Reading Notes #335

Suggestion of the week

• Comments for Jekyll Blogs (Phil Haack) - A pretty clever solution that leverage Azure Functions to generate static content on Jekyll.

Cloud

• ASP.NET Compilation Azure App Service, Web Project, Web Site (Benjamin Perkins) - Nice post that explores deeply the server side.
• An Introduction to Azure Functions (Matt Soucoup ) - If you are looking to get started on Azure function or looking for the Microsoft serverless offer, this post is definitely a good place to start.
• Getting started with App Maker: a detailed walkthrough (Christian Schalk) - At the first glimpse, it looks like PowerApp from MS but with a focus on GSuite... I'll put that on top of my todo list.
• Use serverless functions and CDN to speed up API data calls (Shayne Boyer) - Cool post to speed-up our services.
• We’re moving from Azure to Google Cloud Platform (Andrew Newdigate) - Interesting post about how to get prepared, how to test before a migration.

Programming

• Adding Localization to the ASP.NET Core Identity Pages (damienbod) - Simple tutorial to get a clean localization of our app.
• Developing bots for Hangouts Chat (Wesley Chun) - If you are using GSuite and still not leveraging bots... This post is a nice starting point to get inspired.
• dotnet outdated helps you keep your projects up to date (Scott Hanselman) - This post presents a great tool that must of us need but didn't know. Awesome!

Data

• Creating table functions in DAX using DETAILROWS (Marco Russo) - I'm always learning something when I read about DAX... So powerful.

Miscellaneous

• Customizing Node.js Deployments for Azure App Services (K. Scott Allen) - Noce tutorial to customizes our deployment.

Reading Notes #324

Cloud

• Using Chocolatey with Azure VMs (Dan Patrick) - If you are on Windows you must know Chocolatey.
• Gartner recognizes Microsoft as a leader in enterprise integration (Microsoft Azure) - It's always interesting to see the Gartner Magic Cadran result every year.
• How to quickly refer all available Azure services? (Abhijit Jana) - Nice post that gives a few key places to view the list of services available in Azure.

Programming

• ASP.NET Core 2.1 Preview on VSTS (Adam Storr) - This post explains a nice quickfix for your VSTS build flow.
• Searching docs using a .NET Core global tool (Shayne Boyer) - I didn' t know that dotnet-doc project! It's not only pretty cool but it just got better now available globally!
• Using HTTPS with Azure Functions in local development (Christos Matskas ) - Pretty cool quick post that explains the local https feature of the Azure Function v2.
• Windows Template Studio 2.0 is now available! (Clint Rutkas) - This is the perfect post to know what happened under the hood of this new version.

Miscellaneous

• Do you have to know English to be a Programmer? (Scott Hanselman) - Interesting post... At the end, English may not be a blocker...but you need some base. Otherwise, how could you even read this post!
• Release Flow: How We Do Branching on the VSTS Team (Edward Thomson) - Really interesting post about the Git practice at Microsoft and why they are doing it that way.
• The Canadian Real Estate Association delivers a better house-buying experience in the cloud (null) - Nice post about a reel business going in Azure.

Books

Eat That Frog!: 21 Great Ways to Stop Procrastinating and Get More Done in Less Time

Author: Brian Tracy

A short book that pushes to action. I really enjoyed it. A book to read and read again.

ASIN: B01MYEM8SZ

Reading Notes #318 - MVP Summit 2018

Last week, it was the 25 edition of the MVP Summit. An event, where Microsoft invites all his MVP to get to Seattle and spend some time with the products teams and learn on the latest news and best practices.

This year was particularly inspiriting by the Microsoft roadmap, of course,  but even more by all the amazing people a got the chance to meet and discuss with. I'm all pump-up, and I have tons of ideas and projects… more to come.

I already miss you…

Cloud

• Deploy Docker containers fast to Microsoft Azure (Michelangelo van Dam) - This is an excellent tutorial to get started with Docker and also to see what's possible with Azure Container Instance service (ACI).
• Testing Precompiled Azure Functions Locally with Storage Emulator -- Visual Studio Magazine (Jason Roberts) - Nice post that explains how to use the emulator.

