Reading Notes #119

 

Suggestion of the week

• BizTalk Summit 2013 Wrap-up (Kent Weare) - Very important news from the integration world. This post is a very complete summary of the event. Good job.

 

Cloud

• Installing Ghost from the Azure Web Site Gallery (Jeremiah Billmann Software engineer most of the time.) - That a wonderful news. See my other post/video about it on Cloud en francais
  
• Scaling your Windows Azure Web Site (benjaminperkins) - Very clear tutorial that explains all the possibilities for scaling windows Azure Website, and proof how easy it is.

Databases

• NoSQL Design Patterns for Relational Data (Rob) - Nice post that introduces the NoSQL basics options to design our database.
  
• The “NoSQL” way of storing data - Nice and quick introduction about NoSQL. More a "what is" then "how to".
  
• Steps Towards Optimized Windows Azure SQL Databases - Nice post that helps us to ask our self how could we improve the performance of our database.

 

Programming

• Mixing Command and Transaction Script Patterns - Interesting post where real-life example of some pattern are presented.
  
• Book Review: Effective JavaScript - The book looks very interesting indeed, even more as it is a book for professional Javascript developers.

Miscellaneous

• Human Computer Interaction Diversity - 7 Devices that AREN'T a mouse and keyboard (Scott Hanselman) - Good post presents some really useful tools. Let's add some of them to my wish list.
  
• 21 Web Applications I Use and Can’t Live Without - Nice post that presents a very impressive list of tools.
  
• How To Become a Jedi Knight (James Altucher) - Interesting thoughts... but yah I'm a star wars fan...
  
• Why professional in-house content management matters? - | Gunnar Peipman - Programming Blog - Interesting post that demonstrates why a well-structured intranet is important.
  
• “The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People”: I Transformed Myself Into a Fact Finder - Interesting reading suggestions.

~Frank

Reading Notes #106

Suggestion of the week

• Easily Copy Files from One Cloud Service to Another (Amit Agarwal) - Really useful tool and it looks so easy to use.
  
• Windows Azure: New Distributed, Dedicated, High Performance Cache Service + More Cool Improvements (Scott Guthrie)- A lot of brand-new features as just been release again. Learn more about the super easy to use cache services and all the new possibilities to scale and log and more in this post.

Cloud

• Opinari - Interesting point of view, where SLA match more with price than quality.
  
• Have You Met The Canadian Windows Azure Community Experts? - You may recognize some of them...
  
• Why is The New Windows Azure Cache Service Important? - This post explains why we should care about the new Azure cache services, and the difference between the old and the new version.
  
• Backup WordPress Site to Windows Azure Storage using “BackupToAzure” Plugin (Gaurav) - This post introduces a great free and open source to backup your WordPree.
  
• Public vs. Private Cloud: No Comparison - Interesting point of view about private cloud.

Databases

• Friends Don’t Let Friends use Lazy Loading on Windows Azure! - Very nice post that describes how to avoid big database issue on the cloud, but also in other situations.

Programming

• Are you missing an assembly reference? Why, yes I am. So kind of you to ask. (Bill Wilder) - Discover how NuGet could be so good that it will solve this problem for you.
  
• Jon Galloway - Interesting post that explains asp.net MVC routing. Most of the time MVC Routeing is just magic and easy, but it could be also a bit tricky.
  
• Claims-Based Authentication and Authorization (David Rogers Dev) - Really interesting tutorial on how to build a claims-based authentication and authorization for a website. All the code is available online.
  
• Coding for Domain-Driven Design: Tips for Data-Focused Devs - After reading this post, if you didn't know about Domain-Driven Design (DDD), good chance are that you want to know more...

Integration

• Collection of Visio 2013 Stencil for BizTalk Server updated with new stencils - Great, let's refresh our Visio's shapes.

Miscellaneous

• Scott Hanselman - It so easy and convenient that we sometimes forget how "dangerous" it could be...
  
• The Power of Habits (JD) - About the strength of habits versus knowledge.
  
• Four Areas Where Senior Leaders Should Focus Their Attention - Interesting post to help us on improving a meeting efficiency.

~Frank

Reading Notes #101

Suggestion of the week

• Windows Azure Storage Best Practices - Great post that reviews the today's best practices to get the best of Azure Storage.

Cloud

• Scaling Up and Scaling Out in Windows Azure Web Sites (Craig Kitterman) - Nice post that clarified that scaling options from the Azure Website point of view.
  
• Windows Azure Storage Queue with error queues (Pascal Laurin) - Nice tutorial about using Azure Storage Queues in an asynchronous pattern. You just need to attach an alert from the new Azure Mobile Services to the Error queue, and you are in business! Until you get notified, then we will need the next post.
  
• Windows Azure SQL Database Automated Backups are Finally Here! - That really a good news! I cannot see any reason why anybody wouldn't use it.
  
• Linking a resource to your Cloud Service? What does that mean (Ashish Goyal) - Good clarification about what is exactly a link resource and what it's not.
  
• How to get a sticky load balancer in Windows Azure - Interesting post that comments the usage of sticky load balancer (to use session in a multi server context) and explains how to do it in Azure if you really need it.
  
