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A better way to connect Macs to a PC's shared Bluetooth Network
I saw this hint you have about sharing a PC's Internet with a Mac over Bluetooth. That's great, but it involves too much configuration and a terminal window login every time. Here's an alternative that "just works," mainly for owners of Symbian based phones.

The PC Suite software supplied with those phones has a server that hosts such connections over Bluetooth (and also IR and cables) for the phones, but it also works with other devices, like Palms and Macs. To make it work, do the following:

On the PC:
Right click on the mRouter tray icon and make sure Bluetooth serial ports are enabled.

On the Mac:
Make a new Bluetooth serial port, called something like Bluetooth-mRouter. Pair it with the Bluetooth Serial Port service on your host PC. Then set it to Outgoing and RS232 mode. Then load up the Network prefs panel, and configure the new port. Make sure it's using PPP. Under PPP options, you can safely deselect "Disconnect if idle." Under Modem, select Null Modem 115200 and deselect "Wait for dial tone."

Now use the Internet Connect menu, select the port you just made, and then select Connect. Hey presto, Internet sharing over Bluetooth. The only limit seems to be that although mRouter can handle up to 460000bps, the Mac Null Modem driver is capped at 115200, so if anyone wants to make a better Null Modem driver, please respond.

Finally, non-Symbian phone owners can download the PC Suite freely from Nokia or SonyEricsson, too. Install them and then remove everything except for the mRouter executable from their startup menu, and they're good to go.
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A better way to connect Macs to a PC's shared Bluetooth | 5 comments | Create New Account
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A better way to connect Macs to a PC's shared Bluetooth
Authored by: luai on Oct 27, '03 01:40:11AM

Thanks a lot for the nice and simple language you used. It worked with me quite easily. But is there a way to reverse the process? I have my Mac connected and I would like the PC to share the Mac's connection.



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A better way to connect Macs to a PC's shared Bluetooth
Authored by: lee3164 on Feb 26, '04 08:14:40AM

This worked absolutely brilliantly on my XP Pro box! So simple you'd have thought Apple cam up with it!

Just to add a point of clarification... Not all of the versions of PC Suite on the 'net are capable of a bluetooth connection. I downloaded a copy from www.nokia.com by pretending I had a 7650 phone (this phone has bluetooth and uses the Symbian OS) and asking for support options/downloads.

I installed the PC Suite and restarted the PC as asked. I then made the relevant settings on my iBook G4 and hey presto! I didn't need to tweak anything on the PC at all. Simply genius.

---

/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\

Lee W



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A better way to connect Macs to a PC's shared Bluetooth
Authored by: ifandango on Jun 02, '04 11:08:13AM

hi
I have problem with this instruction...
i am configure win xp and mac os According to directions..
then im use button for connect from mac 10.3.4... win xp report " bluetooth connection successful" mac report "connecting" then "authenticating" and this is a death point.... no more... no connection

thank's!
fandango



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A better way to connect Macs to a PC's shared Bluetooth
Authored by: dferrero on Jun 02, '04 03:13:15PM

I'm failing at the same piont. I have 2 IOGear USB BT devices. One for the win 2000 machine and one for my powerbook. I am able to browse files on win 2000 from mac after 'pairing' the BT devices. When I try to setup a Null Modem serial connection following the instructions here (for xp), I get real close but fail. After I click connect, i see the logs spit out:
pppd 2.4.2b1 started by root, uid 0.
Serial connection established.
Terminal connection established.
Using interface ppp0
Connect: ppp0 <--> /dev/cu.BlueNet (my bluetooth device name).
At this point i see it trying to Authenticate.

One thing I noticed is that when I'm given the terminal prompt where I was suppose to type 'clientclient', I notice funky characters --- almost looks like the serial connection isn't using the same stop bits or encryption or ....

Please help!



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A better way to connect Macs to a PC's shared Bluetooth
Authored by: dferrero on Jul 09, '04 10:38:35AM

I overcame my problems and managed to get the mac to login to win2k machine and share it's broadband over bluetooth. My biggest beef is with Mail.app --- it still doesn't support SOCKS proxy - but that's not the point of this article.

Another BT problem I noticed is that large file transfers to the PC from Mac over blue tooth (File Transfer Protocol -- not over the PPP connection) fail at some point -- just stops sending. Is this inherent to BT reliability?



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