Vista Caller ID shows you who is calling as you would expect from any caller ID utility. It shows you a box pop out of the task tray which looks very stylish, unlike many other packages I have used.

Vista Caller ID takes it even further. You can sync up with your Outlook contacts to utilise names and photos of your friends and family. It also has a talking alert feature which tells you who is calling. Unfortunately, Microsoft’s voices aren’t very impressive, but it sounds alright.

It supports multiple phone lines and a history log. The colours of the caller ID box can even be changed. What more could you want from it? If you feel something is missing, comments are welcomed.

This is a Beta release, but there are stable releases available which offer a few less features. There is even a Media Center Plugin. Keep an eye on this one as it is still under development. I would say they are winning the race so far.

Available for free from Vista Caller ID’s website.

Would you like to control your music player and powerpoint presentations from your phone? If you have a Sony or Nokia phone and a Bluetooth connection, you might be in luck.

JAM SE is a free mobile application for a range of Java enabled mobile phones that will allow you to control your music collection from your phone, using Bluetooth.

You can browse or search your music collection from your phone, as well as having control of the volume, play, skip, repeat and shuffle controls you would expect it to offer.

I use Winamp as my music player as I find it to be be quick and easy to use. This is fortunate as JAM SE currently only works with Winamp or XMMS.

Jam SE is skinnable so you can make it look just right to suit your needs. It runs on both Windows and Linux. It uses the Bemuser program as a backend. I couldn’t figure out what the difference between Bemuser and JAM SE is, but I found out about this via JAM SE, so they get the plug.

JAM SE is a bit of a hassle to install, though on their website there are videos and there is plenty of documentation that should help you through it. You will need to install components on your computer and on your phone and then configure the Bluetooth.

I have tested a number of programs that claim to do similar tasks, in the time of writing this website, but none have worked well enough for me to promote. JAM SE worked great for me straight up on a Nokia N70.

JAM SE is available for free from Sourceforge.

While there are not really many practical reasons for doing this, it is free, easy, and fun to play with.

I think about a school classroom, where teenagers are texting each other messages in class, each time clocking up 15c on their phone bill. As they are in close range to each other, there is no need for this to cost money. If both their phones are fitted with Bluetooth, they are able to use this technology to send the notes for free.

This article will show you how to send messages and files from one phone to another over a short range for free, using Bluetooth technology. We can also send files such as ring tones, images and other audio files to one another using the same method. No additional software is required to make this work.

This article will show:

• A message/file sent from a Nokia N70 to a Windows Vista PC running Outlook 2007.
• A message/file sent from a Nokia N70 to a HP Ipaq rw6828
• A message/file sent from a HP Ipaq rw6828 to a Nokia N70

This should be possible on just about any Bluetooth enabled phone. The menus will be different, but the idea will be the same.

Bluetooth has a minimum range of 10 metres, but many newer devices have Bluetooth 2.0 installed which allows for a range of 100 metres. Either way you look at it, 10 metres is plenty of distance for most meeting rooms and classrooms. Using an early Bluetooth version, I have never struggled to reach 20 metres when there has been a clear line of sight.

File formats:

As different devices support different file types, you may find that some phones cannot view what you send them.  For example, A standard Windows mobile note file is in pwi format, and this is not viewable on a Symbian phone, so it is best to send the message as a txt file.

I have had success sending the following file types:

• Images: jpg, gif, png
• Audio: wav, mp3, mid
• Text: txt, doc

While you are able to send just about any type of file you want successfully, if the other end cannot view the file, you are wasting your time.

Also worth noting is the size of the file. Bluetooth is a slow medium for sending files. While a txt file is small and will show up in seconds, an image file is much larger and can take many minutes. 

Sending and receiving a message from a Windows Mobile device:
(I will be using an HP Ipaq rw6828)

You are able to make text messages in many programs on a Windows Mobile Device but your best bet is to use Word Mobile as you will have the option to send the message as either a doc file or a txt file.

Once you have written the message you want to send:

Tap “Menu”

Tap “File”

Tap “Beam” 

Your device will now scan the local area for Bluetooth devices in range.

Select the device you want to. As you can see here, I have the option to send it to a Nokia N70 or my Desktop.

