM.exe provides similar functionality that NET TIME provided when it came to configuring domain controllers as a primary time source.

W32TM is not terribly intuitive, but I did get enough information to get my Windows 2008 R2 domain controller updated and again updating the time of the resources in my domain.

If you are wondering how to set this up – here are a few steps to help you out.

1. Use W32TM to configure the peer list and then update the configuration.  In this case, I am using a “set” of public servers to get my time information.  From a command prompt, type (on a single line):

w32tm /config /manualpeerlist:”server 0.north-america.pool.ntp.org”,0×8 /syncfromflags:MANUAL /reliable:yes /update

2. I’m not entirely sure that this is required, but we’ll restart the Windows Time Service for good measure.  From a command prompt, type:

net stop w32time

then restart the service:

net start w32time

3. Then we’ll initiate the time resynchronization and rediscovery of the peer list time sources that we specified in Step #1.  From a command prompt, type:

w32tm /resync /rediscover

There.  You should be all set.  If you want to update the time on a client (or a server) ahead of the regular interval at which is checks with a domain controller for the correct time, you can go to a command prompt and type:

net time /domain<domain name> /set /yes 

This will force an update of the time on the current system from your local domain.

It’s the best time of the year.  Not only do some local radio stations switch over to Christmas music 24 hours a day, but Sirius / XM Radio dedicates five channels of its entire lineup to the holidays.

This year, the chestnutty goodness starts Monday, November 16.  Making the return are:

Holly (Sirius 3 / XM 23): Contemporary favorites with a mix of traditional Christmas music.  Playing November 16 – December 31.

Holiday Traditions (Sirius 4 / XM 4): My favorite.  Traditional Christmas music from the 40s-60s.  Playing November 16 – December 31.

Holiday Pops (Sirius 79 / XM 77): Classical style with choirs, Pavarotti, and more.  Playing December 7 – December 31.

Country Christmas (Sirius 62 / XM 10): Country style from Country starts past and present.  Kenny, Dolly, and the whole gang.  Playing December 7 – December 25.

Radio Hanukkah (Sirius 76 / XM 28): Hanukkah music and special segments celebrating Jewish culture.  Playing December 7 – December 19.

For the Twin Cities locals:

KOOL108 (107.9 FM) goes wall-to-wall Christmas music starting the day after Thanksgiving and running through December 25.

WLTE (102.9 FM) also goes Christmas music wall-to-wall.  They dub themselves “The Christmas Superstation”.  They tend to surprise their listeners by not publishing a date, but I have seen it happen anywhere from November 15th to the day before Thanksgiving.

Enjoy!

UPDATE (11/16/09)
WLTE 102.9 FM in the Twin Cities switched over to Christmas music (24/7) at midnight.

This week I was in Las Vegas for the Exchange Connections Conference.  Traveling usually isn’t too much of a hindrance anymore of the availability of a wireless Internet connection just about everywhere you go.  The only downfall is that most public places, particularly hotels, tend to provide Internet access but block non-HTTP traffic in a lot of cases.  For VPN users, this can be a problem and prevent you from accessing the resources that would normal require you to be connected directly to your corporate network.

With Windows 2008, the Routing and Remote Access service can now be used as a means for providing access via VPN to corporate resources.  Since SSL is a common protocol and just as common as it’s HTTP counterpart, it is usually accessible.

I spent a couple of hours tonight working on creating a SSL VPN solution for my network.  I did get it up and running and wanted to provide some of the resources that helped make this process a lot easier. 

The IT Consulting Blog had a good amount of information that got me through some of the pitfalls.

This IT Technology Blog helped a lot when it came to troubleshooting.

I was able to get connected and everything is working great – but – one thing I did have problems with was when the SSTP Client in Windows 7 connects to the VPN Server, it has to make contact with the Certificate Revocation List to check and make sure that the certificate used for the VPN communication hasn’t been revoked.  I am using ISA which may or may not add a layer of complexity, but I did have to disable the CRL check.  At first, I thought the registry edit that disabled that was made on the VPN server, but in fact, it is actually made on the client machine.  You probably don’t want to disable CRL in a production environment – so just keep that in mind.

Microsoft has a section in this article that talks about the registry key required to disable or enable the CRL check.

Finally, Tom Shinder, one of the great ISA experts out there wrote a series on implementing a Windows 2008 VPN behind ISA infrastructure.  This walks you through the entire process from start to finish.  You can find that three part series here.