Reading Notes #75

Cloud

• Bulk Database Migration from On-Premise SQL Server to SQL Azure - Step 1: Bulk .bacpac Export - First post of a series about exporting many databases on-premise to move then in Azure with a script of course.
• Azure VMs - Managing, Resizing & Interacting with VHDs! (David Baliles) - Nice post, with some good tips and tricks about Azure VM.
• 3 best practices for Windows Azure SQL Reporting development (Craig Kitterman) - Simple rules easy to apply that will make your project to follow best practices.
• Windows Azure IaaS Webcast Series: Part Four Creating Virtual Machines with PowerShell (Michael Washam) - Good serie of webcast series (video) that cover a lot about Azure virtual machine.
• Migrating from a relational to a NoSQL cloud database - Good advices about things to think before doing a migration from relational database to NoSQL.
• Windows Azure Active Directory Supports JSON Web Tokens (Alex Simons) - Good news, more features with Windows Azure Active Directory.
• Updated: Known Issues for Windows Azure Storage Client Library 2.0 for .NET and Windows Runtime - Keep tracks of the changes on the library. The team is working hard to fix these issues.
• Amazon Redshift - The New AWS Data Warehouse - Learn more about the brand-new Redshift from Amazon and how this new AWS data warehouse could help you.
• Monitoring Windows Azure with Foglight (James Newton-King) - That looks like a really good tool. I must try it... Stay tune…
• I Could Sure Use Some Windows Azure Code Samples… (Buck Woody) - Learn more about all the tools and code samples easily (and freely) available for you.
• Windows Azure Active Directory: Making it easier to establish Identity Management in the cloud - Great news about Active directory that announce free features.
• Using existing database with Azure Mobile Services - Nice trick that gives the opportunity to works with Windows Azure Mobile Services and existent database.
• Welcome Windows Azure Insider - Learn more about a new Azure column in the MSDN Magazine and about its authors.
• Windows Azure Service Bus: Messaging Patterns Using Sessions - Great article that explains how to build a messaging application with the Azure Service Bus using Topic. A great complement to the Servise Bus Lab in the Windows Azure Training Kit (WATK).
• Azure table storage WCF custom transport channel (Dustin Metzgar) - Nice post with a full coded solution that explains how to use Azure storage with WCF.
• Managing Multiple Windows Azure Web Site Environments using Visual Studio Publishing Profiles - Nice post that explains how to get the maximum of the publish profiles of Visual Studio and Azure.

Integration

• worldwide integration alliance announced - Congratulation to Breeze, Codit and Matricis Informatique for this worldwide alliance. Long life to Impack Alliance!
• Exploring REST Capabilities of BizTalk Server 2013: Exposing REST Endpoints - Great tutorial that explores the REST features of BizTalk 2013 with synch and asynch processes.
• Exploring REST Capabilities of BizTalk Server 2013: Consuming REST Endpoints - Second part of a nice tutorial. This time exploring how to consume services (Get, Delete).
• BizTalk Summit 2012, Redmond–Experience (Saravana Kumar) - Quick summary of what happens at the BizTalk Summit this year. More to come...
• BizTalk Server 2013 Image Available on Windows Azure Virtual Machines - Hurray! It finally arrive! Quick go to Windows Azure portal.
• BizTalk Mapper Patterns: How to map values from a repeating node into a single node using conditions – Again a great post to improve our mapping skills. Most of the time the clients prefer that we keep using only the functoids. This post may gives you arguments to go other ways and get real performance.

Programming

• Full Tagging Support Now Available in the Readability API (David Sleight) - Yeah! It's time to update my script. More to come in a future blog post.
• Updating my Windows Phone App to Windows Phone 8 (Scott Hanselman) - Nice tutorial that highlight some key features that need to be addressed in order to build a nice Windows Phone 8 applications.
• Comparing two techniques in .NET Asynchronous Coordination Primitives (Scott Hanselman) - The logical following of the previous post ... in this one Scott is comparing different methods to do async.
• Announcing the ASP.NET and Web Tools 2012.2 Release Candidate (Scott Gu)- Details on what's in the new Entity Framework EF 6 beta 2.
• Do You Really Want To Be Agile? (Marc Clifton) - A long but very complete post/story/tutorial about building an application using agile.
• SQL Server Data-Tier Application Framework (November 2012) Available - More details about what new or fixed in the new release of DACFx.
• ASP.NET and Web Tools 2012.2 (Release Candidate) (Scott Hanselman) - Learn more about the new release of web tools that the asp.net team move to open source. And if you ever want to know why they’re doing that, this is the post to read.

Miscellaneous

• Big Data - Very interesting thoughts about what should be "smart application" today since the so much information is easily accessible thru Big Data.
• Try Meditation to Strengthen Your Resilience - If the resilience is good for our code, it should be good for ourselves too!? Nice post that tip-off how to improve our resilience.
• Windows Surface RT: Pros & Cons (John Brandon) - Interesting thoughts about popularity in the tablet device word.
• How to be a Consultant, Part 5: Verbal Communication Skills (David Pallmann) - Great add-on to the serie: How to be a Consultant. This post gives good tips to improve the communication skills. This is for everyone since nobody works alone in his basement without seeing someone once in a while.
• Painting the Walls, with IdeaPaint - What a nice idea! We always need more space on the dry board...

~Frank

Reading Notes #67

Cloud

• Cloudy Thoughts by SyntaxC4 - Nice post that demonstrate where are the environment variables base on different languages.
• Windows 8 and the Cloud: Better Together (David Pallmann) - Good post that told how and why it a good thing to use Windows Azure to leverage your Windows 8 applications.
• .NET Framework 4.5 Support in Windows Azure Web Sites (Channel 9) - Nice video podcast about new feature in Windows Azure and what you should do with your web/worker roles.
• Windows Azure Mobile Services: New support for iOS apps, Facebook/Twitter/Google identity, Emails, SMS, Blobs, Service Bus and more - Great news! This new features will gives a lot more of flexibility. And all these are already available for iOS!! That major. Good job.

