Stop losing time installing your software

Automation is the key to many hard situations. Everyone knows that, yet a lot of tasks are done manually. In this post, I will share with you some easy steps to install all your applications.

Let's get started

For those how follow this blog I talked many times about Chocolatey. For all the others, Chocolatey is a Machine Package Manager, somewhat like apt-get (on Linux), but built with Windows in mind.
Assuming that you don't have Chocolatey installed, let's start by that. Open a command prompt (cmd.exe) as Administrator, and execute this command:

@powershell -NoProfile -ExecutionPolicy unrestricted -Command "iex ((new-object net.webclient).DownloadString('https://chocolatey.org/install.ps1'))" && SET PATH=%PATH%;%ALLUSERSPROFILE%\chocolatey\bin

Now anytime you need an application you can simply do a choco install command. This will download the latest version of the package online the last package, and install it on your PC.
Here are some examples with popular applications:

Application	Command
Notepad++	choco install notepadplusplus
Atom	choco install atom
7-Zip	choco install 7zip
Skype	choco install skype

You can find the complete list of all applications on the Chocolatey web site. Many other commands are also available to search, list and update some packages:

Command	Description
choco install atom -Version 0.140.0	Install old version (0.140.0) of Atom
choco list nunit	Show all package that contain nUnit
choco update	updates chocolatey to the latest version
choco update notepadplusplus	updates NotePad++ to the latest version

Let's go a step further

Will it be nice if we could chain them? This is possible with Boxstarter, a repeatable, reboot resilient windows environment installations using Chocolatey packages. To install Fiddler, Atom, and Visual Studio 2013, simply type this command in Internet Explorer (IE) and Boxstarter will starts his magic.

http://boxstarter.org/package/fiddler4,atom,visualstudiocommunity2013

---

Note: This will work only in Internet Explorer (IE), on Chrome or Firefox you will need a "Click-Once" extension.

---

Turn it up to 11

Now that we know we can chain them, what is stooping us to create a script that will install ALL our favorite applications? Well, nothing!

Boxstarter is a very easy and powerful way to automate the installation of software. Here an example to show some of the great features supported by Boxstarter. In the following script I will: configure Windows, install the latest Windows updates, install Visual Studio Community 2013 with an extension and install many other applications.

# Windows Configuration
Update-ExecutionPolicy Unrestricted
Set-ExplorerOptions -showHidenFilesFoldersDrives -showProtectedOSFiles -showFileExtensions
Enable-RemoteDesktop
Disable-InternetExplorerESC
Disable-UAC #Win8
Set-TaskbarSmall

if (Test-PendingReboot) { Invoke-Reboot }

# Update Windows and reboot if necessary
Install-WindowsUpdate -AcceptEula
if (Test-PendingReboot) { Invoke-Reboot }

# Install Visual Studio Community 2013
choco install choco install visualstudiocommunity2013

# VS extensions
Install-ChocolateyVsixPackage PowerShellTools http://visualstudiogallery.msdn.microsoft.com/c9eb3ba8-0c59-4944-9a62-6eee37294597/file/112013/6/PowerShellTools.vsix


# Install WebPI (Platform Installer) 
choco install webpi

# Install
#  . SSDT
#  . Microsoft Azure SDK - 2.4.1
#  . Microsoft Azure SDK for .NET (VS 2012) - 2.4
C:\Program Files\Microsoft\Web Platform Installer>WebpiCmd.exe /Applications: SSDT, WindowsAzureSDK_2_4_1, VWDOrVs2012AzurePack.2.4


if (Test-PendingReboot) { Invoke-Reboot }

# Install Favourite Tools
choco install sourcetree
choco install resharper
choco install Atom
choco install LinqPad
choco install fiddler4

You can now execute this script executing the command in IE:

http://boxstarter.org/package/url?C:/dev/Demoscript.txt 

In this case, the file was on a local folder, put it could have been in a share folder on another server, or somewhere online like in gist.github.com.

Wrapping up

I hope it will help you to automate repetitive task and save time. For more information about Chocolatey or Boxstarter, go visit their respective web site. Any comments, suggestions and/or questions are welcome.


~Frank B

Four Simple Tips to Improve your Asp.Net MVC Project

When it's time to do the re-factoring of a solution, it's always a good idea to clean the code before doing any re-factoring. In this post, I will share with you simple but very efficient ways to improve your solution.

1- Forget the magic string

By default in Asp.Net MVC magic strings are used every where.

return View("Index");

or

@Html.ActionLink("Delete Dinner", "Delete", "Dinners", new { id = Model.DinnerID }, null)

Nothing bad here, but nothing will tell you that to did a typo, or that the method name as changed. This is where T4MVC will become a great tool do add to all your project.

To add it a simple Nuget command is enough: Install-Package T4MVC. By doing this a T4 file (T4MVC.tt) will be added to your project that will generates a number of files. These generated files will simplify your life and gives you the opportunity to code using strongly type.

Here are few transformations:

// Before ----------------
  return View("Index");

// After with T4MVC
  return View(Views.Index);

An action link in a view.

// Before ----------------
  @Html.ActionLink("Delete Product", "Delete", "Products", new { id = Model.ProductID }, null)

// After with T4MVC
  @Html.ActionLink("Delete Product", MVC.Products.Delete(Model.ProductID))

An Ajax call.

