Hooking up an iPod to a Passat

I currently use a tape adapter to connect my iPod to my Passat’s stereo, but I’m getting tired of the grinding noise from the adapter. So I went looking for information about hooking it up directly to the stereo through an aux input.

What I found is that there are people who will spend a lot of money to get a perfect iPod install, including a built-in iPod holder and charger. It appears the answer to my question is: it’ll cost about $75 and some labor to pull the head unit and install a line in adapter, then some additional cables to run from the line in to the iPod. An alternative is to use a device designed to plug into the CD changer connector in the trunk and fool it into accepting input from the iPod.

Looks like a full weekend project… sometime later.

For all those who wondered what I do…

Two weeks ago at TechEd, Microsoft’s big conference for IT Professionals, my boss showed off some of the things we’ve got in the pipeline. A few people, including Microsoft CRM blogger Alex Barnett and the inevitable Mary Jo Foley, have had a few things to say about what was shown.

For a peek of what we’ve been working on that’s actually shipped, take a look at the new web-based newsreader available through the Microsoft.com Communities site and baked into dozens of product-specific community listings around the entire MSCOM network. The newsreader launched yesterday, and like any new web technology there may be some teething pains, but we think the user experience is really going to make a difference for those who want to talk to other customers, MVPs, and Microsoft employees to figure out how to solve their problems with our technology.

All I can say is, keep watching.