Programming

• ASP.NET Identity for your custom user and roles models (Dominique St-Amand) - A nice detailed tutorial that explains clearly how to setup the identity with .Net Core.
• Upgrading a 10 year old site to ASP.NET Core's Razor Pages using the URL Rewriting Middleware (Scott Hanselman) - True upgrade story, I loved it.
• Upgrading my podcast site to ASP.NET Core 2.1 in Azure plus some Best Practices (Scott Hanselman) - Nice second post about a migration passing through today's best practices.

Reading Notes #317

Suggestion of the week

• Migrating to Azure SQL Database with zero downtime for read-only workloads (Joseph Sack) - Learn the best practices and more about the tools available to you in this great post.

Cloud

• Analyzing a karting image with Azure Cognitive Services (Vivien Chevallier) - It's time to play with these Cognitive services. This post is a nice quick start.
• Microsoft updates Cognitive Services terms (Microsoft Azure) - Good to know.
• Oops! I Deleted My Blobs! What Can I Do? (Gaurav Mantri) - A nice new feature! Is it time to upgrade all our cloud solutions to use it? It could be a good idea.

Programming

• az webapp new - Azure CLI extension to create and deploy a .NET Core or nodejs site in one command (Scott Hanselman) - Azure CLI is a super handy tool. New commands are being created, it's time for us developers to get involve read this post and clone that GitHub repo!

Miscellaneous

• 10 Characteristics of a Successful Internal IT Champion (Richard Seroter) - Awesome post! Next time changes are in the pipeline, you should think about these 10 little things.
• Azure Cosmos DB training webinars | Azure Roadmap | Microsoft Azure (Microsoft Team) - Fantastic news, I know a lot of people were waiting for this kind of training.

Reading Notes #310

Cloud

• Benefits of migrating IaaS to Azure Resource Manager (Kay Singh) - So many good reasons to jump in... Everything Is there to help us moving forward.
• Take a Break with Azure Functions (Justin Clareburt (MSFT)) (Justin Clareburt) - I know the Holidays are passed, but it's always time to learn Azure Function. Do yourself a favor the next rainy or super cold weekend... Follow this "program".
• What part of your job can you automate? (Kevin Bah) - With time, all developers accumulate "tools" and these days with all those scripts and API capabilities... It's not a question of how can we do something, but more: where to do it...

Programming

• 5 tips to learn Docker in 2018 - Docker Blog (Victor Coisne) - While we are all pumped-up and refreshed from the holidays, let's get inspired to learn new stuff.
• How to handle BLANK in DAX measures (Marco Russo) - This great post will helps us to think about if blanks could by part of our data and how to manage them.
• Is jQuery still relevant? (Remy Sharp) - I've really appreciated this post that brings numbers to sustain his answer.

Miscellaneous

• Why Do People Fail at Work-Life Balance? This Study Says It Has Nothing to Do With Productivity (Tommy Mello Tommy Mello is the founder of A1 Garage Doors, a $30 million-plus home service business with over 200 employees in 9 states. Full bio @realtommymello Founde) - I don't know for you, but e if I'm pretty happy with "my balance" a few extra hints could not hurt.

Reading Notes #306

Suggestion of the week

• Simple APIs With Microsoft Flow And Azure Functions | LINQ to Fail (Aaron Powell ) - Geniusly simple! I didn't think to use those like that, but now that will be my go-to scenario for so many things.... With Flow, Logic App and so may others.

Cloud

• Announcing the general availability of Azure App Service diagnostics (Jennifer Lee) - A fantastic tool that I hope all web App users will use.
• Lift and Shift, Migrating Nerd Dinner to the cloud using Docker (Shayne Boyer) - Interesting post that shows step by step how to do a real lift and shift to Azure.
• Logic Apps Management solution updated – search runs by tracked properties, bulk re-submit and more… (Sumit Kumar) - Nice little add-ons that will help us manage our LogicApps.
• Microsoft Cognitive Services updates for Microsoft Connect(); (Microsoft Azure) - Nice tutorial on how to build and train your custom image classifier.
• Transforming your VMware environment with Microsoft Azure (Corey Sanders) - Pretty cool tools that remove a lot of pain when we start thinking about migrating one or more VMs.

Programming

• Introducing Microsoft Coco Framework for Blockchain (Chris Pietschmann) - Coco framework will helps to manage a few important points in a business solution using BlockChain, more to come in 2018.
• Lightweight bundling, minifying, and compression, for CSS and JavaScript with ASP.NET Core and Smidge (Scott Hanselman) - Another (or rediscovery of a) great minifier for .Net core.
• Trying out new .NET Core Alpine Docker Images (Scott Hanselman) - Very interesting post, it'nice to see how one great tech complement another that well.