// Before ----------------
<%= Ajax.ActionLink( "RSVP for this event",
                 "Register", "RSVP",
                 new { id=Model.DinnerID }, 
                 new AjaxOptions { UpdateTargetId="rsvpmsg", OnSuccess="AnimateRSVPMessage" }) %>

// After with T4MVC
<%= Ajax.ActionLink( "RSVP for this event",
                 MVC.RSVP.Register(Model.DinnerID),
                 new AjaxOptions { UpdateTargetId="rsvpmsg", OnSuccess="AnimateRSVPMessage" }) %>

A redirection.

// Before ----------------
return RedirectToAction("Details", new { id = product.ProductID });

// After with T4MVC
return RedirectToAction(MVC.Products.Details(product.ProductID));

When writing the code, it gives you intellisense where you normally would not have any. At compile time, it validates all the code so no typo or other misspelling errors are present.

2- Clean your views

You know all those "@using" on the top of each views that we copy over and over... It's time to remove them. The way to do it is by moving them to the web.config file in the "Views" folder.



So you can move the namespaces used globally

@using Microsoft.Security.Application
@using System.Globalization;

by including them to this section:

<system.web.webPages.razor>
  <pages pageBaseType="System.Web.Mvc.WebViewPage">
    <namespaces>
      <add namespace="System.Web.Mvc" />
      <add namespace="System.Web.Mvc.Ajax" />

      <add namespace="Microsoft.Security.Application" />
      <add namespace="System.Globalization" />

    </namespaces>
  </pages>
</system.web.webPages.razor>

3- Don't lose time debugging

To many people are losing time debugging their application or web site. Start using Glimpse right away! This will provide information in real time across all layers of your application from the UI to the server and database side. Perfect to know everything that happen on a click of a button: javascript validation, controller code and even the query in the database.







Install it in ten seconds with the Nuget command manager and pick the version you need.

PM> Install-Package Glimpse

Glimpse is secure and is configured to be accessible only from localhost by default. But don't trust me and try it by yourself, or go check this one minute Glimpse Heads Up Display youtube video.

4- Start monitoring your website health and usage

Move your website on Microsoft Azure and use the Application Insights. This will gives you the opportunity to monitor that availability, performance and usage of your live application.




To add it you got many possibilities, one of them from Visual Studio 2013, just right-click on the project and select Add Application Insights Telemetry, and voilà!

Now you just need to run or deploy the website and after few minutes or so you will have plenty of information, graphs waiting for you in the Azure Portal.







You will find a lot of information about Application Insights on the Microsoft Azure

Wrapping up

I hope it will help you, thanks for reading. Any comments, suggestions and/or questions are welcome.

~ Frank Boucher

References

• T4MVC Documentation: https://t4mvc.codeplex.com/documentation
• Glimpse Documentation: http://getglimpse.com
• Application Insights: http://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/documentation/articles/app-insights-start-monitoring-app-health-usage/

Upgrade an Application Windows Azure OS Family

Recently I add to upgrade an web site running in Azure Webrole from Azure OS famille 1.6 to a more recent version. While the migration was not complicated I encounter some little particularity that I found could be interesting to share.

The Context

The website was a Visual Studio 2010 project using Azure SDK 1.6 and a library call AspNetProvider that was part of Microsoft's sample few years ago to manage session and membership. Using the AspNetProvider library the session was saved in Azure blob storage, and the membership was saved in an SQL database.

The Goal

The application must stay a Visual Studio 2010 project, but using the most-recent Azure SDK and Azure Storage Client as possible.

The Solution

• Azure SDK 2.1
• Azure.StorageClient 4.0
• Universal Provider version 2.1
• OS famille 4

The Journey

Migration from SDK 1.6 to SDK 2.1

Azure SDK version 2.1 is the higher version compatible with Visual Studio 2010. And can be downloaded from Microsoft's website. Once it is installed, just open the project in Visual Studio and right-click on the Azure Project. By clicking on the upgrade button the magic will happen. Some errors could stay but the hard work will be done for you.

Migration from AspNetProvider to UniversalProvider

we need to remove all reference to the AspNetProvider library. Just expand the resources node in the Solution Explorer and delete the reference. One thing important is that since we are using Visual Studio 2010 the latest version of the UniversalProvider we can use is 1.2. More recent version are using .Net 4.5 and this is not compatible with the present solution. To get the reference added to the project just execute the following Nugget command:

Install-Package UniversalProvider -version 1.2

Check the web.config file to clean the membership connections.

Migration of the Azure Storage Client

This one is the easiest, just remove the reference in the reference node and then execute the following Nugget Command:

Install-Package Azure.Storage.Client

Migration of the membership data

The AspNetProvider was using prefixed SQL tables: aspnet_user, aspnet_membership, etc. The new membership manager is using another sets of tables. We must migrate the data from one set to the other one. Here a SQL script that will to exactly that. The script can be run multiple times because it will only copie the unmoved data.

