Reading Notes #670

Dives into the intersection of AI and development, exploring tools like GitHub Copilot’s AGENTS.md and the MCP Toolkit for automations, alongside .NET 10.0’s performance gains and OpenAI’s recent updates. Whether you’re optimizing serverless APIs with AWS Lambda or mastering the Web Animation API, this post highlights breakthroughs in code efficiency, model customization, and cloud innovation. Dive into these thought-provoking reads to stay ahead in a rapidly changing world.

Have a nice week!

Suggestion of the week

• OpenAI - 2 Updates That Might Change How You Build Software - Many new things from OpenAI. It's definitely a post to read. A lot of new things and changes that will impact our way of building stuff.

Cloud

• Building Fast Serverless APIs With Minimal APIs on AWS Lambda (Milan) - Nice post to get started with the serverless cloud AWS offering aka: lambda

AI

• Developer and AI Code Reviewer: Reviewing AI-Generated Code in .NET - .NET Blog (Wendy Breiding) - Interesting post that suggests a little twist on how to use AI to make code review with a little bit more focus.

• GitHub Copilot's starts supporting AGENTS.md: A step toward unified AI Instructions (Bart Wullems) - Nice move from GitHub to share a common instruction set across all different AI services

• Add MCP Servers to Claude Code with MCP Toolkit (Ajeet Singh Raina) - Very cool way to create automations. I have used a lot of low-code and different alternatives to create automation workflows in the past, but this mCP server interactivity is pretty awesome.

• Low-Rank Adaptation (LoRA) Explained (Ignasi Lopez Luna) - Nice post that shows how we can specialize a model ourselves for a very narrow, specific topic

Programming

• How .NET 10.0 boosted JSON Schema performance by 18% (Matthew Adams) - Another example of the gain in performance just by upgrading to the latest .NET version.

• The Web Animation API (Christian Nwamba) - It's the first time I've read about this web animation API, pretty cool even if we need to be careful, I think that precision offers could be very interesting for some animations.

Sharing my Reading Notes is a habit I started a long time ago, where I share a list of all the articles, blog posts, and books that catch my interest during the week.

If you have interesting content, share it!

~frank

Reading Notes #668

This week covers Microsoft’s open-source Agent Framework for agentic AI, prompt-injection risks and mitigations, and the causes of language model hallucinations. It also highlights NuGet package security updates, Azure SQL Data API Builder improvements, Reka’s new Parallel Thinking feature, and the latest in AI benchmarking.

Cloud

• Announcing Aspire 9.5 - .NET Blog (Jeffrey Fritz) - I'm genuinely excited to try it. Aspire is such a great tool 🔥.

Programming

• Publishing NuGet packages from GitHub actions the easy way with Trusted Publishing (Andrew Lock) - Nice post that[explains the details of this new secured process on Nuget (.NET package library)

AI

• MCP Prompt-Injection: The Trust Paradox in AI (Saurabh Davala, Sundeep Gottipati) - This is a good post to learn to start learning about the real danger. To be aware of the potential risk and learning about what we can do.

• Why language models hallucinate - Very interesting post that explains the reason why we still have hallucinations and how it works

• Introducing Parallel Thinking for Reka Research (reka) - New feature released that improves the performance of our web research, fantastic!

• Measuring the performance of our models on real-world tasks - Interesting idea of benchmark looking forward to see how evolves

• Introducing Microsoft Agent Framework: The Open-Source Engine for Agentic AI Apps (Takuto , Shawn , Elijah) - Nice evolution of semantic kernel and AutoGen. It comes hot supporting .NET and Python.

Databases

• Data API builder 1.6: Advanced Behaviors with Special HTTP Headers (Jerry Nixon) - Nice quick post about more advanced features on the data API builder (aka DAB)

Miscellaneous

• We all have a choice (Salma Alam-Maylor) - It's all in the title
  

Sharing my Reading Notes is a habit I started a long time ago, where I share a list of all the articles, blog posts, and books that catch my interest during the week.

