Reading Notes #67

Cloud

• Cloudy Thoughts by SyntaxC4 - Nice post that demonstrate where are the environment variables base on different languages.
• Windows 8 and the Cloud: Better Together (David Pallmann) - Good post that told how and why it a good thing to use Windows Azure to leverage your Windows 8 applications.
• .NET Framework 4.5 Support in Windows Azure Web Sites (Channel 9) - Nice video podcast about new feature in Windows Azure and what you should do with your web/worker roles.
• Windows Azure Mobile Services: New support for iOS apps, Facebook/Twitter/Google identity, Emails, SMS, Blobs, Service Bus and more - Great news! This new features will gives a lot more of flexibility. And all these are already available for iOS!! That major. Good job.

[…]Read this getting started tutorial to walkthrough how you can build (in less than 5 minutes) a simple Windows 8 “To-do List” app that is cloud enabled using Windows Azure Mobile Services. Or watch this video of me showing how to do it step by step.[…]

• Windows Azure Training Kit – October 2012 - This post present what’s new in this update and gives the new GitHub link of the Windows Azure Training Kit.
• Blob Storage and Shared Access Signatures (Stephen Kaufman Stephen Kaufman Microsoft MSFT 6,797 Points 1 2 1 Recent Achievements Blogger III Blog Conversation Starter Blogger II View Profile) - Useful tutorial that explain how to setup a shared access signatures in c#.
• Modifying the contents of cscfg file while deploying a cloud service with PowerShell (18 2012 Ercenk October) - Great script! Must keep this in our tool box...
• Implementing Entity Services using NoSQL – Part 1: Outline - Nice post, first of a series that explains a Java project to build a Data Services using NoSql.
• Cloud Cover Show Episode 91 - Windows Azure Mobile Services Updates – Very nice good demo about some mobile new capabilities and a big tease for the next episode 92…

Integration

• What’s new in BizTalk360 version 5.0? Available for immediate download (Saravana Kumar) - Nice post that explain the 5 major new features in the last version of the great BizTalk360. Looking very promising.

Programming

• Why Mocking Matters - Nice explanation of what the differences are between fakes, stubs and mocks.

[…]This is easy to do with Telerik JustMock. I wrote about using JustMock to get you started in From Legacy to Dependency Injection. […]

• Expressing Ruby Code in Natural Language - Wow, that look like a lot of fun. That what I call a good "pet project".

[…]This is called rubber duck debugging, because you could have solved the problem by explaining it to a rubber duck on your desk. […]

• First try with TypeScript - A developer share is first thoughts of TypeScript and explains it with code sample.
• SSDT & DACFx (October 2012) Compatibility Notes - Details about a update that will fix some compatibility issue.
• 10 Tips to avoid the typical Windows 8 design traps - Essential for any developer. If you want to distinguish yourself from the other in the apps store, this is where it's start.
• Stored procedures DO NOT increase performance (Shivprasad koirala) - Interesting post that hi-light the difference between inline code and store procedure. I agree with the conclusion. Sprocs are better to facilitate the maintainability.
• Visual Studio 2012 Update 1 CTP - Wow an update already with new features that great. Reference to download pages.
• Supporting agile teams
• Continuously enabling quality
• SharePoint development
• Windows development
• How do you estimate with Story Points and determine Velocity when you’ve not done it before? (johnv petersen) - Nice post that with help you to start doing estimation.
• Get In on the Action: Learn Windows 8 with Hands-on Labs « Jonathan Rozenblit - Get started to the Windows8 development with these 17 labs references.

Miscellaneous

• If You’re Too Busy to Meditate, Read This (Peter) - This post explain how a little meditation is possible and how it can help.
• 7 Tips For Building a 'Power Network' on LinkedIn - Quick tips to improve your LinkedIn network.
• Instapaper delivered to your Kindle changes how you consume web content - Plus IFTTT, blogs and more (Scott Hanselman) - Of course you can do this... I prefer Readability but the idea is the same...

Reading Notes #66

Cloud

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

Programming

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

Miscellaneous

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

Reading Notes #64

Cloud

• Drunk on Cloud Kool-Aid? Time To Sober Up (Justin Moore) - It's never all white or all black. This post put some gray in the picture of what will be the cloud in five years.
• Book Review: Cloudonomics–The Business Value of Cloud Computing - If after reading this review you don't download the sample or read at least the table of content, it mean you are the author.
• Windows Azure Interactive Feature Map - An amazing interactive picture or the ultimate Windows Azure features Map!
• BizTalk Virtual Machine in Windows Azure using Quick Create (Steef-Jan Wiggers) - Simple and efficient tutorial that show all steps to create a VM in Windows Azure with BizTalk.
• Comparison: SkyDrive vs Apple vs Google vs Dropbox - Nice one shot overview.
• How to Remove an Orphaned Windows Azure Virtual Machine Disk and Remove a Lease Conflict on a VHD Blob (Stephen W. Thomas) - Again PowerShell is showing us who’s the king. I'm looking forward to see this tool. Since Azure is supposed to be really user friendly (not like scripts) then this tool should be great.
• Announcing Updates to Windows Azure SQL Database (Gregory Leake) - Great new. It's a long time since we saw a Sql Azure database update.
• Cloudy Thoughts by SyntaxC4 - Nice recap of many (if it is not all) possible database that you can use when using Windows Azure.
• #CloudFail: Six pitfalls to avoid with enterprise cloud deployment (Bart Copeland) - Excellent post! Even if the cloud is not for everyone, it have good chance that it could for you...
• Hybrid cloud model: update on Microsoft IT application migration (Tony Scott) - Overview of the Microsoft IT application migration, and Show case.

