Windows Vista Ultimate, A Hands On Diary: Entry #1

Getting Bluetooth To Work - Duh!

The Acer Ferrari 1000 laptop comes with a nice set of accessories, including a Bluetooth mouse and VoIP phone (really a headset for use with applications such as Skype). Also include are some impressive soft cases for the computer, its external DVD/CD optical drive and the mouse and VoIP phone. They all have large fold-over tops. The only fault I found with the cases is that you still need a larger case to hold the cases and their contents.

Acer's Ferrari 1000 laptop peeks out of it's soft case. Cases for the laptop's mouse and VoIP "phone" are fixed to the computer's case.

I'm a little embarrassed to say it, but I had a devil of a time getting Bluetooth to work on the Acer laptop. The Bluetooth light on the computer was not illuminated. I tried to boot the computer into setup mode to try to turn on Bluetooth there, but none of the traditional keys worked. I tried to use some of the e-tools Acer provides with their computers, but couldn't get them to work. Perhaps a Vista version is not available yet and that got me to thinking that maybe Acer's Bluetooth hardware wasn't supported in Vista yet. Try as I might, I couldn't pair the mouse or phone with the laptop. I was beginning to think that Bluetooth hardware might be an option not included on this computer.

Finally, I did the unthinkable and looked at the manual. Oh, you have to turn Bluetooth on using a switch on the front of the laptop! The Bluetooth switch is right next to the WiFi switch. WiFi was on out-of-the-box, so I never had to mess with its switch before connecting to my network and domain. Also, the large cool arrow shaped switch, looks more like a fixed part of the Ferrari's design than what it is.

The Ferrari's mouse, optical disk and VoIP phone and their soft cases

With Bluetooth turned on the mouse and phone paired with the Ferrari and I was ready to go. I really like the mouse. I use a wireless mouse with the Wacom Graphics Tablet on my desktop computer, but I've never had the time to link up one to run on a mobile computer. I prefer separate mice to laptop touchpads, so I'm really happy with this one. The only time I can imagine not using it is when I'm in a plane or otherwise working in a tight space.