If you have interesting content, share it!

~frank

Reading Notes #667

This week post explores the intersection of AI, cloud, and DevOps, featuring updates on Microsoft’s Logic Apps integration, practical .NET tools for system automation, and strategies to enhance documentation for AI-driven workflows. Whether you’re refining enterprise security practices with NuGet’s Trusted Publishing or diving into the ethical nuances of AI through vector databases, this post offers a blend of technical deep dives and thought-provoking discussions. Don’t miss the podcast highlights, from DevOps innovation to the business impact of employee well-being, perfect for developers, architects, and curious minds alike. Let’s connect the dots in a world where code, creativity, and collaboration drive progress.

Programming

• sleep-pc: a .NET Native AOT tool to make Windows sleep after a timeout (Andrew Lock) - Nice post, just like I like them explaining what works, what didn',t building an application, fixing a real-life issue.

• DOCX Meets Markdown: Preparing Enterprise Documents for AI (Bjoern Meyer) - I have been using Pandoc for years, but this also look like an nice tool.

AI

• Prompt Files and Instructions Files Explained - .NET Blog (Wendy Breiding) - One question I often hear is how can I tell Copilot the standard and conventions my enterprise uses. Well, now I can send them to this post. Well done!

• Here’s how to turn off Copilot (Mark Downie) - Thank you Mark for this post. Let me send you some people too😉

DevOps

• New Trusted Publishing enhances security on NuGet.org (Evgeny , Sean) - This tutorial explains how to use the new process with the 1h token for improved security.

Podcasts

• 113. Vector Databases and RAG for Grounding AI in Reliable Data - with Christian Peeters (Betatalks the podcast) - Great episode on tech education and how vector databases/RAG make AI more trustworthy with real data

• ohn Bristowe: The Latest from Octopus Deploy - Episode 368 (Azure & DevOps Podcast) - Loved this episode, I don't know a lot about Octopus. Discussing deployment pipelines, AI integration in DevOps, and the evolution from manual weekend deployments to automated, reliable workflows.

• The business case for employee well-being (Modern Mentor) - Really enjoyed this episode on how workplace wellbeing isn't just about perks but building better work systems that boost both results and employee experience

• Becoming A Podcast Guest Magnet: Sharing The Benefits Of Guesting On A Podcast (Feed Your Brand) - Packed episode on how to make your podcast irresistible to high-profile guests by focusing on what's in it for them and turning your show into a guest magnet.

• Making Video Games in 2025 with Celeste's Noel Berry (Hanselminutes with Scott Hanselman) - Cool episode about the tech-behind-the-scene of building indie games. I had so many WHATS!? listening to this one.

Miscellaneous

• Microsoft Introduces Logic Apps as MCP Servers in Public Preview - InfoQ (Steef-Jan Wiggers) - Interesting idea, I can totally see how an AI agent could use different workflows to start processes or get information and continue pretty cool

• llms.txt: Robots.txt for Docs in the AI Era (Dewan Ahmed) - Oh nice! Let's update this on our websites.

Sharing my Reading Notes is a habit I started a long time ago, where I share a list of all the articles, blog posts, and books that catch my interest during the week.

If you have interesting content, share it!

~frank

Reading Notes #659

This week's reading notes cover a variety of insightful topics, from enhancing your development environment with dev containers on Windows to prioritizing open-source bugs effectively. You'll also find helpful posts on integrating MFA into your login process, exploring RavenDB's vector search capabilities, and understanding the differences between Ask Mode and Agent Mode in Visual Studio.

Happy reading!

A wild turkey in my driveway!?

Suggestion of the week

• Supercharge Your Dev Containers on Windows (Mike Evans-Larah) - A great simple tip that can improve your experience while developing.

