Bluetooth

Another Week, Another Trip To Boston

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I am back on the Acela Express up to Boston today. Gus and I are on the 8:03 again. Dan couldn’t make it, so he bailed on us. David, and Kai are both driving and meeting us once we get up to the site. Today we are visiting the Cisco Customer Briefing Center. I have never been. I hear it is nice. 2 of our Cisco engineer’s are also on the train. I stopped and said hi to one of them.

I have been trying to (with mixed results) use my T610’s bluetooth connection to download email on my Powerbook. Not very reliable today. At least I have my blackberry with me. I got no movie watching done on the train. I just did work, and followed up on email. I have no life…

Bluetooth Card And Other Travel Gear

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I got a new Bluetooth PCMCIA card yesterday. I wanted to see how/if I can successfully use the bluetooth card with my Sony Ericsson T610 phone as a wireless modem. In tests yesterday things looked good. I have yet to need to test it on the road. Like I mentioned in my travel post, I had a T-Mobile hotspot in the airport in NYC.

I had a little issue getting the install shield to run on the CD of drivers that came with the card. I found the hidden exe that starts the actual install to run and got the drivers and software to install. I even paired the phone without major issue. I will put the card through its paces later this weekend.

What I didn’t like was whenever the card was inserted and I opened any network connection, the bluetooth card asked me if I wanted to use the phone to connect. annoying, but I will see if it happens again.

Besides the bluetooth card (from 3Com btw) I am also trying out the Thinkpad extended life battery. Gus and Dean have had them for months (in Gus’ case a year) but it is the first time I have used one. It is heavy compared to the old card. So far I have 80% battery life left. That is good since I have around that much % of my trip left:) I have my regular battery as a backup. Intel says you can go 8 hours with this battery. I may be pushing the spec’s on this trip.

What didn’t make the trip is my trusted (aka old) Sony cybershot camera. it is only 1.3 mega pixels but it works. Well it did up until last night. I was going to take some shots of Morgan but the camera wouldn’t turn on. that was weird since I had charged it up earlier in the week in planing for the trip. I left it with my parents to save weight. I will get it next week when I am back there, and try charging it. It may be dead, or the charge I gave it didn’t hold. not sure what yet. I need to look at that in more detail when I get back.

HBH-65 Update

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The headset is good so far. The phone I am using with it (Sony Ericsson T610) right now sucks. You don’t really know how good or bad a phone is until you use another one in the exact same places and get totally different results. This time I used the T610 on my trip up from NYC to Kingston. On the train my Treo normally backs out allot, so did my verizon phone. In the cab from the train station I am usually able to make calls, and sometimes have spotty service. With the T610 I had almost no coverage at all on the entire trip. In the cab from the train I had no signal until I was 5 minutes from the office, and our office has a T-Mobile tower in the same building complex.

The headset worked well when I had good cell signal. No complaints from people about voice quality. I probably wont use the headset that much since the phone sucks. I am sticking with my Treo 600 for now. It actually gets a signal. Palmone, please put bluetooth on the Treo!!!

Sony Ericsson HBH-65

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I have had the SE HBH-10, the HBH-30, and now the HBH-65. Pretty much all three generations of SE’s bluetooth headsets. I have also had the Motorola gen 1 headset. The first couple of generations of the SE’s needed work. So far this new headset seems ok.

I made several calls with it paired to my SE T610. All were loud and mostly clear. Miguel said that he heard background hum when I called, but he could hear me clearly. Everyone else had no complaints about it.

making calls was easy. When the phone was paired to the headset it just switched over to the headset when dialing a call.

Recieving calls has been a bit trickier. I am still working on getting the headset to answer the call without having to transfer the call from the phone to the headset.

The headset fits nice in my ear. It is really small. I thought it would be bigger, but I am not upset by it being so small. I just hope I don’t break it like I did my motorola.

I am going to try and use it allot in the next 2 days while I am in Kingston. Hopefully I will iron out all the kinks with it.

Bluetooth Headset

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I went ahead and ordered a bluetooth headset yesterday. I should get it today before I leave the office. I went with the Sony Ericsson HBH-65. It was either that or the Motorola one or another no name brand. None of them had perfect scores on the reviews I read. The SE I got actually has distance issues with the bluetooth antenna. I don’t plan on being that far away from the phone. My biggest requirements were good voice quality, and a comfy fit. This headset should do that.

I liked my old Motorola one but it broke last year after a night of drinking. I think I threw my bag down on the floor somewhere and it cracked the headset. oh well. The prices have gone on them though. This one was only $103, plus shipping. The motorola one I got back in December 2002 was almost $200. the old HBH-10 I got when bluetooth headsets came out was over $200. Lets hope this one works as advertised…

Bluetooth Headsets

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I was cleaning out my closet and came across my original Ericsson Bluetooth headset. it was the first one to market that I can remember. It never worked right. I tried to use it again with my new T610 thinking maybe it was the phone that sucked. I was wrong. it was the headset. I am tossing it. It is not even worth putting up on Ebay.

