This was meant to be a feedback blog in which I happily told how successful I was browsing the internet with the Nokia N800 Internet Tablet hooked up to the Nokia E51 smartphone. Fortunately though I was willing to bet on my success I didn’t put any money down. So I guess you could say it “didn’t work as expected”.

I found a blog “Internet Tablet School” which had a tutorial on connecting the Nokia N800 to the internet using a Bluetooth phone. The cellphone must support the the DUN (Dial-Up Networking) Bluetooth profile. They even have an embedded YouTube video showing how it is done, and they manage to succeed! It turns out that you need to switch the cellphone Bluetooth on and then run a search for Bluetooth devices from the Nokia Tablet.

Connecting the N800 to the cellphone went well, so did telling the N800 to use the phone to connect to the internet. When it came to actually opening up a webpage in the browser on the N800, it timed out after a few minutes. After fiddling around with the settings a while, realized that the problem was most likely caused by the way my Nokia E51 was configured to connect to the data network. To fix this would involve deleting a whole lot of settings on the phone and starting again from scratch, something I may try at a later date. Alternatively I could wait for the Nokia N810 with WiMax and for Sprint to roll out WiMax in my area.

This week is spring break, which means one thing around my household: Road trip! Time to visit friends and family — anything to prevent this adult from imposing permanent damage on the family heir in a fit of parental insanity.

That includes time with my mom, who surprised me recently when she told me on the phone that she has wireless now. How did that transpire? “It was included with TiVo,” she told me. That’s right. TiVo sells a device — the TiVo AG0100 Wireless USB Network Adapter – that lets users connect their digital video recorder with their 802.11g or b wireless home network. I’m no TiVo user. What do I know? (Apparently, she didn’t know about it either until my brilliant brother – who always thinks up the greatest gifts — got a unit and installed it for her.)

My mom loves TiVo. She has two of the machines in her home, one on the big screen in her living room; the other in one of the guest rooms where she does a lot of hanging out and watching recorded shows from HDTV.

And now she can transfer shows from one to the other TV and surf at the same time while she kicks back in her giant black-leather massage chair.

Reviewers on PriceGrabber report how, although it costs a bit more than other options, they’re quite happy with how easy it is to install and how quickly shows transfer from one machine to another or from their TiVos to their desktops.

I may not watch much TV, but I am a great sucker-upper of wireless broadband. What this means is, I’ll have no excuse not to bring my notebook computer with me when we go to visit. Wonder if that chair is available.