[…]Microsoft IT Showcase recently published an article with details of our experience [download Using Windows Azure to Create a Multi-Platform Application][…]

• Keeping your options open in a cloud solution (Buck Woody) - One thing that is great about Windows Azure is that you can use anything with it. Not only Microsoft language or application, not event only Azure services.
• Moving a website to Azure while adding Continuous Deployment from Git (Scott Hanselman) - Nice walkthrough of moving a website to Azure using new features.
• Guest Post: What’s the Big Deal with AppDynamics Windows Azure Monitoring? (Himanshu Singh) – Nice post that introduced AppDynamics and explained what it can do for our Azure application.
• Why Can't I Always Change the Region when Creating a Windows Azure Virtual Machine? (Stephen W. Thomas) - Nice catch! Be aware of this little difference between the different create VM methods.
• Azure Store XRay - Amazing tool to monitor easily your Windows Azure storage.
• Cloning Windows Azure Virtual Machines - Nice post. Very well explain through the Azure portal.
• Cloud Cover Show Episode 90 - Windows Azure Web Sites Update - Great show about the new feature in Windows Azure SQL Database: Link db.[video]

Programming

• Agile path ways into the Azure Universe – Access Control Service [ACS] - Great tutorial that explain step by step how to test ACS in a Behaviour Driven Development (bdd) way using QStory and Selinum.
• Avoid shooting yourself in the foot with Tasks and Async - Nice post that explain some "particularities" of some new feature in the .Net framework 4.5 related to asynchronous tasks.
• Migrating a Database to SQL Azure using SSDT - Great tutorial of an amazing tool. The SSDT is a must!
• 5 mistakes that make you look like a Rails n00b - Nice tips that will make your code better, and not only in Ruby, for all language.
• A First Look at SQL Server Data Tools - Include in the new visual studio 2012, and downloadable for 2008 and 2010, this amazing tool is a must for all developer. And it's free! .[video]
• Visual Studio 2012 Takes “Ease” Up a Notch (Jonathan Rozenblit) - Oh what a great a time saver.

Miscellaneous

• Windows 8 Shortcut Keys (John Evdemon) - Since I'm just starting to use Windows 8 this post is clearly useful.
• 3 Easy Exercises to Boost Your Creativity (2012| Comment Nadia Goodman| September 26) - I will not go that far, but the main goal is there. If you want be create the next Instagram, you must train your creativity.
• This Is The Biggest Reason Talented Young Employees Quit Their Jobs (The Brilliant Blog Annie Murphy Paul) - I wish my old bosses had the chance to read this nice post.

Reading Notes #62

Cloud

• David Pallmann Demonstrates azureQuery (Channel 9) (Brady Gaster Cory Fowler) - Nice video where the project azureQuery is introduced. A project to follow.
• Max Pool Size Setting and Federations in Windows Azure SQL Database - Nice quick tips with Azure Sql connection.
• Best Ways to Optimize Diagnostics Using Windows Azure – Part 1 - 5 tips from experimented user.
• Windows Azure Mobile Services Preview Walkthrough–Part 2: Authenticating Windows 8 App Users (C#) (Roger Jennings) - Nice demo in 2 parts with code and a lot of screenshots.
• Getting Started with SendGrid on Windows Azure - Well done tutorial. Building an application that send mail never locked that easy.
• Running a Windows Azure Virtual Machine Locally with Hyper-V or VMware 8 / VMware 9 (Stephen W. Thomas) - Nice... Exactly what I was looking for.
• Importing Azure Marketplace Data into Excel 2013 with Web Queries - Great tutorial that build a dynamic url to fetch data in Azure Marketplace.
• Cloud - Interesting post about the security of the data in the cloud.
• The Windows Azure Software Development Kit (SDK) and the Windows Azure Training Kit (WATK) (Buck Woody) - It's true that some people were mix matching those two. Re-share...

Programming

• EAI Bridge Message Sender and Queue Message Receive tool - Nice tool.
• Introducing ASP.NET FriendlyUrls - cleaner URLs, easier Routing, and Mobile Views for ASP.NET Web Forms (Scott Hanselman) - Gorgeous! Wow you can now so easily in web form do the routing like in Asp.net MVC only with one NuGet call!
• 5 points developers should know about WinRT / Windows 8 - Now that Windows 8 is there developers are starting to do more code using WinRT. So here some quick things about it.
• How to migrate your TFS Repository to GitHub - Nice, simple and quick tutorial to start using git and in the meantime try Chocolately. (a kind of NuGet but for Windows instead of Visual Studio)
• Your Colorful Visual Studio 2012 with the Color Theme Editor (VS2010 colors, too) (Scott Hanselman) - Great add in to Visual Studio that gives... Nothing except happiness.
• FREE: Visual Studio Express 2012 for Windows Desktop (Scott Hanselman) - Ye! Visual Studio gets free for all kind of project! It makes more sense to do this when supporting open source community.
• ScottGu's Blog - Good promo, no obligation, no credit card, good product... until the September 18.

[…]Read this getting started tutorial to walkthrough how you can build (in less than 5 minutes) a simple Windows 8 “To-do List” app that is cloud enabled using Windows Azure Mobile Services. Or watch this video of me showing how to do it step by step.[…]

• Stop Validating Email Addresses With Your Complex Regex - I agree 100% I don't remember how many site told that my e-mail was invalid because tagged: frank+tag@sample.com.
• When Is a Set Better Than an Array in Ruby? - Great post, the Set are very useful and powerful but are also under know.

