A Freaky Microsoft Dynamics CRM Blog : Freaky Stuff

My last post!

mennotk — Thu, 07 Feb 2008 10:59:00 GMT

Don't let the title confuse you, it's only my last post here at MSDN! As most of you know, I've been blogging on MSDN since 19 December 2005! It is time to move on...

I made the decision to move my blogging addiction to my very own domain. On the new location you can continue reading about freaky CRM stuff, but I'll mix it up with some additional topics that interest me and hopefully you guys as well.

Please update your bookmarks, RSS Readers and OPML files.

Blog: http://www.tekoppele.com/blog

RSS: http://feeds.feedburner.com/crmfreak

It took me a lot of time and effort to design my new blog from the ground up. I want to thank Alex Vermeule, Scott Barnes Jaap Steinvoorte and Jron for their help and advice. Over time, I will slowly migrate all of my posts and comments.

My second year bloggin'

mennotk — Thu, 20 Dec 2007 03:53:00 GMT

Two years and still going strong......(read more)

Transforming David...

mennotk — Tue, 20 Nov 2007 07:19:00 GMT

A few day's back I had a blog post about David transforming into Optimus Prime if he would receive 50 comments on his post. Guess what? He received 58 comments and has ordered his costume! I want to thank those who read my initial post and left David a comment, you know who you are!

Read his latest post.. http://blogs.msdn.com/davidlem/archive/2007/11/19/there-are-two-things-in-this-world-i-won-t-break.aspx and I hope he will ask at least someone to take tons of pictures and videos, so we can enjoy it aswell since many of us are not located down under.

If you're an Aussie and you want to see Optimus Prime...

mennotk — Fri, 16 Nov 2007 06:19:00 GMT

If you're an Aussie (or not) and you want to see Optimus Prime at the Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4 launch in Oz ...for that, you only need to leave a comment at David's blog saying he needs to keep his end of the bargain! (We only need 30 more to hit the 50 needed comments)

I already left him his first comment and it would be awesome if we can pull this off! He will be amazed how many people will actually read and do this now...

You can read his blog about it here: http://blogs.msdn.com/davidlem/archive/2007/11/16/optimus-prime-the-crm-4-launch-could-be.aspx

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A glass and a half of joy!

mennotk — Thu, 08 Nov 2007 11:18:57 GMT

This is so off-topic, but what do you get when you combine a gorilla and one of the best Phil Collins songs? Yes...click the play button for that answer!

Video: Cadbury's Gorilla

Sometimes I wonder why can't we come up with these....

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San Francisco Love Parade 2007

mennotk — Thu, 27 Sep 2007 09:29:19 GMT

This is why I love my city so much, there is always something happening. On 29 September 2007 I will be going to the Love Parade 2007 in downtown San Francisco, go here for more info: http://www2.sflovefest.org.

For everybody that does not know the concept of Love Parade; the Love Parade is a popular festival and parade that originated in 1989 in Berlin, Germany, and has spread throughout the world. Past Love Parades have occurred in Tel Aviv, Mexico City, Acapulco, Vienna, Cape Town, San Francisco,Leeds, Sydney, Santiago and Caracas. It was started by the fresh Berlin Underground under the initiative of Matthias Roeingh aka "Dr. Motte". It was held as a political demonstration for peace and international understanding through music.

Until 1996, the parade was held on the famous Berlin "Kurfürstendamm". Since by then, not only the Kurfürstendamm was overcrowded but the streets and even railway tracks near the Ku'damm, too, the parade moved to the "Straße des 17. Juni" which is near the Tiergarten Park in the center of Berlin by the Brandenburg Gate and provided plenty of space. The center of the parade is the Siegessäule in the middle of the park, and the golden angel atop the column has become a symbol of the parade.

In the past I have enjoyed many Love Parade episodes in Berlin, Germany. It is so cool that I dont have to drive 5 hours by car anymore to enjoy it, now just 30 minutes with the bus! If you like electronic dance music, such as Trance, House and Techno you will need to go to the San Francisco Love Parade or as they call it here; San Francisco LoveFest. I hope to make some great pictures such as the one below.

If you want to read more about this phenomenon go here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loveparade

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Microsoft Dynamics CRM VPC - Client toggle

mennotk — Tue, 04 Sep 2007 21:46:00 GMT

How to switch between the two Microsoft Dynamics CRM clients on the August 2007 VPC...(read more)

Today's word: Freak

mennotk — Sat, 19 May 2007 11:51:55 GMT

Why did you choose mscrmfreak as the name of your blog? I get this question a lot from partners and customers. I would like to explain it here by using some examples.