[…]Read this getting started tutorial to walkthrough how you can build (in less than 5 minutes) a simple Windows 8 “To-do List” app that is cloud enabled using Windows Azure Mobile Services. Or watch this video of me showing how to do it step by step.[…]

• Windows Azure Training Kit – October 2012 - This post present what’s new in this update and gives the new GitHub link of the Windows Azure Training Kit.
• Blob Storage and Shared Access Signatures (Stephen Kaufman Stephen Kaufman Microsoft MSFT 6,797 Points 1 2 1 Recent Achievements Blogger III Blog Conversation Starter Blogger II View Profile) - Useful tutorial that explain how to setup a shared access signatures in c#.
• Modifying the contents of cscfg file while deploying a cloud service with PowerShell (18 2012 Ercenk October) - Great script! Must keep this in our tool box...
• Implementing Entity Services using NoSQL – Part 1: Outline - Nice post, first of a series that explains a Java project to build a Data Services using NoSql.
• Cloud Cover Show Episode 91 - Windows Azure Mobile Services Updates – Very nice good demo about some mobile new capabilities and a big tease for the next episode 92…

Integration

• What’s new in BizTalk360 version 5.0? Available for immediate download (Saravana Kumar) - Nice post that explain the 5 major new features in the last version of the great BizTalk360. Looking very promising.

Programming

• Why Mocking Matters - Nice explanation of what the differences are between fakes, stubs and mocks.

[…]This is easy to do with Telerik JustMock. I wrote about using JustMock to get you started in From Legacy to Dependency Injection. […]

• Expressing Ruby Code in Natural Language - Wow, that look like a lot of fun. That what I call a good "pet project".

[…]This is called rubber duck debugging, because you could have solved the problem by explaining it to a rubber duck on your desk. […]

• First try with TypeScript - A developer share is first thoughts of TypeScript and explains it with code sample.
• SSDT & DACFx (October 2012) Compatibility Notes - Details about a update that will fix some compatibility issue.
• 10 Tips to avoid the typical Windows 8 design traps - Essential for any developer. If you want to distinguish yourself from the other in the apps store, this is where it's start.
• Stored procedures DO NOT increase performance (Shivprasad koirala) - Interesting post that hi-light the difference between inline code and store procedure. I agree with the conclusion. Sprocs are better to facilitate the maintainability.
• Visual Studio 2012 Update 1 CTP - Wow an update already with new features that great. Reference to download pages.
• Supporting agile teams
• Continuously enabling quality
• SharePoint development
• Windows development
• How do you estimate with Story Points and determine Velocity when you’ve not done it before? (johnv petersen) - Nice post that with help you to start doing estimation.
• Get In on the Action: Learn Windows 8 with Hands-on Labs « Jonathan Rozenblit - Get started to the Windows8 development with these 17 labs references.

Miscellaneous

• If You’re Too Busy to Meditate, Read This (Peter) - This post explain how a little meditation is possible and how it can help.
• 7 Tips For Building a 'Power Network' on LinkedIn - Quick tips to improve your LinkedIn network.
• Instapaper delivered to your Kindle changes how you consume web content - Plus IFTTT, blogs and more (Scott Hanselman) - Of course you can do this... I prefer Readability but the idea is the same...

Reading Notes #64

Cloud

• Drunk on Cloud Kool-Aid? Time To Sober Up (Justin Moore) - It's never all white or all black. This post put some gray in the picture of what will be the cloud in five years.
• Book Review: Cloudonomics–The Business Value of Cloud Computing - If after reading this review you don't download the sample or read at least the table of content, it mean you are the author.
• Windows Azure Interactive Feature Map - An amazing interactive picture or the ultimate Windows Azure features Map!
• BizTalk Virtual Machine in Windows Azure using Quick Create (Steef-Jan Wiggers) - Simple and efficient tutorial that show all steps to create a VM in Windows Azure with BizTalk.
• Comparison: SkyDrive vs Apple vs Google vs Dropbox - Nice one shot overview.
• How to Remove an Orphaned Windows Azure Virtual Machine Disk and Remove a Lease Conflict on a VHD Blob (Stephen W. Thomas) - Again PowerShell is showing us who’s the king. I'm looking forward to see this tool. Since Azure is supposed to be really user friendly (not like scripts) then this tool should be great.
• Announcing Updates to Windows Azure SQL Database (Gregory Leake) - Great new. It's a long time since we saw a Sql Azure database update.
• Cloudy Thoughts by SyntaxC4 - Nice recap of many (if it is not all) possible database that you can use when using Windows Azure.
• #CloudFail: Six pitfalls to avoid with enterprise cloud deployment (Bart Copeland) - Excellent post! Even if the cloud is not for everyone, it have good chance that it could for you...
• Hybrid cloud model: update on Microsoft IT application migration (Tony Scott) - Overview of the Microsoft IT application migration, and Show case.

[…]Microsoft IT Showcase recently published an article with details of our experience [download Using Windows Azure to Create a Multi-Platform Application][…]

• Keeping your options open in a cloud solution (Buck Woody) - One thing that is great about Windows Azure is that you can use anything with it. Not only Microsoft language or application, not event only Azure services.
• Moving a website to Azure while adding Continuous Deployment from Git (Scott Hanselman) - Nice walkthrough of moving a website to Azure using new features.
• Guest Post: What’s the Big Deal with AppDynamics Windows Azure Monitoring? (Himanshu Singh) – Nice post that introduced AppDynamics and explained what it can do for our Azure application.
• Why Can't I Always Change the Region when Creating a Windows Azure Virtual Machine? (Stephen W. Thomas) - Nice catch! Be aware of this little difference between the different create VM methods.
• Azure Store XRay - Amazing tool to monitor easily your Windows Azure storage.
• Cloning Windows Azure Virtual Machines - Nice post. Very well explain through the Azure portal.
• Cloud Cover Show Episode 90 - Windows Azure Web Sites Update - Great show about the new feature in Windows Azure SQL Database: Link db.[video]