Databases

• Using Vector Search for Posts Recommendations (Oren Eini) - Cool demo using Raven DB

Programming

• Why You Should Incorporate MFA into Your Login Process (Suzanne Scacca) - You think the answer is simple, think again. Nice post that explains the difference between 2FA and MFA and why you should or should not implement one of those

• Aspire Dashboard (Joseph Guadagno) - Great deep dive about the Aspire dashboard, learn all the features packed inside it

Open Source

• How I Prioritize OSS Bugs (jeremydmiller) - A very instructive post on a real-life issue. It's harder than people think to prioritize. And it may help you write better bug reports...

AI

• Ask Mode vs Agent Mode - Choosing the Right Copilot Experience for .NET ( Wendy Breiding) - Still not sure what mode to pick in VSCode? Here is a quick post to clarify the options.

• MCP server integration in Visual Studio (Mark Downie) - Great update! That security stuff is very important and a good example using get up to store your tokens love it

Sharing my Reading Notes is a habit I started a long time ago, where I share a list of all the articles, blog posts, and books that catch my interest during the week. 

If you have interesting content, share it! 

~frank

Reading Notes #652

This week, we explore a variety of topics, from database containerization and AI security risks to the evolving landscape of gaming devices and cloud technologies. We also explore the shift towards security-first development and the integration of .NET Aspire with SQL Server for integration testing.

Let's dive in!

Suggestion of the week

• GitHub MCP Exploited: Accessing private repositories via MCP (Marco Milanta, Luca Beurer-Kellner) - AI tools are very powerful but also pretty new in our lives. It's important to stay up to date and understand the risks. Not scared, but to see the potential flaws and how to avoid them.

Cloud

• Azure Container Apps vs AKS: Which Is Right for Your Enterprise Application? (Chris Pietschmann) - This post answers a common question about those two services.

Programming

• Beyond DevSecOps: The Rise of Security-First Development (Industry Perspectives) - DevSecOps was a wake-up call, and we need to build our app security first. That seems to make sense, right? Have a read of this post to dig deeper into this idea and understand its foundation

• .NET Aspire dev-time orchestration for SQL Server integration tests (Ian Griffiths) - First post of a series about the spire and database, this one just set the initial setup. Stay tuned for more

Databases

• Running a MySQL database in a Docker Container (Mercy Bassey) - Running databases in a container is a real game changer for developers.

Miscellaneous

• SteamOS puts the pressure on Microsoft’s Xbox-branded handheld (Tom Warren) - Gaming devices are in a completely different world, and, normally, all OS need to adapt. A fascinating post about steamOS and the future of Windows in that scope

~frank

Reading Notes #644

This post gathers my recent reading notes on artificial intelligence, programming, and a few inspiring podcasts. It includes links to articles, tutorials, and fascinating discussions. Whether you're interested in the latest AI developments, .NET tools, or modern architectures, there's plenty here to spark your curiosity. 

Happy reading!

AI

• Microsoft Copilot in Azure is now generally available | Microsoft Community Hub (Ruhiyyih Mahalati) - Oh wow! That was fast! If you haven't tried it yet, you should it's extremely useful and quick. Ask something about your resources or services you would like to use.

• Build a Model Context Protocol (MCP) server in C# - .NET Blog (James Montemagno) - A nice tutorial about the MCP server and how to use one in VSCode

Programming

• Generating architecture diagrams from .NET Aspire resources at publish time (Anthony Simmon) - This is one new feature that will be so useful. How many times did I need to refer to a diagram that was outdated.

• Exploring new .NET releases with Dev Containers - .NET Blog (Mike Kistler) - Really cool trick shared in this post. Yes, trying the new version in a container but how that container is build; that's cool!

• .NET Aspire 9.2 is Now Available with New Ways to Deploy - .NET Blog (Jeffrey Fritz) - This week was the release of Aspire new version, and it's packed with many features. The launch party video is also very interesting.

• Aspire: A Platform for Reusable Infrastructure (David Fowler) - For once, I think Aspire is the perfect name because it's inspiring.

• How we ended up rewriting NuGet Restore in .NET 9 - .NET Blog (The NuGet Team) - A very interesting article that explains how a tool that all .NET developers use got rewritten

• Porting Code with LLMs (Mark Heath) - It's always interesting to see how people use AI to help them do their work. Love it!

