I Need Coffee - Episode 174 - Weekly BC Review!

1. Morning Routine and Podcast Setup:
   - The podcast opens with a cheerful morning greeting, marking August 1st, 2025, as a new month and reflecting on the adventures of July.
   - Steve welcomes listeners, including mentions of "Excel" and "Mo," and confirms audio functionality, setting a casual and engaging tone.

2. Personal Anecdotes and Weekend Activities:
   - Coffee Grinder Challenges: The host discusses a Eureka Minion Zero espresso coffee grinder, highlighting how a 20-micron calibration issue affects performance. A second, better-calibrated grinder revealed the limitations of the first, underscoring the learning curve in high-end equipment.
   - Cat and Screen Repair: Shares a humorous story about the cat punching through a window screen to confront a neighborhood stray, leading to the steve replacing the screen, a task likened to the tediousness of sprinkler repairs.

3. Business Central (BC) and Professional Challenges:
   - ERP Knowledge Limitations: Emphasizes that no single person can master all aspects of ERP systems like Business Central due to their complexity, reflecting on 20+ years of experience and skepticism about claims of comprehensive expertise in multiple ERP platforms.

4. Technology and Tools:
   - Sonic Wall Cloud Secure Edge (CSE): Testing a SaaS-based VPN solution to replace traditional VPN appliances, with features like routing all traffic through the VPN. Tests showed varied IP locations (e.g., Oregon, North Carolina), but some services flagged Google data center traffic as high-risk, prompting further investigation.


5. Travel and Logistics:
   - Affordable Flight to El Salvador: Booked a round-trip flight from LA to El Salvador for $384, the cheapest yet, due to off-peak August travel and gold elite status with Avianca’s LifeMiles program, offering benefits like free checked bags and seat upgrades.


6. Global Business Insights:
   - Apple’s Manufacturing Shift: Notes a Slashdot article about India becoming the top supplier of US-bound Apple smartphones (44% of shipments vs. China’s 25%), driven by supply chain diversification and India’s import restrictions, with rapid scaling since 2022–2023.

7. Team Management and Practice Challenges:
   - Practice Management Analogy: Likens managing a team to Bobby Fischer playing 50 simultaneous chess games in 1964, requiring rapid context-switching across diverse issues (e.g., RDLC reports, data entry, support tickets, BC upgrades, telemetry, Continia).

8. Team Updates and Projects:
   - Joselyn: Tackled a check layout with excessive detail that the customer ultimately didn’t need, and is working on a complex BC pick list, described as a challenging task.
   - David: Managing a messy data migration with thousands of items and attributes, plus report layouts using monospace fonts, leading to font discussions.
   - Ronald: Advancing with Continia document capture implementation, showing 

9. Berlin Updates:
   - Laptop Purchases: Acquired two near-mint ThinkPad T470s for $110 and $215, plus $57 for batteries, totaling $382, for use by E4CC English students and as office spares in Berlin, El Salvador. Praised their durability in harsh conditions.


10. Upcoming Events:
    - Summit NA: October 20–23, 2025, in Orlando, Florida.
    - Directions AMIA: November 4–6, 2025, in Poland (directionsforpartners.com).
    - Dynamics Con Regionals: Meetups in Denver, Dublin (Ohio), Copenhagen, and Dallas in August and September 2025.
    - Summit NA Road Shows: Madison and Nashville in August, Charlotte in September, Houston and Fort Lauderdale in December.