• An Introduction to Windows Azure BLOB Storage (Mike Wood) - This incredibly complete post contains everything about Azure Blob storage. that the ultimate resource on that topics!
  
• Windows Azure SQL Database Automated Backup Frequency is in UTC (Coordinated Universal Time) - Nice catch! so UTC it is...
  
• Dev/Test in the Cloud - Every developer should now what is available for them in Azure. It is so quick and simple! And if you stop your VMs when you are not developing, you stop paying for it!
  
• Windows Azure Web Sites: How Application Strings and Connection Strings Work(Craig_Kitterman) - Great post that explains how to get a more secure website by using application string.
  
• Turbo Charging Your Windows Azure Cloud Services - Interesting post where we can read about a real cost and performance optimization.

 

Integration

• Windows Azure BizTalk Services & BizTalk 2013 - comparing the mapper (Glenn Colpaert)- Very complete comparison of the two mappers that really shows the pros and cons of each of them.

Programming

• Deployment tool (Fredrik Normén) - Interesting "pet project": building is own deployment tool...
  
• Four Ways to Implement Lazy Loading in C# (Francesco Cariaggi) - Interesting post that gives alternative to the really handy lazy loading pattern.
  
• TypeScript 0.9 Preview Release (S.Somasegar) - Learn more about the new features (generics) that bring the last version of TypeScript released not long ago.
  
• Some of the Anti Patterns - Interesting post that identified some anti patterns that reflects bad practices. Knowing them helps to improve our code, so it's good to refresh our memory.
  
• Use PowerShell to Sort CSV Files in Order - Who don't need to sort stuff? Next time indeed of opening Excell I will type one command line; thanks to this post!
  
• The Great New Features in JustDecompile (James Bender) - Nice post that walkthru the new features included in the new release of this useful tool.
  
• Building static websites with Middleman - Very interesting code. I didn't know Middleman before I'll definitly look at it.

 

Database

• SQL – Difference Between INNER JOIN and JOIN (Pinal Dave) - Don't cheat and answer this frequently asked question before reading the post. And, did you got it?
  
• How to choose a No SQL Database - No Sql database with theirs pros and cons.

 

Miscellaneous

• Is Agile Really Cheaper? (Scott Sehlhorst) - I like this post because it puts words on though that I had. A good post to be more prepare next time a client asks you the question.

~Frank

Reading Notes #98

Suggestion of the week

• Windows Azure: Announcing New Dev/Test Offering, BizTalk Services, SSL Support with Web Sites, AD Improvements, Per Minute Billing (Scott Guthrie)- This post is a mandatory reading. Know from the source what's new! So many good things, that I don't know where to start...
• Announcing "Get Involved" from Tekpub - Enhance your career by engaging with your peers (Scott Hanselman & Rob Conery) - Really great video that explains how to be involve in the community, the good way. Really nice work.

 

Cloud

• How To: Setup Windows Azure PowerShell  - Quick post that explains how to get ready to play with Azure with PowerShell.
• Cloud Cover Show, Episode 109 - Using Windows Azure Active Directory from Windows Store apps - Nice episode with V. Bertocci that get us up to date on all the news Windows Azure Active Directory (AD) features.
• Running WordPress with SQL Azure - That a great workaround! It could be super if we had this option when creating the application.
• Is Amazon becoming the Microsoft of cloud? Hold that thought | ZDNet (Service Oriented Joe McKendrick) - Interesting post about the future of the major players who wants to rules the cloud.
• Microsoft’s “Understanding the Microsoft Cloud” White Paper Misses the Windows Azure IaaS Boat (Roger Jennings) - Hard critic of a Microsoft White Paper. However, it's true that this paper does reflect Azure IaaS reality.
• Cloudy Thoughts by SyntaxC4 - Quick post that introduces some cool new feature for PHP in Azure...
• Windows Azure PowerShell June 2013 Update for IaaS and PaaS (Michael Washam) - With new Azure capabilities comes great PowerShell functionality... this post is all about that. Also Michal Washam is announcing that he is quitting Microsoft.
• Cloud Cover Show, Episode 110 - Windows Azure BizTalk Services - Great show with a demo done by no other one then Guru Venkataraman.
• Checking Azure Cloud Service SDK Version with PowerShell (Tyler Doerksen) - Nice and useful script.
• Azure VM Access Control with PowerShell (Tyler Doerksen) - Great with this post we now know all the new features that came up last week: powershell cmommand.

 

Programming

• ELMAH: Error Logging Modules and Handlers for ASP.NET (and MVC too!) (Scott Hanselman) - This post is not really recent, but really interesting. If you still don't ELMAH this post is for you.
• Making Computer Science Cool (Jonathan Rozenblit) - Really good resources post that gives place to get started based on our level of confort. It could also be use at home for our kids... I wonder if this kind of information is also available in other languages...
• TypeScript: Scaling Up JavaScript - Great video from TechEd, it was hard to wait until the end to start doing TypeScript...

Databases

• Azure does Powershell too (Grant Fritchey) - Nice quick introduction to Azure Sql PowerShell cmdlets.