Miscellaneous

• Escaping from Desktop: Online Document Editing Tools for Bloggers (Guest Blogger) - Interesting review of different online text editor that compare the pros and cons of each of them. Check TeamLab.
• 10 free tools for admins on a tight budget (Jack Wallen) - Even if you may now some, you can also find a new precious tool.
• Automatically Backup your Gmail account on a schedule with GMVault and Windows Task Scheduler (Scott Hanselman) - Nice advice. The power of task scheduler, ignore you should not.
• Goodbye Fax, Hello Personal Cloud | Cloudline - A real nightmare, but do you think it will be ending soon? I hope so.
• 10 Tips for Giving a Kick Ass Keynote (Mitch Ditkoff) - 10 good tips that I will practice in my next presentation.
• Your resume vs. your LinkedIn profile (Thomas Wolff) - Nice advice about how we should use LinkedIn with our resume. They should complement each other not be the same.
• Turns out I’ll be writing a book - Nice idea. I hope this book will be published. I will love read this book.

Reading Notes #61

 
[This week, the image is provided by Marc Gagné @marc_gagne, a Windows Azure Ninja.]
Cloud

• Amazon AWS is the Cloud (for now anyway) (Ofir Nachmani) - It is true, Amazon web services is a strong well establish cloud provider. And big players like Google and Microsoft will force it to always improve the quality of their services.
• Cloud Fundamentals Video Series (Alfred Thompson) – Wow! 25 good reasons to bookmarks this posts... if you want to get started on Windows Azure.
• Importing and Exporting Virtual Machine Settings (Michael Washam) - A post to bookmark. Very useful cmdlets that will save you a lot of trouble... and money.
• To TechDays 2012 and Beyond (Jonathan Rozenblit) - A lot of possibilities to learn more great Windows technology are coming, here is a sneak peak.  
• Connecting to the Cloud–Part 1 (Tyler Doerksen) - Nice post that explains at high level two ways to connect the cloud with a on premise solution: data synchronisation and application layer.
• Connecting to the Cloud-Part 2 (Tyler Doerksen) - In this second post learn more about two other way to connect Azure with both on-premise or another cloud provider (like amazon or Rackspace): machine to machine and network layer.
• How does Hyper-V compare to VMware? - The main idea is this: Windows Azure is no longer running to catch up there has leapfrogged the competition. Download the entire whitepaper.
• Episode 89 - Windows Azure Mobile Services (Channel 9) – Great demo in this episode about the brand new Windows Azure Mobile Services.

Programming

• Custom jQuery UI Draggable bounds (Name) - Great demo of JQueryUI Draggable. I will surely you this in a future project.
• What is GOOD software design? - I would add that a good design is not always easy to do.
• Traffic Technique 6: Backlinks (Darren Rowse) - Today's website/blog are prettier than in the past with all the bling-bling. So the to increase the traffic you need to play in subtlety. A good series to learn more on those basic rules.
• The best way to manage Ruby applications - Everything is in the title, and now it's even better...
• ASP.NET MVC DisplayTemplate and EditorTemplates for Entity Framework DbGeography Spatial Types (Scott Hanselman) - Really nice sample that leverage the axp.net mvc scafolding complex type with EF. And nice trick with NuGet when compiling.
• WebMatrix 2 is Released! + New Windows Azure Features (blogs.msdn.com) - WebMatrix is a great tool now with this new version it's even belter! From Windows Azure Portal you can download your web site edit it and republish it in few clicks... that only one thing among the things WebMatrix can do to simplify our lives.
• The Hanselminutes Podcast - Very nice, I cannot wait to try the update database feature with the code first...
• EAI Bridge Message Sender and Queue Message Receive tool - Great tool! It will be very useful for demo, debug and for quickly see some under the hood code.

Miscellaneous

• The Right Way to Speak to Yourself (Peter) - Nice reading that can to be more efficient with yourself.
• Why Remote Workers Are More (Yes, More) Engaged (Scott Edinger) - Nice post that explain how today with all the alternative we have to communicate that the distance is not a factor anymore. In business at least...
• Cost Comparison: Amazon Glacier vs S3 - Quick post that shows the advantage of going with AWS Glacier from S3 from a money perspective.
• Unofficial Amazon AWS Glacier Calculator - Nice initiative. A calculator is always welcome.
• The price of textbooks is ramping up far faster than inflation, and with good reason, say publishers (Danielle Kurtzleben) - Interesting topic. I thought that with all the options available today all students can found their way to get all theirs books at a price they are willing to pay.
• Shifting Blog From WordPress to Bloggers (gotchacode.blogspot.in) - I did the same choice for mostly the same reason few years ago. But now that you can host Wordpress in Windows Azure... maybe ;)
• The Dew Review – Intel Next Generation Ultrabook™ with Windows 8: Initial Impressions - Review of a dream machine... thin, fast and light.
• Pro tips: 20 steps to the perfect website layout - Nice tips that should be considered not only for website but for any user interface.
• Cloud Computing: Start with the problem (BuckWoody) - Interesting exercise to do... and you WILL be surprise.

Reading Notes #55

Cloud

• 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.
  
• Overview of the Windows Azure Platform (Neil Mackenzie) - Great overview in this post about all the features of Windows Azure, specifying the advantages of each one.
  