Tap “Tap to send”

You will see your device sending the message, and it will say “Done” when the send is complete.

You can send just about any type of file.

When you are in “File Explorer”, hold down on any file and select “Beam File”. You will be prompted with the same screen as above.

It’s that easy.

If you are using a Windows Mobile Device and you receive a message or file from someone else, you will get the option to accept or reject the message. 

The message or file can be found in your devices “My Documents” folder.

Sending and receiving a message from a Symbian OS device:
(I will be using a Nokia N70)

The Symbian OS is nice to work with when playing around with messages. The notes program sends messages in txt format, which is the ideal format for other devices to view.

Open up “Notes” and create your message.

Select “Options”

Select “Send”

Select “Via Bluetooth”

Your phone will do a scan of the local area and list the compatible devices. Select which one you would like to send it to and press “Send”.

You will then see the message being sent.

Another great thing about the Symbian OS receiving files and messages, is that it comes up in your inbox as a normal message. The only difference is that the icon is the Bluetooth icon instead of an envelope.

It is just as nice as sending a standard sms, apart from the fact that it is free.

Sending files is easy as well. You can do this from the File Manager or the Gallery. Choose the image and select the same “Send” options as above. It is clear that this was meant to be a well used function of our devices, we just don’t use it enough.

Sending a message to a PC:

PC’s are a little more fussy about which files they can receive. The documents will show up in your notes component of Outlook. You are able to send images and music around too. I have found it to be a bit hit and miss. I have had success with various file formats, but it was unreliable for me.

There are less reasons for sending files and messages to a PC as you are likely to be able to set up a pairing, and have a direct link to send files in bulk.

If you are using Vista, right clicking in your Bluetooth task tray will give you the option to send and receive files. Ensure that you have set your computer to receive files before sending it from another device.

Conclusion:

This technology opens us up to all sorts of options with people near to us. A very useful task you can do, is pass e-business cards around to people nearby at the end of a meeting. They will have your phone number in their phone and they won’t have to find the physical paper version of your card. You will always be close at hand for them.

As time goes on, we will be able to make greater use of this technology as more services become available. It is good to get in the habit of utilising it now, as it will grow. Show your colleagues that you are tech savvy, it’s not hard, it just looks clever.

I hope you have enjoyed this article. Please stick around and check out some other articles at Inspect My Gadget. 

Windows Mobile devices also have a registry. We can customise many of the defaults on our devices to suit our needs. The structure is very similar to the Windows Registry structure, so if you are familiar with it, you will find this just as easy. If you have not yet delved into a registry, you will find this quite tricky.

This article will cover some of the changes we are able to make to our devices, through our devices registry. I hope to update this article as time goes on so please use the comments to report your own changes. These hacks are for Windows Mobile 5 devices, though some may work with other versions of Windows Mobile.

Find a Registry Editor:

There are a number of free register editors available for Windows Mobile Devices. We have the option of editing the registry from either a desktop computer or the device itself. I have not tested out any of the programs below extensively but I can confirm they will perform any of the changes listed on this page.

Opening up a registry and making changes is slightly risky. If we change the wrong key, it is possible that our device will no longer work. Backup your devices data before continuing. You should be prepared to reinstall the operating system on your device if something bad does happen. I give you this information for educational use only. If you decide to tinker this way, you are doing so at your own risk.

Mobile Registry Editor: runs on your desktop and connects to your device using ActiveSync. Once you have this installed, connect your device via ActiveSync and click on one of the folder to the left. If the right side refreshes, you have a connection.

Being a desktop application, it is easy to navigate and make changes using your keyboard and mouse. As I don’t make many registry changes away from my desktop computer, I would generally use this.

Available from Inspect My Gadget.

PHM Registry Editor: runs on your device so you have free reign over where and when you make changes to the registry.

It has a nice interface and is quite easy to use on our little Windows Mobile screens. PHM Registry Editor works a little faster for me than Mobile Registry Editor did.

Available from FreewarePPC.

Both of these editors are suitable for the changes listed below so choose what you think will work best, or try them both out, they are both free.

I have tested all of the hacks below and they have all worked on my Ipaq rw6828. You may experience that some do not work on your device. If you have no luck, I recommend changing the keys back to what they were originally so you do not experience problems down the track.

