Opinion – JenKuntz.ca

Owning up to your mistakes

It’s been a while since I wrote a non-technical post, so I thought I would share a situation that happened to me earlier this week and how I dealt with it. At the risk of coming across as a complete moron to whomever reads this, when many would simply never mention it again, I am a believer that sharing things helps others. The gist of this post is not about the mistake itself but how to own up to them, or more specifically, how I own up to them.

There are many articles about how social media makes it seem like everyone around you is doing great, the sky is always blue and the sun is always shining and how that tricks people into believing your own life is somehow abnormal or inferior. The same goes with reading or hearing about the work of people successful in their given field, you’d often think “Wow, they’re perfect, I’ll bet they never make mistakes!”. I am fortunate not to have much to complain about, but I do share both good and bad things for just that reason – to show I’m human, and to be human is to be imperfect. I make mistakes. We all make mistakes. I have learned from other people sharing their rough moments and perhaps someone will learn something from mine.

GP “Next” aka what’s in a name?

If you haven’t heard the expression “GP Next”, it’s a long-time moniker for the next “yet-to-be-named” release of Microsoft Dynamics GP. It’s a commonly used term to talk about the next version while product versioning and/or naming and/or branding details are still being sorted out, instead of referring to it by a semi-real name that changes at the last minute. It’s not like the product team picks a name and then starts working on a feature list! Hence, the short form GP “Next”.

Why am I bothering to talk about that at all? There is often confusion on forums when users see this referenced and sometimes they think that is actually the name of the next version when it’s simply a placeholder. Trust me, in the world of everyone seemingly falling over themselves to get their product in the cloud, we want people talking about “GP Next” for a long time! At least, I do! This is a great product with a deep, passionate community of users, partners and ISV vendors. As long as we’re talking about what might be in “GP Next”, that’s a good thing in my humble opinion.

GPUG All*Star 2019 Voting

This is not my typical #TipTuesday blog. I’ve missed the last 2 Tuesdays, and I promise to get back to a regular schedule by end of this summer!

In its place is my take on what I look for when considering who to vote for in the GPUG All*Star awards voting process plus a little bit about the difference between a Microsoft MVP and GPUG All*Star.

So, let’s get to it! It’s that time of year again – GPUG All*Star voting time! First, here is some background information for those of you who may not yet be familiar with these programs and awards.

Are you using what you’ve purchased?

Today’s #TipTuesday isn’t a technical tip, it’s more of a business tip. I’ve written this to be specific to Dynamics GP, although what I describe may apply to other applications and software licensing. I have not worked with licensing on any other ERP packages to know if this might be a general rule of thumb or not.

If you’ve been using Dynamics GP for any length of time, it might be worth revisiting what you’re registered for and have paid for, module/functionality-wise. It’s probably worth taking a look at this every couple of years post-implementation, particularly if you paid for things up-front with the intention of phased implementations later. Every year is probably too frequent, but every couple of years allows you time to evaluate if your master plans have changed, if you still plan to implement what you thought you would at the time of purchase.

The math works out that, on average, every 5 years you are re-purchasing your Dynamics GP software (based on a rough average of 20% annual enhancement from ISVs). This doesn’t apply to subscription-based licensing, which is paid by the month, but the vast majority of users of Dynamics GP are not on subscription licensing (or that would be my guess).

In search of the perfect credit card

A few months ago, I started re-evaluating the credit cards I was using, and checking into the benefits they offer. I was planning a big trip and have never really paid attention too much to the benefits other than the basic rewards they offer (cash back or travel points in various programs etc.). I knew friends who had used some of the warranty extension kinds of benefits, but that’s about it. It seemed like most cards advertise the same stuff – extending the warranty on certain purchases, concierge services, car rental insurance coverage, some insurances on trip cancellations and things like that. It all sounded the same to me.

I decided to make some changes, cancelling a basic card I had and looking for something with better rewards. Who knew that months later I would have gone through 3 different “new” credit cards to find the “right” one for me? I realize now how many things I never took into consideration that can make or break your experience with a credit card. Here is my story and some lessons learned that may help you too.

Prepaid Visa Card rip-off

Recently, I was given a Visa gift card from a friend, which ultimately was given to her from someone else. She’d been holding onto it for over a year, with no particular need to use it and owed me for something so offered it up since she had no cash with her at the time. I was fine with it because I would find a use for it somewhere but quite honestly, had planned to hold onto it and use it with some other things as I have a birthday coming up.

We had no idea that she was being ripped off by ridiculous fees and that the value of the card (originally $25) was now down to $16. I tried to check the balance when the card didn’t work on 3 separate attempts to use it, and found out there were $3 charges on the card each of the last 3 months. I called the number on the back of the card to ask about what the charges were, one of which was dated last week, when I had the card already but had never used it. I thought it might have been compromised, but no, that wasn’t it at all.

Changing Password Managers

Back in October last year, I posted a couple of articles around my recommendations and use of Two-Factor authentication. (Here’s part 1 and part 2 for those articles, if you’re interested in reading them.)

In my part 2 post, I indicated that I was also using a password manager and was using LastPass at the time. I have recently switched to 1Password and after posting a couple of things about that on Twitter, a few friends and followers expressed interest in knowing more about why I switched and how I would compare the two of them.

Keeping up with the MVP firehose

It’s January, which means we’re coming to the end of another contribution year for those of us Microsoft MVPs that are up for renewal on July 1st. By the end of March, we need to have submitted our contributions, and new this year, answered the four magic questions on the MVP site.

Surface Go – First Impressions

September 16, 2018
by Jen Kuntz

TL;DR summary: I like it!

I have had the Surface Go for just over 1 week now. I had been interested in it since it came out and did a lot of research on my recent trip to Fargo comparing US prices vs. CAD prices and comparing the “unique” build configuration that Costco was selling vs. what everyone else had.

Yes, I’m one of those…

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GP Tech 2018 – Day 1+

I’m back in Fargo, ND for the annual Dynamics GP Tech Conference. Today was the first day of the conference (Monday August 20th).

I arrived on Saturday morning, with very little trouble, except some minor stress of believing I might have been bumped from the 2nd leg of my flights to Fargo. It turns out, if you book in a low enough class of ticket, you aren’t assigned a seat until you are at the gate in the airport. No choice of seats, you get what you get and you’re technically on standby until then and could get bumped. Fortunately, I did not, but next time I may not be going for the absolute cheapest fare I can find.

Continue reading “GP Tech 2018 – Day 1+”

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Tag: Opinion