Mobile Services Review

General Thoughts

Google provides the most coverage of the categories, although typically not the best.  They have some real improvement to be made here.  Yahoo! seems to do the best for coverage and quality.  Microsoft is lacking on a few fronts but their find a business (which is probably the best feature of a mobile service period) feature was clearly the best. Google services are slow, so are Yahoo!.  Microsoft is the fastest.

Rating scale 0-3, 0 if they did not offer the service.

The Winner

I’m a gmail guy so I find myself in Google’s Gmail Mobile most of the time, Google understands mail & map applications.  Yahoo! has the leg up on Google for the other areas besides Find Business.  Microsoft does a really nice job with their category/movies/find a business, it has the most potential.    But still the winner goes to Google Services. 

Written by Tim on October 24th, 2007 with no comments.
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Microsoft Dynamics Great Plains 10 Launch

Last Thursday I went to Microsoft’s Dynamics Great Plains 10 Launch, here’s what I came away with:

Besides GP 10, they gave a quick demo of Dynamics CRM (At one point CRM was going to live under the Live brand but this has changed).  What I saw was pretty sweet, basically it lives within Outlook.  They also demo SharePoint 2007, I was pretty impressed with this too.

What’s New

• GP looks and works like Office 2007 (Ribbon, smart favorites, etc…) so getting Accounting team accustomed will be a task.
• Workflow, PO process, auto notifications with things post, sales hit a certain number, item is sold, good stuff here. 
• Search/Filters MUCH easier, custom column views, good stuff here.
• Integrate SQL Reporting Services in GP, No need to go out to reporting server to see reports
• Custom Home Page (Can pull from web parts)
• Integrated with Outlook (For some users no need to open GP, can get GP panes in Outlook 2007)
• 75 SQL Reporting Services templates to start with
• Excel Reports Server - They are really pushing this, I get some GP data, make it look how I want then save the excel document, this automatically gets pushed back to great plains so next time I open the report I get live data and others can see it too.
• 200 excel report templates come with it
• Free Online GP Training (use to cost $)

New License Model called Business Ready License

• Grandfatherd in if under current maintenance so you don’t have to go to new model· The current model you buy components as needed (Example: eConnect or FRx)
• New model you get everything for a flat fee ($10,000)
• New model you get 20 license to start with, $500 additional license
• They are really pushing people to the new model so some heavy discounts are being given.  A couple of people I talked to said they basically got free maintenance for 2 years and it ended up being cheaper. I got a coupon too

SharePoint 2007

• You can do some really good things with some of their components when you hook them up to Microsoft CRM & SharePoint Server
• Talking about a employee SharePoint server where
  • Employee update their info, check on sick days, vacation
  • Timesheets
  • Payroll stubs, w4, w2, direct deposit, 401K
  • Skills, training
• SharePoint 2007 is cross browser (FF, Safari)
• Can push SQL reporting services into SharePoint so that we would have cross browser reports

Written by Tim on October 23rd, 2007 with 1 comment.
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Windows Live SkyDrive

Errr, I take back what I said about using Amazon S3 as my personal backup tool.  After playing around with Windows Live SkyDrive, it’s now my picked solution, mainly because it’s free.  Although Amazon S3 has much more potential for applications using it then SkyDrive, SkyDrive is perfect for a quick & dirty backup solution.  They have a really nice Active X upload tool that makes it a snap to upload more then 1 file at a time.  Microsoft finally beat Google to the punch by offering online storage.  Only drawback so far is the storage, 500 MB, but I see this being raised eventually and of course Microsoft is well known for selling a higher platform which at this point I’m willing to pay.

Written by Tim on October 2nd, 2007 with 3 comments.
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Sports Rant - Bengals

I grew up and still live in Cincinnati.  I grew up in the days of the Ickey Shuffle and the blond bomber Boomer Esiason so needless to say I’m a Bengals fan.  Here is my impressions after watching last nights game against the New England Patriots.

Our safety’s, Dexter Jackson and Madieu Williams are undersized and unwilling to play tough against the run.  Williams was man handled against Sammy Morris in the open field.

We need a tight end.  Some teams have really good DB’s that match up well against our wide receivers, those teams typically don’t have good enough linebackers to stay with a productive tight end.  The Bengals need to diversify their offense, starting with a tight end who can make the 3rd and 5 catch.

The Bengals are really hurting from bad luck draft picks in recent years:

• David Pollack - 1st round, career ending injury.
• Kenny Irons - 2nd round, torn ACL.
• Odell Thurman - 2nd round, suspended by NFL
• Chris Henry - 3rd round, suspended by NFL
• Frosty Rucker 3rd round - hamstring
• Chris Perry 1st round - broken leg.
• Dennis Weathersby - 4th round - career ending auto accident.

I think Marin Lewis is a good football guy, not the best situational coach but a good motivator and understands the game.  In the end he is still hampered by the owner, Mike Brown, and his unwillingness to run the Bengals like the other NFL teams (minus Buffalo of course).  The Bengals organization still does things like the days of the Ickey Shuffle and until that changes mediocrity is the best this team is going to do.

Written by Tim on October 2nd, 2007 with no comments.
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