Programming

• Agile path ways into the Azure Universe – Access Control Service [ACS] - Great tutorial that explain step by step how to test ACS in a Behaviour Driven Development (bdd) way using QStory and Selinum.
• Avoid shooting yourself in the foot with Tasks and Async - Nice post that explain some "particularities" of some new feature in the .Net framework 4.5 related to asynchronous tasks.
• Migrating a Database to SQL Azure using SSDT - Great tutorial of an amazing tool. The SSDT is a must!
• 5 mistakes that make you look like a Rails n00b - Nice tips that will make your code better, and not only in Ruby, for all language.
• A First Look at SQL Server Data Tools - Include in the new visual studio 2012, and downloadable for 2008 and 2010, this amazing tool is a must for all developer. And it's free! .[video]
• Visual Studio 2012 Takes “Ease” Up a Notch (Jonathan Rozenblit) - Oh what a great a time saver.

Miscellaneous

• Windows 8 Shortcut Keys (John Evdemon) - Since I'm just starting to use Windows 8 this post is clearly useful.
• 3 Easy Exercises to Boost Your Creativity (2012| Comment Nadia Goodman| September 26) - I will not go that far, but the main goal is there. If you want be create the next Instagram, you must train your creativity.
• This Is The Biggest Reason Talented Young Employees Quit Their Jobs (The Brilliant Blog Annie Murphy Paul) - I wish my old bosses had the chance to read this nice post.

Reading Notes #63

This week a little bit less of notes since I went to the Windows Azure Global Summit at Seattle, where I met many interesting persons. A lot of amazing things are coming for Windows Azure... but this is for another post!  

Cloud

• Great Free Courses on Building HTML5 apps using ASP.NET Web API, Knockout.js and jQuery (Scott Gu) - Great post with a lot of amazing news for all developers.

[…] Read this getting started tutorial to walkthrough how you can build (in less than 5 minutes) a simple Windows 8 “To-do List” app that is cloud enabled using Windows Azure Mobile Services. Or watch this video of me showing how to do it step by step.[…]

• BizTalk 2010 R2 CTP: Azure Service Bus Integration–Part 1 (Kent Weare) - Great tutorial, easy to follow that show new features included in the BizTalk 2010 R2.
• BizTalk 2010 R2 CTP: Azure Service Bus Integration–Part 2 Brokered Message Properties (Kent Weare) - Nice tutorial, good way to bind those two great tools such as Biztalk and Azure. More two come in this serie about service bus and topics.
• Deploying Azure Websites with Git (Tyler) - Nice tutorial that how easy it is to manage our website with the new Github integration into the Windows Azure portal.
• What is the Difference Between Apprenda and Windows Azure? (Toddy Mladenov) - Interesting comparison between Windows Azure and Apprenda. I didn't know that last one, but it looks nice. It needs more investigation.
• Windows Azure Mobile Services Preview Walkthrough–Part 4: Customizing the Windows Store App’s UI (Roger Jennings) - Nice tutorial. This is the fourth of a serie but it could be read easily alone if you only interested of deploying an app in the Windows store.
• Logging Using Azure Table Storage (Michael R Duffy) - I'm use to see more logging solution using the Windows Azure storage with blob than with table. But it makes sense since now storage is so cheap. Great post.
• Connecting to Windows Azure Service Bus from BizTalk Server 2010 R2 CTP - Great post that explain how to leverage BizTalk using the Windows Azure Service Bus with topics.
• Innovation Across Multiple Screens and How Your App Idea Fits In (Paul Laberge) - Quick post about a more and more popular idea: 3 screens and a cloud.

Programming

• Generate Kindle (MOBI) ebooks with your ASP.NET Web API - Nice demo that show the pipeline of how those "send to Kindle" services.
• Why I’m done with Scrum (Jimmy Bogard) - Interesting thoughts about Agile method. Pros and cons.

Miscellaneous

• Turns out I’ll be writing a book - Nice idea. I hope this book will be published. I will love read this book.
• Everything's broken and nobody's upset (Scott Hanselman) - It is good to know you’re not alone. Scott told all the issue he as in... One week!?
• Everything’s Amazing and Nobody’s Happy (Richard Seroter)- Nice reply to the post of Scott Hanselman. I'm must say I going on Seroter side. ;)
• The Art of Writing Functional Specs (Part 1) – What is a Functional Specification? (Saveen Reddy) - Interesting thoughts about how should be written functional specs.
• What to Do When You Have to Work with Someone You Don’t Like (Peter) - Nice post, which forces us to think about our self.

Reading Notes #59

Cloud

• Fault-tolerance in Windows Azure SQL Database (Himanshu Singh) - Really nice article that explain the fault-tolerance, why it is needed, how it is done (replication, redundancy, detection, etc.).
• Do you know your PaaS from your IaaS? (Marc Gagné) - Nice post that differences the PaaS, SaaS and IaaS of Windows and also talk about the Azure DevCamp that is coming to Montreal at beginning of September.
• Using a naked domain with a Windows Azure Web Site (David Ebbo) - Something it's good to go and to think differently, to understand how things work. This post is about one of those try.
• SQL Azure – Disaster Recovery (Iain Hunter) - This is a mandatory post to read. The solution expose in this post is so simple to do. Everyone who use Windows Azure database should do it.
• What is Cloud computing? – Public Cloud v Private Cloud - Nice post that explains what is cloud computing and highlight the difference between private and public cloud.
• Azure Howto: Programmatically modify web.config on WebRole Startup - Great tutorial that show very clearly how to modify web.config in a startup task and why it should be done only at time.
• Time for a Second Look at Windows Azure? | Cloudline - I agree it's definitely time to look again Azure. With all the new features that just arrived, Windows Azure is a very complete product.
• Windows Azure Cloud Cover Show Episode 86 - Windows Azure Active Directory with Vittorio Bertocci - Learn more about Windows Azure Active Directory, look the demonstration of  the Graph API and the new Windows Azure Authentication Library. [video]
• Windows Azure Table – Simple Approach (Wriju Ghosh) - Nice demo that show in few minutes what you can do with the Windows Azure table storage.[video]