On with the hacks:

Remove “Message Sent” Notification when sending text messages.

Navigate to
“HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Inbox\”

Create a key called “Settings”

Create a String Value called “SMSNoSendMsg”

Set the value to “1”

Now when you send a text message, you will feel a little naked.

Change contents of New menu on the “Today Screen”

The “New” button allows you to create various file types directly from the today screen. Adding new items in is tricky but it is easy to remove them.

Navigate to
“HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Shell\Extensions\NewMenu”

Look in the keys and remove the items you no longer want. Adding them back will be a pain so take caution doing this.

Change which items load at startup.

Navigate to
“HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Shell\Start Items”

Add or Remove keys according to what you want to run. Not all programs are listed here as some programs are configured in their own settings.

Change the amount of suggested words when inputting data.

Navigate to
“HKEY_CURRENT_USER\ControlPanel\Sip”

Find “SuggWords”

Change value to between 0 and 6(4 is the default)

I have been using my device with one word showing since I got my device. This is also configurable through the Settings/Input applet but it did not work for me until I made the registry changes.

Change the location of My Documents to the SD Card.

This one is complicated but possible. I had to play around with this one for a while trying and failing with several methods, succeeding with this one. The order in which you do this is essential.

Please ensure that your SD card and My Documents are backed up. It is recommended that you do this on a fresh install of your ROM. This cleared out my “My Documents” folder but I was able to restore it.

1. Reset your device
2. Synchronise your device with your PC
3. Navigate to
“HKLM\System\StorageManager\Profiles\SDMemory“
4. Change the “Folder” key to “My Documents”
5. Rename your original “My Documents” folder to “My Docs”. This is a crucial step, but it does not matter what you name it.
6. Power off and reset your device.
7. Sync your Device
You should see in “File Explorer that your “My Documents” folder has an SD card icon next to it.
Copy your files back into your My Documents.

I hope these have worked for you. Please put more in the comments as you come across them. There are bound to be hundreds of these tweaks. If tweaking is not for you, check out the rest of Inspect My Gadget for other types of workarounds.

I did not know the full power of my device when I first got it. My old Pocket PC was stolen and did not incorporate a phone so when insurance time came around, it was nice to be updated with a Ipaq rw6828.

This device has allowed me to experience Windows Mobile to its full potential and really find out what it can do for me in day to day life.

I have put together a list of features that you are able to use on your device. Many you already know about but it is nice to have them in one place and encourage non Windows Mobile users to make the leap, showing why Windows Mobile devices have advantages over other phone operating systems.

I am going to make a bad assumption, that everyone has a Windows Mobile device which incorporates a phone and bluetooth.

10. Record phone calls, meetings and well anything – With our devices having a microphone installed, we are able to record anything we want onto our devices for playback at a later time. While you aren’t going to get a great quality of sound recording a rock concert, the quality if fine for most other tasks. I always like to record meetings, so that I can remember what took place. Meeting minutes rarely cover the meeting as well as an audio recording. This is something our Windows Mobile devices do comfortably.

9. GPS – With a decent screen, a bluetooth GPS receiver and the right software we are able to keep the map in the glovebox, keeping the stress levels down for our partners who fail to read the map as well as the driver would like. The GPS tells us exactly where to go and corrects itself quickly if we decide not to follow its path. What more could you ask for. With the costs of GPS systems being so expensive, it is best to buy a Windows Mobile device and reap all the benefits of a GPS unit and that can do all this other stuff.

8. Play games – The range of Windows Mobile games is large and expanding daily. The standard of the games is increasing and this allows your device to be quite a powerful portable gaming unit. Kevtris on Windows Mobile is much more fun and playable than the Gameboy version ever was. If you dabble in a bit of emulation and SCUMMVM, you can have a lot of fun.

7. Remote control your computer – This is a nice feature that can be done many ways. We are able to use VNC or the Terminal services client to see our computer screen from anywhere in the world, as long as we have a network connection. I was at my parents house and we were talking about what’s on TV. We weren’t going to watch what I wanted so I connected to my home computer and set it to record the show. When I told them what I had done, they thought I was joking. Anyway, I left early and watched the show in my own comfortable house. This is just one example of how this could be useful but there are many uses for this.

