A New Zealander sent me this: http://www.abc.net.au/tv/gruentransfer/thepitch.htm. They are two advertisement which are selling the idea of invading New Zealand.

I should note that the ABC is the Australia Broadcasting Corporation (the Government funded media organization).

It's cheeky - but it makes you think. Should all wars be 'sold'? Oh that's right: wars have always been sold since the dawn of time.

I find the ratio of comments to spam intolerable - so I'm disabling comments. Since my email addresses are publicly on the blog most people simply email me...

Australia is the most obese country in the world. How could this happen?

Oh that's right: Meat Pies and Beer.

I'm a current affairs junkie. I like news and more to the point I like analysis. I listen to the AM and PM podcasts (since live reception might be a little difficult while I live on the wrong continent). I've noticed that in the four years since I moved here the quality of US news has declined significantly. Putting aside any question of political bias (became bias doesn't necessarily relate to depth) the cable shows have becoming increasingly banal. All the while the venerable network programs have become irrelevant and outdated.

A lot of people have been talking about the Daily Show's interview with Douglas Feith. I'm amazed at the fact that one of the few places in the US that intellectuals and controversial figures are interviewed with any depth is the late night comedy shows (Daily Show and Colbert). I sense that Jon Stewart is becoming increasingly exacerbated with his new role of 'serious interviewer'.

If you don't believe me: next time you travel turn on CNN International. You'd have serious trouble believing that CNN USA and CNN International are the same station. It's like comparing Britney Spears to Walter Kronkite.

The thing I most frustrating is that this is TV's opportunity to be serious journalists (even if they are bias). This is their opportunity to prove 'why they are better than the news blogs'. This is their chance to save their profession before YouTube destroys their business. CNN: Stop with the celebrities! You aren't the E! channel. Start playing your International content. FOX: OK - I get it - you are biased - that's OK - why act so juvenile? Can't you be insightfully biased? MSNBC: Just make it stop! You don't even know what you are anymore. I'm ashamed at the 'MS' in your name.

I'm slowly moving over my photos to my new Flickr pro account at http://www.flickr.com/photos/philiprichardson. 99% of the photos will be restricted to Friends and Family only. If you fall into one of these categories email me for access.

Oh my! I'm shocked they don't intend to integrate their retail networks (I'm guessing their back office and trading operations will absolutely be merged). Retail branches are far more scalable than they were 10-20 years ago. In NSW their branch territories overlap significantly so a network merge must happen. It will be interesting to see if the government lets this happen (since the FSU will no doubt kick up a royal stink).

I wrote up an interesting blog post at lunch today but I'm unsure if I'll post it. The post isn't offensive - but it's bound to upset some people. However the people whom it might upset probably 'had it coming' so I don't actually feel bad. I'm debating if I should show the post to marketing (they will either love it or they will freak out). Either response doesn't work for me.

In the interim a little self censorship never hurt. It's why I wear pants.

I've been following the 2020 Summit from afar and I've been generally impressed by the depth and breadth of the topics. It's this type of policy debate which will allow Australia to survive in the 21st century. I'm a little concerned that the depth of the debate for the technology industry seems a bit shallow (ie. the usual broadband and education noise). Australia is well positioned to become the technical hub of the Asian time zone if we, as a nation, play our cards right. I'm sure that over the next few days more info from the Summit sessions will be reported and hopefully there will be some good proposals for the tech sector.

Rudd is proving ever the successful technocrat. He seems keen to undertake a transformation of Australian society and he might just be the person to achieve it. However it is unclear to me exactly what transformation it will be. Sure - the obvious stuff is apparent: Republic, Indigenous Reconciliation, Environmental Sustainability etc. There seems to be a tremendous energy in Australia right now: it appears that this is our time to truly define our nation (unlike previous attempts when occurred under the protective wing of our colonial mistress).

Update: Initial Summit Report is available [PDF]

Things have been a little slow on the blogging front lately. Here is a general update:

• The tribe is visiting from Australia. So things have been hectic at home. It's strange to hear your native accent all the time (and I mean my native accent - not the rubbish accent you hear occasionally on TV).
• We are hard at work on the next release at work. Heads down and driving hard. For the Program Management discipline it is our 'crunch time' as we debate the merits and flaws of concepts, features and designs. It's a time of great passion and intellectual intensity.
• I've been reworking my Customization Version Add-In. I'm adding multi-language support and a wizard configurator (also in multiple languages). There wasn't actually much work involved - it was more tinkering. I did discover that WPF has a rather unhappy localization story (it's possible and powerful - but far from convenient). So I wrote my own localization framework - which allows me to switch languages on the fly and to localize all the strings in a single XML file. I also wrote some super simple wizard controls.
• The MVPs hit the town this week for their summit. I'm doing a presentation for them later in the week and I've singled a few out for some special treatment (the good kind - not the bad kind).
• I was considering writing a rather long missive re: this. However I decided against it since it violates my policy of not discussing competitors. It's a policy I hold for a number of reasons: a) such content can be used by a competitor against us. b) I work in the CRM industry and one day (just maybe) I might go to work for one of them (burning bridges is bad) and c) competitive commentary is marketing's job (I stick to competitive analysis). However you should stay tuned to Paul's blog and see how the 'shootout' goes.
• I've decided to go to the Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference. I'll sort out the registration, flights and hotel this week. I'm keen with meet with lots of CRM Partners to learn more about your customers, business models and how the engineering team can help you. I might do a speaking engagement - but nothing has been worked out yet.
• When installing CRM and you get the following error: "Action Microsoft.Crm.Setup.Server.InstallConfigDatabaseAction failed." it might be a good idea to check your DNS settings (of the CRM Server and the domain). I goofed around with my Domain thinking it was a permissions problems when my real problem was that I didn't set up my DNS properly (ie. a problem between the chair and the keyboard).