-- ========================================================
-- Description:    Migrate data from asp_* tables 
--                 to the new table used by Universal provider
-- ========================================================

DECLARE @CNT_NewTable AS INT
DECLARE @CNT_OldTable AS INT

-- --------------------------------------------------------
-- Applications -------------------------------------------

INSERT INTO dbo.Applications (ApplicationName, ApplicationId, Description)
    SELECT    n.ApplicationName, n.ApplicationId, n.Description 
    FROM    dbo.aspnet_Applications o 
    LEFT    JOIN dbo.Applications n ON o.ApplicationId = n.ApplicationId
    WHERE    n.ApplicationId IS NULL

SELECT @CNT_NewTable = Count(1) from dbo.Applications 
SELECT @CNT_OldTable = Count(1) from aspnet_Applications

PRINT 'Application Count: ' + CAST(@CNT_NewTable AS VARCHAR) + ' = ' + CAST(@CNT_OldTable AS VARCHAR)

-- -------------------------------------------------------- 
-- Roles --------------------------------------------------

INSERT INTO dbo.Roles (ApplicationId, RoleId, RoleName, Description)
SELECT    o.ApplicationId, o.RoleId, o.RoleName, o.Description 
FROM    dbo.aspnet_Roles o
LEFT JOIN dbo.Roles n ON o.RoleId = n.RoleId
WHERE n.RoleId IS NULL

SELECT @CNT_NewTable = Count(1) from dbo.Roles 
SELECT @CNT_OldTable = Count(1) from aspnet_Roles

PRINT 'Roles Count : ' + CAST(@CNT_NewTable AS VARCHAR) + ' = ' + CAST(@CNT_OldTable AS VARCHAR)

-- --------------------------------------------------------
-- Users --------------------------------------------------

INSERT INTO dbo.Users (ApplicationId, UserId, UserName, IsAnonymous, LastActivityDate)
SELECT o.ApplicationId, o.UserId, o.UserName, o.IsAnonymous, o.LastActivityDate 
FROM dbo.aspnet_Users o LEFT JOIN dbo.Users n ON o.UserId = n.UserID 
WHERE n.UserID IS NULL

SELECT @CNT_NewTable = Count(1) from dbo.Users 
SELECT @CNT_OldTable = Count(1) from aspnet_Users

PRINT 'Users count: ' + CAST(@CNT_NewTable AS VARCHAR) + ' >= ' + CAST(@CNT_OldTable AS VARCHAR)

-- --------------------------------------------------------
-- Memberships --------------------------------------------

INSERT INTO dbo.Memberships (ApplicationId, UserId, Password, 
PasswordFormat, PasswordSalt, Email, PasswordQuestion, PasswordAnswer, 
IsApproved, IsLockedOut, CreateDate, LastLoginDate, LastPasswordChangedDate, 
LastLockoutDate, FailedPasswordAttemptCount, 
FailedPasswordAttemptWindowStart, FailedPasswordAnswerAttemptCount, 
FailedPasswordAnswerAttemptWindowsStart, Comment) 

SELECT o.ApplicationId, o.UserId, o.Password, 
o.PasswordFormat, o.PasswordSalt, o.Email, o.PasswordQuestion, o.PasswordAnswer, 
o.IsApproved, o.IsLockedOut, o.CreateDate, o.LastLoginDate, o.LastPasswordChangedDate, 
o.LastLockoutDate, o.FailedPasswordAttemptCount, 
o.FailedPasswordAttemptWindowStart, o.FailedPasswordAnswerAttemptCount, 
o.FailedPasswordAnswerAttemptWindowStart, o.Comment 
FROM dbo.aspnet_Membership o
LEFT JOIN Memberships n ON  o.ApplicationId = n.ApplicationId
                      AND o.UserId = n.UserId
WHERE n.UserId IS NULL AND n.ApplicationId IS NULL


SELECT @CNT_NewTable = Count(1) from dbo.Memberships 
SELECT @CNT_OldTable = Count(1) from aspnet_Membership

PRINT 'Memberships count: ' + CAST(@CNT_NewTable AS VARCHAR) + ' >= ' + CAST(@CNT_OldTable AS VARCHAR)

-- -------------------------------------------------------
-- UsersInRoles ------------------------------------------
TRUNCATE TABLE dbo.UsersInRoles
INSERT INTO dbo.UsersInRoles SELECT * FROM dbo.aspnet_UsersInRoles


SELECT @CNT_NewTable = Count(1) from dbo.UsersInRoles 
SELECT @CNT_OldTable = Count(1) from aspnet_UsersInRoles

PRINT 'UsersInRoles count: ' + CAST(@CNT_NewTable AS VARCHAR) + ' >= ' + CAST(@CNT_OldTable AS VARCHAR)

Migration from OSFamilly 1 to 4

Open the file .cscfg and edit the OS Family attribute. It's in the ServiceConfiguration node.

<ServiceConfiguration servicename="MyApp" osFamily="4" osVersion="*" ...>    

Wrapping up

The only step left is to deploy in the staging environment to see if everything is working as expected. would recommend also to plan to upgrade as soon as possible because the Azure SDK 2.1 official retirement date is November 2015. I hope this post could help you, even if you are migrating from and to a different version. Any comments, suggestions and/or questions are welcome.


~ Frank Boucher

Reading Notes #162

Suggestion of the week

• Azure Service Bus 101 with Dan Rosanova - With those three videos, you will get started on the service bus in Azure and the Pub-Sub pattern. A thirty minutes well invested. Azure Service Bus 102 and Azure Service Bus 103

Cloud

• #Azure Table Storage - Using StartsWith to Filter on RowKeys - Nice post that explains some good practices to get quickly what we are querying for, and while keeping our code clean.