Podcasts

• Per Kops: Architecture of Ollama and Local LLMs - Episode 342 (Azure & DevOps Podcast) - An interesting discussion about Olama (local LLMs), .NET architecture, and Semantic Kernel.

• Vertical Slice Architecture with Jeremy Miller (.NET Rocks!) - This episode is about Vertical Slice Architecture, what it is, when it makes sense to use it, and some comparisons with the others that we know.

Sharing my Reading Notes is a habit I started a long time ago, where I share a list of all the articles, blog posts, and books that catch my interest during the week. 

If you have interesting content, share it!

~Frank

Reading Notes #604

It's reading notes time! It is a habit I started a long time ago, where I share a list of all the articles, blog posts, and books that catch my interest during the week. 

You also read something you liked? Share it!

 

Cloud

• Azure Communication Services May 2024 Feature Updates (Daysha Carter) - Wow many great new features in this update.

• Logic App Consumption: How to set an API connection to use Logic Apps Managed Identity inside Visual Studio 2019 – SANDRO PEREIRA BIZTALK BLOG (Sandro Pereira) - I love those true life story where the author shares how they solved a real-life problems.

Programming

• Blazor Basics: 9 Best Practices for Building Blazor Web Apps (Claudio Bernasconi) - This post shares best practices. They are simple to follow but very impactful.

• Performant, Secure, and Versatile Containers (Savannah Ostrowski,Sohan Maheshwar) - Cool! It's time to try it, only one switch to flip..

• An introduction to primary constructors in C#12 (Andrew Lock) - Wow! This post dig into what can and cannot do the new constructors in C#. Example by example trying more complex scenarios, fascinating!

DevOps

• Use Azure DevOps Pipelines as a Serverless Compute Engine (Chris Pietschmann) - Do you know or use Azure DevOps Pipeline? They can read your code from most source repository and will execute tasks for you. Like CI-CD as explains in this post.

Miscellaneous

• Introducing Plans on Microsoft Learn (Kaberi Bell) - Would it be to be a data engineer, AI specialist, app builder there's a plan for you and that's a very cool new feature on learn have a look this blog post explain all of it

• How Do You Measure Developer Experience? (Jennifer Riggins) - An interesting article about what and how measure performance. I didn't know so many system and details concepts were that detailed.

• Windows Terminal Preview 1.21 Release (Christopher Nguyen) - Tons of new features again and I love| seeing all those community contributions.

~Frank

Reading Notes #598

It's reading notes time! It is a habit I started a long time ago, close to 600 weeks ago in fact, where I share a list of all the articles, blog posts, and books that catch my interest during the week. 

If you think you may have interesting content, share it!

Cloud

• What is cloud native and how can it generate business value? (George Fitzmaurice) - Interesting thoughts about cloud native, how to see it, how to se it's value.

• Using Kudu in Azure to Debug an Azure Function (Paul Michaels) - Kudu is a fantastic tools that not enough people know about.

Programming

• Is Your Container Image Really Distroless? (Laurent Goderre) - Nice post that explains a new way to improve security and more while building our container by going distroless.

• Blazor Basics: Improved Performance with Component Virtualization (Claudio Bernasconi) - When applicable the lazy loading makes a huge difference. This simple tutorial explains how things works and has all the code to back it up.

• Azure PowerShell Tips and Tricks (Paul Harrison) - PowerShell is a very interesting and useful script language.All those tips are pure wisdom!

DevOps

• Beautiful .NET Test Reports Using GitHub Actions (Sean Killeen) - It's true that the unit test result in Azure DevOps looks amazing. Pretty nice adaptation in GitHub Action, could/ should it be native?

Open Source

• Linus Torvalds announces Linux 6.8 (Brian Fagioli) - Nice post.I feel we see more often distro new release making "the e news".

• Debian’s Dedication to Security: A Robust Foundation for Docker Developers (David Dooling) - Happy to see such a fundamental distribution take seriously security as core idea.