I've also been spending more time reading than typing on the weekend. Which has been nice. Reading is certainly better than blogging.

Dave L tagged me with the latest blogging meme.

Meme Rules:

1. Each player starts with eight random facts/habits about themselves.
2. People who are tagged need to write a post on their own blog (about their eight things) and post these rules.
3. At the end of your blog, you need to choose eight people to get tagged and list their names.
4. Don’t forget to leave them a comment telling them they’re tagged, and to read your blog.

My 8 things:

1. My email box never has more than 20 items for longer than 12 hours (ie. I'm an email addict).
2. I have a bad habit of pushing my machines to their limit (especially with the OS). This leads to frequent OS rebuilds.
3. I use Google Reader and I love it.
4. I use Gmail and I love it.
5. I used be a hardcore Apple fan (when I was ten years old programming my Apple IIc). I have a strong feeling that 'my best Apple days' may be ahead of me.
6. From Mid-2004 to Mid-2007 I didn't own a mobile phone.
7. I didn't learn to drive until I was 22 (my father didn't learn to drive until he was 59).
8. I refuse to post pictures of my son on the internet. I think it's actually a form of child cruelty for parents to define a child's 'internet imprint' before the child can have a say in it.

Tagged:

Menno, Alex, Mark, Michael, Humberto, Adam, Brian, Jim

BTW: I was too lazy to leave comments for people.

Netflix is clearly a workplace that understands benefits. This is the type of assistance I require on a daily basis.

http://jobs.netflix.com/DetailFlix.asp?flix2051

It's been a few weeks since I've posted to the blog. Things have been a little busy at home (the heir) and at work (CRM5). Here's a quick FAQ:

Are you going to Convergence?

Not this year. A combination of the heir and dislike for flying indirectly to the Orlando just didn't appeal.

What code samples are you working on?

I have a Hello World ISV reference application, the CRM 4.0 Usage Log and the CRM 4.0 Customization Version tool all under way. I'll be posting them up to code.msdn.com. There is some great CRM content up there and it's worth checking out.

Why no photos of the heir?

I'll let him decide when he wants to make his mark on the Internet. His generation will live their whole lives online. A baby doesn't need a FaceBook account...

What's happening at work?

We've just shipped so that means that we are now working on the next release. Typically we don't comment on scope or schedule until a little later in the release.

The Danish version of CRM 4.0 is available for download. This brings the current list of languages to:

• Danish
• Dutch
• English
• French
• German
• Spanish

Our localization teams are working hard to pump out the other languages. Stay tuned for more updates.

Download information can be found here. You can use the language filter to select your language of choice.

Michael Lu (the Program Manager for Performance, Email, Outlook, and Contact Management) has a great screencast (with voice) posted on his site: Configuring the CRM 4.0 Email Router with POP3. This screencast is especially useful as it uses Gmail as the POP3 service. Gmail has a rather tricky POP3 configuration which many people seemed to have struggled with. Mike's screencast demystifies this configuration and explains the various features/functions of the router.

Stephen Fry has a long but awesome post which is worth the read. American's probably haven't heard of Stephen Fry\ but you probably know of one his collaborators: Hugh Laurie (of 'House' fame).

...that Americans are not raised in a tradition of debate and that the adversarial ferocity common around a dinner table in Britain is more or less unheard of in America. When Jonathan first went to live in LA he couldn’t understand the terrible silences that would fall when he trashed an statement he disagreed with and said something like “yes, but that’s just arrant nonsense, isn’t it? It doesn’t make sense. It’s self-contradictory.” To a Briton pointing out that something is nonsense, rubbish, tosh or logically impossible in its own terms is not an attack on the person saying it – it’s often no more than a salvo in what one hopes might become an enjoyable intellectual tussle. Jonathan soon found that most Americans responded with offence, hurt or anger to this order of cut and thrust. Yes, one hesitates ever to make generalizations, but let’s be honest the cultures are different, if they weren’t how much poorer the world would be and Americans really don’t seem to be very good at or very used to the idea of a good no-holds barred verbal scrap. I’m not talking about inter-family ‘discussions’ here, I don’t doubt that within American families and amongst close friends, all kinds of liveliness and hoo-hah is possible, I’m talking about what for good or ill one might as well call dinner-party conversation. Disagreement and energetic debate appears to leave a loud smell in the air.

I can certainly relate to that (it's also probably why most of my friends are expats or married to expats). With any luck we'll get him at Microsoft as a guest speaker.