Databases

• Azure SQL Databases Disaster Recovery 101 (Xiaochen Wu) - One of the best posts a read on the topic. I'm not sure if I can sale the alien part to a client, but other than that very clear. lol

Reading Notes #295

Cloud

• Announcing Default Encryption for Azure Blobs, Files, Table and Queue Storage (Lavanya Kasarabada) - Awesome, now more secured without any efforts for our part, I like it that way.
• Azure Functions Visual Studio 2017 Tooling (Mark Heath) - One cool video lesson about the tooling.
• Creating distributed workflows with Azure Durable Functions (Tamir Dresherl) - A perfect post to get started and learn more about the new Durable Azure Functions.

Programming

• 4 Benefits of Migrating to ASP.NET Core 2.0 (Jonathan Danylko) - This post clarifies some ambiguities about the migration to Asp.Net Core.
• How to cook Azure Mobile Apps (node.js): Xamarin and .NET Standard (Sergiy Baydachnyy) - This great tutorial shows a few gotchas that could happen when developing a Xamarin App.

Databases

• Using PostgreSQL Document Databases with Azure Functions and Marten (Jason Roberts) - Quick in simple, I like it.

Reading Notes #294

Suggestion of the week

• 15 Lessons Learned while Converting from ASP.NET to .NET Core (Matt Watson) - What a great post! You must put it in your to-read list before starting your next .Net Core session.

Cloud

• Azure Tips and Tricks Part 1 - Use Keyboard Shortcuts in the Azure Portal (Michael Crump) - This post is the first of a series that will show tons of little gems hidden in the Azure portal.
• What is Azure Event Grid? (Chris Pietschmann) - Great post that introduces the new kid on the block (in the cloud).
• Microsoft builds Raspberry Pi Simulator - All cool is that!

Programming

• Visual Studio Code on Raspbian - Pretty cool that VSCode is now available on RaspberryPi!

Miscellaneous

• A New Real-Time AI Platform from Microsoft, and a Speech Recognition Milestone (Cortana Intelligence and ML Blog Team) - This post is a good summary of the recent news from Microsoft in AI.
• Dressing Better Than... Your Boss? (John Sonmez) - Interesting thoughts about the dress code in enterprises.
• The Best Books All Software Developers Should Read (John Sonmez) - Definitely worth it. Y next book to read is probably in this best-of list
• Write It Down! (Victor Savkin) - Interesting suggestion to get better.

Reading Notes #292

Suggestion of the week

• I Almost Left Tech Today, Here’s Why (Clémentine Pirlot) - What a shame we are in 2017 and those behaviors not only still exist, but are tolerated.

Cloud

• Migrating a Web App from ClearDB to Azure Database for MySQL (Jason Anderson) - Great tutorial that explains step by step how to migrate your database. For all the people that use the Wordpress in Azure ns have complained about this very limited ( but free) ClearDB setup, this post is for you.
• The gap is filled: How Azure Container Instances completes the PaaS hosting spectrum at last – Opsgility (John Adams) - Learn a bit of PaaS history in this nice post.

Programming

• A proper terminal for Visual Studio (Scott Hanselman) - Hmmm. I like that idea...
• VS Code Quick Tip: Install Curl to Speed Up REST API Testing -- Visual Studio Magazine (David Ramel) - Great way to speed up API testing indeed, and very simple too.

Databases

• Introducing the #Azure #CosmosDB Change Feed Processor Library (Judy Hanwen Shen) - Cool post that lists a few scenarios where CosmoDB could really help you.

Miscellaneous

• Build apps faster with Azure Serverless (Raman Sharma) - Full automatic and all on demand, today's cloud offer a lot.

