Reading Notes #143

Cloud

• Microsoft Azure and Open Source Power Grid Computing - A nice article about an integration solution using JavaScript (with different components) and the cloud.
• How do you build features on #Azure? - Nice post that describes a real job situation and a really good team spirit.
• AppVeyor - A good continuous integration system is a joy to behold - (Scott Hanselman) - Wonderful post that gives us a taste of what VenyorApp is capable of.

Programming

• Managing NuGet packages dependencies with the Package Visualizer tool (Pascal Laurin) - Wow what a useful tool. I just have a very painful moment upgrading an application. Using this tool could have saved me a lot of troubles. Looking forward to see the other tools that his talking about.
• Comparing LINQ with Stored Procedure - Quick tips to help us to decide if we pick linq or sproc when starting a new project.

Miscellaneous

• What fuels your development efforts? - Hey, it looks like you just level up brother and got +1 of wisdom…

Note: Less reading this week, I spent some time re-installing my PC. Thanks to boxstarter.org, part of it was really easy.

~Frank

Reading Notes #131

Suggestion of the week

• Build End-to-End Apps with TypeScript (Gil Fink) - Amazing tutorial that gives the opportunity to learn a lot about recent language and tools. A mandatory reading for all web developers.

Cloud

• Windows Azure Websites online tools you should know about (Nir Mashkowski) - Nice quick and clear introduction to Kudu dashboard.
  
• Stupid Azure Trick #8 – Take control of Management Certificate names (Bill Wilder) - Nice clarification about certificate and security management in Windows Azure.
  
• Remote Administration of Windows Azure Websites using IIS Manager (Nir Mashkowski) - Soooo convenient. This post explains how we can remotely connect to a Windows Azure website with IIS.
  
• Stupid Azure Trick #7 – Use Windows Azure’s Local Storage Emulator with Web Sites & VMs (Bill Wilder) - Nice trick that explains how to use Azure emulator, because it's something we (or will) need.
  
• #WindowsAzure Lessons Learned : Don't be Afraid to Duplicate Data - Interesting re-design of a cloud solution.
  
• Announcing General Availability of Oracle Software on Windows Azure and Updates to Windows Azure Traffic Manager (Steven Martin) - Great new images and useful feature are now available.
  
• Tutorial: Finding Virtual Machine Images for Windows Azure in VM Depot (Ross Gardler) - That a very nice upgrade: an amazing search/sort engine.
  
• Is Your Application Built for the Cloud? - Interesting questioning about when to know if our application is built for the cloud, and nice list of pattern that are really well compatible with cloud solutions.

Programming

• NuGet Package of the Week: FluentAutomation for automated testing of Web Applications (Scott Hanselman) - Interesting tools to automate things like the ScriptCS.(Available via Chocolatey).
  
• Remove that dirty CSS! - Very useful tutorial that uses Node.js and Grunt.

Miscellaneous

• How to Clear Your Mind in 15 Minutes (Kevin Daum) - Sometimes to get more productive, we need to pause. Here are few tips on how-to achieve that.
  
• Why NOT measure progress using subjective percents - | Gunnar Peipman - Programming Blog - Interesting point of view about calculating project progress.
  
• Keepin' Track of Your Views - I found this post interesting because it explains how pageviews are counted.
  
• Logiciel libre : soyons clairs! (Laurent Bounin) - Very interesting point of view about open-source software (in French).
  
• Back to Basics: Assert your assumptions and diff your source code (Scott Hanselman) - Aah debugging... Never assume something. Thanks for sharing this story, I feel less alone now.

~Frank

Reading Notes #120

Suggestion of the week

• Working with 154 million records on Azure Table Storage – the story of “Have I been pwned?” - Truly one of the best posts a read about azure windows storage. Thanks to Tom Walker (@Tinytoot) for the suggestion.
  
• Windows Azure: New Scheduler Service, Read-Access Geo Redundant Storage, and Monitoring Updates (Scott Gu) - Great update from Windows Azure, I'm really happy about the scheduler release. It's a very useful feature.

