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Plantronics makes top-rated bluetooth headsets that are super light, sound great, and look really cool. I recently acquired the Plantronics Voyager PRO because it lets me connect with both my iPhone and my computer.

That means I can use it on the road for hands-free phone conversations in my car, and I can also use it for Skype calls on my computer (or with my VoIP softphone that lets me dial anywhere in the world over the internet, without paying long distance rates). You can get a Plantronics bluetooth headset here on Amazon for under $70.

Connecting the Plantronics Voyager to my iPhone was a complete breeze, but getting it to work with my computer took a little persistence and eventually an operating system upgrade to Mac OS X 10.6.8. It turns out there was an incompatibility with OS X version 10.6.6 and the Plantronics headset, that wouldn't let it be recognized as an audio device no matter what I tried.

Fortunately, upgrading to OS X 10.6.8 solved the problem, and here are the steps I took to connect my Plantronics Voyager PRO to my Macbook Pro and use it as the audio device for Skype, iTunes, or any other sound application:

1. Upgrade to Mac OS X 10.6.8 or later

Question: How do I connect my Bluetooth wireless phone with my laptop, so that I can send and receive files?

Answer: Connecting your Bluetooth wireless phone with your laptop is called pairing, and I'll use a Blackberry Curve to show you how it works. You can do this with any bluetooth-enabled phone, although the menu options might be slightly different depending on the type of phone you have.

Make sure that Bluetooth is enabled on your phone. For Blackberry phones, that means selecting the "Set Up Bluetooth" application from the main screen, and then selecting "Enable Bluetooth" after clicking the menu button.

I'm assuming your laptop comes with a built-in Bluetooth adapter (or you can get a bluetooth adapter like this one, that plugs into one of your USB ports).

Next, set up your computer to allow Bluetooth connections. If your computer comes with Bluetooth, then you'll see a Bluetooth icon in your Control Panel (Start button -> Control Panel from Vista):

Double-click the Bluetooth icon and you'll see a Bluetooth Devices dialog. Click the Options tab and make sure the options to "Allow Bluetooth devices to find this computer" and "Allow Bluetooth devices to connect to this computer" are both checked.