6. Remote control your home stereo – Many Windows Mobile devices have an infra red port in them. We can use this for a number of things. There is a lot of remote control software available for free. Once this is installed, we are able to control all aspects of your home entertainment system. It is also nice to know that we can control televisions at the local club.

5. Personal Media Player – Gone are the days of the walkman. Our Windows Mobile devices can play music, videos and view pictures. Some devices even offer us the ability to listen to radio. We are able to store many more songs on a storage card than we can on a cassette, or even a CD, especially if we convert our music to Mp3 or Ogg files.

4. Internet – With windows mobile devices, we have the Internet in the palm of our hands anywhere we go. As long as there is phone reception or wifi, we are able to connect up and get information immediately such as maps or our email. If you have set up your device to control your stereo, it is nice to have a TV guide site in your favourites. This will let you be lazy and do everything from the couch.

3. Camera – This is thrown into most devices these days. The quality is not great but works well enough for most happy snaps. I love having a camera on hand for Kodak moments. It sure beats carrying around a separate camera. These are particularly useful if you are in a car crash or you witness a crime. You are able to pull out your phone and snap away quickly at whatever your target is, releaving you from memorising the information which is generally forgotten in high stress situations.

2. Mobile Office – Windows mobile devices have mobile versions Excel, Word and Powerpoint which allow us to make changes to documents on the run. While it is not an ideal format for working on office documents, it is more than what other phone operating systems offer. These programs become quite usable when we attach a Bluetooth keyboard and mouse. With a connection to the Internet, you can receive your email and calendar appointments, meaning you will always know where you have to be, at what time, with the right information on hand.

1. Make phone calls, send text and video messages – This is the obvious one but it is often the reason why we buy the device in the first place. With either the keypad or on screen keyboard, sending text messages is much easier to do on a Windows Mobile device than most other phone systems.

I hope that this will encourage you to choose a Windows Mobile device next time you purchase a phone. As you can see, they are very powerful and I doubt you will find any other devices that can do all that is listed above.

Please have a look around Inspect My Gadget for more useful ways you can use your device or tweaks to get it just the way you like it.

Firmware upgrades are available for most types of hardware including Phones, Pocket PC’s, routers and motherboards just to name a few.

To see if your device can be upgraded, go to your manufacturer’s website and look at the support pages for your device. I have often found that some of the more annoying features of my devices were fixed after doing an upgrade. It is like you are giving your device a second life.

Take caution and do a little research before you do this as:

• Firmware upgrades can void your warranty.
• You will most likely lose all the data on your device (but if syncing with a PC this can easily be recovered).
• If you do it wrong, it is possible destroy your device.

Many manufacturers have made their firmware applications much more user friendly than they used to be because of these risks. They guide you through step by step and tell you whatNOT to do at each stage of the upgrade.

You may find that you can take your device to where you bought it from, or a service center to have your firmware upgraded. This is especially the case for Mobile Phones.

I don’t want to make the process sound too scary as this is a very good and worthwhile thing to do.

There are many free tools which can assist you in achieving this. Attach your computer to a modem and you have a complete call management system. You are even able to use your computer as an answering machine, with advanced features such as replying with a pre recorded message depending on who the caller is.

This could work well in the workplace depending on your workplaces’ phone system. We always feel the need to answer a phone immediately, dropping everything we are doing, no matter the importance just to find out it is a telemarketer on the other end. Most other methods of communication don’t require this speedy response, such as email. To get out of the habit of dropping everything, this will give you the choice. You can always call the caller back, as once this is set up your computer will log all incoming phone numbers.

The reason I first set this up in my home and started to research how to get this happening, I would watch a fair few films with my wife and I didn’t like being interrupted by the phone if it was a sales person. Now as we watch the film and the phone rings, we know who it is and can decide to take the call or not.

Whilst this is ideal for a home theatre PC setup, read on and I am sure you will be able to find your own reasons for setting this up.