Programming

• Meilleures pratiques au niveau infrastructure pour une performance optimale de BizTalk Server (Marc-André Dufresne) - Interesting post from my colleague about how to fine tune the performance on a BizTalk server and about the tool BizTalk Benchmark a CodePlex project that could help you.
• How to get Windows 8 Pro from MSDN Subscriptions : Don't Be Iffy (Julie Leman) - Nice tips that will help more than one of us.
• Releasing Microsoft ASP.NET Universal Providers Core 1.2 - That a great news. A new version of a so useful tool!
• Top 5 Reasons Why You Should Refactor Your Code - Good post. Everyone should agree with those ideas of good code. More often, the problem come from determining how much effort and time to get it done that way.
• Announcing SonicAgile – An Agile Project Management Solution - Wow take a look to this great tool! I sure that SonicAgile is waited by the developers since long time.

Miscellaneous

• Three cool things to try with your old netbook - Good idea that I also try with my Asus EeePC 701. The Ubuntu Netbook is also a really good option, you will be able to watch all the movies you want, have access to your Wi-Fi network and browse Internet.
• Your words are wasted (Scott Hanselman) - Nice post that nails the idea where all developer should have a blog, blog more and doing it on their own controlled domain.
• Scrum in 5 Minutes - Really nice post that describe very clearly the basic concepts and roles involve in Agile. It also suggests a book for more detailed explanations and a tool AgileSonic that looks gorgeous. A post to read.

“The problem is that writing code is much more like Finding a Cure for Cancer than Building a Brick Wall.”

• 10 Steps to Creating Your Freelance Brand Personality - Interesting post not only for freelancer but also for more public people, I mean developer who have a blog.
• Be More Productive. Take Time Off. (JASON FRIED) - That a nice idea! This post is about a company that try uncommon thing to boost productivity, and it works more than expected!
• How Often Should You Blog? (Hint: The Answer Might Surprise You) (Ali Luke) - Since more and more developer a blogging now (and this is a good thing) founding your prefect sequence is important. For you and your readers.

Reading Notes #57

 

Cloud

• How to Assess Costs of using Windows Azure for your Applications (Himanshu Singh) - Quick post about a windows paper that provide all the information on Azure usual monthly charges.

Check out the paper.

• Hands-on Windows Azure Services for Windows (Maarten Balliauw) - M. Balliauw is asking a good question, that I ears often: Why should I do this?
• Windows Azure Visio Shapes - Yahooooo! I never enough Visio shape... Thanks Buck Woody!
• Service Bus for Windows server, the new features - Good post that introduces the new features of the service Bus and explains them quickly.
• Cloud Cover – Episode 84 - Windows Azure Storage Updates and a Preview of the Client Storage Library vNext - As usual nice video (shorter than last time ;) ). It reviews the new features available in Azure Storage, and show a preview of the Azure Storage libraries that will be release soon.

Programming

• ASP.NET Web API and Azure Blob Storage (Yao) - Super tutorial that show step by step how to manage your Azure Blob Storage by code, by doing a nice helper class.
• The 5 thing to immediately grab from EF Open Source - Good post that point out some place where you can see good code sample.
• When do you need a 3-tier architecture? - Good question! And this post is trying to answer it.
• Building an Offline HTML5 Application - Great tutorial about a well-structured HTML5 application that will also works offline.
• Entity Framework 5 and 6 Roadmap - The list of interesting features of the EF5 and some that are planned for the version 6.
• Beyond Agile Estimation Part I: Measuring Key Data Points - Nice post that summarize how to use some keys counters in order to have a better estimation of the project delivery date.
• CloudSurvey (Nathan Totten) - Nice work. A great sample to see how things are done.
• WCF - Top 10 Interview Questions (Imran Abdul Ghani) - Excellent post and excellent revision of what is WCF. Short and clear.
• Exterminating Common jQuery Bugs (Elijah Manor) - Wow what a great video. It goes through all most frequent mistake we make, explain why it doesn't works and fix it. Take a look at the tool he is using. An open source (soon) presentation framework. Very nice!
• 10 Application Performance Tuning Tips - Nice tips, simple and efficient.
• So you want to contribute to EF? Part 1: Introduction (Arthur Vickers) - Excellent series not only to kwon more about how to contribute with the Entity framework (EF) but with any kind of open source project.

Miscellaneous

• 5 Ways to Think Wisely in Development (Dimitrios Kalogirou) - Nice post that expose 5 ways to be a wiser developer.
• Sitting is Making You Fat and Killing You - Nice warning post that explains why say sit for a long period is bad and gives some tips to improve our comfort.
• Who Are You Really Mad At? (Peter) - This is about a life lesson: Pause. And like in the post you will be reward.
• Time to stop reusing your passwords - Nice reminder of the reason why we shouldn't reuse our e-mail.
• Get The Most Out of Your Mornings - Nice post that explain how to you could use your mornings to add 280 hours in your year.
• Time Management Tips #3 - Three Wins for the Week (JD Meier) - Simple tips from the book Getting Results the Agile Way that will help you to have a better week.
• 10 classic mistakes that plague software development projects (Justin James) - Nice post that make me smiling. I challenge you to pass through the list without thinking: oh yeah that's so true...
• True Secret to Success (It's Not What You Think) (Geoffrey James) - Suggest a very simple mental exercise to make your day more positive.
• I Won't Hire People Who Use Poor Grammar. Here's Why. (Kyle Wiens) - I agree the grammar is really important, even if I’m not good as I want to be.
• 3 Interview Questions That Reveal Everything (Jeff Haden) - Nice post. I like the questions it's true that you should learn a lot from them even if the candidate is not "verbose".

