Apologies for my lax in posting. The bluetooth entry was more for my future benefit should my laptop ever die and I need to configure that blasted thing again. Let the more exciting entries begin!
Well, my camera died and so was kind of only half in service for awhile, so that hasn’t helped. I got my new one, through the Canon Loyalty program – the Elph SD1000. It’s very cute and fits right in my purse, which is nice. And so far, I’ve been happy with the pictures.
Instead of going back several weeks, I’ll start with this past weekend. Oak, Bernadette, and I went on a hike at the Eno River State Park (home of River Dave). (A random thought after reading that old entry – my Fuji camera died almost exactly a year ago! UGh! Let’s hope this new one has a longer shelf life.)
Something unexpected on the hike was the large number of mushrooms. And, because I sometimes get tired and need an excuse to stop on hikes, I took pictures of them. Poor Oak and Bernadette had to wait for me (if we have more than 3 people we’ll normally break into the “fast” and “slow” group. I’m a turtle.). So, take a look at my lovely mushroom inventory over on flickr.
Unfortunately Oak did not bring his Mushrooms field guide (as he wants to hunt for edible mushrooms someday), so all we could do was look. But they sure are pretty! Here I am with what I am convinced is the Super Mario Brothers “Super power” mushroom. Upon eating, I’m pretty sure I would grow to 10 feet tall and be able to smash bricks with my head. Should I risk it?
I got a Motorola H500 bluetooth headset a few months ago to use with my cellphone. Then I realized that in most of my phone conversations, I’m on the phone under 5 minutes, so it’s really not worth bothering with 3/4 of the time. Poor Oak had to deal with my incompetence in using it.. as I hung up on him several times by mistake. Sigh. So, I hadn’t really used it.
Then I learned you can hook up your headset to your computer! And, at work we have a service that allows you to make phone calls from Sametime. (I think this is the same process if you wanted to use something like Skype as well.) It took me a bit to get it actually working — so if anyone else out there wants to attempt this on a Thinkpad, here are my tips. I have an IBM thinkpad T42p.
- If you don’t have a folder called My Bluetooth Places, install the Integrated bluetooth software from Lenovo. There is some bluetooth support that comes with Windows XP by default, but it didn’t work for me. With this software you can manage your bluetooth devices, see what is connected, and so on. (This is what totally threw me off and I didn’t know existed, until I started googling things!! So make sure you’ve got this installed!)
- Verify that the Bluetooth function is activated. Press Fn+F5. Click Wireless radio and verify that the Bluetooth radio is enabled.
- Put your headset into discovery mode. For my H500, I click and hold down the “call” button until the light remains lit constantly.
- Follow the steps in My Bluetooth Places to add your headset. You might need to consult the manual for your headset for the passcode for your device. For the H500, it is 0000 – so cryptic!
- Voila!! You can now use your bluetooth device. To use the headset in your software, you need to configure the software to use your bluetooth headset for the audio inputs and outputs. In Lotus Sametime, you go to the Preferences and select Voice Suite > Audio Devices.
So, that’s the end of my technology tip for today. Enjoy!
P.S. For anyone that knows my profession: I’ve added the colloquial language for your enjoyment!! If only I could write “voila!” in documentation every day!
