I dropped by Adam's office to drop off some stuff. Since he works in the same group as Rory Blyth I demanded an introduction. Rory recently moved to Redmond and I've been a fan of his blog for years (he is a bit of legend in the tech community). Upon meeting him I noted two things: he lives up to his eccentric reputation and he is much shorter than I expected. The encounter was much like that of spotting a celebrity: they are always shorter in real life.

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Tags: microsoft

Blog posts have been slow recently as I've been out of the country (first a holiday in Europe and second a wedding in Australia). I'm back now (for seven weeks - then I'm on vacation again for a few days in the Dominican Republic).

Things are starting to get heat up at work. We are working hard on our M3 (milestone #3) designs for CRM Titan and ensuring we don't leave any stone unturned.

On the gaming front we have just started Todd's Shackled City campaign. A few weeks back (before I headed to Australia) we played an 'warm up' session to break in the characters and the group dynamic (we have added a couple of new players). Last week I managed to squeeze a day of Deadlands (note we play the old version not the new fangled savage worlds one) in Sydney with the boys. We had played six weeks earlier when I was in town for TechEd so were able to re-use the characters. Some interest has been thrown around about Burning Empires whose book has a really cool form factor. The campaign mechanics are very formal giving the game an interesting strategic twist reminiscent of Birthright.

Check this out: Windows Live Barcode. Very interesting opportunity for CRM here. Contacts are the easy example (as shown in their demo) however using this technology (which isn't new but made a little easier here by Windows Live) for event evaluation forms, application forms, invoices etc is really interesting. The use of camera phones as the scanning device is also a nice option. Once again: not a revolutionary idea - just a nice evolution.

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Tags: microsoft crm dynamics crm microsoft crm

SDNUG is conducting a CRM 3.0 session in Sydney. Details here .

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Tags: microsoft crm dynamics crm microsoft crm

I'm really enjoying some of the marketing coming out of the Vista team (eg. Clearification) and from the Zune guys (ComingZune). The People Ready stuff is OK but it doesn't inspire me (probably because the campaign is extremely risk adverse).

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

Tags: microsoft

It's been a while since I've posted (I've been in Europe and then settling back into work). Over the next few days I'll post my Copenhagen and Prague thoughts. The weekend was fun - we went to Vivace for our sunday coffee fix and checked out a new 'high end' pet store next door called Urban Beast. Our window shopping resulted in the purchased of some designer dog bowls. I'm not sure the dog deserves designer dog bowls after biting me (and drawing blood) on Friday - however it was an accident (I was breaking up a dog fight). Working back to Saturday night we checked out Alborz with Alex and Kate. A couple of years back we went with Ben & Caroline and were impressed at it's relatively authentic Persian cusine. Well worth it if you are in the area (and they the Prime Card). On Saturday morning I tracked down a PC joystick (which seems to be an endangered species) and loaded up TIE Fighter Collectors edition. Getting this running on an XP machine required some effort. Eventually I found the DosBox solution documented on WikiTechia to be more effective. Once I complete TIE fighter I intend to move on to X-Wing vs TIE Fighter, then the Balance of Power expansion pack, X-Wing Alliance. I might even see if I have the old Wing Commander series lying around.