• Azure for Developers: Introduction to the Tutorial - Wow great job! This series of 8 post will explains all the basics (and more) about Windows Azure by constructing, step by step a real application. A perfect get started for all developer.
  
• Windows Azure IaaS Overload (Michael Washam) - All regroup in one posts a lot of videos about crash course on Windows Azure IaaS.
  
• Windows Azure Caching (Preview) and Ruby Cloud Services - Nice job from Larry Franks to the brand new Azure Cache with Ruby.
  
• Migrated to Azure Web Sites - Nice post, all the steps needed to move an existing Wordpress blog to Windows Azure.
  
• Switching to Windows Azure - Interesting post, from someone who changes is mind, and went to Windows Azure.
  
• Announcing the Developer Preview of Windows Azure Active Directory - Great news, even if it's in a very early age this is very interesting... now let's play with it!
  
• Comparing Windows Azure Blob Storage and Google Cloud Storage (Gaurav) - Always very interesting those posts where two or more products are compared...

Programming

• Is recursion really bad? - Interesting demo about efficiency of recursive code compare to loop and stack. I would have liked to see the code that was used to test.
  
• Azure CDN Cache busting CSS image references and minification (Iain Hunter) - Interesting tricks to take advantage of the Azure CDN with minified css using pre-build event.
  
• Rhino Mocks Isn’t Complicated (Jim Cooper) - This post by doing code sample comparison between convinces me to try it again. It's true that a Rhino mocks has change since last time I worked with it. The "new" syntax is really clearer.
  
• Why LINQ Matters: Cloud Composability Guaranteed - Nice post very detailed that show how powerful is LINQ.
  
• Create Reminders in Windows 7 Without Outlook (groovypost.com) - Nice reminder ;) about the one of the great tools available on windows platform the task scheduler.
  
• Integrating Balsamiq Mockups with Google Drive (googleappsdeveloper.blogspot.ca) - Great news! I'm a big fan of Balsamiq and this "move" really makes sense.

Miscellaneous

• Microsoft Announces New Cloud Opportunities for Partners - Interesting post about the WPC that append on the week on July 10th.
  
• 10 crazy IT security tricks that actually work (Roger A. Grimes) - Good tips about security, even if some of them are for servers the other are simple to apply and should be very efficient.
  
• The Best Strategy for Reducing Stress (Peter) - Great post, in today's word being able to manage is stress could be life saver.
  
• Motivate Employees: 4 Techniques to Try (John Baldoni) - Interesting thoughts about some technics you use to motivate people you work with.

~Frank

Reading Notes #53

This post is an important milestone for this blog. It completes the first year of Reading Notes, since a year as 52 weeks and it’s also the 100th post!

Thanks for being there and continue reading, a lot of good stuff is coming…

~Frank

Cloud

• Cloud Strategy Begins with Value and Balances Risk (Microsoft Enterprise Team) - Nice post that help to identify risks. The information is display in tables that helps.
• Windows Azure Performance: Best Practices (Rick Saling) - Good reference to more detail video on the topic.

[…]great video of a presentation on Federations by Cihan Biyikoglu at the 2012 US Tech Ed conference in Orlando. […]

• Windows Azure PowerShell and Ruby Cloud Services - Great post where updating is RubyRole project the author make interesting discovery. Learn more about some new functionality available in the Azure SDK 1.7.
• Deploying Windows Azure Website using Visual Studio Web Publish wizard - Nice quick tip to use Visual Studio with the new Azure website.
• Data Series: SQL Server in Windows Azure Virtual Machine vs. SQL Database - Great big post that cover every difference between those two Sql database. Perfect reading to stop being confuse.
• Windows Azure Websites, Virtual Machines, and More « Jonathan Rozenblit - Great! If you missed the conference at Toronto on June 20th this is your chance to catch-up. The full conference is available to watch by steaming or offline by downloading.
• 10 Questions to ask when Outsourcing to Azure (Surf4Fun) - Good questions.
• Data Synchronization using SQL Azure Data Sync (Félix Martínez Retama) - Nice post first of a serie. This one is illustrating few possible scenarios of synchronisation with Azure Data Sync.
• Data Series: Exploring Windows Azure Drives, Disks, and Images (BradCalder) - Amazing article that pass throut all details about Azure drive, disk, image and cache. A must to all cloud developer.
• New Article: Windows Azure Queues and Windows Azure Service Bus Queues (Valery Mizonov) - Very good article that perfectly summarises the content of the longer MSDN article about the difference between Azure queues and Azure Service Bus Queues. Simple easy to read and accurate.

[…]Following is the high-level technology selection considerations section from the full article on MSDN. […]

• Windows Azure - When do I use What? (Andrew Coates [MSFT]) - Nice quick post that demystify when it's the time to use a Azure website, webrole or a VM.

Programming

• JQuery 1.8 beta 1: See What’s Coming - Wow, a lot of things are coming with the next version of JQuery. This a good post to catch the big picture.

[…]new build system based on Ben Alman’s awesome grunt tool. […]

Miscellaneous

• Reminder, basic quick fixes for troubled gear - Nice check list for no-technical people of what they can do by them self before calling you to rescue when they computer/gadget stop working. ;)
• ScrumMaster Tales – Learning How to Estimate (Mark Levison) - Interesting post that relates the experience of an Agile team. Also refers some other post of that still.

