Houston we have a podcast

Belinda Allen, Shawn Dorward, and I have a started a podcast. You can get the first episode here: https://www.podomatic.com/podcasts/mbspodcast/episodes/2018-03-26T08_39_17-07_00 

The podcast will be up on iTunes, Spotify, and wherever great podcasts are sold for free, just as soon as they recognize our greatness…or we get approved in those stores. It’s pretty much the same thing.

We’re calling it the MBS podcast for Mark, Belinda, & Shawn. If you thought MBS was a throwback to the old Microsoft Business Solutions days, it’s time to step out of 2003, upgrade that Nokia flip to an iPhone, and join us in 2018. We have Teslas here in the future.

(PS: If you thought MBS stood for More Bullsh*t, you fit our target audience.)

The podcast concept is three Microsoft Business Solutions MVP’s talking about stuff that interests us. We’re too busy (and a little too lazy) to have a bunch of guests, so if we do interview someone, they’re really special, or they keep hanging around while we’re recording. On the plus side we like to talk to each other so we don’t care much if people are listening. We also lie…a lot. Mostly unintentionally. Mostly.

More seriously, people seem to like to hang around and listen at dinner (or later) when we chat after conferences. When we do GPUG Ask the All Stars sessions, no one asks anything and it devolves into a random conversation, but people don’t leave the session. It’s a little weird. So we figured, if we’re gonna have these conversations anyway, let’s give people the chance to listen in.

It’s gonna be nerdy, and geeky, and often irrelvant. When we talk at lunch, we chat about things like GDPR, blockchain, PowerBI, Belinda turning wood, how we like Shawn’s wife better than him, Dynamics GP, D365, some random book I wrote that you will never read, you get the picture. The podcast will be just like that…only worse.

To give appropriate credit, if this turns into a massive success, it was a joint effort. If it fails miserably, it was really Belinda’s idea. Then again, the Excel Shootout was Belinda’s idea and it turned out just fine, until we almost put someone’s eye out with a nerf gun.

Help us out and listen in on our weird podcast journey.

Alex Meyer “Recently Microsoft retired their AX 2012 ERD”

Recently Microsoft retired their AX 2012 database ERD, I have used this extensively to help navigate schema/table structures within multiple versions…

Good news if you need help navigating the AX2012 or D365FO database. Microsoft retired their useful entity relationship diagram (ERD) and Alex Meyer brought it back to life. Find out more at:

Alex Meyer on LinkedIn: “Recently Microsoft retired their AX…

In looking for someone to hire, you look for three qualities: integrity, intelligence, and energy. But the most important is integrity, because if they don’t have that, the other two qualities, intelligence and energy, are going to kill you. — Warren Buffet

This quote came up today and it’s the perfect example of why auditing and auditing tools matter.

Fastpath wins 2017 GRC Innovation Award

Fastpath wins 2017 GRC Innovation in User Experience for Automated Controls Award.

At Fastpath, we won an award for the user experience in our new cloud interface. The link is here: Fastpath wins 2017 GRC Innovation Award

It’s a testament to the team that the product not only works well under the hood, it works well for users too.

For the record, my involvement in the design was limited to saying things like, “wow, that’s cool” and identifying anything broken when using Safari on a Mac.  You’re welcome.

Behind the Music: A behind the scene look at my new GP and D365 books.

In case you were wondering how I ended up with a Dynamics GP and a Dynamics 365 book at the same time, I’ve got a little piece up on MSDW with the back story.

Behind the Music: Security and Audit Field Manual for Microsoft Dynamics 365 Finance and Operations Enterprise – MSDynamicsWorld.com

Your test environment sucks. Make test environments great again. – MSDynamicsWorld.com

Four reasons companies should spend the time and energy to make their test ERP environment serve the users and the IT team.

I’ve got a new article up at MSDynamicsWorld with some thoughts on how to get more value out of test environments. Be sure to check out: Your test environment sucks. Make test environments great again. 

MVP Summit Recap

Half a dozen or so GP MVP’s went to the MVP Global Summit at Microsoft this week. We can’t talk about much because we all signed a non-disclosure agreement so they would show us cool stuff. There wasn’t any GP content, but there was plenty of SQL Server, Excel, Power BI, Dynamics 365 and other stuff of interest.

There are some conferences where I leave physically exhausted because I walked my butt off, or because the stress of presenting has finally worn off, or because I don’t get out much and there’s not enough of a break during the days. The MVP Summit is mentally taxing. It tends to generate an ADD-like swirl of ideas and possibilities, some of which won’t be realized for years. I’m worn out just trying to keep up with the ideas, not mention their execution.

When I hop between a lot of different product sessions, it’s easy to get a sense of insecurity. I often feel like an impostor, like I snuck in with all the smart people and they tolerate me because it’s too much work to kick me out. Yet, a lot of things I learn here end up helping with day-to-day issues. Sometimes ideas from the MVP Summit, trigger a different way of looking at an unrelated problem. It’s always been worth the time and effort to make the trip to Redmond.

On a side note, with my work at Fastpath, I work with security in all of the Dynamics products. The AX MVP’s were  particularly friendly and hospitable to their GP counterparts and I want to say thank you for everything.

 

Make your Summit travel easier with free fiction.

Lots of people are traveling to and from the UG Summits this week, so here is a little travel bonus. The Kindle version of my first novel, Death from Above, is free starting Monday 10/10/16 through Friday 10/14/16.

dfacover

MVP Beat Bucher will tell you to not read it on a plane, but don’t listen to him.

Also, don’t forget that my second novel Woodbooger released less than a week a go. You can get the Kindle version for a reasonable $2.99.

woodbooger-front-cover-1

 

 

 

 

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