The software that comes with your Vodafone 3G Modem (Vodafone Mobile Connect) is slow, buggy crapware and actually not required to connect to the 3G network.

To avoid using it just create a dial-up connection in Windows with the following details:

Connecting Using:	Modem – ZTE Proprietary USB Modem
Number:	*99***1#
Username:	web
Password:	web

That’s it.  Simple.  Thanks to Wil over at SuperUser for the initial pointer.

I’ve just finished upgrading this installation of BlogEngine.NET from 1.5.0.7 to the recently released 1.6.  For my money the official upgrade instructions are some what lacking so here’s my hopefully more fool-proof guide.

Usual caveats apply – this is just a guide, you are your own person, take care when crossing the road etc.

1. Backup everything within your Blog directory on your website to a local directory we’ll call backup
2. Download BlogEngine.NET 1.6 (web) and extract the zip to a local directory we’ll call update
3. In the update folder remove the temporary post and page you get after first installing BlogEngine.NET – you don’t want these appearing on your blog again:
   1. Delete the .xml file in App_Data\pages
   2. Delete the .xml file in App_Data\posts
4. Copy your App_Data folder from the backup directory and paste it over the top of App_Data in the Update directory (thus all your posts/pages/users etc will be intact).
5. There are some new elements in App_Data\settings.xml that need to be added back in (since we just replaced the new file with your existing one):
   1. Open App_Data\settings.xml in the Update directory (this should be your old settings.xml as a result of step 4).
   2. Tack the following new elements onto the bottom (the order of elements in this file is unimportant):
      
      <commentsperpage>20</commentsperpage>
      <moderationtype>1</moderationtype>
      <numberofreferrerdays>1</numberofreferrerdays>
      <commentblacklistcount>2</commentblacklistcount>
      <commentwhitelistcount>1</commentwhitelistcount>
      <enableerrorlogging>False</enableerrorlogging>
      <trustauthenticatedusers>True</trustauthenticatedusers>
      
6. Upload all the files in the update directory to your blog over-writing everything
7. On your FTP site, delete the App_Code\ExtensionManager directory. (This code has been moved into the BlogEngine.Core.dll in version 1.6.  Not deleting this sub-folder will lead to errors.)

If you can see this post – the above worked for me.  Happy blogging and well done to the BlogEngine.Net team – really looking forward to seeing if the new anti-spam features solve my comment spam issues.