• Azure : How to publish a web site from VS2013 to Azure (Sacha Barber) - Nice first post of a beginner series on how to do things on Azure.

• Azure API Management Part One: An Introduction - Really nice post to get started with the brand new api manager of Windows Azure.

Programming

• Version 1.9.2 for Asp.Net Released (Anthony van der Hoorn) - Times to update your NuGet packages.

• NuGet Package of the Week - Courtesy Flush to flush buffers earlier and optimize time to first byte (Scott Hanselman) - As usual, this series of posts from Scott presents us another NuGet's pearl.

Miscellaneous

• Open Graph, Twitter Card and Schema.org support in Ghost - Good news, because having a shared message well formatted is always better.

• Doing Something is Better Than Doing Nothing at All - This post gives some tips on how to follow this golden rule.

• 151 Blog Post Ideas Guaranteed to Blast Off Your Blog (Matt Banner) - Hey bloggers, do yourself a favor and stimulate yourself with tons of ideas for new post. Very stimulating.

• Moving on from Scrum - Disciplined Agile Delivery - Nice post that gives all the interesting bookmarks of the book Disciplined Agile Delivery (DAD).

~Frank Boucher

Reading Notes #158

Suggestion of the week

• The Deploy to Azure Button - This post tells us about the evolution of an amazing idea to simplify the deployment to Azure.

Cloud

• Azure Private Cloud: Ship it - Interesting post that talks about how a private cloud could be a great option for your enterprise.

• Infonuagique et vie privée : je t’aime moi non plus! - Interesting post in French that talk about some security concerns related our personal information in the cloud.

• Available on AWSLabs - That's a great news for all Xamarin developers.

• Amazon DynamoDB now supports JSON document data structure and large items - Great new it's now event easier to use the DynamoDB.

• Introducing the Azure Automation Runbook Gallery (Beth Cooper) - Great post that introduces the Azure Runbook Gallery and explains how to use it and also how to add our Runbook to it.

• Designing for Big Scale in Azure (K. Dotchkoff) - Nice post that explains how we should change our design in the cloud and use logical container or scale units.

• Automating the tedious parts of open source on Azure (Scott Hanselman) - This post walks us through the new optimized process of GitHub CLA service account with Azure.

Programming

• Custom Login Scopes, Single Sign-On, new ASP.NET Web API – updates to the Azure Mobile Services .NET backend (Carlos Figueira) - Nice post that explains how to use some great feature of asp.net web API.

• Contributions to Azure documentation and SDK’s on GitHub just got simpler (Guy Burstein) - Because simpler is better. Nice update.

• Simple HTTP api for Executing PowerShell Scripts - Interesting alternative idea when you don't need any interaction with the user.

• Announcing Infragistics Xamarin.Forms! - Another good news for Xamrin developers, now your mockup could be closer to the final look.

• Challenges in handling date and time in REST API and distributed web applications (Saravana Kumar) - This post share with us the strategy they used to manage dates, and explained why they did it that way.

• Responding to Events with TypeScript and Backbone -- Visual Studio Magazine (Peter Vogel) - Nice tutorial, the third of a series, about building a single-page application. More to come.

• Building a Better NuGet (Edward Charbeneau) - Nice post that gives us the best practices when developing a NuGet package.

• Some challenges with Node.js on Windows - This post shares some workaround when developing in Node.js on a Windows environment.

• Exciting Things About ASP.NET vNext Series: MVC View Components - This post explores Asp.Net vNext and his View components.

Miscellaneous

• The Greenfield to Brownfield Transition -Interesting thoughts about how we should embrace different kinds of opportunity....

• Adding Custom Post Meta Data - Nice update to help with the ranking with Ghost blog.

• Plex for Xbox One is here and my life is complete - Plus Synology setup how-to (Scott Hanselman) - I'm a huge fan of Plex myself and just want to share this great news with everyone.

~Frank

Reading Notes #155

Suggestion of the week

• Azure: SQL Databases, API Management, Media Services, Websites, Role Based Access Control and More - Amazing new features that j4ust arrives in Azure!

• TIP: Lazy Code Snippets in Visual Studio (Jonathan Rozenblit) - OMG this post just makes my day!

Cloud

• How Azure Mobile Services enable your Cloud First Mobile First World (AdarshaDatta) - Nice post to get started on Azure Mobile Services.

• Automating Integration Testing with Microsoft Azure - Great post that explains how to use Web Plaform Installer to leverage our unit tests.

• How to host a ClickOnce deployment in Azure Blob Storage - This post is a nice crossover with ClicOnce and Azure, it's explained how to prepare our deployment to do it.

• Troy Hunt: 10 things I learned about rapidly scaling websites with Azure (Troy Hunt) - Another great post about scaling in Azure; how much it cost, how to manage it, etc....

Programming

• Integrating OneDrive into Your Windows Store Apps - Excellent post that gets us started with the Live SDK, so we can add One Drive capabilities to all our applications.

• Revisiting - how to make your EF queries testable (tilovell09) - Interesting post about testing our EF query.

• Automatically strong name signing NuGet packages (Maarten Balliauw) - Who never needed to fight to include an unsigned DLL to a project?! Here is nice to that will help to do it.

• 5 skills every programmer needs in 2014 - This post is a good place to start if we are looking to learn a new language.

• Git: It’s Just Data! - This post shows us Git from a database point of view. Julie also gives really good reference for tool and book.

