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A BLUETOOTH HEADSET THAT WORKS WITH PC PLEASE!

February 11th 2010 00:16


I left the office early today (that is, if you can say that 6:30pm is still early on a 9-5 work schedule), because I have a mission. My mission was to look for a Bluetooth headset that works with PC or laptop.

I need one because the speakers of my laptop don’t give out the quality sound that other laptops brag about – though, I don’t really know if the sound they brag about is comparable to what a decent portable speaker makes.


I have one of those hamburger type speakers which is about 1 ½ inch diameter in size. The thing works really well. It serves the purpose even if you use it while watching those DVD war movies that require subwoofers to create realistic sounds.

I need a Bluetooth headset that works with a laptop because the audio out of my mobile computer got busted in one of my event runs (you know, those that I wrote about several times in my previous posts here in Orble). One of the technicians I worked with said that, maybe, I used my laptop with some incompatible sound system in one of those events and that screwed up my computer’s audio line out.

What that means is that, while I can still get audio out of that line, the sound that I get would be either garbled or distorted - a fact that sent me scurrying around for the darn Bluetooth headset!

Now, in this age and time when you can send crystal clear still and video images via Bluetooth from one electronic gadget to another (and even a slew of still and video images with audio and all sorts of data from the internet to any computer - heck, I even connect my laptop to the internet via Bluetooth using mobile phones and download anything I want with it!) you would think that it would be really easy finding a Bluetooth headset that receives sounds from any electronic gadget - including computers.


Well, think again! I scoured computer and electronic stores and any other outlets that look like they are selling headsets and I didn’t find any. Okay, okay, I found two! One is a Jabra mono headset which claims that it can be used with cell phones and pc/laptop computers and another one that looks like your usual stereo headset (you know, those thick and bulky kind) that bear the same claims…

Surprise, surprise! None of those works with a laptop! And that is not just my laptop – they did not work even with the laptop in the stores where I found them.

Both headsets worked perfectly well with cell phones and other ACP or MP3, MP4 players. The other one was even exceptional with an Ipod. But none of them worked with a laptop!

I’ve tried everything, I paired them with my laptop several times, they were seen and recognized by my laptop but none of them worked!

It is either I am doing everything wrong, or there really is no Bluetooth headset that works with a pc/laptop.

How about that?
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Posted By: Market Newbie - Category: Stuff
   


EVER SETUP A WIFI ROUTER?

January 27th 2010 00:55
Wifi Internet router
Wifi internet router


To the real techy guys, the idea of setting up a WiFi internet router is like breathing. You know, an effortless function that requires nothing, or it could be just like walking (without thinking where to go) just putting one foot after the other.

Unfortunately, the same is not true with ordinary guys. To many, the internet is still a mystery. The concept of millions of inter-connected computers all over the world, sharing information, has just not yet really sank into their heads. It took quite a while to sink in mine.

Oh, of course, they are already using computers for research but only pretty much like the way they are using hard bound encyclopedias. They know the information is there, but that’s just about it.

It is just like the way many computer and internet users… are only users. They have no idea how those things ever get to work, but they are working. So, you don’t expect them to figure out what goes wrong with a computer or the internet when something goes wrong. And neither should you expect them to install such complex sounding mechanisms as internet routers!

I was one such guy. No, not really. I had a bit of an idea how the internet works (an idea about a trillionth size of a flea). At least, that idea enabled me to think that the internet is composed of those millions and millions of computers connected to each other with mountains of endless jumbled analog and fiber optic lines.

Uh…don’t ask me how they got connected please!

Well, I managed to get my computer connected to a printer a while back and made it work, but I haven’t tried connecting two computers with a wire yet, much more make them talk to each other. Sure, there’s internet in the office. But we have technicians as well. And, somehow, they manage to make things work there like magic – and without using wands too!

Unfortunately, I live more than a hundred kilometers away from the office. It’s a subdivision in a foot of a mountain where landline based telephones and cable television had not yet reached. A service provider has just recently activated a Wimax in the area. I don’t know how he got there, but one day a sales rep of the service provider manifested in front of my door and sold me a subscription.

He was soon followed by Warlocks who climbed to the roof of my house attached something and activated my internet subscription. They rather vehemently refused to install a WiFi router in the house since they said I’m only good for one internet connection. Meaning, my internet activities should be confined in a room where they dangled the internet wire. They made sure it works and then they left. No further discussions.

But I am using a laptop and I like moving around the house, so I went looking for a wireless router hoping the store where I’ll buy it will have its own technician to set it up in my house. I found a router, the store has a technician but his butt is glued to his seat. He doesn’t go anywhere setting up routers.

I was only told after they have taken my payment and closed the cash register!

Aghast, I asked the store clerk how in the world am I going to use the router?

Blank stares confronted me, from everyone in the store. Everyone! Then everyone smiled, including the clerk who asked: “sir, since you said you are going to use the internet yourself, I believe you can read?” When I answered on the affirmative, he turned the box of the router around and while pointing at it said “Please, just follow the instructions.”

I was unconvinced. I suspected I was being taken for a ride. There were only about five steps to take (including: 1.Opening the box, 2. Attaching the unit to a power supply) if I follow the instructions. It was too simple, it can’t be right! There was not even a word there on how to switch on the unit! Ha!!

But then, I had no choice. I went home with the unit. As it turned out step one of the instructions (opening the box) was the hardest part. I had to attach some wires, but somehow, I didn't find them as hard to do as opening the box.

I followed everything to the letter and it worked! Did you hear that? I was able to set up a wireless internet router, and it worked! I didn't even have to switch the thing on since there is no switch.

