I upgraded to a new RC1 build of Vista (5584). Wow. Every other experience I have had with Vista to date was horrid (driver problems, performance, app compat). Now it just runs like a dream. Zero problems. It looks like I am now on Vista for good. Office 12 is still going strong (no problems) and I'm also dogfooding our V3C CRM Client.

BTW for those who missed our V3C annoucement over on the CRM blog check it out here. The post is a little heavy on the 'marketing speak' but that's important when you make these types of announcements. Here is the short version: if you buy Vista and/or Office 2007 then CRM 3.0 will work once we release our compatibility release (which will be at roughly the same time). Check out the post for the specifics.

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Tags: microsoft crm dynamics crm microsoft crm

The culinary star of my trip to Sydney was Three Clicks West in Annandale. Excellent modern Australian with small tasty portions (a nice change from the giant Solent Green servings in the USA). Fiscally responsible (once again - I was on expenses so frugality must be a focus). Wine list was nice with some well priced Bordeaux which can normally be a little hard to find in Sydney. Well worth it!

The boys and I checked out Heritage in the Rocks last Friday. Since I was travelling on expenses I was unwilling to participate in high priced gastroporn (as Lawrence calls it). Excellent fun for drinking/eating and very good value for money. It had been a while since I had drank beer on a 'normal scale' (ie about half a dozen) but I came through without any after effects.

I've posted before on the benefits of using a CardScan device (either for Microsoft CRM or other leading CRM packages). Having just returned from speaking at a couple of conferences I needed to scan my newly acquired business cards into our team's CRM system. The purpose of this post is to give some gentle advice to people who design business cards: MAKE SURE YOUR CARD IS CAPABLE OF BEING SCANNED! Scanning failures were typically caused by stupid fonts and highly abstract layouts. The CardScan is capable of scanning a multitude of fonts/layouts so your card doesn't have to be boring. However please take the time to test your card with such devices. A poorly designed card runs the risk of being discarded from the pile during scanning or may result in scanning errors which are not easily detected (name mis-spellings, wrong phone etc).

With any luck RFID tagged business cards will become mainstream in a few years adding all kinds of new scenarios. Imagine waving your card over someone's phone instead of giving it to them.

Tags: crm

Thanks to the trusty Australian taxpayer's 8 cents per day The Chaser's War on Everything is available for free download. Check out the Video RSS Feed here or directly download these episodes:

Episode 24
Episode 23
Episode 22

I'm now in Sydney for TechEd Australia. I'm presenting on Friday but I am available for speaker 1:1 meetings today and tomorrow. If you are a TechEd attendee simply go through the normal setup process (on the CommNet).

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Tags: microsoft crm dynamics crm microsoft crm

Check out this PAX Interview on 10. Via Jeff Sandquist's blog. Unfortunately I won't make it to PAX as I'll be in transit back from Sydney.

I promised attendees of my presentations in Auckland this week that I'd post some of the URLs from my PowerPoints.

Dynamics Snap Website
CRM Team Blog
CRM Sandbox
SharePoint List Web Part Download
SharePoint List Web Part Intro Article

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Tags: microsoft crm dynamics crm microsoft crm

I'm flying out tomorrow for the two Teched conferences (Auckland and Sydney) which I'm speaking at. Both look like fun conferences with lots of cool sessions on Vista, O12 Client/Server and CRM! I was hoping to take part in Frank's blogger panel in Sydney but unforunately I'll still be in Auckland. If you are around you should check it out. I have to say the Australian MSFT blogs have been really helpful in planning my trips - so a bit thanks to: Frank Arrigo, Andrew Coates, Michael Kleef and Dave Lemphers.

Speaking of Dave Lemphers I saw over his blog a while back that the speaker dress code is the standard Microsoft Conference attire. I feel like a bit of a fraud when I have to dress like that. It's not like we dress ANYTHING like that at work (OK maybe a few of the marketroids do). Our Customers/Partners have a pretty good idea of how we dress (ie. sloppy and cheap). I think they would appreciate us being presented in our natural state. Unfortunately I don't feel important (or arrogant) enough to rebel against code. I'll be packing my Microsoft blue shit and black pants.

However the next conference I'll make it a condition of my speaking that I get a pass from the dress code :)

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Tags: microsoft crm dynamics crm microsoft crm

As Adam states this one is 'Microsoft Internal'. You can now (or maybe you have been able to forever) scan docs on our printers. Awesome. Check out Adam's photo's of the feature on his blog.

This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.

Tags: microsoft

I got my hands on a pre-release copy of the new CRM Mobile Client today. Very very sexy. The source is tidy and easy to understand which will enable customers/partners to extend the client easily for their specific needs.

You can run the app in a regular browser (since it's just a web app) but you will probably want to use a device emulator. I found this blog post very helpful in getting the device network connected (the cradle setting was the bit I missed).

This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.

Tags: microsoft crm dynamics crm microsoft crm

Joris has update his popular caching tool. Get it here. The tool improves CRM performance by caching CRM content.

This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.

Tags: microsoft crm dynamics crm microsoft crm

So I got my Microsoft share buyback forms the other day. Microsoft is buy back lots of shares for 'blah blah blah' dollars.

I'm not selling.

Not because of anything coming out of the Windows team (I'm sure it's all great but it just doesn't excite me personally). I'm holding on to my shares for one reason: Office 2007. That's right folks, O12 is the big one*. Everything since Office 97 has been a little 'sleepy'.

So before you sell your shares ask yourself this: have you downloaded the Office beta yet?

I'm also super excited about CRM. I think our strategy is spot on (On Premise and Live) and I think we have a compelling value proposition in levels of the app.

One of our technical writers (Matt Peart) is solicting feedback for the next version of the CRM Implementation Guide. I strongly suggest that partners and 'customers who like to go it solo' check out his posting on our team blog. Normally it can be tough to give feedback to a company as big as Microsoft. This is a great example of where your feedback can have a very tangible effect. Matt isn't some conference speaking marketroid: he is the actual guy who will write the Implementation Guide. Help him... I'm sure he will appreciate it.

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Tags: microsoft crm dynamics crm microsoft crm

Ben Vollmer stole my birthday reminder solution and made it better.

BTW Ben mentions the internal CRM discussion alias. The partner in this question didn't email the alias but they called Partner Support. The support people often post questions for the product team and many of us weigh in with a variety of solutions/suggestions. Other good places to get hints/help are the CRM UseNet groups, the forums and the team blog. However I can't stress the importance of a little bit of RTFM (ie. this and this).

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Tags: microsoft crm dynamics crm microsoft crm