• Choosing a JavaScript Framework with Craig McKeachie - Really interesting episode talking on key features of your projects or code that you like to pick a Javascript framework.

Databes

• What is new in RavenDB 3.0: Client side (Ayende Rahien) - This post explains the major improuvment the the last RavenDB release.

Miscellaneous

• Upgrade to BlogEngine.NET 3.1 (rtur.net) - Time to upgrade your blog engine.

• Lineup of Windows books and ebooks (Kim Spilker) - Nice windows books list.

• How do you deal with anxiety when Live Coding in Technical Interviews? (Scott Hanselman) - Nice tips, a post to share.

• Authoring Markdown - What, Why, How - Interesting post to introduce markdown.

~Frank

Reading Notes #154

 

Suggestion of the week

• New handy Visual Studio extensions - Three great extensions that add this little thing that simplify our life...

Cloud

• Azure Automation: Reliable, Fault-Tolerant Runbook Execution Using Checkpoints (Chris Sanders) - Really interesting and complete post about automation in Azure and how to follow the best practices.
  
• Mostly Cloudy – Sept 5th, 2014 - Really interesting post that resumes the last release of Azure. It also gives a reference for every feature to get more detail.
  
• How do You Like Your Pizzas Delivered? - #Azure #PaaS - A short and simple explanation of what is in the cloud.
  
• Cloud Cover 152: Azure Search with Liam Cavanagh (Channel 9) (Chris Haishi Bai) - A really excellent web episode and a great demo of the new Azure Search.
  
• Making Azure Blob Storage Searchable Using Azure Search Service (Gaurav) - Great tutorial about the new Azure Search with a lot of details. The code is available online.
  
• Writing a Site Extension for Azure Websites (Elliott Hamai) - Great tutorial that explains how to build and test our Site Extention. It also explains how to publish it privately or publicly.
  
• Azure DocumentDB: first use cases (Vincent-Philippe Lauzon) - Interesting post that places the new DocumentDb compares to the other solution in Azure.
  
• Azure DocumentDB: Working with Microsoft's NoSQL Database in the Cloud (Gastón Hillar) - This post is a great tutorial to get started with Azure DocumentDB in C#.
  
• IaaS vs PaaS vs SaaS ? - Nice images to see the differences between each of them.

Programming

• #PowerShell Invoke-RestMethod - the underlying connection was closed - Useful tips to save some headache while developing.
  
• A chatroom for all! Part 1 - Introduction to Node.js - This post is the first tutorial of a series about developing a real application in Node.js and putting it to Azure. In this one, learns how to setup your Windows environment.
  
• Public Data Sources – finding them and using them - Useful post that lists different data sources.
  
• Introduction to Machine Learning Studio - Great article that introduces Machine Learning ML and shows us how to do a simple application in ML Studio...
  
• Two free video courses: Intro to ASP.NET MVC and Responsive UI with Bootstrap - Nice two courses (part of the Microsoft Virtual Academy) about an unavoidable tool these days: Bootsrap.
  
• Integrating OneDrive into Your Windows Store Apps - Excellent post that gets us started with the Live SDK, so we can add One Drive capabilities to all our applications.

Miscellaneous

• Can you hear me now? Unmute your microphone (Scott Hanselman) - This post published a useful tool that we should include in all our meeting description: HowToUnmute.com.
  
• Don't Check Your Email in the Morning (Scott Hanselman) - Who will raise this challenge?
  
• I can't hear you over the sound of how small your fonts are (Aaron Bertrand, JK Wood, lkh, Dandy Weyn BuckWoody) - Quick tips and indispensable tools for all speakers.

~Frank

Reading Notes #148

Suggestion of the week

• Scaling a standard Azure website to 380k queries per minute of 163M records with loader.io (Troy Hunt) - Amazing post that shows and explains scaling tests over huge spike. It's a long post but the read worth the time.

Cloud

• Microsoft Azure cloud plugin for TeamCity (dabbling in Java code) (Maarten Balliauw) - Very promising teamcity plug in with Azure. Early tester requested...
  
• Azure Hybrid Connections (Tyler Doerksen) - Nice quick post about the new hybrid connection and what opens to.
  
• NodeJs, Azure and IIS (Ugo Lattanzi) - This post shares a very simple solution to a problem.

Programming

• ASP.NET Session State using SQL Server In-Memory (Ken Kilty) - Interesting introduction to a new feature that come with SQL Server 2014.
  
• Day 14: Bootstrap Alerts and MVC Framework TempData (James Chambers) - Really interesting wait to manage alerts in a Asp.Net MVC project. I like it. Day 18: Customizing and Rendering Bootstrap Badges - This post introduces quickly the bundle to manage our css files. Day 19: Long-Running Notifications Using Badges and Entity Framework Code First - This post introduces the mvvm pattern and the EF migration capability. Day 20: An ActionFilter to Inject Notifications This post explains how to create actionFilter: a powerful tool.
  
• Various strategies to initialize Database in Entity Framework (Sourav Kayal) - Nice post that explains the four options to initialize our database with EF.
  
• Visualizing Nuget packages dependencies without Visual Studio Ultimate (Pascal Laurin) - Great work! If you don't have the Visual Studio Ultimate edition, this post is for you. Discover a useful tool to see dependencies and how this tool was built.
  
