After a little bit of research and navigating through a fair few forum posts I came across an American company that manufactures iPod & iPhone interface kits for just about any car. In this post I will explain how I got my GROM iphone interface connected to my Audi TT MKI (1998 – 2006).

What You Will Need

• A set of Audi Radio removal keys
• 1 x Either an i2, i3 or u2i VAG GROM Audio interface
• 1 x Single DIN Data Cable (VAG-S)
• 1 x Audi Adapter Harness (AUD-s)
• 1 x Audi Ipod Cable either in 5ft or 15ft (I got 15ft)
• Some Electrical Tape
• Your Audi Radio Security Code
• A Torch

Where To Buy

I purchased my Audi Radio Removal keys from ECS Tuning, however you can purchase these from Ebay quite easily. I purchased all the other Audi iPhone interface/cable equipment from an excellent online retailer located here in Australia. You can find them over at Cushie Audio. The interface that I purchased was the i2-VAG however any other models are perfectly fine to use, depending on your needs.

Getting Started

Before we get started, please ensure you have your Audi Radio Security codes handy, if not you will have to take your car into an Audi dealer to get them to reset the codes for you, which happened to me. Get comfortable in the passenger seat (no steering wheel in the way) and get ready to do a lot of reaching around.

Step 1. Removing The Radio

For this you will need the appropriate Audi Radio Removal Keys. Make sure you get the correct keys as forcing in the incorrect keys I am quite sure will hinder future attempts of easily removing the radio.

Place the left key into left slit under the volume knob. You should hear a distinctive click or ting once the key is properly inserted. Do the same for the right hand side, below the seek knob. If you’re having trouble locating these slits:

Next slide out the radio evenly until it comes out fully. You should now see three sets of wires. Remove all three, which will give you a lot more room to negotiate placing the iPhone interface box inside of the radio/climate control panel.

Step 2. Routing The Cable

Now that we have removed the radio we have a clear space to route the iPod to GROM audio interface box cable. I chose to have my ipod rest near the cup holders:

This part can be a real big pain, as I didn’t really want to take apart panels and what not, instead I used my arm to do most of the work. To route the cable to the cup holder firstly make sure the cable is in a coil, then on the ipod end, make sure you have 1 – 1.5 metres of slack (uncoiled). Reach in and place the cable inside where the radio was, preferably towards the back right, preferably down towards the climate controls.  Leave the round bit of the cable poking out the top of where the radio used to be.

Now with your hand grab the ipod end of the cable, reach down into the cavity. At the other end of the TT will be what can be best described as a small slit and two panels on either side, you can push that in to get your hand or a few fingers inside ready to catch onto the end of the ipod cable. This may take some time and you might even need to route the cable with a coat-hanger or something similar.

If that fails taking off the left triangle bracket and removing the left hand panel will give you adequate room to pull out the ipod cable. Route the cable up to the cup holders, pressing the cable along the way into the groove of the middle console. Tighten or increase the slack as required.

Step 3. Installing the Interface

This step is where we find a home to put the relatively bulky interface box. What you should first do is attach the ipod cable to the circular port on the interface box, and also insert the Single DIN Data Cable (VAG-S) to the rear side of the interface. Once connected reach into the radio cavity and place the box face side up and length side to a small area directly behind the temperature control dial:

It should fit underneath a little lip that the radio sits on. This will ensure that the radio can slide in over the top of the interface. Let the blue pin cable and the earth (single black wire) hang out the front of the radio cavity for now.

Step 4. Connecting It All Back Up

Now that we have the interface somewhat properly placed it is time to connect all the wires together. Because some Audi’s have a 20pin connector for the Concert radio we need to use the AUD-S splitter, which will enable us to connect the 20pin (the longer black plug) into the red adapter, and then plug the green and yellow plug into the appropriate, just as you would of have it before with the 20pin plug, except missing the 8pin cd changer plugs, which is where we will plug in the new blue plug.