I now want another bluetooth headset. I remember how cool it was to use one. Dam Treo 600 with no bluetooth makes that difficult to do. I would need to use my T610 with the headset. If PalmOne doesn’t get their head out of their ass’s soon, I may have to give up that device. No matter how cool the Treo is. It takes them forever to come out with newer versions of it, and then they stagger its release with different carriers by months. get with the program, and fix your issues and make more of them.

It is time I shopped for a bluetooth headset. I am off to the internet for research.

The Treoless Day

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I went the day without my Treo. I mean I didn’t use it as my cell phone, and I didn’t carry it around wherever I went. Here is what I realized.

The all in one device is a great idea. I found myself walking around with my Pocket PC fishing in my pockets for my cell phone when I wanted to make a call. Not everyone I know fit into my T610. I walked around with the Pocket PC since I keep my To Do list on that or my Treo. So I saved weight by only carrying a light cell phone, but ended up with my bigger Pocket PC in hand most of the time when I left my office.

This is a well known conclusion. A combined device is better if you DO carry around a phone and an organizer. I thought I would save on some weight by using the T610. For part of the day I was right, but for the rest of the day I was not.

The other point is that the screen on my iPaq 1945 Pocket PC is 10x better than my Treo. I would use that if the device wasn’t so dam big. yes I know that is the smallest pocket PC out there, but it is still big compared to my Treo. A Treo with bluetooth and a better screen would be nice. Please?

Tomorrow I will go back to my Treo. Actually as I sit on the train now, I ponder swapping my SIM card back into the Treo.

The only advantage the T610 has over the Treo is the fact it has bluetooth so I can use a wireless head set, and that the camera is better. it takes smaller photo’s, but they are clearer. Man can you tell the difference.

Ring Tones And More

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When I got my Sony Ericsson T610 I realized I had a ring tone or two on my old T68i. What to do? I paid for those tones, and I sure wanted to keep them. Turns out it was a snap to move them. I tried IR to beam the tones to my new phone. That didn’t really work. I figured it out via Bluetooth. I paired both phones with each other and just sent the tones. Took like 3 minutes total. The tones work fine on my new phone because it is also a Sony Ericsson.

I also got the new phone to pair with my Powerbook (talked about that in detail before) and now my HP iPaq 1945. The iPaq took some time. I had to figure out the dial up networking settings on it, but now I got it. I can browse the internet on my iPaq using the GPRS of the phone anywhere I have a signal. I was trying it out from my desk at work when the phone was in my bag. I also was able to connect to the phone when it was charging in my bedroom and I was on my couch. Nice!

My next mission is to get this setup to work with my Win XP PC. I think my problems are related to the Xircom card I am using. Their are no new drivers for it, since Xircom got bought up by intel. I am looking for another PCMCIA bluetooth card or maybe a USB one.

Bluetooth, Powerbook, And A T610 = Awesome

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I have had a new Sony Ericsson T610 for a little over a week now. Actually I am on my second one. The first one’s camera stopped working on day 2, so T-Mobile gave me a new one. So far this one seems fine.

This phone is nice, but the best feature is the bluetooth. I can sync with my Powerbook while the phone is in my bag. No more entering contact information into the phone. I know I could have (and have) done this on other phones, but the sync software on the pc and the usb or ir methods sucked. This is a breeze. Setup on the powerbook was easy too. I also got GPRS dial up to work. Now I can use my T610 as a modem anywhere I get good signal while using my Powerbook. I was just checking my mail on the rail road. The phone was still in my bag. Now that is technology that works.

The only kink is that the GPRS is slow, and on the train the signal is sometimes spotty. When I get good signal the connection rocks.

Stuff To Do

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I wasted most of this evening already. My mom is out of town on vacation with some friends, so my dad is all alone. We went out to dinner tonight. After dinner I got home and checked my mail and did the usual reading the news sites, etc.

I then fixed my problem with my Powerbook & Bluetooth dialing the internet on my new Sony Ericsson T610 phone. Not sure that I did anything differently from yesterday but when I started over for the 3rd time it worked. More on that later.

I know I have other things I have to do. I need to probably do food shopping. Tons of work beckons me from the office. I also need some clothes that I have to buy off of some websites. One or two other things I think I have to take care of, yet what they are escapes me as I sit here and write. I am in my comfy chair listening to music and writing. All is right with the universe. If my doctor saw how I was sitting right now he would laugh and tell me “no wonder you get back pains”. I am just so comfy right now I don’t want to move.

I started taking my allergy medication again 2 days ago. I take Zertec. Today I finally noticed it working. My sinus’s are killing me. I was so stuffed up for so long it is weird how good it is to feel them clearing out. Man I never knew how much mucus a person can produce. Enough nasty thoughts for you tonight.

Now I a lullaby song came on and I am more tired than I was before. Great song but I need sleep. Maybe more writing tomorrow.

This blog entry was written while listening to When You Dream from the album “Stunt” by Barenaked Ladies