~ Frank

Reading Notes #56

Cloud

• Comparing Windows Azure Blob Storage and Google Cloud Storage (Gaurav) - Always very interesting those posts where two or more products are compared...
• Best Practices for Performance Improvements Using Service Bus Brokered Messaging (msdn.microsoft.com) - Nice post with a lot of simple rules that will help to get better results.
• Windows Azure End to End Examples - Three different sources of information that could help you learning Windows Azure.
• What if we’re all wrong about the cloud? - Interesting thoughts about what is and what should be cloud storage.
• Architecting with AWS – Before You Go (Jeremiah Peschka) - Nice post about an architect training on AWS. The equivalent also exists for Azure... even if this post didn't talk about it.
• Windows Azure Storage – 4 Trillion Objects and Counting (Brad Calder) - Interesting post about Azure Storage all in numbers.... (Read stats).
• What's New? - Wow the perfect monster machine to run those NoSQL databases...
• All Things Distributed (Werner Vogel) - Nice post about the new high performance EC2 of AWS. All about the specs and features of this new instance type.
• 8 Questions to ask an AWS Expert - Good questions and good answers about key features of Amazon web Services AWS.

Programming

• What Exactly Is GitHub Anyway? (Klint Finley) - Excellent post that demystify all unknown about GitHub. Nice work! A post that you should definitely read.
• Azure CDN – with AzureCdn.Me and MVC3 (Iain Hunter) - Nice post and great tool. The AzureCdn.Me even has a NuGet package... This tool will simplify so much your work with the Azure content delivery network (CDN).
• Advanced queries with Lucene.NET (codewrecks.com) - Lucene.NET is the best option to do full text search in Azure. This great post explains how to perform advanced queries.
• Entity Framework and Open Source (Scott Gu) - I'm really happy to see that the Entity Framework is now completely open source and on CodePlex. Learn a bit more about version 5 and even 6.
• Five Rules to Simplify Large Scale BizTalk Orchestration Development (Stephen W. Thomas) - Simple rules that will help for sure.
• Entity Framework Magic Unicorn (and much more!) is now open source with take backs (Scott Hanselman) - Another great post about the even greater Entity Framework. The big news EF is going open source on CodePlex with GitHub. Also see code snippets from EF6.
• ASP.NET Web API and Azure Blob Storage (Yao - MSFT) - Super tutorial that show step by step how to manage your Azure Blob Storage by code, by doing a nice helper class.

Miscellaneous

• 5 Sleep Mistakes You Don’t Know You’re Making (And How They’re Hurting Your Blog) (Guest Blogger) - Interesting post. How many of those rules do you follow... and do you have any sleeping issue?
• The Patient Knows What’s Wrong with Him - Nice thoughts, we shouldn't expect the solution from the user... only partial information. The analogy with the doctor is a really good idea, I’m sure I will reuse it someday...

[…]And the user exclaimed with a snarl and a taunt, “It’s just what I asked for, but not what I want!” That was 30 years ago, and I doubt the poem was new then.[…]

• Windows Azure Quietly Puts Its Pieces Into Place (Alexander Haislip) - Nice post talking about the global strategy of Microsoft.
• ScrumMaster Tales – New People on the Team (Mark Levison) - Nice post about a new people in an Agile team. When some frictions popup what you should do...
• Is Daddy on a call? A BusyLight Presence indicator for Lync for my Home Office (Scott Hanselman) - I definitely want one of those. The idea is so simple but so genius! Nice post.

~Frank

Reading Notes #53

This post is an important milestone for this blog. It completes the first year of Reading Notes, since a year as 52 weeks and it’s also the 100th post!

Thanks for being there and continue reading, a lot of good stuff is coming…

~Frank

Cloud

• Cloud Strategy Begins with Value and Balances Risk (Microsoft Enterprise Team) - Nice post that help to identify risks. The information is display in tables that helps.
• Windows Azure Performance: Best Practices (Rick Saling) - Good reference to more detail video on the topic.

[…]great video of a presentation on Federations by Cihan Biyikoglu at the 2012 US Tech Ed conference in Orlando. […]

• Windows Azure PowerShell and Ruby Cloud Services - Great post where updating is RubyRole project the author make interesting discovery. Learn more about some new functionality available in the Azure SDK 1.7.
• Deploying Windows Azure Website using Visual Studio Web Publish wizard - Nice quick tip to use Visual Studio with the new Azure website.
• Data Series: SQL Server in Windows Azure Virtual Machine vs. SQL Database - Great big post that cover every difference between those two Sql database. Perfect reading to stop being confuse.
• Windows Azure Websites, Virtual Machines, and More « Jonathan Rozenblit - Great! If you missed the conference at Toronto on June 20th this is your chance to catch-up. The full conference is available to watch by steaming or offline by downloading.
• 10 Questions to ask when Outsourcing to Azure (Surf4Fun) - Good questions.
• Data Synchronization using SQL Azure Data Sync (Félix Martínez Retama) - Nice post first of a serie. This one is illustrating few possible scenarios of synchronisation with Azure Data Sync.
• Data Series: Exploring Windows Azure Drives, Disks, and Images (BradCalder) - Amazing article that pass throut all details about Azure drive, disk, image and cache. A must to all cloud developer.
• New Article: Windows Azure Queues and Windows Azure Service Bus Queues (Valery Mizonov) - Very good article that perfectly summarises the content of the longer MSDN article about the difference between Azure queues and Azure Service Bus Queues. Simple easy to read and accurate.

[…]Following is the high-level technology selection considerations section from the full article on MSDN. […]

• Windows Azure - When do I use What? (Andrew Coates [MSFT]) - Nice quick post that demystify when it's the time to use a Azure website, webrole or a VM.

Programming

• JQuery 1.8 beta 1: See What’s Coming - Wow, a lot of things are coming with the next version of JQuery. This a good post to catch the big picture.