• How to Deal with Slow Unit Tests with Visual Studio Test Runner - Interesting tips to be sure that a maximum of tests are executed as often as possible.
  
• The Repository Pattern in ASP.NET – Part 1 - Nice videos that explains a useful pattern in the .Net framework.

Miscellaneous

• Try.Fail.Learn.Improve (Steve Rowe) - Interesting thoughts about how we should approached life or any challenge.
  
• On Programmers Productivity (Patrick Smacchia) - Interesting sharing of positive productivity practices.

Reading Notes #147

Suggestion of the week

• What happened to Code Spaces could happen to you. On Amazon, Azure and any host out there. (Maarten Balliauw) - Great post that highlight today's security concerns and responsibilities.
  
• Day 12: Implement Search Using Inline Forms and AJAX (James Chambers) - Great tutorial to build a Ajax control in an Asp.Net MVC context.
  

Cloud

• Deploying WordPress on Azure and using MySQL in a VM (Chris) - Nice post where the author tells us his journey when he was looking for a new blog engine and how effortless it was to get it online.
  
• Microsoft #Azure – Where Should I Start? - This post is a great starting point for anyone looking for good references: books, e-books, podcast, websites, etc.
  

Programming

• NuGet Package of the Week: ASP.NET Web API Caching with CacheCow and CacheOutput (Scoot Hanselman) - Useful Nuget package to manage the cache.
  
• Day 8: Semi-Automatic Bootstrap – Editor Templates (James Chambers) - Nice post. simple and efficient. Day 10: HtmlHelper Extension Methods - Nice tutorial on how to create a Html Helper using Gravatar as context.
  
• CodeLens for Git improvements in Visual Studio 2013 Ultimate Update 3 RC (Real McCoy, Peter Jean-Marc Prieur) - Really amazing add-ons this CodeLens. I hope the next project I will work on will be on Git so I can try it. ;)
  
• ASP.NET Session State using SQL Server In-Memory (Ken Kilty) - Interesting introduction to a new feature that come with SQL Server 2014.
  

Miscellaneous

• Creating custom data graphics in Visio (Visio Team) - Nice tutorial that explains how to improve our diagrams very easily.

~Frank

Reading Notes #141

Suggestion of the week

• Moving to Microsoft Azure (Filip Ekberg) - Another story about a blog migration on Azure. It's always interesting to learn what kind of trouble the people got while doing that.

Cloud

• Optimizing calls to Azure storage using Fiddler (Maarten Balliauw ) - Not only this post explains how to optimize our calls to blob storage, but it means that MyGet is a lot faster!
  
• Visual Studio Online Update – May 20th (Brian Harry MS) - Heads up about the last update on Visual Studio Online and what's coming next. BTW try it's very nice.
  
• Puppet Module Updates to Better Manage Microsoft Azure Resources (Ross Gardler) - Quick post that introduced a new featured of Azure that look incredibly powerful.

Programming

• All ASP.NET MVC Forms Need To Include Html.AntiForgeryToken() For Security (Peter Kellner) - This post is a nice quick explanation of an important security feature in Asp.net Mvc.
  
• From Requirements to Deployment: The Modern SW Developer using TFS (Tom Walker Jonathan Rozenblit) - Nice video.
  
• Bloggers: Know when to use a JPG and when to use a PNG and always Squish them both (hanselman.com) (Scott Hanselman) - This post contains useful tools to compress the images inside your posts, and some nice tips for the format selection.
  
• NuGet Package of the Week: ImageProcessor - lightweight image manipulation in C# (hanselman.com) (Scott Hanselman) - Another useful tool library to edit our images in our code.
  
• Setting up an Internal PowerShellGet Repository (Kris Bash, Roman Kuzmin, Peter Kriegel) - This post introduced a nuget for PowerShell packages, and how to install our private repository. Nice!
  
• The Future of .NET on the Server: ASP.NET vNext content and videos from TechEd 2014 (hanselman.com) (Scott Hanselman) - This post suggested to two videos presented at TechEd about vNext. If you are curious about what is coming next in .Net world it's a must.
  
• Indigo Studio from a Developer Perspective - I was also skeptical, the first-time someone talked me about Indigo. However, the best way to make your idea about something is to try it...

Mobile

• Save Time, Money, and Your Sanity: Coded UI Testing for the Windows Phone–Adding Assertions (Lori Lalonde) - This post is the third of a great series on how to test the UI of a phone application.

Miscellaneous

• 5 Ways Your Business Can Benefit from Agile Engineering Practices Today - Really interesting article that explains important concepts in a simple way to understand.

Reading Notes #127

Suggestion of the week

• Source Control considered harmful - Excellent post! Don't stop at the first paragraphs, everything will be clear as you read through.

Cloud

• Stupid Azure Trick #3 – Create a Dev Virtual Machine in Windows Azure (Bill Wilder) - Very simple and efficient.
  
• Can I use Multiple Monitors with Remote Desktop (RDP)? Yes. Here’s how. (Bill Wilder) - How could I have missed that?!
  
• Gartner's 2014 MQ for PaaS: Organizing the Chaos - This post is sharing interesting though about the new PaaS Gardner's Quatran.
  
• Deploying TWO websites to Windows Azure from one Git Repository - This post explains a ninja trick with Azure Website and Git.
  