Reading Notes #289

Cloud

• Gain business insights using Power BI reports for Azure Backup (Pallavi Joshi) - Nice Power Bi visualization, I know a few clients who are looking forward of using that.
• Microsoft Azure Stack is ready to order now (Mike Neil) - It worth the time we wait, now hybrid solutions will be so much more simple to create. And I will definitely try that ASDK (dev version)
• Nested Virtualization in Azure (Joy Fan) - A VM in a VM, it does sound like the movie Inception, but it's, in fact, very powerful.
• Processing Feedback Evaluations (paper) with OCR, Logic Apps, Azure Functions & Power BI (Jeff Hollan) - Great real-life overview using multiple Azure serverless services.
• Push your images to Azure CDN on publish with gulp (Shayne Boyer) - We all understand that CDN could seriously help our web application. Well, this post will show you that it could be really easy to implement and integrate to your CI/CD.
• Running Azure Batch jobs using the Azure CLI – no code required (Mark Scurrell) - A really cool example of what can be done by Azure CLI and batch.

Programming

• Ubuntu now in the Windows Store: Updates to Linux on Windows 10 and Important Tips (Scott Hanselman) - Right now, it's still only available in the developer's version, but this fall the new official version should include them... Pretty cool.

Databases

• Migrating to Azure SQL Database (Gavin Payne) - Very interesting and complete post that regroups references and gives details about some of the alternatives when it's migration time.

Reading Notes #277

Cloud

• Azure Functions Tools Roadmap (Andrew B Hall) - Interesting post that explains why we should prefer the Azure function template over the VS2015 tooling.
• Monitoring errors in Azure WebJobs with the ErrorTrigger extension (Vivien Chevallier) - Nice tutorial, with the full solution available on Github, that explains how to catch the error in our Azure webjobs.
• Unmasking your swagger with proxies in Azure Functions (Shayne Boyer) - This post explains how to use Azure functions Proxy to improve the developers' experience.
• Use a container to show your function swagger (Shayne Boyer) - Nice quick tutorial to get a more professional structure easily.

Programming

• Dockerizing Nerd Dinner: Part 1, Running a Legacy ASP.NET App in a Windows Container (Elton Stoneman) - Interesting walkthrough where a legacy application is packaged in a Docker container.
• Dockerizing Nerd Dinner: Part 2, Connecting ASP.NET to SQL Server (Elton Stoneman) - Second step in a great tutorial that goes further than the usual hello word, showing how to migrate an application into a multi-container solution.
• Easy data generation with Faker.Data (Guy Barrette) - A quick introduction to a nice little gem that saves us a lot of time.
• Getting Started With Chart.js: Line and Bar Charts (Monty Shokeen) - I've use Chart.js in a project recently, and should I had this great tutorial would have saved me a lot of time.
• Using memory cache in ASP.NET Core (Gunnar Peipman) - Great quick tutorial to know how to setup cache and distributed cache (required in cloud solution).

Miscellaneous

• Bots are the new Apps – Part 2 (Alexandre Brisebois) - This post asks a lot of questions. .Bots are could be very powerful but are they easy to build? Iterate, test, fail, learn, and try again.

Reading Notes #259

Cloud

• 'But it works on my cloud!' – are your developers still making the same mistakes in a world of DevOps and PaaS services? (James Broome) - This post shares an interesting thought about the new situation of developers, who works with the cloud.
  
• Announcing Azure DevTest Labs support for creating environment with ARM templates (Xiaoying Guo) - Never heard of Azure Devtest lab? Well, you should! Now all your best formulas will be deployable with ARM, that's even better.
  
• Announcing general availability of preview features and new APIs in Azure Search (Liam Cavanagh) - Even if the 2015-02-28-preview is still supported, it will now be safe to change for something more ...recent.
  
• Azure App Service is really 2 services, not 4 (Chris Pietschmann) - This is an interesting post that explains how and why the Azure Apps are packages that way. Once you understand that you see that you will not be limited by your initial pick.
  
• Introducing: Time picker in Application Insights Analytics (Noa Kuperberg) - Nice little detail that will simplify our queries.
  
• Microsoft Azure Storage Explorer: November update and summer recap (Cristy Gonzalez) - Learn all the details about the new features and the old bug fixes in this post.
  
• Migrate a Storage Account to ARM (Alexandre Brisebois) - Important PowerShell tooling that we should ALL have... A least if you've been doing some Azure for a little while.
  
• Static Website Hosting in Azure Storage (Chris Pietschmann) - A website for 1$ by month yes, it is possible on Azure, but with some limitation.
  
• Step-By-Step: Multi-Site Azure VPN Revisited (Pierre Roman) - Great re-design of a network/ infrastructure in the cloud.
  