~Frank

Reading Notes #52

Cloud

• Ridiculously Fast and Easy Migration to the Cloud with Windows Azure (David Pallmann) - Nice post that re-groups 7 scenarios that are perfect match for a cloud (Azure) migration.
• Azure Storage Explorer 5 Preview 1 Now Available with Logging & Monitoring Support (David Pallmann) - Amazing job on Azure Storage Explorer that is at is fifth version already. This post is introducing one of the new features: logs. Guys update your version and if you did have this tool, this is your «cue».
• Overview of Windows Azure Caching (Preview) - This new Azure Cache look very promising. Here is some information about how it works.
• Amazon Web Services – Each Service in plain English - Nice idea, a one line description of most Amazon Web Services AWS... in plain English.
• Windows Azure – Write, Run or Use Software - Nice post that explain the three types of Azure service and the services in each one.
• What is the new Windows Azure? - Nice graphics that contain a lot of information. Spend some time reading the graphic you will not be disappointed.
• Three cloud ops lessons you should learn before your next outage - This post is about how you learn from unpredicted event. You know that it will come, but you can control anything... except you.
• Windows Azure Website: Uploading/Downloading files over FTP and collecting Diagnostics logs (Avkash Chauhan) - Quick tip about using ftp with the new Azure web site.
• Chris Koenig (Chris Koenig) - Nice overview of what's new in the Windows Azure Training kit.
• REST Interface for Managing Service Bus EAI/EDI Labs (Nitin Mehrotra) - Regroup interesting links about the REST API of the Azure Service Bus.
• We Need a Good Developer Cloud (Andrew Binstock) - Interesting thoughts, a bit dark, of what really the cloud situation today and what it should be. Even if I don't agree with everything in this post, I should say that I agree with the fact that user shouldn’t have to care about redundancy. It make sense that it could be done be the provider.
• The AWS outage reveals bigger issue - Short post that says that if you planned and architected correctly you application, even big outage should affect you.
• How to point your own Custom Domain Name in Windows Azure – #Meet Azure Edition - Really useful tutorial that explain with nice screenshots how to configure your domain name. Nice job.
• Using EAI Bridges to Send Flat File Messages from FTP Server to On-Premise SQL Server - Good tutorial that provides more details about one Azure EAI Labs.
• Managing the Cloud from the Command Line (Hanselman) - Great post about available script option to "play" with Windows Azure for a Windows or Linux pc.

Programming

• Create and deploy a Node.js application to a Windows Azure Web Site - With these new websites combine with the new Git for Windows, I really need to find some spare time and give it a shot. This nice tutorial could be the perfect get started.
• Considerations when Sharding - When having hard time to find how to shard your data, this alternative could give you ideas.
• The Caching Application Block - This post is the starting point for any developer that wants to do caching. Great references.

[...]When Should I Use the Caching Application Block? This topic will help you to decide if the block is suitable for your requirements. It explains the benefits of using the block, and any alternative techniques you may consider. It also provides details of any limitations of the block that may affect your decision to use it.[...]

• PowerShell - grabbing values out of the registry and running them (Rob Farley) - Nice use of PowerShell.
• Adding Ninject to Web API (Peter Provost) - Nice tutorial about Ninject (great dependency injection framework). Ninject is also available thru NuGet.
• Why Your Links Should Never Say “Click Here” (Anthony) - Good tips that for sure will improve your UI and the user experience.
• Getting Started with Lucene.net (Ricci Gian Maria) - Nice tutorial that explain with a simple case how to get started with the great library Lucene.net.
• Rethinking Web Service Development (Matt Aimonetti) - Nice post that explains how we should build and document our API.

Miscellaneous

• How to Stop Sucking and Be Awesome Instead (Jeff Atwood) - Seriously not serious. Download the slides...Awesome.
• New Series for Beginner Game Masters. (The Chatty DM) - A fantastic idea! That exactly what I was looking for. And just before the big vacations it's perfect!
• Positive Thinking: 7 Easy Ways to Improve a Bad Day (Geoffrey James) - Positive thinking is important, 7 easy tips to improve your day... and it’s not magic thinking.
• The Emotional Adventure of Leadership (Peter) - Interesting post that explains why being a leader you need to manage strong emotions.

~ Frank

Reading Notes #48

Cloud

• Windows Azure Start-up Tasks Part 1 - First of a series this nice post explain the basics of start-up task when deploying in Windows Azure.
• Windows Azure Start-up Tasks Part 2 - Great post that gives a lot of information on Azure start-up tasks: environment variables, useful xPath query, important tips that will save you a lot troubles.
• Windows Azure Myths - Nice post that demystify 5 important myths about Windows Azure.
• Cloud SLAs: What You Don’t Know Can Hurt You - SLAs are an important topic. Here is a good post to have a better understanding of it. This post talk about SLAs in general so you will also need to get more info from your cloud provider.
• Amazon Attracts Windows and .NET Developers to the AWS Cloud (Saroj Kar) - Amazon is really pushing harder to be attractive for the .Net developer. That good news since it will give you more options ;)
• My CDN Progression - Great post about true life experience. This post will definitely help people, looking for a CDN, to take better decision or at least start their search with more wisdom.
• Debugging Windows Azure Web Role Application_Start() method in Global.asax.cs (Avkash Chauhan - MSFT) - Nice quick tips to reach break point in Application_Start().
• 5 Issues Cloud Computing Can’t Solve (Xath Cruz) - The cloud is good but not magic. Here are 5 frequent ideas where in fact the cloud (whoever is your provider) can’t help you.