Cloud

• The Truth About Windows Azure PowerShell (wordpress.com) - Your right.
  
• AWS Migration Patterns (Frank Kelly) - Really interesting post. And you, how do you prefer to do your migration the "big bang" way or bit by bit.
  
• Application settings in Azure Mobile Services (CarlosFigueira) - Nice tutorial with a real case and good code sample.
  
• ASP.NET MVC–Azure Websites and EF Model First Connection Strings when Deploying from Github - Useful tutorial about how to manage our code when deploying from source control directly in Azure.
  
• Le cloud, les nuages et puis quoi encore (Frank) - Quick French introduction about the cloud that a wrote on my new blog.
  
• Building a Windows 8.1 Developer Environment in Windows Azure - Great workaround to be able to build win8 or 8.1 application in an Azure VM.

Programming

• **Be a productive coder with Productivity Power Tools 2013 (Lori Lalonde, Tom Walker) - I'm a big fan of VisualStudio productivity power tools since vs2010. If you did try it yet it time more than ever.
  
• I Was Wrong About JavaScript and Responsive Design - Interesting post where the author share how he realizes that javascript and responsive UI was indeed important.

Databases

• [Video] The Secrets of TempDB - Wow, that an explication. You must see this video. It will probably change the way you write you're SQL queries.
  
• Colored Status Bar in SQL Server Management Studio - Nice tips to differentiate different environments, and who knows maybe saving you from a big mistake in prod...
  
• NoSQL Data Modeling Techniques - Good post to get started with NoSql. It could definitely help before starting designing your database.

Architecture

• Composite Pattern (Gunnar Peipman) - Good post that explains clearly a pattern with code sample.

Miscellaneous

• To Feedly readers - Really? What kind of things, ads? I must to some screen capture compare.
  
• Feedly WAS (is) Hijacking Shared Links And Cutting Out Original Publishers (Nate Hoffelder) - Interesting thoughts about Feedly new "feature" that you should know.
  
• Three all new Windows 8.1 video tutorials - what's new in 8.1, keyboard shortcuts, and managing windows (Scott Hanselman) - Great video, very clear and instructive for a super user or a complete newbie.
  
• 10 Ways to Switch Your Brain to Writing Mode When Working From Home (Stacey Roberts) - Nice useful tips that help to get you started.

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 #104

 

Suggestion of the week

• Penny Pinching in the Cloud: When do Azure Websites make sense? - Great Q&A that answers probably all the questions you might have about Azure Website

Cloud

• Hosting a Single-Tenant Application as a Multi-Tenant Application on Windows Azure (idea)) - Interesting idea to manage application in Azure.
  
• Windows Azure Training Kit - December 2012 - More details about what's new in this release: demos, exercises, presentations...
  
• Azure MSDN Subscription Intro (Tyler Doerksen) - This post quickly explained how to use our MSDN subscription with Azure and why we should do it.
  
• SQL Database Automated Backup–Before and Now (admin) - Yes, with Azure SQL Database we still need to do backups; this post explains what are the options.
  
• Using Windows Azure Caching efficiently across multiple Cloud Service roles(Pascal Laurin) - Great post that explains some details that we might had miss about Azure cashing and its options.

 

Programming

• A rich new JavaScript code editor spreading to several Microsoft web sites - Interesting discovery. I use it, and I didn't notice the similarity... Nice catch.
  
• Asp.Net 4.5 features - Part 1 - Good post that explains features introduced by .Net 4.5. Like the author specify this is not a get started in .Net posts nether a complete list of all new features, but it contains a lot of info.
  
• SSDT Schema Compare - Damm! I was assuming it was part of the Visal Studio updates...
  
• SSDT SQL Menu Options - Nice post that introduce SSDT feature.

 

Databases

• SQLite (Deepthi Anantharam) - Look like a very nice product! Looking forward to try it in a POC or just for fun...

Miscellaneous

• 5 awesome reasons your Start Menu is better in Windows 8.1 (Jerry Nixon) - If you still did try Wondows 8.1, here what you are missing.
  