• Visual Studio Tools for Azure Functions (Andrew B Hall) - Since the day one of Azure Functions, this tool is requested by the community. The early adopter can now start using this first preview.

Programming

• Use Visual Studio Team Services As A Continuous Integration Platform for GitHub - These great tutorial shows how to realize a perfectly integrated CI solution between Github and VSTS.

Reading Notes #255

Cloud

• AWS vs Azure vs Google Cloud Platform - I personally value this kind o post where different cloud providers are compared. It helps to see if the solution available and find the best one for our needs.
  
• Announcing Azure Analysis Services preview (Bret Grinslade) - Impressive new service part o the SaaS Azure solution is now available (in preview) .
  
• Google releases .Net APIs for Google Cloud - Good news, now that Google embraced the .Net developers and our tooling, we have even more cloud opportunity.
  
• PowerShell cmdlets to manage Azure Resource Manager (ARM) Virtual Machines (Felipe Senso) - Nice little tips to know, and so much more in all these cmdlets.

Programming

• Debugging PowerShell Script with Visual Studio Code (rkeithhill) - Awesome tutorial full of tips that will bring you to the next level with VSCode.
  
• Exploring ServiceStack's simple and fast web services on .NET Core - This post is a really nice introduction to an interesting alternative when building services.
  
• Free ASP.NET Core 1.0 Training on Microsoft Virtual Academy - Wow! A full three days of training for free! Don't miss that opportunity.
  
• Why the Command Line? Why Now? - Interesting conclusion about the actual situation.

integration

• An important milestone in enterprise integration – launch of Microsoft BizTalk Server 2016 (Frank Weigel) - Great post about the Microsoft hybrid integration platform containing, of course, the new BizTalk 2016 Server, but also Azure Logic App.

Miscellaneous

• Download Microsoft Ignite 2016 Sessions Using PowerShell (Alexandre Brisebois) - Finally... The classic and useful script is out. Enjoy the shows from anywhere.
  
• Ten things we announced today at Microsoft’s Windows 10 Event (Mollie Ruiz-Hopper) - Interesting presentation this week from Microsoft. Not only, they announced new products that look fantastic, but it might stimulate other to push further their limits.
  
• VSTS Sync Migration Tools | naked Agility - Expert in DevOps & Agility with Visual Studio, Team Services, Azure, & Scrum - This post presents a very useful tool to migrate your source control environment to VSTS, easily. And don't forget that under 5 user, VSTS is completely free.

Reading Notes #253

Suggestion of the week

• Why Can’t I View My Power BI Content Pack?  - This post is a big slice of answers, spiced with experience and a touch of wisdom.

Cloud

• Azure Managed Cache and In-Role Cache Service shutdown reminder (Ye Gu) - In less than two weeks your solution could be in big trouble if you didn't change the cache type...
  
• Top 4 reasons for using Azure Security Center for partner security solutions (Yair Tor) - Seriously, it worth try it.

Programming

• Is jQuery Still Relevant? (TJ VanToll) - Very interesting and instructive conversation about THE JavaScript framework that everyone knows:JQuery .
  
• Localization & Routing in ASP.NET Core 1.0 - Hisham - Nice post ,right to the point.

Databases

• Temporal Tables are generally available in Azure SQL Database (Borko Novakovic) - Useful new feature to track changes across time.
  
• SQL Server 2016 on Windows Server 2016 (Luis Vargas) - Woohoo the server is now available.

Reading Notes #252

Cloud

• Azure Subscription Migration to CSP (Kirill Kotlyarenko) - Excellent post that explains the differences between the different types and how to migrate ... with a minimum of pain.
  
• New lower Azure pricing (Takeshi Numoto) - Really good news more VMs types and lower prices.
  
• Storing and using secrets in Azure (Bertrand Le Roy) - This p is great tutorial that explains all h steps to configure use the Azure Vault, when our secrets need more then sits in a config file.

Programming

• Sharing Authorization Cookies between ASP.NET 4.x and ASP.NET Core 1.0 (Scott Hanselman) - Nice tutorial to implement a single sign-on experience with multi part website.
  
• DevOps - Commit to Git: Source Control in Visual Studio 2015 (Jonathan Waldman) - Git is a must for all developers, this post explains all the bells and whistles in Visual Studio to manage it.

Databases

• Avoid ORDER BY in SQL Server views (Aaron Bertrand) - Sometimes we need workarounds to bend some services to our wishes, but we must keep in mind the real best practices.

