Reading Notes # 72

Cloud

• Practical Azure #2: What About Blob? - Great video on everything you should know on Azure Blob.
• A phone call from the cloud: Windows Azure, SignalR & Twilio (Maarten Balliauw) - Great tutorial very complete on account validation process.
• Cloudy Thoughts by SyntaxC4 - Good new continuous development with website Azure now supported private repository with github and bitbucket.
• Microsoft announces Big Compute capabilities for Windows Azure (Kenneth van Surksum) - Windows Azure now have a lot bigger instance type available.
• Scaling cloud apps with the .NET Framework 4.5 - Really great post, that introduce some new features of the .Net framework 4.5 (now available in Azure web site) and how to use them in a scaling perspective using async.
• How does Windows Azure PowerShell import publishsettings using Import-AzurePublishSettingsFile command? (Avkash Chauhan) - Quick useful tips when playing around with Azure and PowerShell.
• Windows Server 2012 Now Available on AWS - A new series called Windows Wednesdays just kicked off with this nice post about the new availability of Windows Server 2012 on AWS.
• More Great Improvements to the Windows Azure Management Portal - Explain the new features in Windows Azure Portal such like new SQL Database Metrics, website enhancement, media services new options, custom CNAME for Azure storage, etc.
• Complete walkthrough: Setting up a ADFS 2.0 Server on Windows Azure IaaS and Configuring it as an Identity Provider in Windows Azure ACS (Haishi) - Great tutorial to setup and test a Azure IaaS website using Identity Provider.

Integration

• AppFabric - Frequently Asked Development Questions (Ed Price - MSFT Ed Price - MSFT Microsoft MSFT 122,146 Points 25 20 17 Recent Achievements Proposed Answerer III Gallery Contributor II Wiki Ninja View Profile) - Good questions... with their answers.

Programming

• Changes in ADFS 2.1 from ADFS 2.0 - Important things to know when migrating in addition to remember where you saved the artifacts creation scripts.
• Use Big Data to gain insight about small business customers (David Gitonga) - Interesting post that explain how Big Data could be you in your business... even if you are in a small company.

Miscellaneous

• How to set up CrashPlan Cloud Backup headless on a Synology NAS - Backup Strategies (Scott Hanselman) - Nice demonstration of how to setup a backup solution. It also give us alternative ideas.
• How to be a Consultant, Part 1: The Difference Between a Developer and a Consultant (David Pallmann) - First of a serie this post hi-light the difference between a developer and a consultant by explaining what more you need to be from a developer to be a consultant with a capital "c".
• How to be a Consultant, Part 2: Travel - One if By Land... (David Pallmann) - A lots of good advice and tips when traveling by land about schedule, rental cars, and equipment.
• How to be a Consultant, Part 3: How to Travel (Gonna Fly Now) (David Pallmann) - This post is all about sharing fly experience tips and giving advice of "rules" when traveling by air.
• Do More Faster: 10 Best Apps & Tools (Frank Addante) - Nice apps for different platform that make the day easier.

~Frank

Reading Notes #70

Cloud

• Let's see : Attach an Azure blob drive in windows 7. (Nicolas Dorier) - A lot of information in this post where Nicolas Dorier explain how he pass through all the problems.
• New Powershell command line goodies for Windows Azure at #bldwin (Glenn Block) - This post explains some of the new features in the last release of Azure Powershell cmdlets.
• A tool to simplify and automate your SQL Azure database backup - Make backup is so important that it shouldn’t be human related. Here are some tools to help you reaching this goal.
• Disaster and the Cloud - An actual story about how the cloud helps in a disaster recover situation.
• Why should a startup use Windows Azure? (Shaymaa A) - If you are in a start-up bookmark this short post, because it's the perfect page to get started with BizSpark.
• Windows Azure: Automated UI testing using the power of cloud (Anuj Chaudhary) - Nice deep dive in a test case scenario using Windows Azure around the globe.
• Here's What's New with Windows Azure (Bill Hilf) - Recap of the Windows Azure related news at the //Build event.
• The Developer Movement & Windows Azure (Marc Gagné) - Goodies alert! How to get 3000 points and some great goodies...
• Manu Cohen-Yashar's Blog - I did search where the old portal link was... here is the answer.
• Microsoft Access 2013: A Cool New Rapid Development Tool for the Cloud (Gregory Leake) - Great news about Office 2014 and really nice way to use Azure...
• Top 5 Cool New Things with Windows Azure Web Sites (Nir Mashkowski) - Nice walkthrough the last new features of Windows Azure Website.
• Continuous Deployment with Windows Azure Websites and Bitbucket - Nice since I also use Bitbucket for some of my personal projects... I looking forward to try this!
• Announcing: New System Views for Windows Azure SQL Database (Gregory Leake) - Good news about the Azure SQL database, it's now possible to query the even log and views.
• Un voyage vers le cloud sur Windows Azure présenté par Matricis Informatique - Présentation en français sur Windows Azure a Montréal.

Programming

• The Hanselminutes Podcast - Loud and clear. The best description of what is TypeScript and why I should start using it.
• What's New? (amazon.com) - Nice update for DynamoDB.
• SSDT Team at PASS Summit - List of the presentation about SSDT at the PASS Summit.
• Reactive Extensions (Rx) is now Open Source (Scott Hanselman) - Learn more about Rx and is new open source status.
• TypeScript - Tutorial (typescriptlang.org) - Directly from the official TypeScript website, this tutorial get you up and ready in a few. Well explain. And a really nice repl page.