[…]new build system based on Ben Alman’s awesome grunt tool. […]

Miscellaneous

• Reminder, basic quick fixes for troubled gear - Nice check list for no-technical people of what they can do by them self before calling you to rescue when they computer/gadget stop working. ;)
• ScrumMaster Tales – Learning How to Estimate (Mark Levison) - Interesting post that relates the experience of an Agile team. Also refers some other post of that still.

~Frank

Reading Notes #42

Cloud

• MCSE is Back–and Better Than Ever!! - Important new from Microsoft this week: certifications for the cloud. This post is a good summary of this new reality.
• An Up-Close Examination of the Microsoft RDP Vulnerability (Guest Author) - Important RDP vulnerability was fixed in the March patch. Since in Azure the remote is disabled by default and that some firewall rules protect some connections, if you use Azure you are now safe and probably you were never really in danger. But if you are using an image on AWS you probably should apply you Windows Updates...
• Announcing the Refresh of Service Bus EAI & EDI Labs (Harish Agarwal) - The Windows Azure team listened to our feedback and new features and a lot of performance improvements in the updated version of the EAI & EDI labs.

• Illustrating the CQRS Pattern with Windows Azure and MVC4 Web API (David Pallmann) - Nice sample to understand the advantage of the pattern CQRS over the more common CRUD.
• What The Cloud Doesn’t Do (Alexander Haislip) - Nice post explaining why on-premise computer are not obsolete since the cloud arrives. Nice comparison with the evolution of the radio and the TV.

• What is Azure Subscription and How to Setup a Windows Azure Subscription? (Arun Rakwal) - Nice post that gives a way to structures your Windows Azure subscription.
• Using the Windows Azure Content Delivery Network - This is the perfect post to get started with windows Azure CDN. It’s also providing some best practices when using Azure CDN.
• Let Power Users Create Their Own oData Feeds (Julie Lerman) - What a amazing tool! The Data Explorer is still in CTP but if you are like me go to Azure Labs and try it now.
• Azure Service Bus Pusher (Roman Kiss) - An amazing post from Roman. Everything is explained from the model to how to test your Azure Service Bus.

• Three cloud models; three very different risks - A different way to present the difference between SaaS, PaaS and IaaS: the security/ risk.
• Azure Deployment hangs with Status "Preparing to upload, please wait" (Arun Rakwal Arun Rakwal Microsoft MSFT 10 Points 2 0 0 Recent Achievements First Forums Reply New Blogger View Profile) - Good to know before we got this type of issue.
• There’s no need to be a one-cloud company (Switch Mark Thiele) - Nice post. Being in the cloud with one provider is easier but it's like putting all our eggs in the same basket. Do we have other options?

Programming

• Why NoSQL Equals NoSecurity - Great post with a lot of information about many different NoSQL databases. It also suggests some best practices to get a correct level of security on your NoSQL database.
• Dynamic Image Generation, ASP.NET Controllers, Routing, IHttpHandlers, and runAllManagedModulesForAllRequests (Scott Hanselman) - Nice tips about the dynamic element generation in web development.

• A geek with a hat » What Refactoring is, and what it isn’t - Nice quick post that explain perfectly the difference between refactoring and ... other things ;)
• Becoming A Better Developer - This is definitely a good question and the author of this post takes the time to give a good answer.

[…] Are people who speak at conferences speaking because they are the best, or are they the best because they are speaking…[…]

[…]The best way to learn is to teach.[…]

• The Big Glossary of Open Source JavaScript and Web Frameworks with Cool Names (Scott Hanselman) - Wow so many open source projects that look awesome... take a peek.
• Professional WCF 4: Windows Communication Foundation with .NET 4 – With a lot of code samples this great book explain all the facets of the Windows Communication Foundation WCF. The authors put all pieces together so block by block we are prepared to build a Service Oriented Application SOA.

Miscellaneous

• Succeeding with Agile - Nice tip that look simple and efficient.
• My car ships with crapware (Scott Hanselman) - Hilarious and true, why we can have a super dual-core computer in our pocket but our car come with a so crap old "computer"?
• 5 Presentation Apps to Try - Quick list of nice tools helping us to pass through a presentation or after to share some files.
• 12 Ways to Attack Any Challenge - Facing difficulties is good. It's mean you are challenging yourself. That you try to become better. This nice post is refreshing your memories about ways to overcome those challenges.
• More of What You Came For (Michael Desmond) - The team of the MSDN Magazine are since ... forever trying to always offer more. This time is by giving more content (some exclusively) on their web site. Like the column Azure by Bruno Terkaly.
• 18 Minutes: Find Your Focus, Master Distraction, and Get the Right Things Done (Peter Bregman) – A great book that explain a lot of little think that we could do every day to help to focus on the thing we want to accomplish. Nothing magic but it help to take better decision. Peter use a lot of personal story to explain is thoughts and that improve a lot the comprehension. It was my first experience with audio book, and I really like it. It was done by Peter Bregme himself.

