i put my n900 into tablet mode, so the phone was disabled (dont want to incur data charges) fired up mobile hotspot which complained a bit but started. the pc could see mobile hotspot and connected. however the pc had a 192... address and my n900 had a 10.. address, so i would need to fiddle with the pc to change the address etc.

what i'm looking for is a way for the n900 to allow the pc to connect to the n900 without any fiddling on the pc so i can share files.

anybody got any ideas?

Bluetooth if your PC has it. Is it Windows or Linux? If Windows, Nokia PC Suite sets up the phone bluetooth connection to browse the files via explorer. It's so easy I didn't know it was there until one day I stumbled upon it.

Reply again if this doesn't work. I'm sure there are other options that don't involve mobile hotspot.

Did you try on making ad hoc network from your pc and then connect to it with n900.

after that you shoul be able to use
ssh
python httpserver
samba share.

thanks for the replies, but just to clarify, I don't have any problems connecting to my pc to share files , in fact i do what the second poster suggesed, i.e. setting up a direct wireless connection. so i think i explained my problem pretty badly. apologies.

what i'm looking for is a general way of easily sharing files when i'm "on the go". it's going to be easy to say to someone "connect to the 'mobileHotSpot' network and we can share files", not so easy to say 'let me hack at your ip settings for a while until i can get these talking'

i've asked the same question in the mobile hotspot thread, but wondered if there was any other easy solution.

woah! ooo aahh wow! got it working.

my pc was already connected to a wifi network once i disconnected it works.

i put my n900 into tablet mode as per the screenshot using some plugin i downloaded ages ago. can't remember what it was , but it disables the phone and allows wifi..

then fire up mobile hotspot which complains about the phone but still loads.

then go to pc simply connect to the mobile hotspot network.

i then started tinysmb gui on my n900 and i was able to see mydocs from my pc by entering "\\<ip address of n900 as given by tinysmb" into windows explorer.

simples! :-)

I did have have to reboot my wireless router later bizarrely though, when i went back to use it, like it got jealous of another hot spot. maybe it's possible we have a wifi jammer in the n900 too!