To install a Sprint S620 card into a Macintosh laptop.
The laptop must have the PCI slot. The PowerBooks have the needed PCI slot. The most common PowerBook you will see with the right slot for direct (no adapter needed) connection is a G3 or G4 15" or larger. (Sprint and Novatel will tell you that you need a G4, but the G3 can run OSX and also has the correct slot) The 12" PowerBooks do not have them and iBooks do not have the slot either. The new MacBook Pro has an ExpressCard slot. The solution to getting these to work would be a USB adapter (doing research on these now). NOTE: There is some material that says the cards will not work with the USB connector and others who say that they do. The trick is finding the adapter for the Mac that has the OSX drivers.
First, install the PC and use the lock code, etc on a Windows laptop as usual. If you get an error message when it is trying to "Update Profile", simply click out of it and the connection manager then goes to "Disconnected". Try connecting. This usually works.
If you do not have a laptop laying around with Windows on it, ask another trucker if they have one and they would not mind helping out another trucker. Usually they will say yes. You might even get another sale of an aircard out of it. (Seriously. I sold 3 this way.)
Shut down the Windows laptop and remove the PC card.
Go to the Mac. It must be running OSX (most of them do now). In the top left corner you will see a little apple icon. Click on it and choose "About this Mac" from the menu. This will tell you the operating system and version. (If you want to check out the other things available on that Mac, you can choose "more info". This opens the System Profiler and allows you to access all the information on components, etc. found on that Mac.
The easiest way to do the install is to be sure they have OSX 10.4.4 or greater running on their computer. If they do, you can skip this next portion. (Current version is 10.4.7)
If they do not have OSX 10.4.4, then click the icon beneath the OSX version that says "Software Updates". This will pull up a window with a list of things and little checkmarks next to whatever items they can update. Unclick everything except the OSX version. Leave that box checked.
Click through to continue updating. Make sure the computer is plugged into power. If the customer is not on Wifi, plug in an ethernet cable and run it to the router for DSL if you have it. Otherwise, they need to somehow have access to the internet.
When the download finishes (it can take a while, depending on the connection speed) the dialog box will ask you if you want to shut down or restart. Choose restart. Unplug the ethernet cable if you had it plugged in.
When the computer is loaded up again:
Slide the Merlin card into the PCI slot. On the top right side of the very top bar you will see several icons which could include a thing that looks like a fan (airport card), a megaphone (sound), battery, time, bluetooth and a little magnifying glass.
When the card is recognized (it recognizes it in a flash) another icon will appear that looks like the antenna symbol on the regular Sprint connection manager. Put your cursor over that and click. A menu will pop down with several choices. Choose "connect". When you are connected, the two up/down half arrows will appear to the right of the antenna symbol. You are good to go.
Open up Safari or Internet Explorer or any web browser. You should be flying on the internet. These cards are by far faster on Macs!
You can disconnect the same way you connected. Or, you can also just click, hold and drag the antenna icon into the garbage can.
Macs make these things so simple. Everything works well together and you do not get conflicts like the ones you get with Windows.
Apparently this also works with the Cingular card, but I have not installed that yet, so I don't know if there are extra steps.
Resources:
Apple Downloads - http://www.apple.com/downloads
Sprint's Directions - http://www4.sprint.com/pcsbusiness/downloads/MacOS_QuickStart.pdf
Questions? Just ask as they come up.
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