TechBlog from Sewell

Broadband is great, right? I use Comcast cable at home and for as much flack as Comcast gets (I have had my own set of customer service issues with them), the cable internet is fast and reliable (in two months we haven’t had any downtime).

So that’s great when I’m at home, but things are different when you’re on the road. I’m noticing a frightening trend - every WiFi hotspot I try to connect to wants me to pay money or join some sort of a service. Not cool…

I finally just sucked it up and got a Sprint EVDO card for my Dell. The card worked pretty well, but dropped out at times. I don’t know if this was Sprint or Dell’s fault (the wireless management tools didn’t seem to like each other).

Recently, though, I “upgraded” (depending on your point of view) to a Macbook Air. I love the laptop for traveling, but getting 3G on it from Verizon or Sprint requires a USB card, meaning I would have to get a new broadband card. I wouldn’t really have minded doing this, but with the speed of innovation it seems like within a year or two I’m going to have to upgrade again to get a 4G card (this may be wishful thinking).

Instead I just got a mobile broadband router (another type is the Kyocera KR2). The cool thing about these routers is that you can just plug your PCMCIA or USB 3G adapter and the router will auto-detect your settings and just give you a WiFi signal. You can also have several people share your connection (or lock them out if your selfish).

The one thing to keep in mind when you travel is that in order to use the router you will need to find an available power outlet for the router. I have had some challenges in the airport, but in general it’s not too hard.

A couple of years ago I remember when USB to PCMCIA Adapters first hit the market - they gave people an awesome alternative to buying lower-quality USB 3g cards since they could continue to use PCMCIA cards through the USB port - the main drawback was that they were extremely expensive when they were first released (in the neighborhood of $250).

They have since falled in price (ours is currently priced at $180), but now users have a much cheaper alternative for using a PCMCIA card with a new laptop without PCMCIA ports (Express Card is getting more and more popular for such ports) - an Express Card PCMCIA Adapter.

Most of new laptops come with the new Express Card slot instead of the older PCMCIA slot. We have had many customers with questions about this new technology and what it looks like. The new express card is made to be faster in a smaller package. The express card is smaller than the PCMCIA cards and they come in a 54mm and 34mm size. Below are some pictures from www.expresscard.org that show the difference between Express cards and PCMCIA cards and the difference between the 54mm and 34mm express cards. You can also take a look at the different Express Cards available at Sewelldirect.com

So i just spent several minutes trying to find my way around Verizon’s not so organized website trying to find the VZaccess software. When i finally found the download i realized it wasn’t even on verizon’s main web URL. I thought i’d save some of you that frustrating time finding it.

The URL it’s found on is Vzam.net

Hope that helps some of you on your quest to get your ever conflicting wireless cards to work.

Here a Sewell Direct we get a good number of calls about our USB to PCMCIA cellular modem adapters. This setup help will attempt to cover the basic steps you can take to get your card to work.

Make sure your card is supported. Jordan wrote an excellent blog to help with this at Jordan’s compatibility chart.

Once you’ve verified your card is supported the next step is to make sure your drivers are installed correctly.

1) Plug in your adapter without the phone card inserted.

2) Go to the device manager. This can be accomplished through the control panel, but my favorite way is to right-click “My Computer”, go to properties. On Vista there is a button on your left, on XP go to the hardware tab and there is a button there.

3) Once inside the device manager, check for a category called “USB PC card readers”. For the U132 it looks like this-

Notice that there are two devices under this category. It is the same for the U142, but on the U111 there is not a diagnostics port. When I installed this the first time my computer only found one device, so I unplugged the adapter and plugged it back in so that I could install the second driver.
If there are no error messages on the devices in the “USB PC card readers”, congratulations! You’ve finished installing the adapter.
If there ARE error messages, or a device isn’t showing up, try disconnecting then reconnecting the adapter to the computer to see if the found new hardware window opens up again. If you can’t get the found new hardware wizard that way, in the device manager you can right click the device and select “update driver” to get the wizard up. Show the wizard where to find the driver on the cd. It should install correctly once you manually show it the driver.

4) While in the device manager, check to make sure your card is installed. Plug your card into your adapter. The device manager should refresh, and (assuming you’ve installed the drivers for your card on this computer) your cellular modem should show up if you expand the “modems” drop-down menu. Once again, make sure there are not any error messages.

5) Now that you know the adapter and modem are functioning properly, it is time to try to establish a connection. My suggestion is to try your provider’s software first, but if that doesn’t work (some software is unable to recognize the card through the adapter) you may need to set up a manual connection. The process requires a blog of its own, and if you get lost feel free to call our tech support. As a general guide use this link on the manual setup for the Verizon 5740 in combination with the setup information for different providers to set up the manual connection. If your provider is not listed in the second link, you will need to call your provider in order to get their manual dialing information.