 

Integration

• Walkthrough of New Windows Azure BizTalk Services - Again a great post/ tutorial from Seroter. This is THE place to start to know more about the Biztalk services (WABS)

 

Miscellaneous

• Are you secure? WiFi Honeypots, Pineapples and SSL with Troy Hunt - And I though a knew the danger of the WiFi. You must spend 30 minutes and listen this post... and re-share!
• Live Demonstration: Hacker Tools You Should Know and Worry About (Hasain Alshakarti, Marcus Murray) - Wow! Very "perturbing" video that shows a lot of different tools to help you... or not.

~Frank

Reading Notes #94

Suggestion of the week

• 10 Tips for Learning a New Technology) - Nice post that gives simple suggestion to have a better kick start when learning new stuff. It gives a lot of online training website references.
  
• Creating a “Flat File” Shared Database with Amazon S3 and Node.js - Very interesting and inspiring tutorial.
  
  

Cloud

• How Do You Choose Your Cloud Provider? (Toddy Mladenov) - This post doesn't give an easy answer, because it's impossible. However, it explains how to find your answer.
  
• Penny Pinching in the Cloud: Enabling New Relic Performance Monitoring on Windows Azure Websites - Indeed, NewRelic is an incredible tool. Check-it out.
  
• Microsoft working on DaaS solution hosted on Azure (Kenneth van Surksum) - That could be interesting.
  
• Moving all a website's images and assets to the Azure CDN - This one was on me stack since few days now, but I shouldn't have waited; really nice. I liked the live thing also, it gives a real idea of the effort. Time, and difficulty of the project. Note:Watch until the end.
  
• Windows Azure SQL Data Sync - The Maximum Limit For Index or Statistics Key Column List is 16 - Nice workaround of an Azure Data Sync limitation.
  
• Using Existing Windows Azure SQL Databases with Azure Mobile Services - Nice short post answering one common question about the Azure Mobile Services.
  
• Paper: Infrastructure-as-a-Service Product Line Architecture Fabric Architecture Guide (Kenneth van Surksum) - Two papers about IaaS Fabric Architecture got public...
  
  

Programming

• Git Explained: For Beginners - If you don't know about Git, or you still not familiar with it? This is definitely the post for you. From vocabulary to code sample, this tutorial explains all you need to know.
  
• CDNs fail, but your scripts don't have to - fallback from CDN to local jQuery - Nice post that gives samples of CDN fallback, because we it will append, but we don't know when.
  
• Utilize Compilation as a Service to create the next level plugin capability (youtube.com) - Wow! This idea is fantastic. A nice video that explains how we could use Roslyn.
  
• Sublime Text (2) (Drew Barontini) - I discover Sublime Text 2 few months ago, and since then I'm installing it everywhere. Here is a nice post that presents important features and customizations.(To install using Chocolatey just type cinst sublimetext ).
  
• 10 Ways to Make Agile Design More Effective - Interesting post that gives nice tips to improve your journey in an Agile project.
  
• Merge Files with Git Merge Tool - Perfect tutorial for a beginner with Git (like me) , this post explains the basic of the merge process.
  
  

Databases

• SQL SERVER - Azure SQL Databases Backup Made Easy with SQLBackupAndFTP - Free and simple to use. That a nice tool.

Integration

• BizTalk 2013 Installation and Configuration – Important considerations before setup the server (Part 1) - Nice tutorial with some time-saver tips.

Miscellaneous

• 6 Things Exceptional Leaders Do Better (Peter Gasca) - Know what you need to improve.
  
• Are You Used to Delivering Working Software on a Daily Basis and Changing the Software in Response to Emerging Requirements? - A quiz for yourself to know how really responsive to change you are.`
  
  

~Frank

Reading Notes #92

Suggestion of the week

• BizTalk Mapper Extensions UtilityPack v1.5 - New version available with 7 new functoids - Great utility Pack that will save us a lot of time, and it's free!

Cloud

• NoSQL Data in the Cloud with Windows Azure Tables - Really great article that explains all aspects the Azure Storage Table from the architecture to the querying.
  
• Cloud Cover Show - Episode 105 - General Availability of Windows Azure Infrastructure as a Service - Great show. I really liked the code presentation; it gives a lot of details.
  
• How To Find a Certificate in the Certificate Store - Nice helper, be sure to save this somewhere close.
  
• New Preview Features for Windows Azure Active Directory (TheRockyH) - This post gives more details about the new capabilities of Active Directory.
  
• Publishing from Dropbox to Windows Azure Web Sites (Kaushal Kumar Panday) - It couldn't be more clearly explained. A screenshot by step you will learn how to deploy a website on Azure with Dropbox as the repository.
  
• Building Windows Azure Cloud Services App with Web Role, Worker Role, Table Storage and Service Bus - Great tutorial that shows how to build a multi-tier application. The code is also available.
• Improvements to Virtual Networks, Virtual Machines, Cloud Services and a new Ruby SDK (Scott Gu)- New features like Remote PowerShell, Linux SSH provisioning enhancements, and a new Ruby SDK to play with Azure Storage and Service Bus.

Programming

• 88% of spreadsheets have errors (Jeremy Olshan) - This post gives you suggestions to stay in the few spreadsheets that doesn't contains error.
  
• How to Write a Chrome App for your Website in 5 Minutes (Amit Agarwal) - Interesting post. Some testing or diagnostic tool could be useful for web developer team. It's 5 minutes wisely spent.
  