What you need:

• Windows PC (All Versions)
• Other operating systems have software to do this though we are concentrating on Windows in this article.
• A landline phone line with caller ID enabled
• I am using the Engin VOIP service but any analog line will work
• Caller ID comes at an extra cost through most Australian phone service providers.
• A modem which accepts caller ID
• Most modems will offer caller ID. I once read on another site that all modems released after 1998 have this, though I cannot confirm that. I have come across modems that do not work with caller ID. I bought a modem off the bargain counter at Office Works for $40. If you shop at the right places, you can get internal modems for around the $15 mark. If you ask family and friends, they may well have one they are no longer using and give it to you for free.

Wiring it up:

This information should come with whatever modem you get your hands on. Basically, you want to put your modem in between your landline and your phone. If you modem only has an input, you will need to get a splitter. These should be really cheap, $5 should cover it.

Below is a simple diagram of how to plug it all in. There is nothing special here.

Caller ID Software:

While there are many shareware options for caller ID software, we will only look at what is available for free. This is one of the few scenarios where it looks like purchased software will do a little more for you and work slightly better than the freeware options, but I have been able to do all that I want with the freeware caller ID solutions listed below.

PhoneTray Free 1.25: This is a nice little utility that will pop up a balloon in your task-tray with the callers name and phone number. You can blacklist callers and choose which message you return down the line to them.

My favourite feature of this utility is the full screen mode which will pop up over the top of movies. Another nice feature is the ability to associate different rings for each caller. You can disable your phones ring and have all ringing out your PC speakers. You can disable this feature also.

You can have the caller ID name and number spoken to you also.

Available from Traysoft. They also have a few commercial applications which look like they would be worth having a play with.

YAC: Yet another Caller ID Program: This utility is very neat in its reporting. You are able to format the phone numbers to some extent and put a name to the number.

The screenshot on the left pretty much sums up what YAC does.  What makes YAC special is its listener. When you are on a network of computers, YAC will report to all the machines on the network that a call is taking place and the popup will show up on all the screens. 

Available from Sunflowerhead

Call Alert: This utility doesn’t look quite as nice as the others, but it does the same job. It has an address book, a blacklist and a talking caller ID.

You do have the ability to call back in this one if you miss a call.

While this utility is by no means my favourite. It works and it is free.

If you have setup your computer to receive mobile calls via bluetooth, you may want to use this as the pop up is the same for both, a bit of unity is nice.

Available from IVRSoft. 

The options aren’t huge but that is not the point of this article. I have had a good search around the internet for more and have had no success. You may want to search for yourself and see what shareware is available, as there are many other worthwhile applications out there for a minimal cost.

All the freeware and shareware applications I have found do not allow for decent tailoring of numbers. They assume the numbers are American and hence giving it that punctuation. Even if you can edit the codes, I have not found it possible to get mobile phone calls and landline calls punctuated correctly simultaneously. While you can put up with this, for the utilities that let you import contacts from another address book, the punctuation is wrong and therefore it does not work as the utility recognises it as a completely different number.

Phone Dialling Software:

There is also a huge amount of number diallers available for free. As nothing beats using a phones keypad for this, I won’t go into what is available. In Outlook 2003 (and possibly other versions too) you are able to go into your contacts and right click on a contact and call the contact, picking up your handset after this. It’s a nice feature if you use your contacts as your main household address book.

Conclusions:

We have touched on the most basic use for attaching your phone to your computer. This is the first step in what I hope will be a whole series of articles exploring what you can do with your phone and your computer combined.

We have opened up the communication between the two and there is no reason why we can’t move into more advanced areas such as recording your phone calls, using your computer as an answering machine and sending SMS’s.

The ultimate aim is to use your mobile phone from anywhere to communicate with your home phone, so that you can control the electronics of your home. It would not cost a great deal of money to have your computer control heaters and slow cookers in your house, using voice recognition, you could tell your computer exactly what to turn on and off from wherever you are.

Home automation may sound extreme using your phone and modem, but it has been possible for quite a few years now. Home automation is only now taking off and the best method currently is to use your old faithful dial-up modem to communicate with your home automation system.

I hope you have enjoyed this article and found it useful. Please stick around and check out some more articles at inspectmygadget.com.

I have had Engin VOIP as the main line in my house for a year now. I got married and moved out of home. The new house already had a cable internet connection so I decided to stick with it. Signing up to the Engin VOIP service meant I would not have to rent a phone line for phone or internet services. This seemed like the ideal solution, embracing new technology to save myself money.