Programming

• Automating Visual Studio 2010 builds and deployments with Nant.Builder (Iain Hunter) - Really interesting series. The steps are simple and well explained. In the next one deploy to Azure...
• [MONITORING] Les 10 raisons de développer son application en HTML5 (Web App) (Gamorlive) - If you agree with the fact that your user must be connected (like when looking your web site), then here are 10 reasons why you should do your new application in HTML5.
• Le Monkey Patching - I'm new to the idea of dynamic code, and I tend to use it to help me testing/ mocking. These posts illustrate how it could be very useful in other situation.
• Quick Status of Your Windows Azure Apps with PowerShell - Really nice script. Thanks Steve!

Miscellaneous

• I took Hanselman's advice and now look at me... - Nice post a thru story telling how by following Scott Handselman advice someone become more productive.
• Cool Tools: How to Find Free and Cheap Ebooks - Good references of tools to get eBooks and also to search them.

[…]Sources, InkMesh is the best search engine I have found for identifying if an author or a book is available in eBook form,[…]

 
~ Frank

Reading Notes #45

Cloud

• 5 tips for surviving a cloud outage (Brandon Butler) - More focus in Amazon web services this post in fact is saying don't put all your eggs in the same basket.
• Say Hello to Windows Azure, The World’s Most Misunderstood Cloud (Cade Metz) - Azure is different. It represents the new Microsoft. This post relates two stories of companies that move from Amazon to Azure.

“Azure lets us focus on our product rather than focusing on how we need to scale the application”

• Windows Azure Storage for the ASP.NET Developer (Adam Hoffman) - What a nice post. Clear explanations, with great references and it come from a series.

“For a rich comparison of SQL Azure and Windows Azure Table storage, see Joseph Fultz’s MSDN Magazine article at: http://aka.ms/SQLAzureVsAzureTables.”

• Scale-First Approach to Database Design with Federations: Part 2 – Annotating and Deploying Schema for Federations (Cihan Biyikoglu) - Second part of a series about Azure SQL Federations, this post explain all the particularities of the database to know before deploying for a optimum results.
• Joining the dots in the cloud - Nice post about the new collection of cloud tools that will help you to connect services or applications together and the things you should be aware of.
• CloudDrive: Possible Data Loss when calling Create() or CreateIfNotExist() on existing drives - Hopefully the SDK 1.7 is coming soon and the "feature" will be fix. However this is a excellent workaround.
• Load Testing in cloud using Visual Studio (Vignesh C) - Good idea for a load test using Azure.

“This blog has three posts that give detailed explanation of how a test rig with Controller and Agents can be created in Windows Azure.”

• Networking in the Cloud–Understanding Windows Azure Traffic Manager - Great post to get started with the Azure Traffic Manager. Of course to master it you should do the lab, but this post will help to understand the high level concepts.
• Four Different Ways to Get Windows Azure Accounts and Services - I'm sure there one that fits you.
• Run the Azure worker role in elevated mode to register HttpListener - Nice workaround to be able to use Raven in an Azure worker role.
• Windows Azure Learning Path–Start Here (Brian H. Prince) - Preface of the great learn Azure post series and introduce a contest.
• Windows Azure Learning Path–Level 100 (Brian H. Prince) - First of a series that regroup a lot of information to get started on Windows Azure.
• Windows Azure Learning Path–Level 200 (Brian H. Prince) - Great exercises about storage
• Windows Azure Learning Path–Level 300 (Brian H. Prince) - Third of a series, this post regroup advanced exercises reference (level 300) about the Azure connectivity options.
• Part I of III - How to access an Azure OAuth v2 ACS secured service with Java (mbutler01) - First post of series of three about how to use oAuth v2 with Java using ACS.

“There does not seem to be any good working OAUTH v2 examples for Java using ACS”

• Windows Azure App Scaling to Need (Grigori Melnik, Julian Dominguez) - Very nice video about Wasabi the Windows auto-scaling Application block. A must.
• How to Use Windows Azure for a Small Web Site (avsol) - Good tutorial that give a lot of tips on how you could do you setup for a small web site.

Programming

• Introducing Workspace Reloader - A Visual Studio AddIn to save your open files across project reloads - Nice post about a little Visual Studio Add-in that will keep your files open when the solution is re-loaded.
• Ruby tricks: Array syntax (chatgris) - Quick post quick tricks... now I looking forward the next time I will try it.
• Ajax Control Toolkit May 2012 Release - Great! The timing is perfect. One day after this new release some project arrived and they need exactly this new version of the upload control... thanks!

Miscellaneous

• Thinking The Wrong Things About E-Book Pricing - Interesting topic: How much should cost a e-book?
• Trust Me, I'm Lying (Jeff Atwood) - Interesting post. Why lying is necessary.
• SlideShare and LinkedIn sitting in a tree… (rashmi) - Great new for both SlideShare and LinkedIn... A perfect match.

~Frank

Reading Notes #44

They will bring you in the cloud.

