WikiPilipinas: Maguindanao Massacre

The Philippine Online Chronicles: articles on the Maguindanao Massacre

Not being able to use my USB modem was the one thing keeping Karmic Koala (9.10) from being my favorite Ubuntu to date.

Thanks to the diligence of the people behind this open source, free OS, recent updates enabled me to use my Huawei E1552 USB modem (Globe Tattoo prepaid) to connect to the Internet.

1. Upgrade linux-headers to 2.6.31-14 or to the latest kernel. You can do this via the terminal or the Synaptic Package Manager, or the Update Manager. If you don't want to mess around with the terminal that much, I recommend using the Synaptic Package Manager, which can be found at: Application Menu-->System-->Administration-->Synaptic Package Manager.

Before I did this, Karmic already recognized my modem and I was able to set up a connection profile via NetworkManager. However, I could never really connect to the Internet. The attempt to connect kept failing at authentication.

2. Install the linux-backports-modules-generic package and gnome-phone-manager (for sending and receiving SMS).

3. Restart your computer.

4. Plug in your Tattoo Huawai USB modem.

5. Right click NetworkManage, select Edit Connections.

6. At the "Mobile Broadband" tab, select Add. The wizard to set up a mobile broadband connection appears.

Select Huawei from the device dropdown, select Philippines as your country, click on Globe Telecom as your provider. Leave the "Select your plan" dropdown as is, click apply. The Edit connection window appears: change the APN from "internet.globe.com.ph" to "http.globe.com.ph" (do not include quotation marks in typing), click apply. Tadah!

Click on NetworkManager, select your Tattoo account and you're all set. You'll know you're connected if your modem's light stops blinking and is just a steady blue light.

Note: Sometimes the connection can be woozy due to signal strength. If you find you can't connect, try and try again. If a popup appears saying the Huawei connection needs a password, ignore it -- keep on tapping "Enter" on the keyboard (to leave the field blank and say it doesn't have a password) until the window disappears and you're able to connect to the network.

7. You'll find the Phone Manager application in Applications-->System Tools. You can use this to send and receive SMS via your Tattoo sim and modem.

To check how much load you've got left, run Phone Manager. It'll appear in your status bar. Right click on it, select Preferences and click on the "Connection" tab. Select "Other port" and type any one of the following, try and see which one will work: /dev/ttyUSB0 or /dev/ttyUSB1 or /dev/ttyUSB2 -- /dev/ttyUSB2 worked for me. Click on Close.

Click on Phone Manager again, and a send SMS window will appear. In the Recipient field, type "222", then in the Message field, type "BAL" (don't include quotation marks), then send. A message will arrive telling you how much load you've got left.

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Thanks to the following sources: GetSatisfacion.com, this Ubuntu community support forum and another one here, this Launchpad forum, and this blog post.

My parents are reminiscing on People Power. I was more than a year old then, so I only laughed when my father asked me if I remembered anything about that historic event which toppled a dictatorship.

They were there, my father said, right beside the tanks. If the military had decided to attack, my siblings and I would be orphans. But the soldiers didn't. So I wasn't orphaned, and Corazon Aquino became President.

My mother is keeping track of where the Philippines' first female president's funeral procession is. She's comparing the newspaper outline of the route with the television updates. Lost in her own thoughts, I can almost see the past playing back like a movie in her eyes. Laban, they said. Laban.

According to GMA News, the National Capital Region Police Office estimated the number of people watching or following the funeral procession to be at 25,000. Too few, my father said, musing that even when there are 200,000 people in any kind of thing on the streets, the police would say there are only 20,000.

Pres. Cory Aquino's funeral procession looks a lot like her husband Sen. Ninoy Aquino's back in the 80s, my father said. (He and my mother were there.) If Ninoy's procession passed by Malacanang, the Marcoses would probably have been removed from power then and there. No more military takeovers of government-run media organizations, no more mobilizations in EDSA. Just...goodbye Martial Law, then and there.

I think if they passed by Malacanang, it could have been like what happened in Russia with the people and the Czar's family. Scary thought.

Now, what if Cory Aquino's funeral procession passed by Malacanang? What would happen to Pres. Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, I wonder?

Here's to you, Uncle Litoy. You taught us that silence can hold more meaning than endless rounds of talk. +