Dave’s Tech Blog
A Third Eye on Technology

SAN FRANCISCO, Calif. — Google has made an announcement that could help hundreds of homeless people in San Francisco get back on their feet.

Every single homeless person in the city will be given a life-long phone number and voicemail, should they choose to accept it, NBC11’s Lisa Bernard said.

Google is partnering with San Francisco to provide the service to homeless individuals and to shelters and agencies so they can distribute the numbers to their clients.

The announcement was made at a Project Homeless Connect event at the Bill Graham Civic Auditorium Wednesday.

A homeless person will be able to call in for his or her messages from any phone.

The move by the city and the company would allow someone to be able to fill out a job application, which asks for a call back number.

It will allow clinics to share test results.

Mayor Gavin Newsom and Google said they want to empower people.

“How do you communicate as a homeless individual? ” Newsom asked. “How do you expect your life to turn around if you can’t even get information or if someone can’t even get in touch with you?”

“It just seems exactly like any other voice mail,” said Craig Walker, senior project manager of Google. “There’s no stigma attached to it that ‘hey this is a temporary thing’ or ‘this is an 800 number.’ It’s really just a local number owned by the user.”

One man who used to be homeless said the right message can raise the spirit.

“Having your family, friends and loved ones being able to say ‘here I’m thinking about you, I love you, I want you to know you’re mine, and I miss you,’ can have a monumental change in one’s behavior.”

“Providing phone and messaging capabilities and access to vital healthcare is an extraordinary step forward in the city’s commitment to a comprehensive approach to addressing the needs of this vulnerable community,” Newsom said.

“We’re firm believers in the power of technology to improve the daily lives of individuals and communities as a whole, and we recognize that access to phone and voicemail services is one way that Google can help San Francisco’s homeless stay connected with family, friends, social workers, health care providers, and potential employers,” Walker said.

Walker said the program was ready to start right away.

Original article: http://www.nbc11.com/news/15429799/detail.html

Not so long ago, I wrote a guide up that showed T-mobile customers how to connect their cell phone to their Linux machines using wvdial, allowing them to access the Internet. Well I’ve come back to write an updated (and even easier) guide to connecting not just T-mobile phones, but Sprint and Verizon wireless phones as well (and possibly others, as you’ll soon see).

So, here we go in short and simple form:

1. Switch your phones USB mode to Data Connection (this is usually on Memory Card mode by default). Connect your phone to your computer after this has been configured correctly.
2. Install wvdial by opening a terminal window (click on Applications>Accessories>Terminal) and then type in “sudo apt-get install wvdial“.
3. Now that your phone is attached to your computer and wvidial is installed, type “sudo wvdialconf” into terminal, and press enter.

The wvdialconf is a useful utility that I failed to use or mention in my previous guide. The wvdialconf utility will probe your computer for modem devices, and upon finding your cell phone and verifying it to be such a device, will test its capabilities. Running this command with “sudo” in front of it will allow the program to create it’s own template configuration file based upon your phones capabilities.

wvdialconf will return you to the terminal prompt once it is completed. The next thing you will need to do is modify the configuration file it just created slightly. To do this, type “sudo gedit /etc/wvdial.conf” into terminal and press enter.

Once it opens, it will probably look something like this:

[Dialer Defaults]
Init2 = ATQ0 V1 E1 S0=0 &C1 &D2 +FCLASS=0
Modem Type = USB Modem
; Phone = <Target Phone Number>
ISDN = 0
; Username = <Your Login Name>
Init1 = ATZ
; Password = <Your Password>
Modem = /dev/ttyACM0
Baud = 460800

The above configuration file was what was automatically generated by wvdialconf for me after it probed my Motorola K1, so it may look different for you. Note that the Modem = /dev/ttyACM0 as shown above may be detected differently on your PC, especially if you have attached it to your computer/laptop via a wireless bluetooth connection.

If you have a T-Mobile phone, you will want to modify and save the config file so it looks more like this (I”ve highlighted the most important changes in red):

[Dialer Defaults]
Init2 = ATQ0 V1 E1 S0=0 &C1 &D2 +FCLASS=0
Modem Type = USB Modem
Phone = *99#
ISDN = 0
Username = user
Init1 = ATZ
Password = pass
Modem = /dev/ttyACM0
Baud = 460800

Be sure to remove the semi-colon’s in front of the Username / Password lines. T-mobile authenticates it’s users by their phone number (and likely their phones mac address, so a username and password is not required from them. I’ve had no problem using the username “user” and the password “pass” with T-Mobile’s servers).

If you have a Sprint phone, you will want to modify the file so it looks like this:

[Dialer Defaults]
Init2 = ATQ0 V1 E1 S0=0 &C1 &D2 +FCLASS=0
Modem Type = USB Modem
Phone = #777
ISDN = 0
Username = {your phone number}@sprintpcs.com
Init1 = ATZ
Password = {your four digit access code}
Modem = /dev/ttyACM0
Baud = 460800
New PPPD = Yes
ISDN = 0

In addition, you will want to do a sudo gedit /etc/ppp/peers in a terminal window and add the following two lines to the file:

lcp-echo-failure 0
lcp-echo-interval 0

If you have a Verizon Wireless device, you will want to make your config file look more like this:

[Dialer Defaults]
Init2 = ATQ0 V1 E1 S0=0 &C1 &D2 +FCLASS=0
Modem Type = USB Modem
Phone = #777
ISDN = 0
Username = {your phone number}@vzw3g.com
Init1 = ATZ
Password = vzw
Modem = /dev/ttyACM0
Baud = 460800

—–

Once you have modified the configuration file correctly and saved it, you can close it and return to the terminal window. From now on, after your cell phone is connected, all you have to do to initiate the dialing sequence is type “wvdial” into a terminal window and press enter. Closing the terminal window, or hitting CTRL-C while it is open, will terminate your connection.

Like the sprint device, I also don’t have a verizon device handy for testing to see how well the above guide will work. But it is a big step in the right direction for most people. If you use this guide above and have trouble, please contact so we can seek out a better method for your prefered device. I would love to know of your experience with trying this on your computer.

Good luck!