Droid Tethering is Functional

I have been playing around with my new Droid for the past few days but have hesitated to attempt to tether it.

I read that you just needed to download a program called PDA Net  and then you could tether your Droid to your computer for an internet connection.    Sometimes, I read it was a free program, then sometimes I read it cost $20 or $30.  I've since learned there is a free version but it has some limitations.  I figured if I could get the free version running successfully, I'd then buy the other version.

I went on to their website before I got the Droid and watched two different video's explaining how to set it up.  It seemed like their were an awful lot of steps and watching it without my phone, made it seem confusing. I wasn't anxious to attempt this procedure.

Then I started reading about "rooting" your phone, which essentially unlocks all the features the designers of the operating system put in, but Verizon (I guess) took out.  Verizon wants you to pay for these extra features. By this time, I was getting confused by all the tethering and rooting talk :)

I finally figured out I will need to tether my phone, but do not need to root it...at least for now.  The problem with rooting, is you can ruin the phone, or "brick" it, as they say.  Tethering allows me to use the phone for an internet connection for my laptop.  Rooting will allow me to use my phone for a wifi type connection and tether more than one computer.  If I can do that, then both of us will be able to use our laptops at the same time and it'll be cheaper than the $60 a month aircard.  The Droid is $30 monthly.

So anyway, I have been hesitant about doing anything to the phone....until this morning when my home internet was down!  Uh, oh...I can no longer call Verizon and ask them to hook up my tethering feature on my phone like I could with the old phone...or could I?

I messed around with everything for a while and finally got internet again.  At that point, I decided I needed to get this tethering thing figured out so I would have a back up internet the next time this happened.

I diligently followed all of the instructions.

I downloaded Pda net to the phone..no problem.

Then I attempted to download it to the computer from the phone as per the instructions..

Uh oh... error message.  Windows couldn't find the drivers it needed????

We had to go to town and run some errands so I decided to leave it alone until I got home.

When I got home my internet was down again!


Anyway, I finally got my internet connection  up and running, made another attempt to download PdaNet to the computer.

This time it went through properly and I am actually posting this right now from my tethered Droid!  Yea!

So now I have a backup and when we travel I will have internet wherever we have a Verizon connection.  I've become so spoiled, I want internet all the time.

We were talking about my first computers way back when.  I wish I had taken pictures of them.  Remember those old things where you had to put the program disc in to run it and then remove it to put the data disc?  The old monitors that were either green or amber?  Wow, what a long way we've come and all this new technology is absolutely amazing...and wonderful :)