Reading Notes #225

Cloud

• Reduce Cloud Data Costs and Improve System Performance in Azure (Marc Dugas) - Useful post that shares good tips to save more.
  
• Developer's introduction to Azure IoT (Olivier Bloch) - Great post that explains what is IoT and the strengths o the Azure flavor.
  
• Using PowerShell to manage API Connections (Kevin Lam) - Quick tip to do some clean-up in our connections.

Programming

• Conditional Workflows in Postman (ankit) - First post of a promising series, it sets the table listing the tools required to have a dynamic workflow.
  
• Using Web Deploy in Visual Studio Team Services Release Management (Jakob Ehn) - Nice post that demystifies MSBuild deployment on VSTS.
  
• Almost everyone is doing the API economy wrong (Ed Anuff) - Interesting point of view, if you do API, it's a must.

Databases

• Public preview: JSON in Azure SQL Database - Interesting, we will be able to do json query directly in the Sql Database.
  
• Simple and reliable data movement with Azure Data Factory Copy Wizard (Anand Subbaraj) - Since all cloud projects included data migration, any reliable tool is a good news. I'm looking forward to try this one.

Reading Notes #213

Cloud

• Announcing the Azure SDK 2.8.1 for .NET (Brady Gaster) - Great new feature and improvement in this last SDK release..
  
• General availability of Premium tier (Pranav Rastogi) - Great announcement, plus details about the difference between the regular and the premium version.
  
• Azure Resource Manager Authentication In PowerShell (Scott) - Interesting sharing... It doesn't work always on the first try.
  
• Azure Container Service preview (Ross Gardler) - Get ready to play with Linux container... And soon Windows one.
  
• Continuous Delivery of Azure WebJobs via Git (Jan Hentschel) - Great tutorial that gets us started with Webjobs and continuous deployment.
  
• Partner Incentives – the move to Active Usage - Very interesting post that explains why Microsoft has changes their way to look at their Azure metrics.
  
• Announcing Azure Portal general availability (Leon Welicki) - The portal finally gets to the quality level that was targeted by Microsoft... well, long time ago. The portal will still continue to evolve, but it's now a full fledge product.
  
• Things to remember when you work with Azure and the new Team Build (Matteo Emili) - Nice post that gives us a little more depth about get ready to use build in the cloud.

Programming

• Application contracts with Swagger powered APIs for .NET or Why SwaggerProvider - This post explains how swagger can simplify our Api coding time.
  
• Glimpse at Application Insights Telemetry (Beckylin Orooji) - Awesome news, the great tools that or now integrated together. I'm really looking forward to trying that.
  
• PowerShell Tests released on GitHub (Karol Kaczmarek, Steve Lee, David Wilson) - Nice announcement from the powershell team that shared on github their tests' strategy... Expect some Pester!

Databases

• Transactional Replication to Azure SQL DB now in public preview (Jean-Yves Devant) - Since most of the time the first project is a migration, this new tool, will be very useful.

Reading Notes #200

Suggestion of the week

• Débuter avec Azure Resource Manager (Channel 9) (Julien Stroheker) - Really one of the best videos a saw. If you understand French, this is a must.

Cloud

• Using Travis to Deploy Apps to Azure - This post explains how to build a CI for Azure.
  
• New GS-Series VM (Daniel Wu) - Nice post that not only announces the new type of VM, but also how to convert your actual VM to this type.
  
• Using continuous integration with Azure & GitHub - Perfect post to get started with CI and Azure.
  
• Updates in Azure WebJobs SDK (1.1.0-alpha2) (Pranav Rastogi) - Learn more about the new singleton, redis trigger, logging, and all the other new features in this post.
  
• Seamlessly Migrate Your Application from AWS to Azure in Four Simple Steps (Rajesh Goli) - Wow only four steps to convert… nothing else to say.
  
• Introducing Azure Service Bus Premium Messaging (Clemens Vasters) - This post gives a short intro about the services bus.

Databases

• Azure DocumentDB’s LINQ provider just got better (Aravind Ramachandran) - This quick post lists the feature in the SDK.

Books

• Microsoft Azure Essentials_ Fundamentals of Azure (Michael S. Collier & Robin E. Shahan) - This week a felt like returning to the sources, and read the essentials. Difficult to summarize a summary, but all principal family of features are approached and the “must have” tools are over… Even some scenarios. A really good book, evenmore it’s for all.