• Add Social Sharing Links to your Blog without widget JavaScript - I like that! Less noise, more speed and still sharing that good.
  
• What's the Deal with Windows 8.1? (Scott Hanselman, Pete Brown) - Nice Podcast episode about why we care about Windows 8.1 (because we really should). Or Is it 8.5?! ;)
  
  

Next week, something special; c’est un rendez-vous!

~Frank

Reading Notes #99

 Suggestion of the week

• Windows Azure: Major Updates for Mobile Backend Development (Scott Gu) - Another big release for Windows Azure that boost the Mobile Services offers.

Cloud

• 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 command.
• 10 Dos and Don'ts for Running Proof-of-Concept Projects in the Cloud - Nice post that highlights the pros and cons.
• Conflicts: Windows Azure Mobile Service to SQLite Data Sync for Windows Phone and WinRT with Portable Class Libraries - Nice post about possible sync conflicts.
• BASE Jumping in the Cloud (Jason Bloomberg) - Interesting post that explains why a re-architecture is more than often needed when moving our application in the cloud.

Programming

• Using Duck Typing to Avoid Conditionals in JavaScript - Good explication of Duck Typing method by refractory code step by step.
• Introduction to Unit Testing (Don’t Worry, Your Secret is Safe with Me) (Erik Dietrich) - Interesting post about unit testing. What is it, and what it isn't.
• Claim based Authentication and WIF : Part 1 - First of a series, this post describes what is a claim base process and who are the players involve in it.
• Stop Doing Internet Wrong (Scott Hanselman)- Interesting list of some simple things to do to get a better experience online.
• Using Azure Mobile Services in SharpDevelop - Nice alternative to Visual Studio. Check out the video here to see it developing with Azure.

Databases

• Amazon RDS Lowers On-Demand and Reserved Instance Prices Globally - And the battle for the lowest price continues (that's good for us) this time the databases are targeted.

User eXperience (UX)

• Bundling and Minification in ASP.NET MVC (Suprotim Agarwal) - Minification is a important process to have a nice UX. It's now easier than ever.

Miscellaneous

• Marketing 101 for developers (Phil Cross, saraallison Natasha Joseph) - Why a developer should care about marketing? Because we need it? This post answers the question.
• The Importance of Closed Captioning - How To and Why Subtitle (Scott Hanselman) - Really interesting post. Doing subtile look like a lot of effort, but it's worth it. This post contains sample, tutorial and tools references.
• 8+ Practical Tips for Avoiding Pickpockets - Simple tips that can save you a lot of problems when you are traveling.

~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 #85

Suggestion of the week

• Windows Azure Updates: Android Support, SQL Reporting Services, Active Directory, More… - Wow wow wow! So many new features, and in many spheres: mobile, reporting, service bus, etc.... A post to read!
• How To Train Your Robot: how I teach kids to program without computers - I really like the idea. An it could be sincerely funny... for the kids. ;)

Cloud

• Using nConf and Azure to avoid leaking secrets on GitHub » Encosia (Dave Ward) - Very clever utility. It will definitely find a place in my toolbox.
• 2 Cloud Computing Concerns And How To Deal With Them (business2community.com) - Yes going to the cloud mean that your expose to some risk, as not going to. Being well-informed and prepared is the key.
• AWS Free Usage Tier Now Includes Amazon ElastiCache - Good new for all AWS that gets more for the same 0$.
• Windows Azure Mobile Services adds Android support and extends availability to East Asia - Excellent overviews of the new Android capabilities of Windows Azure and nice reference to a tutorial on how to build your first app.
• Microsoft Acquires Cloud Performance Management Service MetricsHub, Makes It Available For Free On Azure (Frederic Lardinois) - MetricsHub a new free product to try!
• Windows Azure, now with more enterprise access management! (Alex Simons) - Nice introduction to the new Active Directory features available in the Azure portal.
• Moving Your Applications to Windows Azure - Very complete article about all aspects of what moving an application to Azure imply.