Before we plug in the data cables we need to ground the adapter. Strip a part of the black single wire to expose the copper wires inside. Place a piece of tape over the top of it, making sure not to wrap it around. We will stick this wire to the top of the radio shortly before installation. So next up, this is what we’ll do. Grab the 20pin connector from inside the radio cavity and connect it into the red adapter. Now to plug in the remaining plugs. Start with the longest ones first and work your way to the smaller ones. Plug in the blue plug onto the far left side of the 20 pin plug space, the yellow and green plug follow after to the right side of it.

Next plug in the remaining cables to where they used to be and stick down firmly the single black grounding wire that we stripped previously. Now what you need to do is carefully push down the wires in a way that will give the radio unit the most space to slide back in with, as we did add a whole heap of new cables and components to the area behind the radio.

Ease in the radio but remember not to push it in fully as we will need to now remove the radio keys. To do so simply press on either side of the radio where some springs are located. These will allow you to unlock the keys from the radio and slide them out. Once removed attempt to completely push the radio unit in.

Step 5. Testing

Once the radio and all the cables have been plugged in, turn on radio unit and connect the iPod or iPhone. If you see the radio unit come up with the word SAFE follow your Audi manual on how to enter in your correct radio code, which you should of obtained before even attempting this guide. If it turns on then what you need to do is navigate to where your cd changer functionality used to be. Press CD on the radio to get to the cd changer, from there you can now control your connected iphone or ipod from the head unit!

All Done

You’re all set! If you have any questions or issues feel free to leave a comment below. I would be more than happy to supply extra photos if need be. But a lot of the task is to make sure you create enough space for the added components and getting the radio slide back in properly. I strongly recommend you purchase your components from Cushie Audio as they have excellent service and all the tools you need to get your favourite music in your car.

What you’ll need:

• An Aeropress with a single filter pad
• Tea leaves
• Hot water
• Steady hands
• Your favourite tea cup

The basic principle behind this method is to inverse the standard means of using the Aeropress for setup, then steeping in the Aeropress.

Step 1

Get both the base and the top part of the Aeropress together. Slightly wet the rubber stopper to help attaching the two pieces. Set the rubber stopper to the lowest part possible, this ensures more steeping power for your tea.

Step 2

Place in your favourite tea directly on top of the rubber stopper and then add your hot water to the container about 5mm away from the top.

Step 3

Next we need to seal this bad boy off and give it some flip action. Wet one of the filter pads that you get with your Aeropress. This will allow it to stick to the Aeropress filter cage while it is turn upside down.

Step 4

Place the filter cage on the top of this tea steeping contraption the tightly lock it off. The next part is the trickiest, turning this thing upside down. Now you shouldn’t lose a lot of water doing this, as the rubber stopper along with the fine filter will ensure the water will stay put until you start plunging down. As you are turning the Aeropress upside down, make sure you aim the filter cage into the cup as you may lose a few drops. Make sure you do this fairly quickly, to ensure no air enters as the Aeropress is on the side.

Step 5

Now let the tea steep for around 2 – 3 minutes, but then again it really depends on the tea you’re using and your personal preference. Once steeping has finished push down on the Aeropress to push (with air) the tea out into the cup. You don’t need to push down on the leaves themselves, instead you can simply remove the stopper and the air pressure will drain out the remaining bits of water. Now Enjoy!

After leaving Canada it was time to set up some projects and learning. Having programmed in PHP for a few years, at a hobbyist level it was time to step it up and bite the bullet and jump into the long avoided frameworks. A quick touch back to Django had me scratching my head again at the challenge of learning a new language alongside a framework methodology I had no idea about.

A friend of mine from Germany recommend that I take a decent look at the CakePHP framework and after getting my head around why I would abstract my functions out into an MVC structure I got going on building up the projects that I had started by nowhere near completed.

My podcast hosting project got off to a decent start, blazesyn.com, but then hit some big walls, of which I plan to get around in the new year. This got my CakePHP and PHP skills up to much stronger level. My partner, after killing her University degree came down to Australia to live, landing in May. We took some time out, and travelled around Brisbane and down to Melbourne, enjoying the time together to make up for time lost. However the holidays slowly ran down as the bank dried up.