A devoted fan or follower; enthusiast: a baseball freak.
A person who is wildly enthusiastic about something: a film-freak.

After reading the above examples, it should be clear to you that I, even after almost 9 years in the CRM business, still love CRM. The great benefit of choosing a "different" name for my blog is that people remember it without writing it down. If people do forget, they remember two words "freaky" and "CRM". Guess what shows up when you type these two words in your favorite search engine....?

Below I pasted the translation of "freak" in many languages. If your language is not here, please feel free to add it in the comments.

Arabic:	إنسان شديد الحَماس
Chinese (Simplified):	成瘾者
Chinese (Traditional):	成癮者
Czech:	fanda
Danish:	nørd; fan; freak
Dutch:	fanaat
Estonian:	-hull
Finnish:	hullu, intoilija
French:	mordu (de)
German:	der Freak
Greek:	μανιώδης
Hungarian:	vminek a bolondja
Icelandic:	maður með tiltekna dellu
Indonesian:	keranjingan
Italian:	fan

Japanese:	～狂
Korean:	…광(狂), 열중하는 사람
Latvian:	ar kaut ko pārmērīgi aizrāvies cilvēks; fans
Lithuanian:	kas pamišęs dėl ko nors
Norwegian:	frik, —narkoman, —apostel
Polish:	maniak
Portuguese (Brazil):	fanático
Portuguese (Portugal):	fanático
Romanian:	maniac (după)
Russian:	фанатик
Slovak:	fanúšik
Slovenian:	navdušenec
Spanish:	fanático
Swedish:	fantast, fanatiker
Turkish:	tutkun, hasta

Numb3rs

mennotk — Sun, 06 May 2007 12:03:00 GMT

When this posting shows up, time will align itself in a perfect pattern, 2-3-4-5-6-7. Right now it is Sunday, 02:03:04 a.m. on 05/06/07. I think this one only happens in America. Europeans — and most everyone else in the world — write dates in day-month-year order, not month-day-year. So in Amsterdam or Madrid, the magic moment won't come until June 5.

Did you share the moment with me? If not what is your time/date/year....drop a comment so I can see who, what and when people are reading my blog.

This must have hurt so bad!

mennotk — Fri, 20 Apr 2007 01:53:00 GMT

When reading my "local" Dutch newspaper I bumped into this amazing story. It is funny to read, but if I would own a Ferarri and had to pull over because it was on fire I would have cried for days! This Swiss guy had this happen to him and after he and his wife got safely out of the Ferrari, they watched it burnnnnnnnnnnnnn!

Once the firedepartment arrived the Ferrari was looking like bad toast. If you can read Dutch you can view the article here: http://www.tctubantia.nl/voorpagina/article1329619.ece

Login failed for user 'NT AUTHORITY\NETWORK SERVICE'

mennotk — Wed, 28 Mar 2007 01:20:00 GMT

Ever wondered why the error "Login failed for user 'NT AUTHORITY\NETWORK SERVICE'. [CLIENT: xxx.xxx.x.x]" shows up in the eventviewer on the current CRM VPC when booting?

Microsoft CRM Deletion and Microsoft CRM Workflow Service services attempt to access the underlying databases before the SQL Server Agent service started. Although this is not a critical error I wanted to fix this. So to address this issue set both services to depend on the SQL Server Agent service:

Open up Regedit by going to Start / Run and type in regedit
Go to [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\MSCRMDeletionService]
Create the "DependOnService" multi-word values for both services to include SQLSERVERAGENT
Do the same for [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\MSCRMWorkflowService]

Warning If you use Registry Editor incorrectly, you may cause serious problems that may require you to reinstall your operating system. Microsoft nor I cannot guarantee that you can solve problems that result from using Registry Editor incorrectly. Use Registry Editor at your own risk.

405 Method not allowed... The server might be down!

mennotk — Fri, 02 Mar 2007 08:07:00 GMT

Let me introduce Steven Vlaanderen Oldenzeel, a consultant that works for Microsoft in The Netherlands. I have asked if he would write a blog and he was more than happy to do so. See the result below.

