The next version of Ford Sync won’t come from Microsoft. They’re tossing out the old system and starting with a newer one that, frankly, makes more sense to me. Here’s the problem: your car lasts 10 years and your phone is out of date in two years. The existing Ford Sync systems are basically a point in time piece of technology that needs to live the lifetime of your car. Why bother baking all that into the car? All you need is a big touch screen with some microphones and buttons placed around the car that all work in concert with your phone. Your phone already has the Internet connection and is being regularly upgraded, so let the phone be the brains of the operation. The car should just be a dumb terminal that gets smarter and more useful when a phone is within range. That seems to be more the direction that Ford is taking with the new system and it’s the way that the systems from a lot of other companies work too.
I have my eye on one of the new F150s but I struggle with the decision about Sync. I like having the big screen with navigation in my car, but the Waze app on my phone is so much more useful. Is it worth spending the extra money to get the current full Sync system like we did in the Escape? Probably not. The basic functions that let you connect your phone via Bluetooth are useful, but the rest of it just gets out of date pretty quickly.
Hopefully we are heading in a direction where the carmakers don’t try to compete too much in the fast paced consumer technology world, or if they do, they give us a way to upgrade the hardware. Even if you velcro’d a tablet to my dash, I’d be pretty happy. At least I’d know I could replace it in two years with something cooler/better and it would probably interact with my phone a lot better than the system you developed years ago based on even older hardware.
I’ve been happily using Mint.com to track my finances for the last three and a half years. One feature they offer is the ability to download all of your transactions. I did that, popped it into Excel, and found some interesting stats. Note that these are for 2012-2014.
Whenever Tyla suggests that we eat a really healthy meal, one of my first thoughts is a Garlic Chicken recipe from our favorite low carb recipe site (
This is a geeky post but I feel the need to give back to the community and help others who might stumble on a similar issue. Regular readers can feel free to skip this. Tomorrow’s post will return to more normal topics.
Time Management
Few things in my life had made me more conscious of how I spend my time than having a child. These three buckets are a great place to start. I’m still trying to work out how things like paying bills, making dinner and cleaning up fit into this but I suppose that could fit into building a good family environment. And of course, as a Christian, my faith is the most important thing to me. That should weave it’s way through all aspects of my life but also deserves it’s own bucket of dedicated time.
It has already been useful to think of my time in terms of these buckets. Instead of thinking “is this a worthwhile activity”, it’s better to think “is this the most rewarding/important thing I can do right now?” I do try to set aside one evening a week to just veg out and watch a movie or something, but most nights, I need to take advantage of my limited non-work time to fill up the other buckets!