• Running Bash Commands From Ruby - Useful tips that all coder should now.
  
• Ruby Versions Demystified - Very interesting post that explains in one article all the differences between Ruby's components versions.
  
• Introducing: Practical JavaScript (Peter Vogel) - Nice post that describes quickly the evolution of JavaScript. This post could be the first of an interesting series about using JavaScript (and some framework) today in real projects.
  
• Penny Pinching in the Cloud: How to run a two day Virtual Conference for $10 - Wow interesting project that combines a lots of really good stuff.

• Metaprogramming Fibonacci (Eno Compton) - A fun exercise with recursively in Ruby.

UX

• Magic Numbers in CSS - If you are doing web development this reading is a must. For all the other read it, you will learn important css base.
  
• Stop Your Console App The Nice Way) (Mike Hadlow) - This post some best practice to do a better management of the console application. It's not because it's a console app that UX is not important.

Miscellaneous

• The Blog of Scott Hanselman - Interesting post for all bloggers, you are not alone...
  
• How to Make a Decision When Your Team Doesn't Agree (Margaret Heffernan) - Interesting post on well kwon situation.
  
• What to Do When You’ve Made Someone Angry - Nice and simple. This advice could have a big impact on your entourage.

~Frank

Reading Notes #91

Suggestion of the week

• Streaming Diagnostics Trace Logging from the Azure Command Line (plus Glimpse!) (Scott Hanselman)- Great post that shows us a lot of possibilities to trace our cloud application. I really like the stream log from Azure command line.
  
• Walkthrough to Configure System Center Management Pack for Windows Azure Fabric Preview for SCOM 2012 SP1 (Walter Myers) - As it says in this post: The wait is over. Don't miss the important news. Share it.
  
• Windows Azure Infrastructure as a Service General Availability (Bart Vande Ghinste) - Hurray! The IaaS is now ready for production and got a significant price reduction!!!

Cloud

• Walkthrough #3: Developing Multi-Tenant Web Applications with Windows Azure AD (vibro) - This post summarize the third par of an unavoidable tutorial about Azure and Active Directory.
  
• Creating a Windows Azure Virtual Machine - the RIGHT Way (Buck Woody) - Creating a VM is easy, but it's important to know how to do it correctly to get what we expect.
  
• Windows Azure IaaS is Live and BizTalk Server 2013 Hourly Pricing Released(Stephen W. Thomas) - This post explains how to calculus, our fees when running Azure BizTalk VM.
  
• Django now available on Windows Azure - Good news for Python developers.

Integration

• Service Bus Explorer 2.0 released (Paolo Salvatori) - Impressive tool that gives a lot of options to manage our Azure Service Bus.

Programming

• View your Kanban board - Nice post that gives more details on one of the new supported Visual Studio features. Really interesting and useful.
  
• jQuery 2.0 Released  - Good news. However, don't forget that the branch 2.x is met to support new browser. For IE 6, 7, 8 the branch 1.x will continue to be supported.

System Management

• Adding a Custom Domain to your Windows Azure AD (vibro) - Useful post that explains all steps of a common scenario when using AD.
  
• Why monitor Windows Azure with System Center? - Good question. And the answer is ev0en better... Thankfully.

Miscellaneous

• Rule No. 1: Get to the Point (Geoffrey James) - Quick and clear.
  
• Simple Trick to Finding Extraordinary Employees (Marla Tabaka) - Nice tips. Easy to use.
  
• Effectiveness and Efficiency - Nice post. It is, in fact, a good starting point to become better at what you do... or what you should be doing.

~Frank

Reading Notes #90

Suggestion of the week

• My New Pluralsight Course – Patterns of Cloud Integration – Is Now Live - Very promising training, looking forward to watch this.
  
• Visual Studio ‒ It Just Keeps Getting Better (Marc Gagné) - Wow! So many great features in one thing... The news that makes my day.
  
  

Cloud

• azure-scripty – Azure CLI scripting made even easier (Glenn Block) - Automating repetitive tasks is a must and Azure-scripty is surely a tool that should find a place in your toolbox.
  
• Windows Azure: Active Directory Release, New Backup Service + Web Site Monitoring and Log Improvements - Great new features in Windows Azure. This post details this new stuff with also updates on previous release.
  
• Affinity Groups are Important on Windows Azure - Good explanation of a very important feature. A post to share...
  
• How Cloud Computing Influences Digital Marketing (Xath Cruz) - Nice post that gives a real example of company using / moving to Windows Azure.
  
• But what can I do with Windows Azure? Create (Free) Websites and Applications - Nice tutorial that explains how you could easily install a free application on Azure by installing DotNetNuke.
  
• Large-scale Implementation on Azure Platform (Ajay Solanki) - One of the larger-scale implementation and surly very critical on Azure was the US election. This post explains how this application was design.
  
• Document oriented database with Azure Table Storage Service (Pascal Laurin) – Good tutorial that explains all the code needed for the exercises.
  
• Walkthrough #1: Adding Sign-On to Your Web Application Using Windows Azure AD (vibro) - Quick recap of an unavoidable tutorial about single sign-on.