405 Method not allowed - The server might be down

This is the message I received during an Outlook client installation. To ensure it wasn't a server problem I performed some basic checks on the server. Like IP Address checking, Traceroutes, Installing ServicePacks and Rollup1, starting a webclient and more of those possible solutions. On the server everything worked perfectly, so I assumed that the problem must be somewhere on the client computer.

I got the error on more computers but the infrastructure at the clientside is loaded with accessrights and grouppolicies. I thought that those rights and policies were causing the same error on more computers. So I concentrated on differences between the infrastructure on the clientside and a standard installation. There were a lot of differences but they were not causing the problem.

A few day's later I installed the Data Migration Framework on the server because I had to migrate some data as well. And I got the same error on the server. So now the problem occured on the server as well. That was a change, because it had nothing to do with the infrastructure!

The Solution:

In the properties of the website MSCRMServices the property of the Server Response File wasn't there. So I had to add this property manually:

On the Microsoft Dynamics CRM server, click Start, click Run, type inetmgr , and then click OK.
In the Microsoft Internet Information Services (IIS) Manager dialog box, expand the server, expand Web Sites, expand Microsoft CRM v3.0, right-click MSCRMServices, and then click Properties.
In the MSCRMServices Properties dialog box, click Configuration on the Virtual Directory tab.
In the Application Configuration dialog box, click the Mapping tab, and then click Add.
In the Add/Edit Application Extension Mapping dialog box, type the following in the Executable box:
C:\Program Files\Microsoft CRM\Server\bin\CrmIsapi.dll
In the Extension box, type .srf . In the Limit to box, type GET, POST, HEAD .
Click to select the Script engine check box and the Verify that file exists check box, and then click OK.
Click OK two times to confirm the changes.
Restart the Microsoft Dynamics CRM server, and then run the Rule Deployment Wizard.

Everything worked fine after these changes!

Steven Vlaanderen Oldenzeel - Microsoft Netherlands

Microsoft Dynamics CRM on Zune... (Part 3)

mennotk — Thu, 04 Jan 2007 15:00:00 GMT

These days we here more and more about the Zune. There actually some great reviews on the device without calling it the "iPod Killer". Other than reviews we also hear what is and could be possible with a Zune. Tweaks, Hacks or whatever you want to call it..I think it is cool!

As you probably can recall I posted an edited picture of a Zune with Microsoft Dynamics CRM on it and assuming this would be possible in the future. I guess Philip Richardson liked the idea and he took it one step further. He created his own Sync App for the Zune. It is still in Beta, but still this once again shows you what is possible with Microsoft CRM and a small device such as the Zune. You can read his posting here: http://www.philiprichardson.org/blog/post.aspx?id=200

I hope he will post some pictures of how it actually looks on the Zune.

tags: Microsoft CRM Zune Freaky

This freaky blog is 1 year old as of today

mennotk — Tue, 19 Dec 2006 12:00:00 GMT

Hi Freakz,

First of all a BIG thank you for reading my freaky posts for the past year. Exactly one year ago I started this blog and throughout this year I got more and more readers, made new friends and learned alot.

I didnt know if blogging was something for me and if I was capable enough to write posts that would be interesting enough for you guys out there. But I said to myself I should give it a serious try and try to post as much as possible for a month and then look how it will turn out. After the month went by I got addicted to blogging I guess, this because I saw I had a lot of readers in only 1 month and got great feedback through comments and emails.

I look forward to a new year full of freaky posts, but now from the other side of the pond.

Thanks!

How to fix high CPU usage with the Microsoft CRM VPC

mennotk — Fri, 15 Dec 2006 05:16:00 GMT

Lately I have been hearing a lot of partners complaining about the performance of the May VPC on Windows XP. The CPU will run to almost 100% and stays there; this happens when they start up Microsoft Outlook within the VPC. To solve this I have writen down some steps below. A little remark: No support on the below steps.

How-to fix the high CPU usage when using Windows XP and the May VPC.

Start the May VPC
On the desktop right click “My network neighborhoods” and choose properties, do the same on the Local Area Connection.
Adjust the settings as shown below.
Hit ok and ignore the message about the empty DNS entry.
Go to Virtual PC Console and open up the settings of the May VPC
Change the Network settings to “Shared networking”
Go back to the VPC and click start/shutdown/restart (Booting might take longer then usual)
If everything works make sure you save/merge the changes into your VPC if you are working with the undo disk enabled.

Your CPU usage would be normal after this when you start Outlook within the VPC image. I must say I have not encountered any of these problems on VPC 2007 with Vista as my base system.