In the mean time I stumbled on an idea while on Holidays, an idea that I had roughly three years ago, but the plans fell through due to costs. It was a decal/signage business purely online. Luckily I had built up my CakePHP skills and got straight to work on wedecal.com which has been going strong. We’ve invested a decent amount of money into advertising and we’re seeing the return slowly climb as the repeat business kicks into effect.

Then I got lucky, I received two expressions of interest for full time work through this blog at jotlab.com. One position was working remotely for a fashion website in Sydney. That fell through, poor communication, which is something you simply can’t have when working remotely. I pulled the pin on that one, but as soon as I did a new opportunity opened up. A local advertising agency contacted me, again through this blog, saying they’ve been following my topics on CakePHP and they would like to offer me a full time position as a CakePHP developer in Brisbane.

I jumped at the opportunity. The workplace was a pad, it had a BBQ area, a swimming pool and the whole place was a decked out church! What’s more they put on a free lunch and beer every Friday afternoon, that’s my kind of work environment. The profile of the clients was jaw dropping and the projects were always challenging. I was on a three week trial then the work ran out. I was back to looking for work.

It was job time and I was sending out resumes to pretty much any web development or web related job I could find. The replies came in, recruiters were calling, positions were opening up and everyone was interested, but not on the terms I wanted. Then I got a phone call from the church of CakePHP, they wanted me back, this time it was I writing for a full time position, and that’s where I am now.

As for development, I am aiming to getting a bit deeper into the CakePHP core. Understanding the inner workings and what seems to be a large array of undocumented CakePHP functions. Besides that I really want to get into Ruby on Rails. It was a bit unnerving to see the CakePHP team split as a core dev moved to create his own branch/framework based on CakePHP3. If i do get extra time it’s onto iPhone development, however one step at a time.

And that is my year of 2009, in terms of development, work and travel. As for next year, our concentration is on moving closer to our workplaces and visa’s. Let’s hope Australia deals us an okay hand for 2010.

But nevertheless they got back to me, and I’m doing just as I was before and more. I’m in a really excellent position. My co-worker is miles ahead of me in terms of experience with web programming and he understands my position and in turn delegates jobs that are just a little outside of my comfort zone, non-stop. So I’m constantly learning and developing more advanced apps. So yes, I’m always digging through documentation and buying books. I pretty much get up early in the morning, arrive up to an hour early at work, study some bit with coffee. Work all day, drive home, and study my books!

Otherwise we’ve been taking it easy. My partner, who is on a working holiday visa here in Australia is finding it very tough to get any sort of job. We started out trying to get her on track with a her desired career path but none of the companies wanted to hear about it, simply because she was not an Australian resident. With that, we have been striving for just about any work, retail, receptionist, office work and even cleaning. She’s got a degree, a ton of experience, well mannered and presented and just has the best attitude to make things happen, and yet still no luck. If you want to help her out, or know of anyone that could give her a chance that she deserves, so she can stop handing out hundreds of resumés check her out at www.lizzyinbrizzy.com.

What I’m currently looking into now is source code versioning with Git and setting up git repos and access control via Gitosis. Also learning all the PHP functions i can and understanding how to extend CakePHP methods to be more DRY and MVC endorsed. Also this Lithium by Nate Abele, I do want to check this out sometime soon, however had a quick look at the documentation, and didn’t really see much there yet. But alas, the weekend is coming up haha

And with that expect a lot more code snippets and reviews of books coming in the near future! As always if you have any questions or comments please let me know, I’m always up for helping.

For example “Why Microsoft is afraid of Linux” or “Why Mac users have bigger penises” or “How Obama hates Microsoft” or “Steve Jobs has made the bagel into a new icon for Apple”. Seriously you “journalists” need to stop spreading rumours, blowing up speculated ideas into perceived facts. From now on, when i see a dickhead post come through my reader of which the title pisses me off, I am going to post the title here:

• Three Reasons Linux Will Win in the Future
• Apple Vs Microsoft: iPhones and iPods Banned at Gates’ Home

The main point of getting things done and getting things done well, is to get ideas and thoughts out of your mind that do not need to be worked on and can be completed in the next 2 minutes. For all other ideas and tasks, they should be written down in a systematic order contained in a system that your mind trusts that you will look back on and review regularly. This is the key. You simply must have a notebook, a spreadsheet, or any other form of notation tool that your mind trusts that whatever you store in it, it will 100% be looked back upon. If you don’t trust that you will look back on it, then your mind will constantly be juggling all these ideas, sorting them, figuring them out all at once. What you are left with is a mind that is working on 10 different calculations at a time, instead of 100% for the task at hand.