• Where’s Azure? Mapping Windows Azure 4 years after full General Availability. (Bill Wilder) - Interesting quick post that maps Azure today.
  
• WordPress 3.8 on Windows Azure Websites (Mark_BrownMS) - It's time to upgrade our blog on Azure website.
  
• Le Global Windows Azure Bootcamp à Montréal (Samedi 29 mars, 2014) - Time to reserved your place!
  
• Amazon is Still the Leader When it Comes to Cloud Pricing (Saroj Kar) - Good news for cloud user, the prices are going down...
  
• Brownfield Windows Azure Solutions & Hidden Treasures - Nice example of how a simple website could be optimized / become scalable in multi iteration so it doesn't affect negatively the user experience.
  
• Amazon Launches New Reporting Tools For EC2 (Frederic Lardinois) - Great new tools that help seeing stats of all kinds about resources and billing.

Programming

• For your convenience, please disable security warnings - This post explains why we soudln't turn-off security warning. It looks obvious, but ...
  
• Here’s how Bell was hacked – SQL injection blow-by-blow - About sql injection.
  
• Pro NuGet second edition is out - A book to add in your bookshelf (virtual or not)
  
• 10 Reasons Web Developers Should Learn Angular - Whatever it is because you need munitions to get Angular to be adopted at your work or because you what to know more about it, this excellent post is for you.
  
• Web Essentials 2013: Where is the TypeScript support? (Google+) - Important explanation for TypeScript user.

Databases

• Hadoop 2.0 – A Big Step For Big Data (Saroj Kar) - Nice post that introduces MapReduce v2 (MRv2) one the best new feature of Hadoop last release.

Integration

• Streaming Xml Transformations (Christos Karras) - Great tutorial that explains very clearly what are our solutions when we are in front of a complex XML transformation.

Miscellaneous

• Internet of Things or Thing on the Internet? - Interesting thoughts about today's and tomorrow's Internet.
  
• Fixed: The Synology NAS with Plex Server and mismatched version numbers - Nice catch. If you don't know Plex here to read about it.
  
• The Heart of Innovation: How to Prepare for Brainstorming - Nice post to help us to improve our meetingproductivity.

Reading Notes #125

Suggestion of the week

• Get Better Acquainted with Azure (Mark BrownMS) - Wow! All kinds of resources are coved here. A post to read to find your next book or blog to subscribe.
  
• With great Azure VM comes great responsibility(which is why you really want an Azure Web Site) - Great post that compares website and VW.

Cloud

• Announcing Reduced Pricing on Storage - How can we be not happy to pay less for a nice service?!
  
• 2013 Year in Review: New AWS Technical Whitepapers, Articles and Videos Published - Great recap of all the AWS resources published in 2013.
  
• Identity in your own apps with Windows Azure Active Directory (MVP Award Program) - Great tutorial that explains how to use Windows Azure Active Directory in a web project with the new VS2013.
  
• Measuring all the things with Azure Web Sites and friends - Great post, a lot of information on the tools available to help us tracking info in our Azure website.
  
• Introducing Windows Azure WebJobs – Wow, webjob is so simple to use compare to all the steps that we needed to with a worker role.
  
• Stupid Azure Trick #1 – Rename Your Windows Azure Subscription (Bill Wilder) - Nice tips to get a more structured subscription list in Azure.

Programming

• Roslyn performance (Matt Gertz) - Cool post that gives a good insight about how performance is treated in Microsoft team.
  
• Simple Git workflow is simple - Good post that explained the workflow. Now we just need to practice it.
  
• Why TDD Makes Me a Happy Developer - Interesting opinion about TDD. If you don't know what is TDD, this post is for you.
  
• NuGet Package Manager Console tip (Girish stuartle) - Nice tips, like the author I had never tried that before.

Architecture

• What makes models interesting (Nick Malik) - Interesting post about enterprise business model.
  
• Why is Software Architecture Important? - Very nice analogy.

Miscellaneous

• Why You Should Stop Pretending To Be So Important - Wisdom post that remembers us to give time, to be there for other.
  
• Yak Shaving Defined - I'll get that done, as soon as I shave this yak. - Ha ha ha. It explains also why retreated people have no free time...

~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 #93

Suggestion of the week

• Announcing the release of Windows Azure SDK 2.0 for .NET (Scott Gu)- Wow! Don't miss this post. It's a big one, but it's filled with a lot of good stuff. Enjoy!
  
• Released: Windows Azure Training Kit – April 2013 (SyntaxC4)- Yeah! New update of the Widows Azure Training Kit (WATK). Learn what updated in this post.
  
• Building a live blog app in Windows Azure - That why the cloud is so fantastic, we can build incredible stuff without big money! Great post!
  
• A Responsible Programmer - Excellent post. These are, in fact, the best practices to be a good programmer/ developer.

 

Cloud

• Help! I Cannot Attach My Azure Data Disk to my Windows Azure Virtual Machine (Stephen W) - Nice catch, the list of available disk and the reasons why some or unavailable could be clearer.
  
• Subscribe to Windows Azure Using Your Organization ID - Nice update, we can now sign-in as an organization to Windows Azure and use our AD credential.
  
• The Windows Azure SDK for Ruby (Larry Franks) - Nice post that details what is available for Ruby developers in Azure.
  
• Setting up software based Site-to-Site VPN for Windows Azure with Windows Server 2012 Routing and Remote Access - Nice tutorial about the new site-to-site feature of Azure.
  