This article will explain my experience with the Engin service in Australia and show you the positives and negatives of using VOIP services.

I do not have experience with other VOIP services. All I have used is Engin, other companies may be better or worse. I am based in Australia so this article is relevant to Australians. There is a good chance that in other countries, companies have invested more money into VOIP.

I am using Engin Voice Box Series 1. Other VOIP products may offer a better quality call. Ensure to include the cost of the voice box into your decision to go with VOIP.

Reasons: There are many reasons why I wanted to give Engin a go. It was a risk as it was fairly new but they offered so much more than a regular phone company for the price. I have listed some of them below.

• Extremely cheap local calls
• Extremely cheap national calls
• No land-line cost
• Free extra services such as called ID which regular Tel-cos charge extra for
• New technology, I always like to tinker
• Engin was being advertised on radio and TV
• Cable would provide plenty of bandwidth to allow for voice calls.

Installation: Installation was quick and easy. All I had to do was connect the voice box up to my router and my phone system. I also bought a set of Uniden WDECT phones and placed them around my house so there is cordless phone in each room of my house and attached it to the Engin Box.

I rang Engin with my details and registered myself with the service. The whole process was quick and easy and the next day it was up and running.

The first week was a bit shaky. The phone would continually drop out and the call quality was not great. Each morning I would have to check the phone for a dial tone to ensure I could still receive calls. After the first week, things settled down and the phone would rarely disconnect itself. To reconnect the voice-box again I would have to disconnect and reconnect power to both the router and the voice box.

The Bills: These are great. I pay $9.95 a month to access the service and 10c for each local and national call. Calling mobiles is also cheaper. Our household makes around 30 local/national calls a month, costing us $3. We also make around 10 mobile calls a month which costs us around $10 for 30 minutes of talk time.

All up, that’s around $25 for us monthly. We would have to pay around the $60 mark with a regular Tel-co.

Day to day use: At the start there was a minor noticeable sound delay in many of the phone calls and the call quality was not all that good. I could make sense of what the other person was saying, but it was nowhere near the call quality of a fixed line.

I was not happy with people at the other end saying that the phone line was crap, or saying they heard an echo. I wanted do something about this so I signed up as a Voiper user. This allowed me to play around with the settings inside the voice box. There was a cost to this as I would no longer get the same support offered to regular users. I had used their support prior to this but they were unable to help me get the quality of calls to where I wanted it to be so I felt like I had no support anyway. I was left to my own devices from now on and had to use web forums to learn what to change to get the most out of the system.

I changed the voice codec, testing each one to see what sounded better. I played with a few other settings also but the codec was the main one. The codec is the converter which changes your voice to a digital signal the computer world can understand.

The results were a little better after these changes. The dropouts still occured every so often and my wife and family were getting quite frustrated by it all. After 6 months I was borderline as to if we should get a proper phone line installed. The cost (approximately an extra $40 a month) helped me stick with Engin. This was a very bad time for Engin as calls were dropping out all over the shop.

I continued on with it, trying a different codec every couple of weeks. I don’t think the codec change is what has helped make it better though. I think the company itself has done some upgrades at its end. The phone line is now quite usable and it very rarely drops out. I asked my wife what she thought of it and she said “I suppose it’s alright”.

It is still not quite up to what a standard Tel-co company offers. When I started off using Engin, it was like calling overseas around 20 years ago. Now it is the equivalent to calling overseas 10 years ago.

Conclusion: I am using Engin as the only phone line to and from my house, we can also communicate through our mobile phones. For us, the money saved through using VOIP makes it worth sticking with the service. It is a trade off. The quality isn’t fantastic but it is usable and it should only get better with time.

Running a company and using your VOIP line as your only phone line may lose you customers. If the phone disconnects or isn’t of great quality, the customer may become frustrated and go somewhere else.

If you already have a regular Tel-co land-line, you may want to consider installing VOIP also as the cost of sending a fax through the system is cheap. The cost of calling national is cheap. With many of their voice boxes, you are able to send your current phone line into the box so that you can choose which system you send your calls out on. This is especially useful for calling emergency phone numbers.

If you have a power outage and you use VOIP, you will need to use your mobile phone as VOIP will not work.