AI

• Building a Video Analysis and Transcription Chatbot with the GenAI Stack (David Cardozo) - This post explains a very cool project with generative AI and docker in different technology, very inspiring!

~Frank

Reading Notes #578

It is time to share new reading notes. It is a habit I started a long time ago where I share a list of all the articles, blog posts, and books that catch my interest during the week. 

If you think you may have interesting content, share it!

Cloud

• Wolverine and Serverless (Jeremy d Miller) - The secrets is in the details! Wolverine is good with persistent environment, learn how to fine-tune it so its also good in short live (aka serverless) environment.

• What Is Open Source's Role in Platform Engineering? (Pete Lilley) - This post why should we spend time learning platform engineering.

Programming

• Introduction to Git, GitHub, and Version Control​ workshop-o-matic Library () - Git is a powerful tool.This post share a bit of what it is how it works and talk about other source control.

• Creating Animated Login UI in .NET MAUI with Lottie (John Aziz) - Nice post that shows how to make good looking login screen with animation. Because with does it need to be plain?!

• Docker Desktop 4.25: Enhancements to Docker Desktop on Windows, Rosetta for Linux GA, and New Docker Scout Image Analysis Settings (Mihaela Stoica) - Woot woot! Nice performance improvement... Congrats to the team.

• How to Determine URL a Local Git Repository was Originally Cloned From (Chris Pietschmann) - Neat tips and its simple.

Podcasts

• Defining a Database with Tony Baer (Screaming in the Cloud) - I was smiling all along that episode. It's such a great question! There a so many variation of databases these days and different data sources!
• 66. Developing critical thinking skills and choosing different technologies - with Laïla Bougriâ (Betatalks the podcast) - Whatever it's a new project, the middle of it, or the refactoring of an old one, communication ans sharing the information is so important. And listening too! Nice episode.
• Failing Well with Dr. Amy Edmondson (A Bit of Optimism) - It's all about how we can change our relationship with failures and start “failing well”. I like that! She's the author of Right Kind of Wrong, a new addition to my to-read stack.
• J. Tower: Modernization Strangler Fig Pattern - Episode 263 (Azure DevOps Podcast) - Modernization could seams simple... right? But it's not! There are many traps. There many challenges that are waiting for you and you need to to the things for the right reasons. Nice episode.

Miscellaneous

• Discover What's New in PowerToys v0.75.0: Environment Variables, Peek Updates, and More (Kunal Chowdhury) - Oh wow! A lot of pretty cool updates, I need to try the environment variables editor...

~ Frank Boucher

Reading Notes #569

It is time to share new reading notes. It is a habit I started a long time ago where I share a list of all the articles, blog posts, and books that catch my interest during the week. 

If you think you may have interesting content, share it!

Cloud

• Stream videos from Azure Blob storage with ASP.NET Core (Mark Heath) - A great end-to-end tutorial leveraging cost-efficient Azure resources.

• Using ETags and Patching Rows in Azure Table Storage (Mark Heath) - Nice post that shows us simply and quickly how to manage conflicts when using Azure Table Storage.

Programming

• Speed up Visual Studio load times with Microsoft Dev Box (Greg Denton) - Woooo! Speed... From our Visual Studio that runs locally or remote via DevBox, awesome.

• Adding a “share to mastodon” link to any web site – and here (Christian Heilmann) - I didn't think about it but it's true that there are many different URLs with Mastodon... This post shares the code for one of the solutions to solve this issue.

Miscellaneous

• Unleash Your Inner Entrepreneur with MS FounderHub: AI-Based Startups with Azure OpenAI Services (Lee Stott) - Motivating post to do something. So many have great ideas and just sit on it... With today's technology, many blockers can be removed...

~ Frank

Reading Notes #566

It is time to share new reading notes. It is a habit I started a long time ago where I share a list of all the articles, blog posts, and books that catch my interest during the week. 

 If you think you may have interesting content, share it!

