Just got back from a biz meeting at Mixtura. For a while now I've been suggesting it as a credible alternative to the infamous Fish Cafe (don't get me wrong - 'the fish' is good - but it is a little too 'conservative'). It was a good evening talking business giving/getting feedback etc. A couple of Pisco Sours and some mixturas (little neo-Peruvian tapas) and it made for good evening. Unfortunately the conversation was mainly Titan talk (with no other punters in earshot) so can't share details. Food wise: Beef Heart was good (Last time it was a little too tough). I had the special (a pork + rice thing) - it was a little too tough for me. I need to stick to meat which doesn't require much cooking: steak, lamb, duck, squab/pigeon, duck etc.

So if you are in town for business I highly recommend Mixtura. Close to campus, fiscally responsibly and parking available (a serious problem when it comes to Kirkland).

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Tags: microsoft crm dynamics crm microsoft crm

BTW: I was thanked the other day by a friend. A link from philiprichardson.org drove three times the traffic than a link from Scoble.

Here's a meme for those internet famous readers out there (yes Alex I'm talking to you): Has Scoble Jumped the Shark. If so - when?

Switched from Bloglines toGoogle Reader a few days ago. Every day I use three different machines with three different OS's (Vista 64-bit on Core2 Duo Desktop at work, Server 2003 Toshiba Tecra M4 Laptop and Media Center 2005 on a P4 at home). Using a client reader is just too clunky when you read feeds on three machines. Sure there is remote feed storage etc etc - but it's still slow and clunky. Bloglines was the ideal solution - but Google's reading experience (font, navigation, feed management and frankly: performance) has made all the difference.

JaaG and I sat down with Rory Blyth today in my office to talk Channel 9 stuff. We are thinking about doing some Channel 9 stuff and maybe some similar stuff for Convergence 2007 in San Diego.

Quick Tangent: While waiting for Rory (he got lost ... which is very common as my building and office is very hard to find - I'm literally going to have to get a map made up) - JaaG was asking me about not having comments on my blog. His tone implied some kind of Social Computing Heresy (a tone I've heard from Alex and Mark more than once). My response was simple: I publish my work email, personal email and personal IM. Firstly it cuts down the turd ratio. When people contact me (and it's a reasonable rate) - it is a 1:1 connection. Partners and Customer typically ask CRM questions (along with the occasional cocktail recipe advice) and I'm not sure they want to always ask questions in a public forum.

I asked the usual - "So you know about Microsoft CRM right?". Rory's reply is worth repeating - well at least paraphrasing: "Its some acquired company that does inventory, financials or something...".

Typical. Not Rory's fault - it's the Dynamics thing. People not familiar with the product assume we are part of the whole Dynamics NAV, GP, SL, AX stuff. All that ERP stuff. It gets even more confusing when I explain that we work for the Office Business Platform and it's just our marketing team which live in Dynamics. Much like the Office Small Business Accounting whose marketing team is in Office and their dev team in Dynamics. Oh - the joy of bizarre org structures!

I gave him the quick thirty second spiel about why our product is cool (from a developer's perspective) and he was shocked: "Why haven't I heard about this!?!".

Exactly.

I'm not sure what I want to do with Channel 9. Maybe find a bunch of crazy characters from the team and tell our story. I'm not sure I'll volunteer for one myself. Rory suggested that interesting people made for the best video studies. I'm not sure I'm that interesting (although I am that arrogant).

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Tags: microsoft crm dynamics crm microsoft crm

Tags: microsoft crm dynamics crm microsoft crm

Adam Cogan (MVP Regional Director) is presenting Microsoft CRM at the Sydney .NET User group tonight.

If you are a dev in Sydney and haven't yet seen our app -check it out.

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Tags: microsoft crm dynamics crm microsoft crm

I was sitting in on a meeting a couple of days back (the meeting was being run by others and my presence was hardly useful). So I threw together a quick IE7 search handler for the D20 SRD. It's a pity I can't just email someone a file - I have to make a website to 'install' the thing with JavaScript. I'm not sure how I feel about that.

Link: D20 SRD IE7 Search Handler.

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Tags: microsoft crm dynamics crm microsoft crm

Last night, for my birthday, Ellie and I went to Il Capretto D'Oro (The Golden Goat) in Woodinville. Overall an excellent evening with good solid Italian food (most Northern style) and an excellent Italian wine list. Service was solid and proceeded at a leisurely pace which is a nice change from a 'normal' American restaurant where the staff try and hustle you out the door as quickly as possible to facilitate higher seating rates. The chef/owner made an appearance at the end of the evening - a practice which seems to be rarely done in Seattle restaurants. My only complaint is the space/seating. The tables give very little privacy and the fat middle class Americans next to us decided that eavesdropping would be cheap entertainment for them. The restaurant might do better to use a single long shared table. In such a setup you gain more room and diners don't have the expectation of privacy.

Ellie and I just came back from Dinner and Drinks with some good friends of ours. We first decided to check out Ascada Bistro in Belllevue. The place was a major disappointment. The place itself is tiny and not in a 'cute neighborhood cafe' kind of way. Tiny in the 'jammed up like sardines in a can' kind of way. Our drink order took a painful amount of time to arrive (How hard can a diet coke, two beers and a margarita be?). Speaking of the margarita: half way through the painful 'drink wait' the bartender came over to ask about the drink Ellie had ordered. Somehow the waitress server had translated 'margarita' in 'mandarita'. The bartender was unfamilar with a 'mandarita'. Does it contain 'man' or 'mandarins' that was the question which troubled us all. Sounds either delicious, disgusting or both. The foods was serviceable - being neither fantastic or terrible. One of the food items was incorrect which lately, in Seattle, seems to be a common occurrence. Fortunately they take the Prime Card so it was nice and cheap. After dinner we headed to the pub (Three Lions in Redmond) for beer and dessert.

During the dinner conversation our friend, a marketer in the Vista team, told us of his new project. It's a viral video called Ballmer: Cultural Learnings of Vista for Make Benefit Glorious Company of Microsoft. The basic thrust of the video is that SteveB travels all over the world and interviews people (in rather unusual circumstances) about Windows Vista.

At a Microsoft internal conference yesterday I mentioned the Windows Live ID SDK. For those readers of the blog who were there - here is the link:http://dev.live.com/blogs/devlive/archive/2007/02/06/97.aspx

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Tags: microsoft crm dynamics crm microsoft crm