I know this isnt A/V related, but with all of us techies, I fugured some of you use bluetooth.

Short of E-bay, where can I get a bluetooth card for my laptop? I dont want a USB dongle, but rather a PCMCIA card.

Will eventually be using it for this..
[Link: delorme.com]
as well as phone book syncs, listening to pc with my BT earpiece, and HOPEFULLY linking to my cell for internet on the road.

Thanks

Topic: Off topic. Bluetooth

Thats kinda funny. Then again maybe its just the pain killers I'm on. Try DBL, I believe they carry some of the blue tooth stuff.

[Link: psism.com]

[Link: brainboxes.com]

[Link: techadvice.com]

[Link: search.ebay.com]

I've been thinking the same thing. I have a USB blue tooth piece but it didn't work out quite as smoothly as I wanted, so I pulled it out. I'm sure it would have worked if I had invested some more time into it. I like the Delorme blue logger idea as well, especially with the external antenna option but it's battery powered. I want a solution that I can hardwire into the truck with an external antenna and forget about it. A Google search on bluetooth GPS brings up quite a few options besides Delorme but I haven't looked into any of them yet.

I'm curious about how a bluetooth headset is going to work with a bluetooth cell and for computer audio. I'd love to be able to seemlessly switch between cell phone and delorme for sound recognition control of Delorme.

Ironically, I had problems with a previous PCMCIA type I tried. Installed it, and my computer crashed, acting all kinds of funky until I removed the program all together. My reason for not wanting the USB version is becasue I KNOW it will get broken off in the truck, transporting it, etc. So rather than looking for a cheapie on Ebay this time, I wanted to see if there were any regular suppliers.

If you want to hard wire it, why not just use the USB version of Delorme? About $100 and your all set. I like the idea of not having wires on my laptop, as well as being able to stick the blue-logger in an employees vehicle if I need to track happenings on a particular day, etc.

I use my BT headset with my cell all the time. It slike a TIVO, once you get it, you'll wonder how you ever did without it! Though, people DO look at you kinda funny when you are carrying on a conversation with what appears to be YOURSELF:)

Connecting to the laptop for internet access from the cell is possible. I have a friend who did it with Cingular, worked fine. My obstacle is that I am currently on Verizon, and Im not sure if there is a "hack" to enable the internet portion of the phone like there is/was with a usb data cable. They are always useless when you ask ANY questions relating to using the phone for internet.

Ive used an older laptop w a USB B/T dongle before for audio like you mentioned, but it too wasnt very stable, and I never took thre time to figure out why. Hopefully a name brand will do the trick. Using it for voice recognition on Delorme would definately be a COOL option.

Some things to look for in a bluetooth receiver-
Bluetooth Version 1.2 (the newest)
Class 1 (3 times the range of Class 2)
Broadcom/Widcomm drivers (much better than the Blue Soleil drivers)

I know you were looking for CF or PCMCIA cards, but I'm using this USB dongle and it works pretty well:
[Link: geeks.com]

CJ

I've had the USB Delorme receiver since it was first released and it does work fine but I liked the idea of an external antenna connection for the GPS. There are combination antennas out there that do unity gain on cell, wifi and GPS all in one antenna. Improving the reliability of all four of these things on the road would be nice. Realistically the most important thing for me is a high gain antenna for the cell phone.
I've been using the cheaper motorolla headset for the cell phone for a good six months now. Smartest thing I've done in a while now. Now I just wish I could find decent contact management software for the Nokia phone because the Nokia software is 1st grade crap.

I use the Motorola Bluetooth Desktop Elite system with it's USB dongle and it is intermittent... although it is just as likely to be the way that Windows interacts with the USB ports on that laptop, which is hit-and-miss with any device.