Databases

• Why am I Getting so Many Deadlocks From Windows Azure SQL Database?(Alexandre Brisebois) - Really great post that explains every detail of the problem and of its solution, even for EF.
• Do you know big data's top 9 challenges? -- Washington Technology (Mark Hoover) - Interinsting list, because it's true that challenge mean opportunity.
• Different ways to Backup your Windows Azure SQL database (Ki Yi) - Very complete list of eight solutions to take your SQL Azure database backup. The list also gives website references, pros and cons and for each solution.

Integration

• Data/Contract Coupling in Messaging (Channel 9) (Clemens V) - Excellent video that puts in simple words fundamental concepts.

Programming

• Chrome Dev Tools: JavaScript and Performance - And I though I knew my Chrome Dev Tools... very nice post.
• Polymorphism Part 2: Refactoring to Polymorphic Behavior (John Teague) - Going dipper this exellent post is the second in the series to explain the concept of polymorphism.
• Continuous integration using TFS on the Cloud (Stephen Ebichondo) - For many people continuous integration sound so complicated that they don't want to try it. Here is an excellent tutorial that will guides you through your first build.
• ASP.NET Web API Queryable with OData (Channel 9) (Brady Gaster Cory Fowler) - Nice show with a lot of info on new oData coming soon. Also, the first On Location interview Scott Hunter; tease of some new functionalities to come in VS.
• New Pluralsight Course: Building ASP.NET Web API OData Services - Overview of the new course available on the oData updated features.

Miscellaneous

• Want a More Productive Week? Clean Your Darn Desk! (Guest Blogger) - Because sometimes, its need it.
• 5 Things That I’ve Learned About Working Remotely (Richard Seroter) - Interesting post written in response to another post from Scott Hanselman.
• 10 Things Really Amazing Employees Do - As an employee, I'm looking forward to become one of those amazing people...
• Programming's not for you? How about thinking? Be empowered. (Scott Hanselman) - Very interesting thoughts on how to stimulate our kids or younger.
• Episode 101 - Real-World Windows Azure with Auth0 (Nick Harris, Nathan Totten) - Great show this demo was great.

~Frank

Reading Notes #82

Suggestion of the week

• Chasing an active Social Engineering Fraud at Amazon Kindle (Scott Hanselman) - Scary story... If you own a Kindle, you must read this post.
• Choosing between SQL Server in Windows Azure VM & Windows Azure SQL Database (Madhan Arumugam Ramakrishnan) - Great post to make your mind of the differences between the various scenarios and the pros and cons of each of them.

Cloud

• Three New AWS Reference Architectures for E-Commerce - Quick access to three good architectures using different AWS components.
• Windows Azure Virtual Machines - Common Questions (Narahari Dogiparthi) - Significant source of information important to know before planning to use IaaS.

This blog post summarizes the best practices to be used to protect Windows Azure Virtual Machines.

• All Things Distributed (Werner Vogels) - Good references on AWS Elastic Transcoder in video, perfect to make you a better idea of the beast.
• Windows Azure Powershell 0.6.10 is out and check out $DebugPreference feature to get Request and Response on PS console (Avkash Chauhan) - Great news! It's fantastic to see how active the Azure / PowerShell teams are.
• Windows Azure Guest OS Updates (Abhishek Anand) - Reference to stay updated on guest OS.
• Episode 100 - Introduction to the Windows Azure Service Bus Notification Hubs (Channel 9) - A lot of fun in this 100th show. Of course, it's not only about jokes since they are also doing a demo of Azure Service Bus Notification Hubs.

Integration

• How to Create your First SQL Server Integration Services (SSIS) Package - Part 1 (Md. Marufuzzaman) - For people who don't know SSIS, this is the perfect get started tutorial.
• BizTalk360 Windows 8 application is available in the app store (Saravana Kumar) - This great post announces not only the release of version 2 of BizTalk360 and it presence in Windows Store, but also describes most of its features.