Cloud

• “You Complete Me” Says SharePoint to Windows Azure (Jonathan Rozenblit) - Really nice post that just open the possibilities on how could be implanted Azure with other application and in this case with SharePoint.
• Services Hosted in Windows Azure Service Bus (Stephen Kaufman) - This is definitely something to remember... How to work with proxies and Azure.
• Cloud Computing is Designing For Failure - Nice short post about the why using cloud computing instead of the other more common web server developing.
• A world of pretty cloud drive icons - SkyDrive, Google Drive, Dropbox, BitBucket and GitHub (Scott Hanselman) - Nice free icons for ours cloud storage.
• SkyDrive brings your personal cloud across devices (Steve Clayton) - Great new, it will become a lot easier to share or "backup" files with this new tool.
• Why Infrastructure As A Service Is A Bad Deal - It could be difficult to have a idea of the saving you could do going in the cloud. This post only looks the storage scenario. You could be surprise of the result, but I bet that the arrival of Google Drive and is aggressive pricing will makes thing moved.
• Using Windows Azure Caching for Session State can make the application slow if right programming practices are not followed (Farida Bharmal) - Nice tips. Simple once you know it.
• Five ways to reduce Azure Costs - Really good advice, this post is a must! It also contain ref to good tools or more detailed articles.
• Amazon: Cloud computing to be the norm in future - Nice post that show how easy and cheap to do a gigantic task using the cloud computing.
• Google Drive vs. Dropbox, SkyDrive, SugarSync, and others: a cloud sync storage face-off (Ellis Hamburger) - The most complete and detailed comparison ever. Really nice post. Pick the best tool(s) for your needs.
• Windows Azure Diagnostics–From the Ground Up (Greg Oliver) - Really nice post with a lot of good references and a lot of information. Perfect to get started or have a better understanding of Azure diagnostics.
• Fun with the Service Bus (Part 1) - What a great tutorial! This post is covering a lot a material by doing for a to z an application where the heart is Azure Service Bus.
• Announcing Windows Azure Achievements for Visual Studio (Karsten Januszewski) - Nice update even more since the achievements are good things.
• Auto-scaling Azure with WASABi–From the Ground Up (Greg Oliver) - Great tutorial about Wasabi framework.
• Greenpeace Cloud Protest: Do Amazon, Microsoft Deserve the Doghouse? - Those giants need to take care of the environment and also they need us to remember it.

Programming

• Code First model builder versions (Arthur Vickers) - This post explain how to configure EF code first to avoid any breaking code when updating the framework to a newer version. Nice work.
• Créer son propre Gem et le publier - Very nice tutorial (in French) that explain in detail with a simple case how to create and also publish a Ruby Gem.

Miscellaneous

• 5 Tricks for a Killer Company Blog - Five simple tips to get started blogging in a business perspective.
• Hit the Presentation Sweet Spot - Twenty minutes is very short. Maybe it is a good idea for a specific type of presentation... How do you plan a 2-3 formation?
• Your Personal Brand as a Developer: Implementing (Part 2 of 2) (Jonathan Rozenblit) - Part 2 on an unusual topic but important. Our brand, as a person. On the internet everything is amplified and could be seen by a lot of people very quickly. A post to read "before it is too late".
• Coping with Email Overload (Peter) - This could be a good advice for a lot of people. While I'm working on a project where co-workers are across the country I not sure I can do this but maybe tweaking it with rules for only those people.

Reading Notes #41

Cloud

• Single-Tenant Vs Multi-Tenant SaaS Invoicing Models (David) - Describe both single and multi-tenant architecture and explain the real power of the multi-tenant in the cloud.
• Quantifying and Avoiding Risk on the Windows Azure platform (Richard S. Parker) - Great post that identifies different types of risk and help to understand each of them. It’s also explained how you should manage the risk by not being dependant of Microsoft SLA.
• HTML5, CSS and Browser Compatibility (David Pallmann) - Second of a series, this post describes the HTML structure of the main page.
• Microsoft Research and Windows Azure Partner to Influence Discovery and Sharing (Himanshu Singh) - Nice post that introduces three projects of Partners have done in Windows Azure.
• Microsoft offers free cloud backup beta for Windows Server "8" (Sean Gallagher) - Great idea. I hope this service could be used by the other windows version.
• Transactional Messaging in the Windows Azure Service Bus - Really nice post that explains how could works a resequencer, why one could be needed and how to test it.
• Windows Azure Dev Fabric (Rodrigo De Castro) - Good tips using a ip:port mapper tool to access remotely to a compute emulator.
• Protecting Your Data in SQL Azure: New Best Practices Documentation Now Available (Gregory Leake) - Well best practices are always welcome, a must.
• Cloud Tip #5-Secure your settings in Web.config with Encryption (mbenkov) - Nice quick tip! Add a little more security to your config file.
• Announcing SQL Azure Data Sync Preview Update (GregoryLeake) - This is a great news! not being able to update sync group was REALLY painful... Otherwise Azure Data Sync is a great application.
• How We're Using Amazon Web Services - Moustach.io is sharing their experience of the cloud by showing how they use the AWS. Nice true story.
• Exploring Cloud Architecture - A really nice recap of different architectures in the cloud. Putting them in context with cost efficiency.

[…]cost efficiency doesn’t equate to cheap or even free. You can determine the cost to be efficient when the equation can’t be changed to reduce cost without also reducing the services or functionality—meaning[…]

• 4 Cloud Computing Pain Points That Still Hurt - Interesting post. Contain other post references and important cloud facts.
• Why (or Why Not) to Migrate to the Cloud - Great post that hi-light the pros and cons of the cloud migration.
• Migrating an on-premise database from SQL Server to SQL Azure using SSIS (zafarx) - Really well done tutorial using SSIS instead of the other tools to migrate a database to SQL Azure. By doing it that way you have the possibility do more with your schemas before moving them.
• Getting Acquainted with NoSQL on Windows Azure (Bruce Kyle) - A real good post. It compares different noSQL databases and explains how they work. A lot of other good posts and tutorials are also referred. Definitely perfect to get started.
• Announcing SQL Azure Data Sync Preview Update (Gregory Leake) - This is a great news. Not being able to edit the sync group in my previous projects was really painful. I can’t wait to try the new version...
• Announcing New Datacenter Options for Windows Azure (Cameron Rogers) - Always good to have more and more options. Maybe, some day one will be in Canada. We have a good temperature and plenty of water...
• An Up-Close Examination of the Microsoft RDP Vulnerability (Guest Author) - Important RDP vulnerability was fixed in the March patch. Since in Azure the remote is disables by default and that some firewall rules protect some connections, if you use Azure you are now safe and probably you were never really in danger. But if you are using an image on AWS you probably should apply you Windows Updates...

