Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with dongle

My ding-a-ling, my Dong-a-long, I want to play with my Dongle-Long

infinitewindow — Sat, 06 Jun 2009 18:10:26 -0800

I found three parallel port dongles and have no idea what software they go to. While cleaning up, I found three parallel port dongles. They are all Sentinel Superpros manufactured by Rainbow Technologies and are probably related (same typeface and similar SRB numbers on each).

Here's the info:

ADEC0210 (Advanced Encoder): Unlimited
DVPM0210: unlimited
DMAE0210: unlimited

I believe they are DVD-related. I probably do not have the original software discs. It's quite likely the dongles are practically worthless, but it's driving me nuts as to what they could be. Does anyone know?

3G Dongle & iPod Touch

pettins — Mon, 30 Mar 2009 08:34:59 -0800

Is it possible to connect a 3G Dongle (from "3" in my case) to a 2nd Generation iPod Touch (do not want and/or can't afford an iPhone) to simulate a Wifi connection? I know this may be impossible, however, I keep thinking about how I could get mobile broadband for my iPod Touch and I am paying a monthly fee (£15) for the 3G Dongle.

For example, could I get a cable that goes from my 3G Dongle and plug it into my Wireless Router and generate a Wifi signal from it?

(I accept I would need a power supply for this, but lets assume I have this (eg DC to AC converter in the car for example)).

I have bought a USB connector that reverses the connection on the 3G dongle so I can plug it in to the iPod sync cable, however, this does not generate a connection so I suspect that the iPod Touch requires some 3G hardware or software component?

I know that the iPhone does this by itself but I want to stick with my iPod Touch and JUST the £15 a month for the mobile dongle if it is possible.

If it can't be done, is it possible to explain why not?

Thanks for any suggestions...

Lost security dongle

TigerCrane — Sun, 20 Jul 2008 10:42:53 -0800

I've lost my security dongle! How can I get another one? I just bought some very expensive software, and I lost the security dongle right away!

I checked the documentation, and it seems that I have to buy another copy of the software!

Since I just bought it, I'm considering calling the company and telling them that I didn't recieve the dongle. Do you think this would work?

Also, can I use a friend's dongle? Are they interchangable?

Stop my Wireless from disconnecting when idle

lemonfridge — Wed, 15 Aug 2007 15:19:54 -0800

When I leave my PC on during the day while I'm out, it disconnects from the wireless router, stopping any downloads I have running. if I'm at home using it this never happens. I have turned set all the power-saving options to "Never", and have checked that the Wireless USB dongle is set to "CAM" power-saving mode.

Is there anything I can do to stop it doing this? The Router is a brand new Netgear DG834G, the USB dongle is a "Dynamode" but has no model number. I'm running XP/SP2.

My Bluetooth Dongle seems to lock up XP SP2

govtrust — Tue, 03 Oct 2006 10:45:28 -0800

My Bluetooth dongle locks up XP SP2. The device is KINAMAX BT-USB USB 2.0. The computer is a Compaq Presario 6000. I have tried installing useing the newest BlueSoleil drivers 2.3 and disabling the windows drivers. Once they are installed it pairs its self with my plantronics 320 headseat but the computer will intermittently freeze up. No error messages.

Dongle died: deeply desire data

Emperor SnooKloze — Sat, 06 May 2006 11:02:21 -0800

Anything I can do about my dead dongle? I have a 256 MB Lexar JumpDrive that I took off my keychain a few months ago since I would probably get arrested if I brought it into my place of work. It's been on my desk since. Now, it worked last time I used it, but when I went to play with it last night, it was dead. I don't mean "the computer was having problems reading it consistently," I mean "I might as well have been stuffing chewing gum into my USB port."

I've seen little apps intended to make USB drives bootable, and all that good stuff, but that's not much good if I already have material on there I want to get off of it, not reformat and overwrite. I've googled around a fair bit at this point, and I'm not having a whit of luck with the "hey, try this" recommendations I've found thus far. Any other suggestions?

Running dongled app on Apple Intel box

thayerg — Thu, 20 Apr 2006 11:28:06 -0800

I'm thinking about running Windows on an Apple Intel laptop. Unfortunately one of the apps I use needs a hardware dongle on the parallel port. So I'm wondering whether one can attach a USB/parallel adapter, attach the dongle to that (maybe requires a gender bender) and have the app see the dongle that way. Or is the interaction between the app and dongle too low-level for that? Any help would be appreciated. I can't quite bring myself to buy an intel apple, buy windows xp, load it all up, and then find out I'm SOL. Thanks in Advance.

Dongle wrangle. Help me fix my Belkin F5D7050.

ajp — Tue, 18 Apr 2006 15:45:38 -0800

How do I reinstall my Belkin F5D7050 USB wifi dongle? I recently reinstalled Windows XP on my laptop. Now I can't find the driver CD for my Belkin F5D7050 (version 1 I think) USB wifi dongle.

The interwebs are awash with horror stories about getting this particular piece of kit to work. I've tried using the Belkin drivers, I've tried using the Ralink drivers for the RT2500 chipset. The software installs, and then nothing happens. Nothing at all. I plug the thing in, and it's either unrecognised (and the Windows wizard can't find a suitable driver anywhere) or, if I've installed a driver, the dongle shows up as broken in the device manager.

I'm sure the answer is out there on some website somewhere, but I've trawled and trawled, and none of the remedies people mention have worked for me. I appreciate this question is likely to receive a "search harder" response, and I shall do, but I live in the hope that someone else has gone through this, and emerged sane enough to relate the sorry tale.

As the Amazon.com review says, it's too light to be a paperweight, so I'd quite like to get it working again. Plus I'm now cabled into my router. Help me be free once again!

Is it possible to share network/internet connection via a usb dongle (from XP)?

mule — Fri, 07 Apr 2006 22:31:57 -0800

wifi sharing via USB dongle filter: Is it possible to share network/internet connection via a usb dongle (from XP)? if so how? My mum just purchased a new laptop (ibook) which she would like to connect wirelessly to her home network. She has a wired Linksys broadband modem connected to her WinXP box via ethernet.

I advised her to pick up a wifi usb dongle to share the internet and network from her PC to the iBook, thinking that the dongle could be used to 'push' the netwprk out. With plenty of fiddling the laptop can see the network as a peer to peer but not share the connection to the net.

I'm pretty experienced with the mac side of things but the Windows stuff seems like an endless loop of wizards.

Can anyone point me to set of instruction on how to get this working?

Java Dongles

Netzapper — Fri, 20 May 2005 11:31:52 -0800

Has anybody ever used a cross-platform (Win, OSX) USB dongle/hardware key to copy protect a Java application? Which one(s)? How was it to integrate into the application? I've been googling for days now, but can't find good third party information on Java dongles. I've found at least four or five different makers, but, as companies are wont to do, they all proclaim themselves the best.

One of my clients is insistent on using dongles to protect the next version of his product after reading an article in some suit magazine. And, since it offers better copy protection than the crap I wrote for the last version, I'm not opposed to putting it in. However, he wants me to do the research on which one to use (which is fair, of course)

And to the anti-copy-protection crowd: Don't worry about this, I swear on every geek point, bit of hacker cred, and my EFF donation money this year, it isn't software you or anyone else I know would buy (and you sure as shit wouldn't care about the source if you did buy it).