• Episode 104: Building cross platform Android and Windows Store apps using Windows Azure Mobile Services (Channel 9) (Nick Harris Nathan Totten) - Don't miss this episode; it contains a very complete demo where you can see full connected application on Windows8 and Android. 

Integration

• BizTalk 2013 worldwide launch events by Impack - Learn more about this important event that you shouldn't miss. 

Programming

• Using jQuery to POST [FromBody] parameters to Web API » Encosia) (Dave Ward) - Useful tutorial that explains what to do and why.
  
• Créé une application Windows 8 pour votre site Wordpress - Offre limitée - Windows 8 achieved great things, and one of them is changing technology so it is accessible by everyone.
  
• EF6: Nested types and more for Code First (Arthur Vickers) - This post explains new features of the Entity Frameworks EF code first.
  
• SymbolSource support for NuGet Package Source Discovery (Maarten Balliauw) - How to be lazy in a professional manner...

• Confreaks - Really interesting video about the best practices of making library.
  
• Can You “Over Organize” JavaScript? - Interesting post questioning the re-factorization of JavaScript code.
  
• A Month of PowerShell – Day 12 (Logins, Users and Roles) (Wayne Sheffield) - This post gives useful tips to manipulate database users. A good example of practical scenario.

• The Art of Writing Functional Specs (Part 1) – What is a Functional Specification? - Promising series that propose to explains the art of being understood by technical people
  
• The Art of Writing Functional Specs (Part 2) – The Most Important Thing About A Spec - The key is simple, but easy to miss. This post highlight some traps to avoid.
  
• The Art of Writing Functional Specs (Part 3) – Spec Shapes (Saveen Reddy) - This post briefly categorizes specs and gives details for each type.
  
  

Miscellaneous

• Social Media: Not the Productivity Killer You Thought (Francesca Louise Fenzi) - Wow! I really surprised, and happy... ;)
  
• Why You Should Take the Blame - Good lesson that teaches us how to learn for our mistake.
  
• Five must-try cloud-based utilities (Jack Wallen) - Interesting tools, particularly Asana that I didn't know.
  
• The Importance of Scheduling Nothing – Interesting post that explains why scheduling nothing doesn't mean doing nothing.

~Frank

Reading Notes #89

Suggestion of the week

• Pinching pennies when scaling in The Cloud (Scott Hanselman) - Great example of code optimization, and all that in the cloud.
• Mobile Services and Windows Azure Storage (Chris) - Great tutorial that explains how to change the usual SQL database to Azure storage with Azure Mobile services. The client parts are also available for iOS and Android.

Cloud

• Optimized Windows Azure IaaS Disk Mobility with Save-AzureVhd (Michael Washam) - Another quick post that demonstrates how to upload a VHD in Azure storage using the new Azure cmdlet feature.
  
• What Does Your Cloud Disaster Recovery Plan Look Like? - Nice post that explains how you can use Azure Data Sync to backup your database.
  
• Running SSL with Windows Azure Web Sites Today - The perfect workaround to have a SSL Azure Website today is explained in this post. Using a web service to forward the traffic this is a good solution until SSL is supported.
  
• Put Your Windows Azure SQL Database on a Diet! - Nice post of a real case, real data and real prices.
  
• A Quick Guide to Getting Started with New Relic - Perfect starting point with a lot of information and reference on deeper tutorials.
  
• Three gotchas with the Azure Service Bus - Very interesting post that goes deeper than usual and explains clearly some details of the Azure service bus.
  
• Cloud Cover Show: Episode 103 - Windows Azure HDInsight (Nick Harris, Nathan Totten) - Don't miss this show, it explains what big data, why it is useful. What's the difference between it and HDInsight and in bonus, you got a demo.

 

Programming

• The Repository Pattern - Nice example of dependency injection. Really useful pattern.
  
• Problems with Copy Pasting Code - And Modifying Slightly... (Jason Singh) - Wow! I'm always impressed by tools that are available to get better code. That one is a must.
  
• Understanding Javascript Prototypes - Very clear post that explains what is a javascript prototype, what is not and how to use it.
  
• Why 30% of App Deployments Fail (Victor Cruz) - Interesting post that share result of a survey on deployment strategies.
  
• App Building Made Easier–Step 3 (Jonathan Rozenblit) - Great post. Start coding, you are not alone. Note that even if Jonathan didn't say it help is also available in French...
  
• Getting started with AngularJS - With all those JavaScript framework available it's difficult to know with one to pick or where to start looking. This post is a good place to start.

 

Integration

• BizTalk Anti Pattern – Don’t over complicate your maps (Michael Stephenson) - It is sometime difficult to find the limit of functoids to use in map to get the job done. But we shouldn't be afraid to .Net code.

I wrote a blog post a few years ago around the options for where you could put configuration settings in BizTalk (Click here).

• BizTalk 2013 worldwide launch events by Impack - Learn more about this important event that you shouldn't miss.

System Management

• BizTalk Monitoring Solutions (SCOM vs BizTalk360) white paper by Kent Weare (Saravana Kumar) - Nice intro to the white paper about monitoring BizTalk solutions. And of course, the reference to the white paper.

Miscellaneous

• The 3 Biggest Resume Mistakes - Few tips to get your social "you" more appealing. Because to have new contracts you need to demark yourself.
  