 

Cloud

• What is the difference between the Azure Command Line Interface and Azure Developer Command Line Interface? (Liam Conroy Hampton) - I keep telling myself I should give it a try. That new AZD CLI seems pretty sick. No more excuses for my next project.

• Azure OpenAI Landing Zone reference architecture (Freddy Ayala) - Using Open AI or planning to do it this post shares a great list of Azure services that will help you do it effectively and securely.

Low Code

• Power Automate Apply To Each Loops 20X Faster (Matthew Devaney) - Smart way to gain performance, but make sure to do your homework and validate the connector limits and adjust the variables.

Data

• Learn about Microsoft Fabric for Data Analytics (Koen Verbeeck) - Learn more about this new one-stop service that was announced during Microsoft Build.

Miscellaneous

• GitHub Repository Rules are now generally available - The GitHub Blog (Patrick Knight) - Wow! very interesting... Great update!

~Frank

Reading Notes #564

Monday! It is time to share my reading notes. It is a habit I started a long time ago where I share a list of all blog posts that catch my interest during the week. 

If you think you may have interesting content, share it!

 

Cloud

• How To: Remote Debug a Deployed Azure Function using Visual Studio 2022 (Jamie Maguire) - Because sometimes the only solution is to debug live from the cloud. It's great that it's possible.

• Enabling Azure Application Insights for an App Service (David Giard) - It's one of those tools it's right there and you didn't know you couldn't live without until you try it and you get all that information.

DevOps

• Modifying Docker images during Kubernetes deployments (Matthew Casperson) - This is a very detailed tutorial that helps and explains clearly each step of that deployment pipeline.

Programming

• Tech Notes: Quick hacks on GitHub Pages (Evan Martin) - Nice git tricks.

• Debugging distributed systems is hard! (Dennis Frühauff) - This is a very nice post that explains clearly a situation. How many of us have been in this situation before where you try to debug a system and it's just so hard?

• Healthcare and Life Sciences Blog (Kyle Raymond) - This is a cool tutorial/ example that explains what is and how to use semantic Kernel.

Data

• Speeding up Queries with Materialized Views (Derek Comartin) - Great post that will inspire us on how to get the best performance for our databases.

~Frank

Reading Notes #473

Every Monday, I share my "reading notes". Those are a curated list of all the articles, blog posts, podcast episodes, and books that catch my interest during the week and that I found interesting. It's a mix of the actuality and what I consumed.

You think you may have interesting content, share it!

Suggestion of the week

• Transform C# objects to a flat string dictionary (Josef Ottoson) - I love so much those developer's coding journey. We learn so much more than if only the "happy path " was shared. Great post thank you for sharing.

Cloud

• Develop production-scale modern web apps quickly with Azure Static Web Apps (Daria Grigoriu) - Nice summary of what is an Azure Static web app and what and all the included features since it reached Global Availability this week.
• The New Azure Logo - Microsoft Azure Icon (Abhijit Jana) - This is my favorite so far.
• Using Auth0 with Static Web Apps (Aaron Powell) - Ah wonderful! I noticed this new feature in Azure static web App this week. This post details how it works and gives a great example.

Programming

• VS Code shortcuts that you must know! (Mac and Windows) (Raynaldo Sutisna) - Learning new shortcuts is always nice.
• 4 Tips on How to Refactor Code in Visual Studio Code (Alex Omeyer) - Nice! I didn't know about that cool extension.
• 5 Ways to Improve the Performance of C# Code for Free (Sasha Mathews) - Interesting deep dive in the performance of our code and the why it goes fast or could go faster.
• Add a README to Your NuGet Package (Christopher Gill) - Now I understand! I noticed that, earlier this week, and thought: Wow, this is wonderful, why they are not all doing that! Now it all makes sense.
• How To Customize Azure DevOps Projects Process Templates? (Abhijit Jana) - Azure DevOps is a very very powerful tool. This post and video will show you how to start customizing it.
• What Do You Mean By Automated Tests And Continuous Integration? (Charles L Flatt) - Great answer.