Integration

• BizTalk Server 2013 BETA (Saravana Kumar) - A lot of people was seeing it dead, but BizTalk 2013 is stronger than ever with a lot of the great improvement and new features... be ready!

Miscellaneous

• Infographics Are Hot, Your Boring Data Is Not (Janine Popick) - It's a fact that it's a lot easier to understand data with a visual support, this post points out 5 tools to help.
• Your Employee Is an Online Celebrity. Now What Do You Do? (Alexandra Samuel) - Witch question should be questions should be asked to validate if the co-existence between co-branded employee and the company.
• A retrospective of an unproductive day - Nice tips to feel better in those days when you feel like you did nothing...

Reading Notes #66

Cloud

• Announcing: Improvements to the Windows Azure Portal - Great news! Nice features that will facilitate the resources management.
• Windows Azure REST API Sample and Tool – GET, POST, & DELETE with One Click - Great tool, even more since it is embedded in visual studio. For quick and easy stuff. For more advanced stuff SoapUI remains.
• What PartitionKey and RowKey are for in Windows Azure Table Storage (Maarten Balliauw) - Very well explain. The best post on partition a read.
• Windows Azure Disk Partition Preservation - Quick post that show what append with disk partitions from PaaS stateless VM when different events append in a nice table view.
• Online Data Storage: Is it okay to Move to the Cloud? - Nice post that should be share and re-post to reach the maximum of people. Backing up the cloud is easy and safe. But off course it's not THE solution, but part of the solution.
• Website Pricing, Shared or Reserved (Tyler Doerksen) - Short post that explain very clearly the difference between the Windows Azure Website options.
• BlogEngine.NET and Windows Azure Web Sites - Good news, BlogEngine.Net is finally available in the Windows Azure Website gallery and configured to not be using a SQL database.

Programming

• Help your users record and report bugs with the Problem Steps Recorder (Scott Hanselman) - How could I didn't know this application!?
• Booleans are Baaaaaaaaaad - Nice tips about how you should build your data, illustrated with a Ruby sample.
• Get In on the Action: Start with Your Windows Store Developer Account (Jonathan Rozenblit) - Everything you need to know to get ready and publish your apps thru the Windows store.
• Why Mocking Matters - Nice explanation of what the differences are between fakes, stubs and mocks.

Miscellaneous

• Why you can’t focus on a single great idea - Interesting thoughts.
• Top 10 Ways to Make Yourself Look (and Be) Smarter (Whitson Gordon) - Some of these tips makes you smarter, not only look like.
• Amazon Kindle Paperwhite 3G/Wi-Fi Review (Scott Hanselman) - I like sooo much my Kindle. With is keyboard so I can take my notes. When I read about the Paperwhite I thought it was perfect. But since my use of this device is very similar to Scott... I will pass.

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 #13

 Azure

• Now Available: Geo-Replication and new Blob, Table and Queue features for Windows Azure Storage (BradCalder) - The blob storage get a new version, more polish,  with some new features improving the final user experience.
• Data Service in the Cloud (Julie Lerman) - Another tutorial as first Azure app. Yes it was publish in April 2011 but all the base are covered.
• White Paper Series Helps You Get a Start on Windows Azure Pricing (Bruce Kyle) - A list of reference to white paper making different scenarios on the needs of different applications in the cloud.
• Windows Azure AppFabric Service Bus Brokered Messaging (Neil Mackenzie) - Take a breath. In this fabulous post are a lot of information. Of good links and a lot of sample.
• The Cloud Responsibility Crisis (Cody) - The cloud is so easy that it comes close impossible to not get lost.
• 5 Things That Are Toxic to Scalability (hullsean) – Be prepare for scalability, by knowing how to avoid traps.
• Extension Methods for the August 2011 Windows Azure Storage Features (Steve Marx) - Explain the new features in this good library.
• Deploying an OData Service in Windows Azure (Shayne Burgess) - It is surprisingly simple to deploy a oData sevice in Azure. A well done tutorial.
• Now Available: The Service Bus September 2011 Release (Clemens Vasters) - great news
• TFS Azure–Technical Access Preview Experience! (Tarun Arora) - Last week I read a post that was explaining how TFS socks. But today when I read and I see all the progress they did, I say that I would love to work with Azure TFS.

SQLAzure

• What’s New in SQL Azure Management Portal? (Part II of II) (Gregory Leake) – Those news change are welcome...
• How to Backup SQL Azure Database to Windows Azure Blob Storage directly from your own machine (Avkash Chauhan - MSFT) - This post explain how to backup in the cloud... So really low cost.
• SQL Azure, the bacpac & Storage Containers - I need to check this because I didn't get any trouble doing my backup.

PowerShell

• Automate It! Deploying a Windows Azure Service Package from PowerShell. (Michael Washam) - It's time to improve your PowerShell skill because more than ever it is very useful.

Ruby

• Deploying Ruby in Windows Azure (Thomas Conte) - Very quick walkthrough to deploy a Ruby application in Azure.
• Some Updates to Waz-Cmd (Ruby Command-Line Tool for Windows Azure) (Steve Marx) - Cross platform tool to manage Azure storage.

~Franky