You just put them together accordingly, plug it (it switches on by itself) and you are ready to go!

What is the moral of this story?

Some of those techy stuffs are only complicated because that’s how we think they are. What I have just accomplished was just pretty simple. The instructions were pretty simple too. I just followed them.


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Posted By: Market Newbie - Category: Gadgets
   


HOW ABOUT AN HD CAMCORDER FOR A GIFT?

December 19th 2009 02:07
Well, you know me. I am not the kind of guy who would encourage people to buy anything beyond their means and start another worldwide economic collapse.

Oh, okay, we are just talking about a High Definition video camcorder.

Expensive?

Nope. Not this one. And that is why I am bringing this up.

There was a time when you cannot find a video camera, no matter how inferior the video it produces, that is “buyer friendly. “

When I was checking those things out, I couldn’t find any that was priced below US$1,000.00, until I decided to venture into the display windows of some weird sounding, unknown brands. And there it was, looking a bit too amateur and inelegant but then, I am not really the high fashion kind of guy.

Thinking that it was just like one of those one roll of film, disposable, still cameras, I asked the sales clerk if I can take a closer look at the unit on display. She brought it out of the glass cabinet. She was all praises for it but I wasn’t listening. I kinda tune out of every sales pitches I hear. I prefer reading the brochure or any accompanying literature.

Very reasonably priced HD camcorder


The leaflet says it was a High Definition video camcorder. That immediately got my attention. It comes with an SDHC memory card and the unit supports up to 16 GB. The bundle includes the usual connectors, an Ion-Lithium battery and a CD that contains a program that will enable you to edit your video and burn it into a blank CD/DVD and convert the files into common video formats.

The thing can take still photos, as well. It has a built in flash, and its on board program allows you shoot in different lighting conditions. You can zoom-in tight to your subject and zoom-out really wide. The stabilizer works fine on close-up shots and it has a playback. There’s a built-in microphone, though I find the volume controls somehow lacking in some respects.

Considering its capabilities, the real clincher is the price which stands at just above US$100.00!

I won’t mention the brand, as usual, but why don’t you scour your local stores, you may just find it there (or something similar to it). This thing is backed by a very reputable manufacturing company but you won’t find its name there.

You can ask around though, that was how I found out about it.

If you are totally clueless as to how this could be possible, hear this one out: When the going gets tough, some companies who are selling expensive branded products produce similar products that they sell in the same market but targeted to the lower segment of society (translated: cheaper price). Those products bear different brand names but they are almost practically the same as the ones that bear the expensive brand.

The only big difference is on the price. Which, of course, is a lot cheaper.

Naturally, if you do not want an altered product, though just ever slightly, and you want the brand attached to it and you have the money, then you pay the corresponding price for it.

You know how it is, to some people, everything is in the name.

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Posted By: Market Newbie - Category: Gadgets
   


SOME GIFT IDEA

December 16th 2009 00:00
If you know anything about the country I am in, you’ll probably know that Christmas is feted the longest in the Philippines. There was a time when Christmas Carols and Christmas lights, lanterns and everything that reminds you of the Yuletide season become visible here at the onset of the “ber” months.

You know, the months that end in “ber” September, October, etc


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Need longer battery life?

December 8th 2009 09:01
Bring additional sheet of paper please! Well, not yet. Inventors of a “paper battery” believe however that in a not so distant future, the world might see battery power reside on papers.

Commercially, that is


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HOW ABOUT A DUAL SIM PHONE?

December 2nd 2009 00:00
Maybe inefficiency started it all. You know, like you have this mobile phone company which only has a good signal in this neck of the woods and another provider that monopolizes the signal in an area the size of a pea where you happen to be and the only choice you have, since you are going to be there for quite a while, is either stay incommunicado or subscribe to the company that can give you a line to the outside world.

Anyway, the way people communicate these days? That would be like giving you no choice at all


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Posted By: Market Newbie - Category: Cellphones
   


WHY I AM NOT A BLACKBERRY GUY

November 26th 2009 00:22
Here’s a confession. Just like the next guy, I am tempted by the alluring looks and seductive features of fine pieces of “art” called… well… high end mobile phones, a.k.a. smart phones. I mean, take one look at them and immediately, you are hit with this shameless desire of exploring the unbounded promises of technological wonders!

Unfortunately, many of those promises are just that – promises. Empty. Non-existent, and sometimes, if ever they exist, they only exist in our minds, us, the consumers. Those are expectations that we, probably, provided ourselves. Thanks, but no thanks, to our own fertile imaginations


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JUST MOVED IN

November 24th 2009 00:57
I’ll try to make this “short and sweet”, like they always say.

I’ve just been given permission to take over this blog which has been dormant for quite a while. I’m sure readers of the previous “keepers” of this page will find a big difference in what they used to find here and what they will see after I’ve taken over


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SHOULD YOU BUY THAT NEXT PHONE?

November 23rd 2009 02:00
Tempting, isn’t it? Sleek, faster, smarter, and it has a host of new features that promise whole new experiences! The question is, do you really want that phone? Hold on a min…!

Well, okay, okay, I know you’ve already bought that phone even before I could finish asking the question. No problem. I wasn’t really going to stop you from buying it - especially if you can afford it. C’mon, consumers fuel the economy


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WHAT I HATE ABOUT NOKIA E51

November 16th 2009 00:00
In case it is named differently in your country, E51 is a 3G Nokia intelligent phone. Well, it is supposed to be intelligent.
Nokia - E51


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