Reading Notes #198

Cloud

• Announcing Backup of Windows 10 machines using Azure Backup (Giridhar Mosay) - Low-brainer, safe and efficient it's a must.
  
• Announcing Geospatial support in Azure DocumentDB! (Aravind Ramachandran) - Fantastic, this option was present in the wishlist of many people. And we can try it right now in the DocumentDB playground.
  
• Azure Site Recovery is now available in Central US, North Central US, South Central US, East US2 (Ashish Gangwar) - Great news!
  
• Copy a Blob From an Azure Datacenter to Another Using PowerShell (Alexandre Brisebois) - I write previously about that here, but the monitoring idea is a nice addition. time to update my scripts.
  
• What’s New In Azure Storage (Gaurav) - Nice summary of the azure blob storage (.Net client), on how to use the new AppendBlob type.
  
• Moving a CentOS Virtual Machine to Another Azure Datacenter (Alexandre Brisebois) - Very complete script to move Linux machine using RAID0 between accounts.
  
• Azure Automation, Remote PowerShell And a Virtual Machine (Alexandre Brisebois) - This post provides a nice PowerShell script clearly commented, to execute commands remotely in an Azure VM.
  
• Meet AzureCon (Nicole Herskowitz) - A date to remember: September 29.
  
• New CDN features – country filtering, compression and analytics (Manling Zhang) - This post announced a new feature in Azure CDN.

Podcast

• .NET Rocks! - Great episode very interesting discussion about the new Azure Service Fabric.

Programming

• Using Callbacks with Moq (Richard Carr) - The callback method is a powerful tool in Moq, and this post explained it very clearly.
  
• AC's Blog: Running Mocha Tests with Visual Studio Code - Nice little tutorial that goes to the essential and explains debugging with. VSCode and Gulp.
  
• 12 tips to increase the performance of ASP.NET application drastically – Part 1 - Evangelism - Nice tips to improve performance. I like the sixth one, I wonder how much the performances are improved with it.
  
• 12 tips to increase the performance of ASP.NET application drastically – Part 2 - Second part of the performance tips list... still very interesting.

Databases

• JavaScript as Modern Day T-SQL (Andrew Liu) - This post explains the awesome evolution of the Javascript Query language DocumentDB.

Reading Notes #195

Suggestion of the week

• Announcing the Azure SDK 2.7 for .NET (Brady Gaster) - Sooooo many new features, options, and tools in only one release!! This post reviews a lot of them.

Cloud

• Announcing Cortana Analytics Suite and New Partner Investments at WPC 2015 (Takeshi Numoto) - I'm looking forward to trying it out.
  
• How exactly does Event Hubs Throttling Work? (Dan Rosanova) - Thi post shares useful information about a frequent question.
  
• Three big areas of focus for Microsoft’s Canadian channel (Paolo Del Nibletto) - Interesting news about Microsoft's focus.
  
• Importing Data to DocumentDB Just Keeps Getting Better (Stephen Baron) - If you never ear about DocumentDB Migration Tool, this post is for you. It explains how you ca import documents, even from another NoSql database like DynamoDB.
  
• Why I got the MCSD Azure Solutions Architect Certification (Chris Pietschmann) - Really great work, thanks for sharing.
  
• Azure Logic Apps – monthly update July 2015 (Saravana Kumar) - The Azure Logic Apps team did their monthly release this week, this post tells all about the new features.
  
• Azure SQL Database Web and Business edition retirement September 12th, 2015 (Guy Haycock) - Time to upgrade, September is coming pretty fast.
  
• Can’t recover VMs in Azure with volumes greater than 1TB? Use Storage Spaces! (Anoob Backer) - Great tutorial to get super performance.

Database

• Available now – Cross-region Replication, Triggers, and Streams - Nice new feature.
  
• Azure SQL Database with direct connect – Microsoft Power BI Preview - Nice tutorial to explore our Azure database.

Programming

• Performance and Diagnostic Tools in Visual Studio 2015 (Dan Taylor) - This post is the perfect point to get started about all the great diagnostics tools available in VS2015 for everyone...because it's included in all versions.
  
• The Glimpse Team Joins Microsoft (Visual Studio Blog) - Great new, I really like Glimpse.

~ Frank