Grr. I'm trying to set up a shortcut to turning on tethering on my phone. Currently I have to fire up Apps/Settings/Wireless & Networks/Tethering & portable hotspot/Portable Wi-Fi hotspot. Too long. And if I set up a shortcut to Wi-Fi, it's actually one step too deep in the wrong direction. In the previous release of Android, I could have a shortcut, but in Gingerbread, I can't work out how.

I downloaded Elixir 2, because it's supposed to let you make a shortcut to anything and everything, but same old same old--I can't work out how to go down the correct fork in the tree, just Apps/Settings/Wireless & Networks/Wi-Fi Settings.

eta: Never mind. Found QuickTeth, an app which is a shortcut to that setting page.

Huh. It seems like you should just be able to, you know, tether.

It's just a matter of getting to it without hitting a million key. My next step is to automatically turn on a wifi hotspot under certain circumstances.

Has anyone jailbreak an AppleTV 2g? It's tempting. But it looks like I gotta boot from computer to do it every time, which would get real annoying. Just curious if I'm understanding the tethered thing right.

I'm trying to work out how to extend my parents' wireless network world. Currently they have a 4 port Wi Fi bridge in the area that gets the most traffic, and wired connections to the guest room (in the middle of the house) and my father's office (the far end of the house). I want to be able to provide them with at least one repeater to extend signal into places not so plagued my mosquitoes.

Here's what's on the label of their box (it's complicated because the stuff is labelled with the cable provider's stuff):

Cable & Wireless
Zhone
6218I2000JA
MAC ID:EOCB4EFF2796
S/N:248 7462
ADSL 2+ 4 port Wi Fi bridge

What can they plug into the guest room to extend the wireless signal on a compatible protocol? There isn't as much need for wireless in my father's office.

I don't know why any old wireless g/n repeater wouldn't work.

My TiVo won't connect with my iPad, grrr! It's done it before, so I'm not sure what the problem is. I think that it's the network here. Feh. Actually, it's kind of moot, because the TiVo isn't getting a picture anyway. I think that it's a digital thing.

Thanks, Gud. There's not much flexibility with experimentation, since I've got to buy here and take it there, but I'll try that.

I'm having some Locale issues.

In conjunction with plugins, it's supposed to turn off Wi Fi hotspot tethering when it hits the location of Home. But because hotspot tethering limits the accuracy of locations, it still thinks it's at Bev Mo ...motherfucker.

Maybe I need to try a situation of pure Wi Fi SSID identification, and no location determination. But, seriously, if the phone logs into a Wi Fi network, I want it to drop tethering, because then the tablet can use the Wi Fi network to get to the internet itself.

I am puzzled about how to work around this without coding for every single eventuality.

I'm pretty sure I've slammed hard upon the limitations of Locale.

It lets you set one type of every condition (if clause) and one type of every setting (then statement). So, it seems that for every situation (entire statement), you can't do location and location or location or location. And you can't execute the same sort of setting twice without duplicating the entire situation (to beep for the to-do tag "Ralphs" and "Supermarket" under the same conditions you have to duplicate the entire statement. But you can do location *and* caller in one situation. I'm not entirely sure how to do a given location *or* a given caller.

Gris, I'm assuming Tasker doesn't have these limitations, does it? I'd like to know before I shell out money. The documentation for this shit seems really spotty.

I don't think you can do an "or" with Tasker, either, though "ands" are possible. However, it is possible to save your "then" sections (called Tasks in Tasker) with a name, so creating different situations with the same "then" section is really easy.