Been lagging behind because your USB to PCMCIA adapter only supports 2G wireless networks? This new card from ELAN supports the latest high speed protocols, ensuring that you get a quick connection wherever you are.
The card is model # SW-7851 and its full specs and compatibility can be found at the link below.

USB to PCMCIA Adapter for 3G Wireless Cards.

Just checking around at my favorite review sites over the weekend, when I stumbled upon a review of the VTBook at PC Perspective. For any consumer looking to add an additional DVI port to their laptop this is a great solution. Please take note however that this is only for the PCMCIA slot and will not work with the new Expresscard slot on newer laptops. Expect a solution for the Expresscard slot to come soon.

PC Perspective Village Tronic VTBook Review

Sold for $229.95 at Sewell Direct

A lot of people spend time looking for the connection information for their service provider so that they can connect with a manual windows connection to their wireless internet. This is information that is needed when using the USB to 32 bit PCMCIA Cardbus adapters. (It also applies for the USB to 16 bit PCMCIA adapter.)

Fortunately Elan (the chipset manufacturer) has provided this information for us. If your provider is not listed below, i apologize, but you’ll still have to call up the provider to get this information.

The information provided is not guaranteed to be correct since providers may change their connection settings. As far as we know, this should be the information you need to get it to connect.

Do you have some PCMCIA cards laying around that you’ve been dying to use on your new laptop?

We’ve got a new solution that should be arriving in our warehouse on 6/15/2007. The new Duel Systems ExpressCard to PCMCIA adapter will solve your compatibility issues and save you from having to buy new cards. Check out the ExpressCard to PCMCIA adapter here.

This adapter plugs directly into the new ExpressCard slot (either the 34mm or the 54mm slot) that is coming on almost all new laptops. This adapter provides much higher reliability and compatibility than the currently available PCMCIA to USB adapters. The USB adapters are limited to compatibility with a select few Air Cards models. The Duel Systems adapter is compatible with a wide range of different card types (see list below).

Duel Systems PCMCIA Card Compatibility:

-32-Bit CardBus PC Cards
-16-Bit PCMCIA cards
-Wide Area Network cellular cards (Your wireless Air Cards)
-Memory cards
-802.11a/b/g wireless LAN cards
-Ethernet LAN cards
-ATA cards
-Port expansion cards
-Modem cards
-Also works with CompactFlash, Memory Stick, Smart Media, MMC and SD cards using suitable adapter (available separately)

Another benefit for some of you is that this adapter, unlike the USB adapters, is compatible with the Macintosh operating sytem (version 10.4.8). It is also compatible with Windows XP (no word for certain on Vista at this time).

The package includes:
-PCMCIA to ExpressCard Adapter
-Driver CD-ROM
-Install Guide
-1-year limited warranty and support card
-Product registration card

This item is currently available for pre-order. In order to get on the list to get some of the first available adapters you can place an order and it will be shipped as soon as we get it. You can do that from the product page for the ExpressCard to PCMCIA adapter here.

If you have any further questions about it feel free to give our tech support team a call!

Our part Sw-4772 is a hot buy lately due to laptops that have upgraded to the new Express Card slot when wireless companies are still using the old PCMCIA for their modem cards. When buying this product pay close attention to the compatibility list on the right- if your card isn’t there, it isn’t supported. But there is good news! There are other ways to accomplish wireless connectivity through your cellular service.

One option is to use your phone;

If you have a GSM phone (such as Cingular or T-mobile) you want to make sure the phone at least has EDGE, at best their broadband network. With CDMA phones (such as Verizon or Sprint) you want to have EVDO, or better yet EVDO RevA which should be coming out soon on some high end phones. Then you pay for phone as modem service through your provider (usually cheaper than modem card service plans) and hook your laptop up to it through either bluetooth or USB and you’ll get basically the same speeds as your modem card was, plus it will be conveniently packaged in your existing phone. You might consider buying a spare battery. I use my Samsung A900 with Sprint and it works great.

Another option, switch cards;

If you recently bought your card, most service providers allow for a 14 day or 30 day risk free trial period. Many carriers now carry express cards, but you may need to talk to someone who really knows what they’re talking about to find out how to get one. My experience with their customer service is they don’t know what I’m talking about. I’ve heard Cingular has them but I can’t find them on their website, and Sprint had an ETA of Dec 6 according to someone I talked with on the phone, but I have yet to see them as of Dec 22(they do have a USB modem however). Verizon has one called the V640 I found on their website. Even if you can’t return your old card, often buying one of the new ones is your better option anyway.

If you have a SIM Card in your phone(only GSM phones like cingular and t-mobile) you can get a USB modem for your sim card;

see our part Sw-5855
just put your sim card in this, make sure you’ve subscibed to phone as modem on the account whose SIM card your using, and you’re good to go with EDGE speeds where available .
I hope this helps you.