So what i use to get things out of my head and into a system i trust are two tools:

1. A Notepad
2. Things

That’s right! I could tell you how exactly i use both of them. But instead i simply use the notebook for immediate notation, when I’m out and about or need to visualise an idea to scribe, and then dump it into Things! However i think it is more important you get both of these tools, and start using them however you want to. This way you will be more free minded about how to insert and track items, instead of sticking to a strict regime of how to get things done according to the formula of David Allen. The main point is, write ideas down, don’t think about them again until it’s time to get it done!

Hi,

Checking in from Blurb. Wanted to make sure you received your book. If not, please contact customer support. We couldn’t find you in our system, so not sure you filled out a support form. Or maybe your Blurb username is different than your twitter handle.

– Kathy

My response to this was:

We have received the parcel yes, after over a month of waiting for it. We received it via UPS delivery. However this was extremely late, the parcel went all around Canada, and they were very difficult to deal with. We waited for them pretty much everyday we organised a time and place for them, and sometimes they would be 3 hours early, sometimes they wouldn’t even show up at all. We finally got them to drop it off at the right time. However we were no longer at this destination so a family member received it for us.

Being in London, Ontario Canada the package had to arrive very soon, as the recipient (me) was flying back home to Brisbane Australia. So we had to send the parcel registered express post, the fastest and most expensive postal method Canada Post offers. They guaranteed it to arrive the following Monday, which was the day before i left. It didn’t show up. I am now in Brisbane Australia and the parcel arrived the day after i left in London Ontrario Canada. So now we have to pay for it to get shipped to Brisbane Australia.

All in all we have spent money on three different shipping services when originally we paid for a premium service from you Blurb. We have spent alot of money on the UPS expedited service, then Canada Post Express and now further Canada Post Air Mail! This easily makes the shipping far exceed the cost of the book.

Now my girlfriend opened up the package and said the book is in amazing quality and in perfect condition, which i am surprised about going around UPS and Canada Post so much. However it is yet to make it to its final destination.

This problem all arose because we were expecting the delivery of our book from you on the 26th of December. But was then promised many more dates of delivery. Had of we known that the book was going to be delayed in production, and that UPS were so unorganised and unprofessional (they even lost our location of the book at one point), we would of got it sent to our London, Ontario Canada location.

This whole ordeal has had my girlfriend in tears and in utter disappointment with your service, UPS, Canada Post and even here self. Every step along the way where the delivery time was unknown and even lost, she was in tears. Although your support is excellent, you go out of your way to solve customer problems, you and your delivery partners have let down my girlfriend to the point that she feels she has failed as a person because she still hasn’t got her Christmas gift to me yet. Of course this isn’t directly your fault, we simply feel ripped off.

Because our ordeal was incredibly hard on us i feel that i should spread our experience with others so they don’t have to go through the same process. We have received 2 vouchers for $10 off each, but then again, would we really want to use them? Considering we still don’t have our package?

Thank you for your reply,
Your customer service is excellent.
Its just a shame the rest of the service wasn’t, perhaps this time, up to the same standard.
Richard

Gunpowder tea production dates back to the Tang Dynasty (618–907) but it was first introduced to Taiwan in the 1800s. Although the individual leaves were formerly rolled by hand, today most gunpowder tea is rolled by machines (though the highest grades are still rolled by hand). Rolling tea leaves into gunpowder tea renders the leaves less susceptible to physical damage and allows them to retain more of their flavor and aroma. In addition, it allows certain types of oolong teas to be aged for decades if they are cared for by being occasionally roasted.

When buying gunpowder tea it is important to look for shiny pellets, which indicate that the tea is relatively fresh.

via http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gunpowder_tea

I bought mine from The Tea Haus in London Ontario. Which is a cool place and the girl was very very helpful!