~Frank

Reading Notes #38

Cloud

• Amazon data center size - Interesting post that gives an opportunity to puts numbers on the cloud architecture, in this case AWS servers.
• How I work with Live Mesh, SkyDrive, and Office Live Workspace (Buck Woody) - Good post that explain one setup you can use to get your files synchronize and available on many device.
• 4 Azure milestones Microsoft must hit — and soon (Barb Darrow) - Interesting post that point out 4 milestones that Microsoft Azure should reach ASAP to stay in the cloud race.
• Can we pronounce “The Cloud” hype over yet? - Nice post that raise some objection that the cloud is for everything. Some people seem to still think this way, but its true cloud is not the answer to all situations.
• Learn The Cloud, Make A Difference, @home with Windows Azure - Great initiative! A good way to learn Winnows Azure and an easy way to get free Azure account for 3 months!
• How to Share a Local Drive when Remoting into Windows Azure Instance (Jason Haley) - Nice quick tips that is very useful when debugging.
• Multiple Sites in Single Role Running Local (Jason Haley) - This post is a time saver, if you plan to put more than one web site in the same web role... read this.
• Optimizing apps for cloud (Tim O'Brien) - Great post that explain few principles of cloud architecture to be able of building a more structured application.
• Why So Many Azure Storage Transactions? - Nice advice! Good think that since last release, when you are busting your limits they just deactivate the web application instead of giving a big bill.
• Windows Azure Security Best Practices - Part 2: What Azure Provides Out-of-the-Box (Bruce Kyle) - Amazing post that describes perfectly the architecture of Windows Azure and the security in it. It also explains what we should do to keep a good security level. This is the second post of the series a third one is already out... more to come.
• Windows Azure Security Best Practices – Part 3: Identifying Your Security Frame (Bruce Kyle) - Part 3 a is bout pattern in the ms document.
• Windows Azure Security Best Practices – Part 5: Claims-Based Identity, Single Sign On (Bruce Kyle) - A lot of information about windows Identity Foundation (WIF).
• Windows Azure Security Best Practices – Part 6: How Azure Services Extends Your App Security (Bruce Kyle) - Great post that talk about the strength of Windows Azure Active Directory, Azure Connect and Service Bus. The 3 options that you have to extend your security on Azure.
• Big Data and the case for IT relevancy - This post explain why big data will not "kills" IT jobs but in fact probably it will actually create more.
• HTML5 + Cloud = Personal Cloud (David Pallmann) - Nice post (the fourth of a series) explain the cloud is personal and why HTML5 could be a better tools to present this personal cloud.
• Windows Azure PowerShell Cmdlets (v2.2.2) (Michael WashamMS) - Present the new features of the last release of Windows Azure PowerShell. A lot of great new functionalities, but before downloading it be aware of some breaking changes.
• How to Download Windows Azure Blob Containers - We often found code sample to upload files to the cloud but here it is to download. This is well done demo to replicate the structure of an Azure Blob Container on premise.
• What Size VM Should I Go With? - Point a article here this question is answered by 2 authors well presented in this article.
  

  […]questions Joel & Stephen attempt to answer in the article. […]

• Book Review: Just for fun (Jan Van Ryswyck) - That look like a book that will easily find a place in my to read list.

Programming

• C# Reflection Performance And Ruby (Tim Kellogg) - Interesting test to compare the speed of different methods to access a property.
• 5 Tools to to Run a Small Business in the Cloud - 5 online very useful tools are presented in this post.
• EF Code First - Tips and Tricks - Nice tips. I never thought of putting extra safeguard code in this section... but I like it, so i will.

Miscellaneous

• Agile Adoption Success Factors – Nice quick post about why Agile adoption pass or fail base on a survey result.
• Touch, Not the Mouse - Nice editorial from MSDN Mag that kind of contest that popular idea of touch is for everything.
• You’re Working Too Hard to Make an Impact (Study Hacks) - This short post illustrate we should prefer be valuable than busy.
• A geek with a hat » The one book that gets me offline - Editorial about people reading habit today, and a nice book suggestion... can you resist?

Reading Notes #32

Cloud

Let The Clouds Make Your Life Easier - Geek and poke

• Is VMware the new Microsoft in the PaaS World? - Nice post that talk about the story of .Net framework and Java. What they where, what they are and what there fighting for.
• 8 Essential Best Practices in Windows Azure Blob Storage - Great post explaining clearly 8 best practices when using Azure Blob Storage.
• Managing environments in a distributed, Azure, or other cloud based Visual Studio solution (Igor Papirov) - Nice Visual Studio solution structure, that once it's done could save a lot of time.
• an opportunity to get application security right - Nice post discussing about in the beginning of the Internet where enterprises didn't taken seriously the security menace. Today with a lot of people going to the cloud we shouldn't make the same mistake.
• Tips and Important Steps for Migrating Apps to Windows Azure - Great check list to move an application in the cloud. I would add to check if you need https at some point and take a look of your database collation.
• Taking specific Windows Azure Instance offline (Avkash Chauhan) - Those cmdlets are amazing. do what you cannot do with the management portal in only few line
• Windows Azure Toolkit for Social Games Version 1.2.2 Released - Announce of the new release of the Toolkit with some explication about how-to get started with Github
• Before jumping into cloud, learn from the SOA experience - This post explain how having a service object architecture (SOA) could help to be more ready when moving to the cloud.
• Visual Studio Achievements - Remember Kids They're Just For Fun (View blog authority) - Achievements in Visual Studio... pros and cons.
• Handling two known issues with Windows Azure node.js SDK 0.5.2 (Avkash Chauhan) - Nice workaround to be able to debug with the Azure emulator when using node.js and to be able to deploy with a MongoDB enabled
• NougakuDoCompanion: A “Ruby on Rails” companion for Windows Azure (Avkash Chauhan) - Introduce a ruby companion package available on codeplex, it look nice.
• Amazon Web Services Blog - Amazon announce a new free product/feature the cloudWatch Metrics that will help to visualize how your part of the cloud is use.
• Utiliser SSIS pour pousser des données vers SQL Azure (Benjamin GUINEBERTIERE) - Good work explaining step by step how to use SSIS for a data migration.

  SSIS package needs an outbound access to port 1433

• The “NoSQL” Gene in SQL Azure Federations (Cihan Biyikoglu) - Great post. A bit old, but it explain a lot of key concept about the NoSql of the new Azure Federation.
• Windows Azure Storage Emulator Account Name and Key - Nice catch. how to manage the different credential of a "legacy" Azure application.