• Just released - Microsoft Enterprise Library 6 (Grigori Melnik) - Nice update. If you don't know Enterprise Library (EntLib) it time to jump in! And for Azure developers check out the integration pack! It's a must.
  
• Episode 106 - Scott Guthrie Discusses Windows Azure SDK 2.0 (Channel 9) (Scott Guthrie) - Excellent presentation of the novelties.
  
• Copy files >2GB to your cloud VM (Paul Lou) - Very useful post that gives a solution to a very annoying problem.

 

Programming

• Script to automatically configuring Remote PowerShell for Windows Azure Virtual Machines on your machine - Useful PowerShell script shared.
  
• NuGet your Enterprise? - Interesting thoughts about NuGet.
  
• Visual Studio Tools for Git Update available (Brian Harry) - This post details the update of the VisualStudio extension. An extension to try.
  
• Utilize Roslyn to create the next level plugin capability (Filip Ekberg) - Nice presentation about this great idea: a compiler as a service! Roslyn
  
• Git Explained: For Beginners - If you don't know 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 knows.

 

UX

• April Showers Lead to May Flowers…and an Updated Windows Store App (Jonathan Rozenblit) - Nice update to windows app due to the not so nice weather.

Miscellaneous

• The thoughtLEADERS Blog - Mentoring is gaining in popularity, and I'm happy with that because it really a win-win scenario.
  
• Upgrade Your Blogging Skills (Aaron Aders) - This post summarize an interesting book that easly found is place in my to-read stack.
  
• Swipe launches into beta as a Web app to create and share presentations to anyone on any device) (Ken Yeung) - This application look very promising. I really look forward to see what will come out of that.
  
• 8 Risks When You Ignore Social Media (Hollis Thomases) - Social media for business is an interesting discussion topic, but this article brings something that sure: ignoring is not a good solution.
  
• The “Consumerization” of IT and the Dark Side of the Cloud (Bob Buck Woody) - Interesting thoughts about relation between IT and business.
  
• Moving 4th & Mayor to Windows Azure Web Sites - Interesting story of someone migrating, he's application from AWS to Windows Azure.

~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 #87

Suggestion of the week

• NuGet Package Source Discovery (Maarten Balliauw) - Wow an amazing idea. The potential is big, looking forward for other posts on that to see that devs are doing with it.
• Build great web apps, directly in Dropbox - Wow it cannot be more easy! Now everyone even no technical people can have their website on Azure, and for free!

 

Cloud

• Inserting & Modifying Large Amounts of Data in Windows Azure Table Storage Service (Alexandre Brisebois) - Nice post that explains best practices with Azure Table Storage.
  
• Size Matters! - Of course size matter, but the size of what? Excellent post that explains how to use to the maximum the available resources.
  
• Remote profiling Windows Azure Cloud Services with dotTrace (Maarten Balliauw) - Great tutorial that explains how to configures and use dotTrace with Windows Azure.
• Let there be Windows Azure HDInsight - Perfect post to keep in our bookmarks. It contains all kinds of reference to get started with Hadoop on Azure.
  
• Crunch Big Data in the Cloud with Windows Azure HDInsight Service(Craig Kitterman) - Details on the HDInsight likes prices and compatibility.
  
• Web Camp Session Video – Websites in the Cloud (Tyler Doerksen) - Nice video that shows 0everything about Azure website.

Programming

• How can I motivate coworkers to write unit tests? - Writing unit test is good. Here is all the tooling it needs to motivates other people( or even you) to do so.
  
• Dirk Strauss - Nice looking tool. It could be very interesting to compare the features with basiliq... more to come.
  
• Amazon Launches ‘Send to Kindle’ Button For Web Developers & WordPress Blogs - Great idea! Looking forward to more of these buttons.
  
• How to configure diff and Merge tool in Visual Studio Git Tools - Useful tips to have a better configuration and have your favourite tools working together.
  
• A Month of PowerShell (Wayne Sheffield) – Great series that I started reading. I liked the format (short post). It gives you time to practice a little everyday.
• Day 1 (Getting Started) - Learn why you should learn PowerShell and few basics explorative cmdlets in the first post of a series.
• Day 2 (Variables and Operators)  - Nice for the explanation about the quote double quote.
  
• Day 3 (Security) - Useful tips if you try doing PowerShell you will hit the problem solved in this post.
  
• Day 4 (Scripting) - The base of script structure: function, module, try-catch, and param.
  
• Day 5 (Scripting – Putting it together) - Nice post the puts all the things presented in previous posts in a sample script.

 

Databases

• implicit data type conversion and COALESCE - This great post explains how quickly and simply improve our SQL query. Any developers who writes query should definitely read that one.

Miscellaneous

• What a 14-Year-Old Can Teach You About Management - It's never too late or too early to learn something. A nice post that will show you your from in a different angle.
  
• 7 Simple Steps to Writing Great ‘How To’ Content on Your Blog - Good post explaining the good way to write a how to post.
  
• 9 Steps to Creating a Successful e-Course) (Darren Rowse) - A lot of useful information in this post to create interesting lessons.
  
• It’s Not Just Reader – Google Kills Its RSS Subscription Browser Extension, Too (Sarah Perez) - Last week was full of Google reader news, but the thing is bigger than that. Why this move?

~Frank