Before 4am this morning, our cable went out. The TV also appears not to work. It's not in my name, so I'm SOL for the second time.

I am, however, connected using my Fido phone via USB modem. It was IMPRESSIVELY easy to connect using the Network Manager stack on Ubuntu Karmic Koala, unlike on previous releases.

I plugged in the phone. An item to set up a new mobile broadband connection magically appeared on the Network Manager widget's menu, taking me through the connection setup wizard. Fido was in the list, and all the default settings worked fine. Unlike before, I did not need to even install the blueman bluetooth connection manager, since I was usign the USB connection instead. All I had to do was turn off my wired LAN connection, and I was online.

Needless to say, it's not as fast as cable, but it's a damn sight better than dialup. It's more than adequate for the web and ssh sessions, if not for streaming media or Youtube.

Nice work.