  Microsoft has provided the storage credentials for the local Storage Emulator on MSDN. Here’s a quick place to copy the default name and key: AccountName AccountKey

• Get Started with Node.js + Windows Azure: Resources - Everything you need to get started doing Node.js in Azure. A lot of reference: tools, IDE, database,etc..
• Cloud computing looks to be future of disaster management - A professor is building a system to be help the people to communicate in case of a disaster in the cloud.
• Using Windows Azure Access Control Service (ACS) from a node express app - A well done tutorial that explain all the steps to setup your Azure Access Control Service (ASC) in a Node.js environment.

  If you want to know how it works and how it was implemented read Implementing Windows Azure ACS with everyauth

• Cloud Cover Show - Episode 69 - SQL Azure Federations with George Huey – Recap of the news and discuss how to scale-out with SQL Azure Federations.

Programming

• Using oData with jQuery Hierarchical Grid - Good presentation of the grid control of NetAdvantage using jquery and oData.
• Even Better Git (and Mercurial) with PowerShell (Scott Hanselman) - Nice post, presentation great project using Powershell to leverage git and mercurial source control.
• 24 Extremely Useful Ruby Gems for Web Development - Great list of Ruby's Gems. I will definitely include Bundler in my list on tools to have.

  Bundler is a tool that manages gem dependencies for your ruby application.

• Explaining Include and Extend - Really good post. Go deeper then the usual.

  If you want a more details about what the interpreter is doing I recommend watching Patrick Farley’s talk on Ruby Internals.

Miscellaneous

• How the Kindle replaced my iPad...for book reading (Scott Stein) - I agree completely. When I try the eBook reader... I fall in love.
• Agile Results with Evernote (JD Meier) - Explain how to use EverNote as a simple folder/list structure to manage goals in the Agile Result method
• comment obtenir plus de clics avec vos tweets (Benoit Descary) - Some simple strategies to be more efficient when twitting(fr).
• Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs of Software Development (Scott Hanselman) - Nice Maslow's pyramid apply to development , event more because it do fit.
• Don't Get Me Started – Ring Around My Neck (David Platt) - A reflection about if thing have gone too far.

~Franky

Reading Notes #25

Cloud

• The SQL Azure Team Unveils a New Server Management UI (Roger Jennings) - Nice "face lift" of the SQL Azure user interface.
• Windows Azure Table Storage- Partition or Row key length is limited to 256 characters in Storage Emulator (Avkash Chauhan) - Point one of the difference between Azure emulator and the “real” cloud. Ref to the doc.
• 5 Reasons Why Startups Should Use OAuth (Ruben)- Learn easily some lessons that they learned the hard way.
• Defense giant ditches Microsoft’s cloud citing Patriot Act fears - The patriot act is THE big show stopper for a lot of companies. Here some cases.
• How to Authenticate Web Users with Windows Azure Access Control Service - Everything you need to use ACS. A well done demo doing step by step with screenshots.
• Improved Developer Experience, Interoperability, and Scalability on Windows Azure - All the novelties on azure.

  Service Bus usage is now free through March 2012.

• Cloud Computing Boosts Indian Technology and Economy (Irmee Layo) - This post summarize what could be the impact/influence of the cloud in our mid-future.
• Building Large Scale Elastic Database Tiers with SQL Azure - First step using a SQL Azure Federation. Good first dipping.
• Ubuntu Cloud Live Offers Private Clouds via USB Drive - Good idea. I always like Ubuntu. it could be nice to have quickly (and any ware) some virtual machine to test or do stuff...
• How to get rich in the cloud (David Linthicum) - Ah ah! It's not that trivial, but look like going to the cloud is a good move...
• Billing Model for Federations in SQL Azure Explained! - Well explain. Since the “talking” about federation databases started, I was looking for those answers.
• Cloud Computing: A New Paradigm - Nice post. The story never really change... just adapt.
• Understanding the Total Cost of Ownership for Cloud-based Software (Christophe Primault) - Offering flexible options kind of complicate the pricing. In this post learn what you must don't forget when planning your move. Azure provide also two greats tools: TCO and the calculator.
• Moving My Data To The Cloud - In this nice post the author explain how he moved all is different data (photos, data, music, games, etc.) to different cloud solution.
• SQL Database Federations: Enhancing SQL to enable Data Sharding for Scalability in the Cloud - Quick start to SQL database Federation.
• SQL Azure Q4 2011 Service Release - Nice recap of all the new features and pricing that just coming out.

Programming

• What’s the deal with mapping foreign keys using the Entity Framework? (Arthur Vickers) - With EF it is so easy to map relations. But is it a good or a bad practice? Should we do it?
• Design of a Domain Model - This article show the issue and difficulties that could give mapping foreign keys when using EF in a design domain model.
• Agile? You’re doing it wrong. (Timon Vonk) – Timon take the most common reason why people fail to be Agile and suggest solution.
• Building Apps with HTML5 – Desktop, Tablet, Phone !(Joe Stagner) - J. Stagner in is post express is opinion and goods questions about HTML5 and Microsoft.
• Just because you can test it doesn’t mean you should (Windows Live Tester) - Good post. it's sometime difficult to know what need to be tested and from where. Nice recap.
  

  A wise test lead once said to me, “Do as little as possible while still ensuring quality”.

• A short round-up of PowerShell Quick Reference Guides & Cheat Sheets - A well done cheat sheets.
• Decoding jQuery - Nice series. quick and clear.

Miscellaneous

• A comic book geek returns after twenty years away to a brave new digital world (Scott Hanselman) - Reading is always good, and fun. Discover more digital content with Scott Hanselman.
• Top 5 Ways to Kill Your Credibility (Geoffrey James) - After reading this, it may be a good idea to make a quick jump to your profile... Just in case.
• 9 Things That Motivate Employees More Than Money (Ilya Pozin) - My boss is evil... but I like that.
• Apps are too much like 1990's CD-ROMs and not enough like the Web (Scott Hanselman) – Scott explain what he think could be the next version of apps or web apps or does it make a difference...
• Munn and Done | How To Train A Developer - A lot of options to train a dev team are presented by the author.
  

  “If we didn’t like learning we wouldn’t be in this profession.”

~Franky