Podcasts

• Bonus: Understanding Digital Body Language (Modern Mentor) - That we wanted or not, we need to get better with those new tools: the webcam, the microphone. We need to understand how to use them correctly and how to understand what the person on the other hand is really sharing. Great episode.
• Social Robots with De'Aira Bryant (Hanselminutes with Scott Hanselman) - Okay I crack at... If only they knew! A very interesting episode about... yes robots!
• Write Great APIs (Coding Blocks) - What's an API, what's a good API, why it's good, or why it's bad... Great episode that may me think... I really need to get back to my code and update a few things.

~frank

Reading Notes #287

Cloud

• .NET: Manage Azure Container Service, Cosmos DB, Active Directory Graph and more (Asir Selvasingh) - I'm a bit scared about this .Net new feature, but at the same time curious to see where it will go.
• Azure Redis Cache Geo-Replication in Public Preview (Ye Gu) - Nice tutorial that will help to have a better disaster recovery plan.
• Deploying Applications to Azure Container Service (atulm) - Great tutorial to start orchestrating containers on Azure.
• Designing Globally Resilient Apps with Azure App Service – Opsgility (Chris Pietschmann) - Great post that lists a lot of tools available in Azure to get a better architecture for your solution.
• Enhanced app usage monitoring and investigative features in Azure Application Insights (Rahul Bagaria) - Wow, so many new features, exactly what I needed!
• Microsoft’s Logic Apps Aims to Bring Serverless Functionality to Non-Coders (Mark Boyd) - Nice post that gives a glimpse at the Logic Apps future.
• Receive emails from Azure WebJobs when errors are detected (Vivien Chevallier) - Nice tutorial that explains how to manage error in a webjob and implement the best practices.

Programming

• Docker for .NET Developers (Part 4) - Steve Gordon's Blog (Steve Gordon) - This post of the series explains the Docker file and few useful commands. I really like this series.
• Porting a 15 year old .NET 1.1 Virtual CPU Tiny Operating System school project to .NET Core 2.0 (Scott Hanselman) - We all have those prehistoric pieces of code, and it required lots of courage to share them with the public. However, what all of us learn from it, is priceless. Thank you, Scott.
• Speed of dotnet run vs the speed of dotnet for published apps (plus self-contained .NET Core apps) (Scott Hanselman) - Great post that explains a few differences between the published and just builds performance.

Miscellaneous

• How to Get into the Habit of Time Tracking - Toggl Blog (Liza Plotnikova) - I don't count the times where Toogl "saved my life" when it was time to do my timesheet. A tool to try.

Reading Notes #263

Cloud

• Announcing: New Auto-Scaling Standard Streaming Endpoint and Enhanced Azure CDN Integration (Cenk Dingiloglu) - Great, now integrated.
  
• Azure Storage Queues New Feature: Pop-Receipt on Add Message (Sercan Guler) - This post shows how to use the new queue feature in a great demo.
  
• SoftNAS Cloud® on Azure - Cloud NAS Storage made easy (Lutful Khandker) - Interesting product that clearly fill-up a need in the online storage. Let's talk about it after the 30-day trial.

Programming

• Two-Factor authentication in ASP.NET Identity 3 using TOTP authenticator (Dominique St-Armand) - Excellent post, perfect to get started on 2 factor authentication.
  
• What .NET Developers ought to know to start in 2017 (Scott Hanselman) - Nice work from John and Scott... Sweet checklist for beginners and all the other too.

Databases

• Azure SQL Database is increasing read and write performance (Jan Engelsberg) - Perfect timing! Better performance for the same price.

Reading Notes #220

Suggestion of the week

• Microsoft Azure IoT Reference Architecture - Great post that explains part in IoT and micro-services with their respective roles.

Cloud

• Azure Search .NET SDK roadmap (Bruce Johnston) - All in one post, the list of new features and the ones coming next.
  