• How to: Add a ‘Copy Code’ Link to Your Blog Post and Colored Code Blocks (Jeff Sanders) - Simple tips to improve the code visibility and accessibility in your post.
  
• Surviving legacy code - Very complete article about legacy code and why the trash for person is the treasure of another.

• Move your Hotmail.com account to an Outlook.com account (Greg Shultz) - I use outlook.com for few months now, and I love it. This post explains how to migrate, what era your options and what will happen if you do nothing.

~Frank

Reading Notes #78

Suggestion of the week

• The Missing Windows 8 Instructional Video (Scott Hanselman) - Finally! Someone did it. Great video that helps to get started with Windows 8. Bookmark, share and re-share.

Cloud

• (Some) Best Practices for Building Windows Azure Cloud Applications (Gaurav) - Good post that reviews the most important best practices. Take 2 minutes and review them.
• New Windows Azure Mobile Services Getting Started Content (James Conard) - Perfect post to get started with Azure mobile services. It contains a lot of references to others great content.
• Knowing when to choose Windows Azure Table Storage or Windows Azure SQL database - Simple questions to know what kind of "table" you need. Simple and effective.
• WordPress Database Error on Azure (Schwammy) - Nice catch. These tips will save a lot of time to anyone having a Wordpress blog hosted on windows Azure.
• Manage your subscriptions with the Windows Azure Tools for Visual Studio - This post explains the features of the new available tools Studio to manage our Azure. Since Vs is the principal tool for all the .Net developers and that this add-on is very powerful, I highly recommend to read this post.
• Interacting with Clouds From Visual Studio: Part 2 – Amazon Web Services - Second post of a series about AWS this one explain how to install and use the new add-on to Visual Studio to manage your Amazon Web Services.
• Episode 98 - Mobile Services, ASP.NET Facebook Template, and Github Publishing Demos (Channel 9) (Nick Harris Nathan Totten) - Great show that quick recap the news of the past 2 weeks and well introduce new capabilities of the mobile services and how to works with the Github publishing integration.
• Bret Stateham's Blog - If one day you forget what was the username used to connect to your Azure Sql Server, here is what you should do.
• Windows Azure Active Directory Cartoon (Channel 9) - This video is fantastic. In only few minutes it’s explain very clearly what is Active directory.
• Build your own SQL Server Agent for Windows Azure SQL Database with the Scheduler - Great post/ tutorial that use the mobile services to create a Sql Server Agent.

 

Integration

• BizTalk360 a monitoring and support tool for BizTalk Server environments (Part 1) - First post a big series this one introduce Biztalk360 and explain why it should be considerate as a great tool.
• In which BizTalk360 differs from other tools? (Part 2)
• Advanced capabilities for managing permissions (Part 3)
• Monitoring and Alert Notification capabilities (Part 4)
• Complexity abstraction of certain tasks (Part 5)
• Productivity Tools (Part 6)
• Governance and Auditing Capabilities (Part 7)

Database

• Windows Azure SQL Database Security Scenarios and Tips - Simple rule that will make your database more secured.
• Secure Your Windows Azure SQL Database - Get started with database security with this post that defines some major rules.
• Windows Azure SQL Database and SQL Server -- Performance and Scalability Compared and Contrasted - Excellent post that explainsth0e differences of Azure SQL database and SQL Server and the limitations.
• Creating a SQL Server Database Project in Visual Studio 2012 - Very clear post about how-to use the SSDT in different scenarios.

Programming

• Building and Deploying Windows Azure Web Site with Node.js and MongoDB by using Microsoft WebMatrix (Shiju Varghese) - Clear explanation. The final solution is also available online.
• Catching Exceptions in PowerShell - Quick post with a simple code snippet. Perfect to understand how to trap specific exception.

Miscellaneous

• 8 Tips to Sell Windows Store App - Nice post that complete all those how-to build your app to the windows store. This one explains how to maximize your impact and get as many download as possible.
• Managing Programs With Agile and Traditional Projects (Johanna) - Good tips about how we could manage a mixt of agile and no-agile projects.

~Frank

Reading Notes #77

 

Suggestion of the week

• Windows Azure 1.8 SDK– Queue to Queue Transfers (Kent Weare) - Very interesting post that uses one of the new features available in Windows Azure 1.8 SDK to illustrate the Fan In pattern.

 

Cloud

• Table Storage 2.0 – Queries (Tyler Doerksen) - Understand the power of the table storage library version 2.0, by seeing all the query capabilities.
• Migrate a Virtual Machine to Windows Azure with PowerShell (Michael Washam) - Nice script very useful to save time or in automating processes.
• Working with Windows Azure command line tools from within Visual Studio (Maarten B) - Nice post that explains who to use two great tools together.
• Using your free Azure VM to host Visual Studio 2012 - Two short video show how to install a full legit version of Visual Studio 2012 Express on Windows 8 VM for free.
• 10 Considerations When Transferring Enterprise Applications to the Cloud - Nice list of questions you should ask before going to the cloud. And one that is often forgotten: the licensing.
• Automating the cloud with Windows Azure Command Line Tools - Great scripting references sources.
• Using OS disk VHD to create a new Virtual Machine if OS VHD is still on lease in Windows Azure Virtual Machines (Avkash Chauhan) - Good catch! This is a recurring question. Here are all the solutions depending of what you’re trying to do.
• Upgrading Windows Azure Cloud Services to Server 2012 and .NET 4.5 (Michael Washam) - Nice walkthrough that explains how to upgrade your cloud services to a more recent version of the OS family and .Net framework.

