Countdown until real Internet: Two days

I've been using Tinyproxy to route my computer's internet connection through my [hacked, TMobile] iPhone.

In theory, it should be good enough for a few days-- EDGE speeds top out around 250k/sec downstream. In practice, though, TMobile's T-Zones network is terrible at maintaining two connections simultaneously. So for me it's a choice between instant messenger, IRC, GMail, etc., and actually being able to pull web pages.

My temporary solution has been to tunnel all traffic through an offsite SSH host (running on port 143 as to fool TMobile's proxy), which seems to help a lot.

I do have an old Powerbook with a broken fan and a broken memory slot. So I've used it occasionnaly at the local internet cafe, underclocking it so that it doesn't overheat, and navigating OSX using a hefty 128mb of built-in RAM. It's (surprisingly) not useful at all, even on a fast connection.

Anyway, this has been a good lesson in a jailbroken iPhone's incredible versatility. It's nice to know that the same device I used to record my blog in Europe can be used (in a pinch) as an EDGE proxy server. On that note, I'm looking forward to the iPhone SDK, which may or may not be released on March 6.