After I posted about my proof of concept SMS chat idea, I started thinking about integrating with the phone’s address book to automatically alias phone numbers to names, and then I remembered that BitPim was able to pull out the complete phonebook from my K1M.

I started poking around, and BitPim is an open-source app written in Python, plus is supports a protocol log which dumps all commands send to and received from a phone, which makes it really handy for reverse-engineering phone protocols.

As soon as I got my Nokia N810 Internet Tablet, I set up the WLAN and configured the built-in chat application to use my Google Apps for Domains GTalk accounts. Chatting on the slide-out keyboard from the comfort of a TV chair or couch was immediately sweet, and the automatic conversation archiving still allows me to go back and look at transcripts.

Before I left for Iraq I got a Linksys USBBT100 USB Bluetooth adapter, and a Plantronics M2500 bluetooth headset, with the intention of using them with Skype to call home. As it happened, our V-Sat connectivity had such high latency that Skype was useless, but now I’m trying to use the same configuration for in-game chatting as I play Guild Wars.

However, due to the Bluetooth suckage problem, Linksys installs the Widcomm Bluetooth stack, which doesn’t get along with the Microsoft Bluetooth stack built into XP SP2. I had to go into Device Manager, select the Generic Bluetooth Device, and choose Update Driver and manually select the Linksys Bluetooth driver, which since it’s unsigned is not chosen by default. If you fail to do this, you’ll be using Microsoft Bluetooth stack, which even has a very similar tray icon as the Widcomm stack, however has shit features, including zero support for headsets.

While researching my idea for a Skype Plugin for Bluetooth Headsets, I came to realize just how much Bluetooth sucks. As a technology, it seems reasonable enough, albeit as complex and elaborately generalized as one would expect for a technology that emerged fully formed from a standards body.

However, it takes more than technology to yield a technology that doesn’t suck.

On PC side, you need a Bluetooth radio, obviously, but you also need a Bluetooth ‘stack’. This is akin to the third-party TCP/IP stacks you used to have to buy to use IP networks, back in the dark ages. There are competing vendors, of course, including Microsoft’s crippled BT stack in XP SP2, the dominant Widcomm stack, and others. Of course, there’s no common API like the socket API shared by TCP/IP stacks, so you have to pick one and code against it.

I recently got a bluetooth headset for use with Skype, since my laptop’s on-board MIC port is basically broken, and USB headsets are actually shittier and more expensive than the bluetooth variety.

Now, I want Skype to support the headset the way a phone does, letting me voice dial, answer and disconnect calls, and redial.

There’s a commercial app, the eponymous SkypeHeadset, but I don’t like it for a few reasons:

• Why reuse when you can re-invent?
• Fascist copy protection; each binary is tied to your Skype username