Bluetooth for your Bose Headsets

I got my Bose Quiet Comfort headsets several years ago (I don't think the price has changed any since then either.  I've been extremely happy with them.  I love watching movies on my laptop or iPad - theater quality, actually better, sound.  If I need to unwind at the end of a tough day or week, I hook them to my iPhone and disappear into the music.

One of my favorite uses for them is when mowing the lawn.  The noise cancelling effect makes the mower engine disappear and they keep all the grass and dirt from getting into my ears.

My only complaint is the extremely long connection cord.  It hangs all over the place and several times has gotten hung on various parts of the lawn mower.

Recently Bose came out with a Bluetooth version for their new headsets.  The problem is they don't have any Bluetooth adapters for the older models.

In the video below I explain how I made my own Bluetooth adapter by purchasing an Aluratek iStream Bluetooth Adapter/Receiver.

The project itself was pretty easy.  The one thing you will have to be able to do is solder some connections.  But if you can handle that, you are on you way to wire free listening.

By the way, the Aluratek device picks up signal from about 30 feet away, so you can also plug it into other speaker systems with the 3.5 mm audio jacks.  And if your car doesn't have Bluetooth, but does have a Line-in/Aux jack, you can connect it there too.

Hope you find this helpful.

Rob
www.starvt.com

Kids don't watch enough TV...

I know you are thinking I've lost my mind, kids watch way too much TV.  What I'm talking about is sports on TV. In that regard they don't watch enough and when they do, they don't watch it correctly. 

When I was young we only had three channels. The NCAA tournament was tape delayed and shown during late night. On Sunday you could watch the Cowboys and then change over and watch the Oilers. For the NBA you got a couple of weekend games, usually featuring the Lakers, the Celtics or both. 

I watched it all. But I didn't just watch, I absorbed.  I paid attention to what Al Michaels, Frank Gifford, Dandy Don and others said. As a result, as I grew older I instinctively knew what to do with 20 seconds left and down by one point. I knew that if our ace shooter had four fouls and the whistle blew to raise my hand. I knew when the other team would bunt. I learned the subtle rules buried within the games that could make the difference between success and failure. My sports IQ was high. 

I don't see a lot of that in youth sports today. I see talent and raw ability beyond what I had, but I see a waning sports IQ amongst them all. And it isn't something they can achieve with a couple of practices and a game a week at school. And I also don't think they need to play 82 games a year on select teams either (that's an entirely different story).  When they do watch sports on TV, they don't really watch. They text or FaceBook during most of it. 

So in my view they should give up the drama laced reality shows and watch more sports. Hopefully the reality of sports is more in tune with their actual lives than something like Naked and Afraid. 

Does it really matter though? I mean, I can also build you a car out of coconuts and bamboo, but what good does that do me?  As usual, It's just my opinion...

Next post I plan to take on a more challenging topic. Stay tuned... 

Oh, and feel free to visit my website, www.starvt.com

Phew... Where have I been?

Hey folks.  Long time no see.  I suppose I need to really make an effort to get back to writing here again, even if it is just to vent.  I guess I'm like many and wind up either venting on Facebook or reading so many other people venting there that I just can't seem to muster it up.  But no more.  Weekly tirades shall return.  I hope to be able to put together some posts like the Revelation series.  I lost the pale horse material during a computer crash (along with a lot of other things) and it really derailed me in posting.

So point number one.  Back up your stuff.  I now have a back up hard drive that I connect every so often and do a full backup of my laptop.  I also back important docs to Google Drive as often as I can remember.  My most important documents, ones I update frequently, I work on in Microsoft OneDrive so the document is updated immediately in the cloud (plus that makes it available from all my other devices as well.)  So ends the public service announcement of the week.

I've been working on my other website a lot lately.  It's not done, but you can poke around if you choose at http://www.starvt.com.  This website is the start of my promotion for my book series (only 1/3 of the way completed so far).  The series is called the Providence Series.  Currently I have plans for three books.  The first one is done minus some final tweaks and probably a couple of more proof reads to find those pesky typos and grammar errors (commas!).  I need to buckle down and knock out book two.  I'm not quite half done.

So I think I'll talk about Robin Williams.  I was pretty sad to see him go.  He was a comedic genius and darn good actor all around.  He supported the troops as well as many other charities.  Of course I didn't know him personally, but he seemed like a good guy.  He will be missed.  I'm not going to harp on the suicide.  There is already enough of that on the interweb already.

Now the rant...  Have you seen those car commercials (and many other types) that have that little disclaimer on the bottom, "Professional Driver, closed course.  Do not attempt."  as the car jumps bridges or skids around corners.  I even saw one at Christmas when some family was driving into the woods to hang a Christmas ornament on a tree.  Give me a break!  What world do we live in that it should be required to put something like that on a commercial?  I don't care where you get the idea - from a commercial, a book, or an action movie - if you try to jump your Yugo off a bridge and die, you're an idiot and no amount of disclaimers are going to change the fact you are an idiot!

That's it for this week.  See you next time.