Programming

• Unfortunate Things with JSON, jQuery UI Datepicker, and Dates - Because we all one day or another play with date and DatePicker, it's good to read what other have done.
• TFS, Automated Testing and Continuous Integration (Hamada Shather) - Interesting tutorial that explains how to use TFS as a test framework.
• PowerShell Remoting – The Double Hop Problem And A Solution - This post explains a solution to a problem when running remote PowerShell script using Credds.
• Elegant Code » It’s Markdown, no, PowerShell. Wait its Markdown formatted PowerShell. (Jason Jarrett) - Nice mix of Markdown and PowerShell.
• Update to VS Git tooling - Stay updated on Visual Studio add-ons.
• Responsive web design – Convertir rapidement un site web en une version mobile (lorys pognon) - Simple tutorial that shows how to use "less" (the language) to produce a Responsive We Design.
• Gérer les dépendances de vos librairies JavaScript avec Bower (Thierry LAU) - Great node.js tool that can simplify the JavaScript library management.
• jQuery Object Quacks like an Array Duck (Elijah Manor) - Interesting sharing about jQuery "inner code."
• Working with SqlBulkCopy - Nice async functionality in C# 5 and other great features of SqlBulkCopy class.
• Behind the scenes of PowerShell and SQL (Rob Farley) - Very interesting post that shows how PowerShell use SQL.
• Is Big Data the New Black Gold? (Arvind Singh) - Interesting thoughts about the value of Big Data and its future.

Miscellaneous

• Copy as path instead of a send to program - Cool tips. I didn't know that one.
• Markdown - I'm playing around for 2-3 weeks now with Markdown, and I thought of sharing this for those who like me, didn't know about it.

~Frank

Reading Notes #80

Suggestion of the week

• Cross Browser Debugging integrated into Visual Studio with BrowserStack (Scott Hanselman) – Wow! Wow! Wow! Great addition to Visual Studio. That the first thing I will do next time I 'm opening VS. And just when Expression suite is going down. Hum…

Cloud

• Windows Azure VM Development: Part 1 (Bryan Bolling) - Great post about how to get started working with VM in Azure. First post of a promising series.
• YouTrack — Agile Issue & Project Tracker - Great tutorial that explains a steps from A to Z how install YouTrack in an Azure VM to enjoy Agile project tracking.
• Access SQL Azure Data Using Java Script (Angshuman Nayak) - Interesting exercises. It could be used in a local web page.
• Announcing Amazon Elastic Transcoder - Amazon is replying to the Windows Azure Media Services that was releasing last week by announcing a service of the same kind.
• Startup Accelerator for Windows Azure: Demo Day (Scott Gu)- Exiting program for start-ups. See what you did missed and how you could jump-in.
• Maarten Balliauw {blog} (Maarten Balliauw) - Get tutorial for continuous development. I'm looking forward to see more tools/framework from .Net that will be supported.
• Using Fiddler to decipher Windows Azure PowerShell or REST API HTTPS traffic (Avkash Chauhan) - Great use of PowerShell to deploy.
• 39 design patterns to boost your cloud architecture (Joe McKendrick) - Post to bookmark, it contains also SOA references.
• “Key not valid for use in specified state” exception when working with the Access Control Service – Great tutorial/ workaround to manage issue with the certificate when deploying with Azure.

Database

• Backup TO DISK, TAPE and now URL - Backup On-Premises SQL Server Databases to Azure Storage - Enjoy the new way to do your on-premise Sql database backup.
• Build better VHDs with expanded SQL SysPrep support in SQL Server 2012 SP1 CU2 - A lot of information about the SysPrep tool and the new feature to get more control on your Sql Database VM. These prepared VM are supported on-premise or in Azure.
• How Does the Cloud Change a Database Administrator’s Job? - Excellent post if you are DBA or even only database related. This post gives a good summary of the cloud database ecosystem and a lot of other good references.

Programming

• TFS and VS 2012 Update 1 Released (Bryan) - Announce of the new update in Visual Studio 2012 and is correlation with TFS... update now.
• TFS Power Tools Issues (Dustin Metzgar) - Little tips to be able to enjoy TFS PowerShell cmdlets.
• Developer Movement Windows Phone App Challenge (Jonathan Rozenblit) - Developers you have until end of February to take this challenge!
• Git support for Visual Studio - Git, TFS, and VS put into Context (Scott Hanselman) – Woo hou! Great news! I now a lot of friends that will be really happy of that... If they believe me.
• Learning JustMock for Working with Nasty Dependencies(frazzleddad) - Good post that compare rhino mock and justmock with some code samples.