• What is Azure Stack? - Usually, we refer to the stack as a group of products from the same provider. Azure stack is a little of that, but with a little twist... it's on-premises! This post explains it all.
  
• Azure welcomes Parse developers (Glenn Gailey) - Interesting server who is now well supported in Azure.
  
• Azure Logic Apps Monthly Update – January 2016 (Sriram Hariharan) - Nice summary of the Logic App team's January video updates.

Programming

• Application Insights announces availability of Release Annotations (Mike Gresley) - A useful feature that is explained in this post.
  
• Why I No Longer Use MVC Frameworks - Very complete and moreover, very interesting article about strengths and weaknesses of different patterns and frameworks.
  
• Introducing Insiders Builds (Chris Dias [MSFT]) - The Insider's previews are back in a more convivial structure.

Data

• General availability: Azure SQL Database Query Performance Insight - What an awesome tool that gives us the ability to get the biggest resources consumer over a long period... and that, without redeploying.
  
• Queries To Debug SQL Server Replication Issues (Tim Smith) - If you are using database synchronization in your system, you should definitely bookmark this post that provides nice tools to us to diagnose problems.

Book

• Software Development Book Giveaway! - Cool! A great opportunity, 3 free books are given: Building Microservices, Working Effectively with Legacy Code, and Javascript: The Good Parts.

Miscellaneous

• GitHub Pages now faster and simpler with Jekyll 3.0 - Important changes announced for github and Jerkel users. And alternatively an important note to al Markdown users.

Reading Notes #149

Cloud

• Using the Internal Load-Balancer with Azure Virtual Machines - Fantastic post that explains how we can use the internal load balancer in Azure. Even the PowerShell scripts are included.
  
• Using Reserved IP Addresses with Microsoft Azure Virtual Machines - Nice PowerShell scripts and comments to help us with our Azure fixed IP.

Programming

• Free eBook on Model View View Model design pattern (Surf4Fun) - MVVM is a very useful pattern, so a free e-book on he topic is a good news!
  
• Unusual Ways of Boosting Up App Performance. Boxing and Collections - Interesting post that explains how to find and fix different memory issue in our application.

Miscellaneous

• How To Come up with Great Ideas for Blog Posts, Every Single Time - Good advice to fight the white page situation.

Reading Notes #142

Suggestion of the week

• How To Refactor for Dependency Injection -- Visual Studio Magazine (Ondrej Balas) - I really liked this post. Seriously, I'll be referring to it each time someone will be asking why we should use IoC.

Programming

• Web Performance Optimization is Simple - Can Your Developers Execute? (love2dev.com) - Nice post that explained why knowing more than a hello word is important.
  
• Announcing Update to Productivity Power Tools 2013 - Ah. Great.
  
• The Magic of using Asynchronous Methods in ASP.NET 4.5 plus an important gotcha (Scott Hanselman) - This post explains very clearly how we should do our async call in a web app.
  
• Using Asynchronous Methods in ASP.NET MVC 4 - Great tutorial that covers everything we need to know about async in a web application context.
  
• Test Plan and Test Suite Customization with TFS2013 Update3 (Manoj Bableshwar) - Visual studio is already to update 3! This post shows one of the new feature that was the most requested by users.
  
• Becoming SOLID in C# - Really interesting article that encoureage us to know more about SOLID principles in C#.
  
• Change Risk Anti-Patterns & Code Complexity - This post explains an interesting method to calculate the risk of your code when facing changes.

Mobile

• Xamarin.Forms - Write Once, Run Everywhere, AND Be Native? (Scott Hanselman) - Very interesting post that proved how amazing Xamarin is becoming.

Miscellaneous

• 5 Ways Your Business Can Benefit from Agile Engineering Practices Today - A really interesting article that explains an concept in a simple way.
  
• Waterfall to Agile (Andy Watson, B. Clay Shannon JD Meier) - I likethis post because it shows strong images to explains the difference between waterfall and agile.
  
• Self-Improvement In Agile Teams - Interesting post about how we should think when we feel to do something more, in an agile team.