Stereo Bluetooth Devices Are Not Ready for Primetime

My initial enthusiasm over stereo bluetooth has waned. Both my MacBook Pro and Blackjack II support A2DP. Over the past month, I have been using a bluetooth headphone from Best Buy and this Bluetooth transceiver connected to C's Apple Hi-Fi.

Despite not being an audiophile, I can unequivocally state that the sound quality sucks. From the MBP to the headphones, I can hear static. Plus, the music just sounds muffled. Sound degradation can also be heard from the Apple Hi-Fi. In both cases, the bluetooth devices are no more than 10 feet away from one another.

My research into A2DP reveals that the signal is transmitted digitally. It must be poor implementation then. Perhaps in a year I'll try the new A2DP devices on the market.

Traveling Light

Over the long weekend, I experimented with traveling even lighter than usual. I wanted to be more portable than the MacBook Pro + backpack combination. In their place was the Asus eee pc with my trusty small sized Timbuk2 Messenger Bag. I'm happy to report that it was a success. The bag, laptop, accessories, and 2 changes of clothes totaled less than 8 pounds. The eee pc made for a more than adequate LAMP development environment. It also helped that I installed a 2 GB DIMM and an 8 GB SDHC card.