Category: Digital

Pairing a HS820 Bluetooth Headset to a Blackberry 8700

bluetooth.pngThis was not intuitive unless you consulted the documentation. Here's how you do it...

Activate Bluetooth®:
1. Starting with the phone, click with the trackwheel to bring up the menu.
2. Scroll to and select "Options."
3. Select "Bluetooth."
4. Look in the top left hand corner of the screen and if it reads, "Bluetooth: Enabled," skip to step 6. If it reads "Bluetooth: Disabled," proceed to step 5.
5. To enable Bluetooth, click the trackwheel. A drop down menu will appear, and select "Enable Bluetooth."

Putting the Headset into Pairing Mode:
6. Put down the phone and pick up the headset. Starting with the headset powered off, hold down the Call button for 6 to 10 seconds until the light stays lit. (Initially, the light will flash a few times before staying lit.) If the light is flashing, or if the light starts flashing anytime during steps 7 through 12, the headset is not in pairing mode, and this step (step 6) needs to be repeated, beginning with the headset powered off.

Select the HS820 Headset:
7. Go back to the phone, and click with the trackwheel.
8. On the drop down menu, select "Add Device." The phone will start searching for Bluetooth enabled devices.
9. On the screen, a list of one or more devices will appear. Once the phone is finished searching, select "Motorola HS820."
10. A screen will pop up asking for the passkey. Enter the passkey 0000, and click using the trackwheel. A screen will appear confirming that the pairing is complete. Since pairing is complete, the light on the device will be flashing.
11. To be able to use the device after pairing is complete, underneath the screen heading "Paired Devices," select "Motorola HS820."
12. On the drop down menu, select "Connect." Now the devices are paired and connected.

BlackBerry 8703e Tips

blackberry.pngRecently got a Blackberry 8703e and it rocks! New to a Blackberry? Here's one thing you'll want to change. If your deleted messages don't sync up with Exchange, do this:

In 'messages', select:
Messages Options > Email Reconciliation > Delete On > Change Option > Mailbox & Handheld

Here are some other shortcut keys you'll want to know:

Phone

  • To call a speed dial number, hold an assigned letter key.
  • To dial the last number that you typed, press the Space key and press the Enter key.
  • To assign speed dial to a letter, hold a letter key. Type a number.
  • To call your voice mail access number, hold 1.
  • To change the volume during a call, roll the trackwheel.

Reset

  • To reset your handheld, press the Alt key and the Shift key and the Backspace key.

Gmail Keyboard Shortcuts

Google recently added new shortcuts to Gmail:

m - Mute

Archives the conversation, and all future messages skip the Inbox unless sent or cc’d directly to you. Learn more.

u - Return to conversation list

Refreshes your page and returns you to the inbox, or list of conversations.

y then o - Archive and next

Archive your conversation and move to the next one.

Pasta, Meatballs and Credit Card Theft

People are always asking me if it is safe to use your credit card on the Internet. Finally a stat that shows where the REAL security threat resides:

The most common place for credit card information to be stolen is at a restaurant, according to Visa.

The credit card company, which constantly monitors cardholder transactions and data for fraud, has determined that 40 percent of all credit card theft occurs at dining locations — more than at any other type of merchant. source

Will Google’s Pay-Per-Action Ease Click Fraud?

A new pay-per-action model could help Google lead the way in addressing the industry's problem with click fraud.

Google is beta testing a different business formula for its AdSense product that eases up on its lucrative pay-per-click model in favor of a pay-per-action model. The new program could help address the click fraud problem that dogs the per-per-click sector of the online ad industry.

The idea with the beta test is to provide advertisers more latitude with ad contracts by stipulating payment only for pre-determined actions that result from a Google ad, such as a certain product purchase or signing up for a newsletter. source

GMail Delete Keyboard ShortCut — # Key

Apparently, Gmail has a hidden shortkey key to delete messages -- the pound key.

Do you know that GMail has a simple keyboard shortcut to delete email messages ? The same key combination works across all web browsers but for some reason, Google decided not to share it with GMail users.

If you are reading a message in GMail, press the # key (Shift 3) and that message will instantly move to Trash. Source

Cracking Google’s Algorithm

How many parameters does Google consider in their algorithm? Used to be about 100 in the old days. Now it appears to be 250 parameters that factor into your page ranking:

Gupta chisels away at the PageRank algorithm simply by looking at what the No. 1 ranked sites are doing. "We have identified 250 parameters that Google studies to rank a site," he says. "We've got labs where people are constantly monitoring the impact of each. But the birds-eye view is, how can we make a site simply perform well in the natural course?" source

XML Aficionado

470-xml.png

For those of you building widgets or doing data transforms using XML, check out the new XML Aficionado blog. Written by Alexander Falk (CEO of Altova - the makers of XMLSpy), the XML blog posts news on interesting new technologies, trends, gadgets, and software development tools. Falk's passion about creating great developer tools exudes from his posts.

Read more at the XML Aficionado blog

Fix Your Mom’s Computer with RemotePC

One of the big frustrations if you're a PC guru who is called upon to help diagnose PC problems remotely is not being able to see the desktop of the computer you're working on. I received two calls to help with MS Word issues just this weekend alone. RemotePC (http://www.remotepc.com) offers secure Remote Access to windows PCs from anywhere via any internet connection. It is easy to use, fast and less expensive that than solutions like gotomypc.com.

From your computer you can view the desktop of the RemotePC enabled computer and using the software's view the remote desktop, help diagnose software issues, and read emails and edit documents as though you are directly working on that remote computer.