OK, so I finally got to Denver, almost two hours late. Thanks United! Still sucking, I see. "First Class" was more pissed off than I was because the replacement jet was from "Ted" which means we are all in ye olde cattle class.
A Hertz rep was actually on the sidewalk telling people if you didn't have a reservation, don't get on the shuttle bus because you ain't getting one. So that means I get a free "upgrade." Which means instead of a nice little import econobox that actually works, I get a Ford Escape. It has only 2K on it, leather, sunroof, but I didn't really drive it to give you any kind of review. I did forget that for some reason Ford puts the wiper controls where I usually have headlights, so I looked like a moron in the parking lot.
But my complaint is about SYNC. That's the new Ford/Microsoft venture to make a car radio. Apparently, it has a USB port. Don't care. It has Sirius. Still don't care. It has an AUX in for my iPod! YAY!
You see, the problem is that Microsoft is a SOFTWARE company (work with me folks, they're definitely not hardware). Well, it seems they don't understand a common problem in mobile audio, the god-forsaken ground loop.
Problem one: With the radio TURNED OFF, and current draw from the cigarette lighter causes a buzz to come out the speakers. So, every button I pushed on the GPS = buzz. As the GPS routes a path to Carl's Jr = buzz.
Problem two: OK, so I then hook my iPod into the AUX input. The iPod is turned OFF. I turn on the radio. It says AUX. I heard MUSIC coming out of the back speakers, somewhat faint, kinda staticy. It was my book iPod, so there isn't a song on it! Had to turn it on and off a few times to verify that it wasn't sourced from outside the car. Removed the wire in case it was acting as some kind of weird antenna. Nope. The radio was still tuning something somewhere for "TEH FAIL."
So buzzing and phantom radio signals. Way to go Microsoft!