Miscellaneous

• 3 Tactics to Breed Innovation - Easy rules to stimulate new ideas and creativity in your team.
• Executing Powershell commands in Windows Azure Web or Worker Role VM Instance return exception (Avkash Chauhan) - Nice tips!
• Plex is the media center software ecosystem I've been waiting for (Scott Hanselman) - Plex was a big discovery for my in the holidays. Since then I can’t imagine how I could do without it.

~Frank

Reading Notes #79

Suggestion of the week

• A personal approach to organizational time management - This is the most realistic and logic time management idea I heard from long time.
• Using the VM Depot - Get started with VM Depot.

Cloud

• The Right Way to Handle Azure OnStop Events (Craig Kitterman) - This post contains a lot of details information about the Azure stop event.
• All Your Base Are Belong To Us - Create example of what can be done using Windows Azure Media Services.
• Find, deploy and share images for Windows Azure - Learn more about VM Depot this brand new community-drive web catalog.
• Broadcast push notifications to millions of mobile devices using Windows Azure Notification Hubs (Scott Gu) - Great addition to the Windows Services, this post explains how to get started.
• How to redeploy a deleted Windows Azure Virtual Machine - Good catch!
• ‘Pay for what you use’ cloud services may change the culture of IT project management in small businesses, for better - See how Windows Azure could help you in your next project by reading this true story about Datownia the winner of the UK Government Technology Strategy Board research and Development grant.
• The truth about PaaS vertical scaling and why you are being “oversold” (Ruslan Synytsky) - This post introduces Jelastic PaaS. A cloud solution for Java and explains how it is elastic.
• Windows Azure Store: New add-ons and expanded availability (Scott Gu) - Great new features! Learn everything about the newly available Windows Azure Store.

Database

• SQL SERVER – Select the Most Optimal Backup Methods for Server - While I was looking for backup detail in the cloud I found this article. It is a good review/explanation of all on-premise possibilities.
• SQL Server Backup and Restore to Cloud Simplified (Craig Kitterman) - This post explain how to backup our on-premise database in Azure. This way you have easily a backup offsite. Even more, since this backup can be restore on premise or directly in the cloud!

Practice

• All Effective Enterprise Architects Are Agile - Interesting post about the strength of Agile methodology.

Integration

• Windows Azure Service Bus EAI EDI Labs April Release – How can I Get Start - If you didn't have the chance to try Windows Azure Enterprise application Integration (EAI) part, this is your chance.

Programming

• The Mobility Iceberg (David Pallmann) - Interesting post that describes what is a superior mobile application.
• Build Yourself a Windows 8 App Dev Lab (Jonathan Rozenblit) - Perfect post to get started and build your first Windows 8 app.
• 10 Bonnes Pratiques JavaScript (Christophe Porteneuve) - A must to read. 10 simple best practices to improve your code.
• éco-conception logicielle : 10 fois moins de serveurs pour LinkedIn - Very interesting article about the design of LinkedIn and why it is so performan.
• Things I learnt creating a jQuery Plugin (Part I) - First post of a series, this post get you started with the best practice of a jQuery plugin structure.

Miscellaneous

• Managing Programs With Agile and Traditional Projects (Johanna) - Good tips about how we could manage a mixte of agile and no-agile projects.
• How to Refresh Your Brain--in 10 Minutes (Francesca Fenzi) - 10 minutes that's easy!
• You are not your code. (Scott Hanselman) – Nice pep-talk that motivate us to share. I can agree more.

~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 #68

Cloud

• Getting Database Connection Information in Windows Azure Web Sites - Great clarification about how to access connection string in Azure using PHP or Node.js
• Node.js specific diagnostics for Windows Azure - Great source of detailed information that will speed-up your next bug investigation.
• How To Create a Base Disk or Image in Windows Azure Virtual Machines and Share It Across Accounts (Stephen W. Thomas) - Great tutorial to prepare a master custom virtual image for Azure.