 

Programming

• Fix for WordPress Plugin Update Issues on Windows Azure Web Sites (syntaxc4) - Clear explication of how the thing works and why the issue appends... and how to fix it in one click.
• How to keep your ASP.NET database connection strings secure when deploying to Azure from Source (Scott Hanselman) - Quick tip about protecting your connection string.
• Public service announcement: time to update your CSS3 (David Storey) - Be aware web developers and bloggers, it's time to check your css. And once it's done don’t forget to minify it...

 

Integration

• Error while deleting send port from party (Dieter Gobeyn) - Very useful fix method, but for advice users only.
• Parser Optimization in a Flat File Schema (Mathieu Vermote) - Good tips to be ready to write your next flat file schema in Biztalk.

 

Miscellaneous

• Backing Up WordPress? Don’t Make These 9 Mistakes - If you are a developer, you probably backup your machine and your code. That's good. Do you do the same for your blog? You should, here is how to do it the good way.
• iPad, Surface, Ultrabook: Are we there yet? (Scott Hanselman) - The comparison we were all waiting for. A MUST READ post. I’m a little sad that no Android device has been included. I think the Asus transformer could be confederates. a bit sad that any Android device was included. I think the Asus Transformer could be ferly confederated.
• 10 Easy Ways to Get More Done (Geoffrey James) - As always how achieve more with less.

~Frank

Reading Notes #76

 
Suggestion of the week

• Subscribe! (Clement Vasters) - An amazing new series about the Windows Azure Service Bus, really good video.
• Getting Started with Service Bus. Part 1: The Portal
• Getting Started with Service Bus. Part 2: .NET SDK and Visual Studio
• Getting Started with Service Bus. Part 3: Service Bus Explorer
• Getting Started with Service Bus. Part 4: Queues
• Getting Started with Service Bus. Part 5: Topics
• Getting Started with Service Bus. (Final) Part 6: Relay

Cloud

• New Windows Azure PowerShell Update – December 2012 (Michael Washam) - Nice update to the Azure PowerShell tool that gives more options to manage Virtual machine and Service Bus.
• Table Storage 2.0 (Tyler Doerksen) - Nice post that explains the new structure of the namespace in the library and gives some samples of code how to use it.
• Practical Azure #5: Windows Azure SQL Database - Perfect get started video about Azure Sql Database.
• Storing user uploads in Windows Azure blob storage (Maarten Balliauw) - Great solution to a simple real word question. Easily scalable and secure. I really like it!
• Azure Remote PowerShell (Dustin Metzgar) - This post explains how the author managed to get more information from an instance running in Azure. The code sample is also available.
• PaaS not cheap enough? AppFog has a deal for you! (Barb Darrow) - New lower prices for Cloud Foundry.
• Applications are now open for the Microsoft Accelerator for Windows Azure – 2013 (Scott Gu)- Great opportunity for business to start using Azure with a lot of resources.
• Cross-Post: Announcing Windows Azure Media Player framework Preview for iOS (Craig Kitterman) - Great new for iOS developers that can now enjoy the awesome Azure Media Services.
• Deploy an on-premise VM to Windows Azure with App Controller (John Joyner) - Hurray! A lot of people were waiting for this feature!

Integration

• BizTalk360 Deployment and Configuration best practices (Saravana Kumar) - Use must read/bookmark the great post. It explains all the best practices related to BizTalk360, all in one single post.

Database

• Windows Azure Import/Export Service and External References - Important notice that can save you a lot of time when exporting a database in Windows Azure.
• Available Today: SSDT—December 2012 - New updated version of Sql Server Data Tool (SSDT) now support unit testing.
• Getting Started with SQL Server Database Unit Testing in SSDT - Nice post that explains how to get started with the new testing features available in Sql Server Data Tool. From converting the 2010 test projects to customization.

Programming

• 10 skills for developers to focus on in 2013 (Justin James) - Developers if you didn't see these coming, here is the top list of what you should learn/ improve in 2013.
• Why All The Lambdas? - This post explains very clearly how the lambdas are so useful by using a well use sample of code in Asp. Net MVC @Html.TextBoxFor(Model.Rating).
• Use Big Data to gain insight about small business customers (David Gitonga) - Interesting post that explains how BigData could be you in your business... even if you are in a small company.
• What Refactoring is, and what it isn’t - According to Kent Beck and Martin Fowler (Jim Bird) - While doing some refac****. I mean re writing in a project I found this post to be really interesting... and actual.
• 10 Tools To Get Kids Excited About Programming (Saikat Basu) - Wow those are great! I'm exited to show some of these to my kid. It's always good to transit passion ;)
• Essential Command-Line Tools for Web Developers - Interesting tools that can saves a lot of times doing repetitive tasks, specially during web development.
• JQUERY 1.9 BETA 1 RELEASED - Nice jQuery 1.9 is coming. Learn all about the new features ex: the multiple getter. Since big structural changes are maid in this version the jQuery team is providing migration tools. Learn where to find these and how-to uses them in this post.
• Recreate a VM .. over and over again (Priyo Lahiri) - Nice script that is a time saver. I would have liked to have it one month ago when I was testing deployment... Let's keep it for the future.
• So long and thanks for the all the Expression... Expression Design & Web are End of Life'd (but now free) [oh, and the rest of the Expression Suite is dead too] - If you still using VS2010 it's a good time to download Blend now. Also I wonder what application will replace/take the lead instead of SuperPreview (in Expression Web)?