I hope that this has given you a worthwhile understanding of what VOIP will be like for you. There is no doubt that VOIP is the future, but currently you will have to decide if the future is ready for you.

Please check out some of the other articles at inspectmygadget.com

This walkthrough will show you how to connect your Windows Mobile 5 Smartphone to your Windows XP PC via Bluetooth. This is likely to work for most Bluetooth phones and all operating systems that support Bluetooth though the method will be slightly different on other platforms.

This method also works for Windows Vista. I have not had success in getting caller ID information, but a message does show up on the screen saying that there is an incoming call. Be careful not to attach Vistas voice gateway service as your calls will be answered automatically. To get this going in Vista, follow the steps below as the set up for Vista and XP are almost identical.

There are heaps of fun and interesting things you can do with Bluetooth. Check out some of my other How-To’s and have a play.

Bluetooth has many services which you can use. For this How-to I am only going to focus on the hands-free service, although part of this process is the pairing of the devices. Each Bluetooth device offers only a few services but all smartphones I have seen offer the hands-free service.

Not all bluetooth adaptors will allow for the use of the hands-free service. It works with my Belkin adaptor but it has not been possible on some laptops I have come across. To find out if your PC is capable, open up “My computer”, click “My Bluetooth Places”, click “View my Bluetooth Services”. Look for Hands-free or Headset profile and you should be alright. This may also be dependent on your drivers.

One of the drawbacks with Bluetooth is that it drains the battery of your device whilst it is switched on. My batteries lose power twice as fast with it on and connected to another device. This is slightly annoying but if you are willing to charge your phone ever 1-2 days, you will be fine. You probably have these features, so you may as well see if you can use them.

What you need:

• Windows Mobile 5 Bluetooth handset.

I will be using a HP Ipaq rw6828, as companies make changes to WM5, some of the menu’s may look different.

• PC/Laptop running Windows XP

Up to date, Service Pack 2 is probably required

• Bluetooth built-in to your laptop or a Bluetooth USB Adaptor.

These are available in most IT shops and range in price greatly. I use a Belkin Bluetooth USB Adaptor – Model F8T013 I bought at Harvey Norman. No name brand adaptors can be found at local computer shops for around $20, though I have no idea if these will offer the hands-free service.

I am assuming drivers have been installed on the computer for the Bluetooth ready PC or Laptop.

Pairing the Smartphone with your Computer.

In order to use the Hands-free service we first need to pair the Smartphone with your computer. This enables the Bluetooth communication between the two devices.

On your WM5 Smartphone, tap on the following buttons

tap Start

tap Settings

tap Connections

tap Bluetooth

tap Mode,
both boxes should be ticked, this turns Bluetooth on

tap Devices

tap New Partnership

Your Smartphone will now scan the area for Bluetooth devices and list them

tap “Your computer’s name” and press Next

Your Smartphone will now ask you to enter a passkey. This is a code that you put in to allow for a secure connection between your Smartphone and your computer. You make this key up in most cases and if you do forget it in the future, you can re-pair the devices. They are usually 4 characters long and numeric. I usually use 1234 or 9876. Another option is to use the last 4 digits of a phone number associated with the mobile phone. I don’t see there being huge security issues here but if you have sensitive data on your Smartphone you may want to look into Bluetooth security.

Enter your passkey, e.g. 1234 or 2435

tap Next

Your PC will request the Passkey. Click on the bubble popup

Enter your Passkey and Press OK

You should see that your connection is successful. Icon will change to aqua.

Back on your Smartphone: select Hands-Free Service

tap Finish

Setting your Computer as the Hands-free device

You will be sent back to your partnerships list and your device should now see your computer in the list. Tap on “Your Computer Name” for 2 seconds and a menu will pop up. Select “Set as Hands-free”

After communication takes place (around 5 seconds) the headset icon will appear up the top of your Smartphone.

If all has gone to plan you will now be able to accept calls to your mobile through your PC. When the mobile is dialled a popup will appear down the bottom right of the screen displaying the number.

Not only that, if you click on the bubble you will be given the option to Accept or Reject the call.

If you connect your computer to a microphone and headphones you can have your conversation using your computer whilst your phone is in another room. There is a whole world of things that can be done using the hands-free service. Using your PC to record phone calls is easy to achieve and sometimes useful.