[…]Shan McArthur has a great blog post on the difference between an Image and a Disk. […]

• Trying Out the New Windows Azure Portal Support for Relay Services - Nice walk around of the new Windows Azure features focusing on the service bus capabilities.
• Jolicloud Pivots Again, Now As A Start Page For Cloud Services — Have they Cracked It This Time? (Mike Butcher) - I really like the idea being Jolicloud. I'm not sure I will use it that often, but it's a good idea.
• Readability Comes to Jolicloud (David Sleight) - Nice! Jolicloud is useful when on the road. Now I can keep track of me reading too.
• Announcing Public Availability of Service Bus for Windows Server (Service Bus 1.0) (Himanshu_Singh) - Great news. We will now be able to develop with the Service Bus for Windows server than switch, if we want, to Windows Azure Service Bus on prod, transparently!

[…]APIs exposed for developing applications are consistent with those of the public cloud service, making it easy to develop applications for either and switch between the two. […]

• Exporting and Importing VM settings with the Azure Command-Line Tools - Great idea! Very useful! I can easily see one or two script staying on my desktop waiting to be double click...
• .NET 4.5 now supported with Windows Azure Web Sites (Scott Gu) - Perfect timing, ready to upgrade and be able to use the last version of EF.
• Using Trace in Windows Azure Cloud Applications (Himanshu Singh) - Useful tips to get easily a nice trace from Windows Azure project.
• Windows 8 and Windows Azure: Convergence in the Cloud - Nice article from MSDN Mag. This tutorial explain how to build a windows 8 application that pull data from Windows Azure.

Integration

• BizTalk 2010 R2 CTP: Azure Service Bus Integration–Part 5 Sending messages to Service Bus Queues using Sessions (Kent Weare) - Nice demo using session, I like this alternative.

Programming

• What is SSDT? - Since I try this tool I can’t live without.
• Analyse : Différentes façons d'intégrer un script Javascript - Nice analyse I will bookmark it to use it as reference.
• CoffeeScript 1.4.0 Released, No Sign of Source Maps - Good news for Node.js user.
• Welcome to Windows 8! (Paul Laberge) - Know your options as developer.

Miscellaneous

• Bounce Rates High? Why? (Darren Rowse) - Nice post that explain how to understand your blog bounce rate.
• 3 Characteristics of Amazing Presentations (Margaret Heffernan) - Quick tips to improve easily your presentation.
• The Undercover Interview Technique (Jeff Haden) - Interesting point of view but I prefer the coffee meeting, where you meet few co-worker in a relax context.
• 5 Goals Every Blogger Should Set Up in Google Analytics - Nice post that explain clearly how to setup goals and their utility.
• Book review: Think Like a Programmer - <sigh> So let ready only the chapter one than...

~Frank

Reading Notes #58

Ahhhhhhhhh! That was great! I was in vacation enjoying family time.

I read two no-technical books

• Catching Fire – The Hunger Games book 2 (Suzanne Collins) – Great book!
• Confessions of a Freelance Penmonkey (Chuck Wendig) – In this book you will found a lot of the really good post about writers… The style is different I and liked it!

 
 


And of course I have some reading notes that I didn’t publish before I went to vacation:

Cloud

• Introducing azureQuery: the JavaScript-Windows Azure Bridge (David Pallmann) - Nice post that introduces a very promising JavaScript framework.
• AWS Marketplace Update - The First 90 Days - Quick status about the AWS Marketplace.
• Multi-provider PaaSes - what exactly do they offer? - Great post where the author is sharing is toughs about the cloud. Putting your code in the cloud doesn’t make it elastic or invulnerable... you need to do it to make it append.
• Introduction to Windows Azure Startup Tasks - Simple tutorial that is the perfect starting point for any one that knows the base of Azure. Nice catch for the "feature" in VS with batch scripts.
• Windows Azure Startup Tasks: Tips, Tricks, and Gotchas - This post great source of info and time saver.
• Windows Azure and Office 365 (Scott Gu) - Great post that pass through all the new features in Office365 and SharePoint.
• Fault-tolerance in Windows Azure SQL Database (Tony Petrossian) - Really nice article that explain the fault-tolerance, why it is needed, how it is done (replication, redundancy, detection, etc.).