Programming

• Why You Should Be Excited About Garbage Collection in Ruby 2.0 - Garbage collector is not the more glamour feature, but it's nice to go under the hood and see that some innovation are going on. Very well explain.

Miscellaneous

• I'm Sure It Will Only Take You A Few Days To Code - Interesting, I didn't think our usual or natural sensor to estimate the complexity of something cannot be use when it comes to estimate software... but it makes senses!
• What geeks need to tell our parents about shopping online safely and securely (Scott Hanselman) - Nice post. read this post than go talk to your parent, uncle, brothers and sisters all those people that call you when they did nothing but the PC doesn't works anymore... ;)

[…]HTTPS (SSL) doesn't mean "I can trust this site," it means "this conversation is private." You still might be having a private conversation with Satan. - Scott Hanselman Trust[…]

Reading Notes #38

Cloud

• Amazon data center size - Interesting post that gives an opportunity to puts numbers on the cloud architecture, in this case AWS servers.
• How I work with Live Mesh, SkyDrive, and Office Live Workspace (Buck Woody) - Good post that explain one setup you can use to get your files synchronize and available on many device.
• 4 Azure milestones Microsoft must hit — and soon (Barb Darrow) - Interesting post that point out 4 milestones that Microsoft Azure should reach ASAP to stay in the cloud race.
• Can we pronounce “The Cloud” hype over yet? - Nice post that raise some objection that the cloud is for everything. Some people seem to still think this way, but its true cloud is not the answer to all situations.
• Learn The Cloud, Make A Difference, @home with Windows Azure - Great initiative! A good way to learn Winnows Azure and an easy way to get free Azure account for 3 months!
• How to Share a Local Drive when Remoting into Windows Azure Instance (Jason Haley) - Nice quick tips that is very useful when debugging.
• Multiple Sites in Single Role Running Local (Jason Haley) - This post is a time saver, if you plan to put more than one web site in the same web role... read this.
• Optimizing apps for cloud (Tim O'Brien) - Great post that explain few principles of cloud architecture to be able of building a more structured application.
• Why So Many Azure Storage Transactions? - Nice advice! Good think that since last release, when you are busting your limits they just deactivate the web application instead of giving a big bill.
• Windows Azure Security Best Practices - Part 2: What Azure Provides Out-of-the-Box (Bruce Kyle) - Amazing post that describes perfectly the architecture of Windows Azure and the security in it. It also explains what we should do to keep a good security level. This is the second post of the series a third one is already out... more to come.
• Windows Azure Security Best Practices – Part 3: Identifying Your Security Frame (Bruce Kyle) - Part 3 a is bout pattern in the ms document.
• Windows Azure Security Best Practices – Part 5: Claims-Based Identity, Single Sign On (Bruce Kyle) - A lot of information about windows Identity Foundation (WIF).
• Windows Azure Security Best Practices – Part 6: How Azure Services Extends Your App Security (Bruce Kyle) - Great post that talk about the strength of Windows Azure Active Directory, Azure Connect and Service Bus. The 3 options that you have to extend your security on Azure.
• Big Data and the case for IT relevancy - This post explain why big data will not "kills" IT jobs but in fact probably it will actually create more.
• HTML5 + Cloud = Personal Cloud (David Pallmann) - Nice post (the fourth of a series) explain the cloud is personal and why HTML5 could be a better tools to present this personal cloud.
• Windows Azure PowerShell Cmdlets (v2.2.2) (Michael WashamMS) - Present the new features of the last release of Windows Azure PowerShell. A lot of great new functionalities, but before downloading it be aware of some breaking changes.
• How to Download Windows Azure Blob Containers - We often found code sample to upload files to the cloud but here it is to download. This is well done demo to replicate the structure of an Azure Blob Container on premise.
• What Size VM Should I Go With? - Point a article here this question is answered by 2 authors well presented in this article.
  

  […]questions Joel & Stephen attempt to answer in the article. […]

• Book Review: Just for fun (Jan Van Ryswyck) - That look like a book that will easily find a place in my to read list.

Programming

• C# Reflection Performance And Ruby (Tim Kellogg) - Interesting test to compare the speed of different methods to access a property.
• 5 Tools to to Run a Small Business in the Cloud - 5 online very useful tools are presented in this post.
• EF Code First - Tips and Tricks - Nice tips. I never thought of putting extra safeguard code in this section... but I like it, so i will.

Miscellaneous

• Agile Adoption Success Factors – Nice quick post about why Agile adoption pass or fail base on a survey result.
• Touch, Not the Mouse - Nice editorial from MSDN Mag that kind of contest that popular idea of touch is for everything.
• You’re Working Too Hard to Make an Impact (Study Hacks) - This short post illustrate we should prefer be valuable than busy.
• A geek with a hat » The one book that gets me offline - Editorial about people reading habit today, and a nice book suggestion... can you resist?