a This page is geared more tordes the Linux user who wants has a laptop and a cell phone. I have done this all on a Dell inspiron 5000e with a qualcomm QCP-2760 cell phone, running redhat Linux 7.1 and 7.2. First you need to get the cable just do a search on google for the cable and you make of phone. Once you get the cable (or cables I will also talk about seting up a palm pilot to work, I sugest that for the palm pilot cable that you get a modifying cable that will hock to the end of the cable for the laptop and convert it to the pin out of the palm pilot you will save a few bucks this way.) And a word of warning here, you will not get any real speed out of it you will have a 14.4 modem (this also assumes that you have a PCS phone if you have a older analog phone you will not get any speed, it can not be done to my knowledge, Also if you have a G3 capable phone, first let me tell you I envy you, second the speed will be better and I don't know, and cannot garanty, that these instructions will work). This speed will be fine for retraving most e-mail, and going to chat rooms, or using the palm pilot to surf pages designed for low bandwidth devices, these are usually classified as wireless sites or palm sites.
First I am going to assume that you have a script that will log into your current internet provider (if you don't I suggest that you look here, it will show you how to connect to the internet via a standard modem) Ok now that you can connect a computer to the internet you should have no problem connecting to the internet via a cell phone. First off lets test if you can communicate with your cell phone. First make sure you have the file /dev/modem as a symbolic link to the com port you pluged the cell phone into (most likely /dev/ttyS0). Second open minicom and make sure the settings are as follows, speed 19200 8 party no parity 1 Stopbits, and type in atat, the program should respond with OK. If it does not you are not communicating with your cell phone and you might have to play with the settings a bit, the settings I have stated above are the ones that work on my cell phone. Ok now that you can 1 connect to your ISP via a land line and you can communicate to the cell phone now lets combine the two. copy your ppp-on script to ppp-on-cell (I have also called my ppp-on, ppp-on-lan, so I have ppp-on-lan, ppp-on-cell, ppp-on-dialer [this file gets all the variables it needs from ppp-on-??? and does the dialing, the variables are port, username, and then dials the modem] the other 2 ppp-on-??? scripts set the variables call the ppp-on-dialer and then link the connection made by that script to the pppd) in the line that links the pppd to the connection make sure you have set the speed to 19200 so the line should look something like this exec /usr/sbin/pppd lock modem crtscts /dev/ttyS0 19200 noipdefault netmask 255.255.255.0 defaultroute connect $DIALER_SCRIPT were the varable DIALER_SCRIPT is equal to ppp-on-dialer. Now if you have done all of this just run the ./ppp-on-cell and after about 40 seconds you can do ifconfig and see ppp0 listed (if you don't you might not made the connection, sometimes if I power cycle the phone it helps, or check all the other causes that could cause problems on a normal lan line modem, including cable connections.) Congratulations if you have made it this far you have made a connection to the internet via your cell phone. You can now get your e-mail anywhere you can get a cell signal, and go on chat, and if you have allot of minutes to burn and have the time and are willing to want you can got to your favorit website.
Now for the palm pilot to connect to your ISP (The information I will give here is known to work for the CMU & University of Pittsburgh dial-up network, but they will not support it for you, also your ISP may not support using wireless connections even if they do they probably will not support palm pilot's dialing into their networks). So first off you want to launch the Preferences program from you home on the palm pilot, then select the Modem screen from the pull down menu. in there you will want to set the modem type as "Standard" set the speed to "19,200bps" Speaker I have set to "off" and Flow ctl set that to "off" also, Finally the string line should only read "AT&FX4". Now make sure the Touchtone option is selected. After that is set select the "network" from the pull down menu. Give the service a name. I named it "CMU" in my case. Now put your username in and click on the password box to enter your password. Now give it the phone number to dial for your ISP. What is to follow will work at CMU and the University of Pittsburgh, you ISP may need a different setup then this. Now at the bottom left hand part of the screen there should be a button labeled Details click on that. make sure the Connection type is PPP, and set the Idle timeout to what ever you want (I have set mine to Power off) I have selected Query DNS. For those of us that get a dynamic IP address make sure that box is checked (If you don't know if you have a dynamic or static IP address, you more than likely have a dynamic one.) Now click on the Script button in the lower right hand of the screen. Now you will be presented with the "Log in Script" window I suggest that you first put a Delay of 5 in as your first option, I have found by doing this I get a higher chance of getting the connection. Next select to have it Wait For "rname:" after that select "Send User ID" then "Send CR" then Wait For "word:" and then "Send Password" then "Send CR". At this point you have now sent all the thing need to do the authentication to the server now we just have to finish up the connection. Now select Wait for ">" at this point send "ppp default" then again you want to "Send CR" now you have made the connection and you want to select "End" to end the script. Click on "OK" on both windows. This will leave you at the Network section of the Preferences. Now connect your cell phone to the palm pilot with the cable and click on "Connect". A dialog box will come up and show you the status of what is going on. If a connection is made the dialog box will disappear and the Connect button with change to a "Disconnect" button.
I have recently gotten my hands on a palm VIIx and have found that there are some diffents then a treditional palm pilot on setting up a internet connection (also this does not take into account the service palm.net has.) First you will have to define how the modem is connected to the palm pilot, so here you will go to the Preferences program from the main app screen and select Connection, select "Palm Modem US/Canada", in the name you will rename this to something else (or you will get a name of "-custom-" I use the name "cell phone" set the connection Method to "Serial to Modem" and Dialing to Touch Tone. don't worry about Volume. Now slect the Details button and there you will select the speed of 19,200 bps and Flow Ctl: to off, the Init STring should be fine. OK out of the 2 dialogs. Now go to the Network screen and in the Connection select the name that you gave the modem (in my case, that is Cell phone) now just finish up with the instructions that came before this paragraph.
This is all fine and dandy but you will need some programs to make use of the ability to connect to the internet from you palm pilot. First may I suggest AvantGo I find that it is a very fine web browser for the palm pilot, it does have it limitations but it is a good start. And for those of you who wish to be able to access you unix/linux systems from your your palm pilot there is a program called Top Gun Ssh. It will let you ssh to systems that accept ssh connections. You can also find a good number of other programs for the palm pilot if you just do a search on google. Google also has a palm search engine for the palm pilot just point the web browser on you palm pilot to www.google.com/palm.
Well Good luck and enjoy, I know I have enjoyed the freedom that this info has brought to me. If you have any comments, ideas on how to improve the information in this page just let me know at mpop@mikeoconnor.net