Programming

• So you want to contribute to EF? Part 1: Introduction (Arthur Vickers) - Excellent series not only to know more about how to contribute with the Entity framework (EF) but with any kind of open source project.
• [Infographic] The Hype Versus Reality of HTML5 Deployment - Oh oh nice graphic about the HTML5 reality.

Miscellaneous

• Never Act Like the Smartest Guy in the Room (John Baldoni) - Nice post about how you should be in a team and some advice for the big head...
• 10 Fresh Tips for Finding Time to Blog (Brian Milne) - Good little tips to help us to enjoy while blogging and found more time to do it.
• Marketing yourself as a programmer (Patrick Wyatt) - Being able to sale yourself as a good programmer is important to find a new job but also to progress and be happy at your current job.
• Outlook Is Microsoft's Answer To Everything You've Ever Hated About Hotmail (Christina Chaey) - Interesting news about the new Outlook.com, features list and evolution story.
• Productivity vs. Guilt and Self-Loathing (Scott Hanselman) - This is a good post that need reflection. I could add that if you want to change something, do it progressively. Don’t try to wake up 3 hours earlier in one night...

~Frank

Reading Notes #54

Cloud

• Windows Azure - When do I use What? (Andrew Coates) - Nice quick post that demystify when it's the time to use a Azure website, a webrole or a VM.
• Update on the Windows Azure Accelerators (Nathan Totten) - Important notice that explain why the Windows Azure Accelerators project is has become depreciated to be replaced by Azure Website.
• Run your blog on Windows Azure (Brian H. Prince) - Quick tutorial to create a Wordpress blog with the new Azure Website services.
• Windows Azure Web Sites vs. Cloud Apps (Brian H. Prince) - This post explain the differences (pros and cons) about Azure website, cloud apps and VM.
• Windows Azure is a 3-Lane Highway: How to Drive It (David Pallmann) - Great post that clarifies how each parts of Azure service are working. Amazing works and the reference to the highway make it even clearer. Put it into your to read list.
• Hadoop on Windows Azure - Wow, a fantastic post/tutorial that explain how Hadoop is working and how do some task with it.
• Mixing Node.js into Your Windows Azure Solution - Real nice article that show how to manage files with Node.js using shared access signature.
• Monitoring your Windows Azure Web Site (Brian H. Prince) - Nice post that explain how to see the statistics of your servers with the new Azure graphic interface.

Programming

• Creating Inheritance Relationships in Entity Framework - Nice tutorial about improving your entities generated by EF.
• 5 ways to roll out a product faster - Nice article that gives 5 tips to focus and delivery a prototype as quick as possible.
• Create and Consume JSON-Formatted OData - Great article that introduce a tool / framework call datajs. With datajs you can manage easily your oData directly in JavaScript.
• Python on Windows Azure – a Match Made in the Clouds! (Shahrokh Mortazavi) - Nice post about tools needed to get started using Python with Azure. A lot of options available.
• Windows 8: Top 10 Reasons why I choose XAML over HTML5 - Nice post that put the emphasis on the top 10 strength of XAML.
• Windows 8: 15 More Reasons why I choose XAML over HTML5 - Great post that add some key features support by XAML to the previous top10.
• DNC Magazine for .NET Developers - Launch Edition – Nice free magazine with a lot of content.

Miscellaneous

• Defend Your Sweet Spot (Peter) - Interesting post by Peter Bregman, the author of 18 minutes, that explains why finding and keeping your sweet spot is important.

[…] time management isn’t primarily about using minutes well, it’s about using yourself well.[…]

• 7 Things You're Doing Wrong on LinkedIn (Tom Searcy) - Nice tips that will help you (or confirm you) how to use LinkedIn in the best way.

~Frank