I work as a systems administrator. That job brings great responsibility and some good work times. I do pretty well separating my work life from my home life, but being on call four days a week means a little reduced freedom. To combat this I am in search of a data cable for my mobile phone which will allow me to use it as a USB modem. With a dial-up account, my laptop, and my mobile phone I will be set to get online from anywhere, and that, my friends, will be a good day.

But alas, it's not going to be an easy trek. To start with Verizon does not bother to support Macs, and as we all know I am a Mac user first, a UNIX user second, and a Windows user last. So with that in mind I went on the hunt. It turns out that most of these phones will work on a mac even if they say they won't. That's great! But I did say most.

I have a Nokia 3589i, and according to Nokia's technical support, well, see for yourself.

We understand you are interested in finding a data cable and software that will allow you to connect your Nokia 3589i phone to your Macintosh computer and are happy to assist you.

At this time Nokia does not manufacture any hardware or software that is compatible with the Macintosh operating system. We apologize for any inconvenience.

Pretty easy to see their protocol, isn't it? Restate the question, tell you they're happy to assist you, spit out the stock response.

Anyhow, I've done some research and discovered that there are only two phones that Verizon Wireless offers which Apple says will work with iSync. They are both very expensive (by my standards), both flip phones (which I don't particularly like), and both Motorola (which means I'll need a new car charger et al). This is not going to be a pleasant experience if I end up making it work.