Under the Hood

Bluetooth is a short-range, low-power wireless communications technology that was created as a replacement for the cables that connect mobile devices to stationary devices. There has been a significant amount of hype about Bluetooth for many years, but it hasn't been until very recently that Bluetooth-capable devices have come to market.

One such device is the HP iPAQ 3870 Pocket PC, which is the first Pocket PC to have a built-in Bluetooth radio. HP also sells a Bluetooth sleeve for other iPAQ models, and CompactFlash Bluetooth cards are available from Socket Communications (www.socketcom.com/product/bluetooth.asp) and AmbiCom (www.ambicom.com/products/air2net/air2net.htm).

3Com's Wireless Bluetooth USB adapter connects to the USB port of a notebook or desktop PC.

Imagine the possibility of simply carrying your Pocket PC into your office and having it automatically synchronize with your desktop PC. To obtain this level of simplicity, Microsoft will have to change ActiveSync so that it directly supports Bluetooth. In the meantime, you can synchronize using Bluetooth today, but only by manually starting the process.

SETTING UP THE HARDWARE AND CONFIGURING THE SOFTWARE

The following describes setting up a Dell notebook PC to synchronize with an iPAQ 3870 Pocket PC via Bluetooth. As mentioned, the iPAQ H3870 has built-in Bluetooth capability. The newer H3970 also has built-in Bluetooth, and these instructions should also work with it as well. These instructions should work with either a desktop or notebook PC, as long as it is equipped with Bluetooth.

I used a 3Com Wireless Bluetooth USB adapter to add Bluetooth capability to the notebook PC. IBM, Toshiba, Socket Communications, and AmbiCom also sell Bluetooth adapters. The description of setting up the Bluetooth software on the notebook is specific to the software that came with the 3Com Bluetooth adapter. The process may differ with software that comes with other Bluetooth devices.

Step 1: Install USB drivers: Installing the 3Com Bluetooth adapter is a straightforward process, but you will also need to install a USB driver on your notebook or desktop PC for it to recognize the adapter. The driver ships with the adapter, but you can also go up on 3Com's Web site to make sure you have the most recent version. Go to the downloads page (www.3com.com/products/en_US/downloadsindex.jsp), select "All Downloads" from the Download Type field, select "Wireless Networking Products" from the Product Category field, and do your search. On the first page of the search list you'll find two files for "3Com Wireless Bluetooth USB Adapter." The first is a documentation file in PDF format. The second, named "bt3cusb_en.exe," is the English-language version of the latest Network Management Software. (Note: Versions of this file for German, Japanese, Korean, and other languages are found later on in this list.) Download this file to your PC. It is a self-extracting archive file. After you download it, click on it to extract the setup files and drivers within it. They will be saved in a directory on your PC. Make a note of where they are saved.

Next, attach the adapter to an available USB port on the PC. Windows will automatically detect the new hardware and begin the process of installing the driver. The driver installation process may take several minutes and you might be prompted to insert your Windows operating system CD, so it's good idea to have that handy.

Step 2: Install Bluetooth Connection Manager software: After installing the driver and restarting your PC, you need to install 3Com's Bluetooth Connection Manager. To do that, run "setup.exe," which you'll find in the directory you made a note of in Step 1. Then click on "Install Bluetooth Software" and follow the prompts.