Miscellaneous

• 15 Social Media Mistakes that are Strangling Your Success (Georgina Laidlaw) - This post suggested simple "rules" that are easy to follow, and that will make you more likeable on social media.
• Surface & iPad Collision Course  - Nice post that compares what could be compared between an iPad and a Surface... Nothing unexpected put still something to read.
• Backing Up WordPress? Don’t Make These 9 Mistakes - If you are a developer, you probably backup your machines and your code. That good. Do you do the same for your blog? You should, here is how-to do it the good way.

~Frank

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 #74

Cloud

• Windows Azure Mobile Services: A Robust Back End for Your Device Applications - Great article that explains how Windows Azure Mobile services work through a nice tutorial. You must read that.
• Provisioning a MySQL Database from the Windows Azure Store (SyntaxC4) - Learn how to get add-on like a MySql database with the Windows Azure Store (currently only available in US).
• iOS Support with Windows Azure Mobile Services – now with Push Notifications (Scott Gu)- Another great news for iOS developers who want to use Windows Azure.
• Doctrine supports SQL Database Federations for massive scalability on Windows Azure - Great news for PHP developers since Doctrine is now supporting Azure SQL Database Federation. Note that other than Doctrine PHP developers can also use Symfony to code with Azure.
• Windows Azure now supports federation with Windows Server Active Directory (Alex Simons) - Amazing post. First, it shares some great identity-related improvements made to Windows Azure that leverage the capabilities of Windows Azure AD. Then a tutorial that explains how to do it.
• Windows Azure SQL Database Backup and Restore - A must. If you have data in Azure, then you must read this post.
• Introducing the AWS SDK for Node.js (Developer Preview) - Good news for Node.js developers.

Integration

• BizTalk Mapper Patterns: How to Map Name Value Pair to a Hierarchical Schema - Very interesting post that explains how to do this type of mapping with functoids and by XSLT script.
• We are presenting BizTalk360 at – BizTalk Summit 2012 (Saravana Kumar) - Nice event that is coming soon. I would love to see the Biztalk360 presentation by myself, but I will need to relay on my coworkers’ story.

[…]The session is going to be 100% technical, without a single sales slide. The session structure is going to be 15 minutes slides (intro/background) and 45 minutes demos. […]

• Setting Up BizTalk Server 2013 Beta on a Windows Azure Virtual Machine (Stephen W. Thomas) - This post is a little older(1 month), but gives more details. Since new Windows Azure images are available in the gallery, I think it should work better now.
• New minor release of BizTalk Scheduled Task Adapter for BizTalk Server 2010 is now available - Announce a new release of BizTalk Scheduled Task Adapter that fixes some minor issues.

Programming

• Resolving “certificate for the given thumbprint could not be loaded” error with Azure Tools for Visual Studio - Nice catch! With so many different account and development vm, I’m sure that this situation will append. Then I will know what to do.
• Web Essentials nightly builds - That tool looks awesome I'm looking forward to trying it.
• Tis the season (Tyler Doerksen) - Multiple web camp are coming soon and this week it was VS 2012.
• My collection of favourite TFS utilities - Great list of tools that can make our TFS better.
• Building Beautiful, Interactive, and Fast Web Sites (Jonathan Rozenblit) - Web developer this was a great web camps! In case you missed it, stay tuned for the video on-demand that should be publish sonly.
• AWS Tools for Windows PowerShell - AWS is finally let us use PowerShell to manage our environment. Over 550 cmdlets.

Miscellaneous

• 15 Super Useful Apps for Busy Entrepreneurs (Kevin Smith) - SwiftKey, Evernotes and a lot more of these applications that help us.
• When I’m most productive - Nice post that could help to find why we are more profitable sometimes and not that much on other.
• If You’re Afraid of Your To-Do List, It’s Not Working (JD Meier) - Nice quick tips to be productive.
• My next PC will be an Ultrabook (Scott Hanselman) - Didn't know that ultrabook could be that powerful. This type of PC starts to be really interesting then.
• Don’t let IT ground your company - Interesting article that explains the importance of planning and to have plan B... If you want to stay in business.
• Your Emails Are Too Long: Here's How to Fix Them - Interesting sharing.
• How to be a Consultant, Part 6: Effective Presentation Content (David Pallmann) - Nice post that explains what good presentations look like and what are the rules to create them.
• How Big Data and the Cloud are Changing Customer Service Solutions - Very interesting thoughts about what should be "smart application" today since the so much information is easily accessible through Big Data.
• Windows 8 Shortcuts (Lee Stott) - How to be quicker with a keyboard on Windows 8

 

~Frank