Your smartphone should reconnect automatically when you are near the computer, my computer reconnects with my phones automatically saving me from having to manually set hands free.

I hope that you have found this How-to useful and that you will stick around to check out some of my other How-to’s at Inspect My Gadget.

This walk through will show you how to connect your Symbian Smart-phone to your Windows XP PC via Bluetooth. This is likely to work for most Bluetooth phones and all operating systems that support Bluetooth though the method will be slightly different on other platforms.

There are heaps of fun and interesting things you can do with Bluetooth. Check out some of my other How-To’s and have a play.

Bluetooth has many services which you can use. For this How-to I am only going to focus on the hands-free service, although part of this process is the pairing of the devices. Each Bluetooth device offers only a few services but all smart-phones I have seen offer the hands-free service.

Not all bluetooth adaptors will allow for the use of the hands-free service. It works with my Belkin adaptor but it has not been possible on some laptops I have come across. To find out if your PC is capable, open up “My computer”, click “My Bluetooth Places”, click “View my Bluetooth Services”. Look for Hands-free or Headset profile and you should be alright. This may also be dependent on your drivers.

One of the drawbacks with Bluetooth is that it drains the battery of your device whilst it is switched on. My batteries lose power twice as fast with it on and connected to another device. This is slightly annoying but if you are willing to charge your phone every 1-2 days, you will be fine. You probably have these features, so you may as well see if you can use them.

What you need:

• Symbian Bluetooth handset.
  • I will be using a Nokia N70 running Symbian 8.1
• PC/Laptop running Windows XP
  • Up to date, Service Pack 2 is probably required
• Bluetooth built-in to your laptop or a Bluetooth USB Adaptor.
  • These are available in most IT shops and range in price greatly. I use a Belkin Bluetooth USB Adaptor – Model F8T013 I bought at Harvey Norman. No name brand adaptors can be found at local computer shops for around $20, though I have no idea if these will offer the hands-free service.

I am assuming drivers have been installed on the computer for the Bluetooth ready PC or Laptop.

Pairing the Smart-phone with your Computer.

In order to use the headset service we first need to pair the Smart-phone with your computer. This enables the Bluetooth communication between the two devices.

On your Symbian Smart-phone, tap on the following buttons

Press the Menu Button

Press “Connect”

Press “Bluetooth”

Ensure that Bluetooth is turned on.
It is important to have visibility “Shown to all” during the pairing process.

Press to the right to see paired devices. The list is likely to come up blank.

Press “Select” and “New paired device”
After a few moments you will be shown the Devices Found. Highlight your PC and

Press “Select”

Your Smart-phone will now ask you to enter a passkey. This is a code that you put in to allow for a secure connection between your Smart-phone and your computer. You make this key up in most cases and if you do forget it in the future, you can re-pair the devices. They are usually 4 characters long and numeric. I usually use 1234 or 9876. I don’t see there being huge security issues here but if you have sensitive data on your Smart-phone you may want to look into Bluetooth security.

Enter your passkey, e.g. 1234 or 2435
And then press “OK”

Your PC will request the Passkey. Click on the bubble pop-up

Enter your Passkey and Press OK

You should see that your connection is successful. Icon will change to aqua.

Select “Yes”. You can control this easily by turning Bluetooth on and off if “Yes” is selected.

You should now see your PC in the Paired devices screen.

Setting your Computer as the Hands-free device

In the options menu, select “connect” and after a few moments your PC will work as your headset.

If all has gone to plan you will now be able to accept calls to your mobile through your PC. When the mobile is dialled a pop-up will appear down the bottom right of the screen offering you the number

Not only that, if you click on the bubble you will be given the option to Accept or Reject the call.

If you connect your computer to a microphone and headphones you can have your conversation using your computer whilst your phone is in another room. There is a whole world of things that can be done using the hands-free service. Using your PC to record phone calls is easy to achieve and sometimes useful.

Your smart-phone should reconnect automatically when you are near the computer, my computer reconnects with my phones automatically saving me from having to manually set hands free.

I hope that you have found this How-to useful and that you will check out some of my other How-to’s at Inspect My Gadget.