Reading Notes #315

Suggestion of the week

• DAX optimization examples (Alberto Ferrari) - An incredible dive into a DAX performance analysis. I loved it.

Cloud

• Bing Speech API extends its text to speech support to 34 languages (Qinying Liao) - Great new languages supported.
• Brand Detection in Microsoft Video Indexer (Dr. Abed Asi) - This is a great addition to this service.
• In order event processing with Azure Functions (Jeff Hollan) - This post explains how to keep our Functions in control to respect the message order.
• Monitoring issues on Stack Overflow with serverless, CosmosDB and Teams (Shayne Boyer) - Awesome post that gives all the detail on how a reel life solution is built.

Programming

• Docker for Windows Desktop... Now With Kubernetes! - Docker Blog (Jim Armstrong) - This post explains all the wonderful things you will have only by checking one simple checkbox.

Databases

• Share reports with your teams and partners | Microsoft Power BI Blog | Microsoft Power BI (Lukasz Pawlowski) - Perfect, we can now share report directly like we could with dashboard.
• Power BI Desktop February Feature Summary | Microsoft Power BI Blog | Microsoft Power BI (Amanda Cofsky) - So my great new features!

Miscellaneous

• How Long is Long Enough? Minimum Password Lengths by the World's Top Sites (Troy Hunt) - Do you use good passwords? Because length is not the only thing.

Photo credit: nickpettican on Visual Hunt / CC BY-NC-ND

Reading Notes #314

Suggestion of the week

• The Modern Dev Team (Rob Conery) - What a great post. Maybe it's only me getting old ;) but I think we all have these thoughts one day or the other.

Cloud

• A great developer experience for Ansible (Corey Sanders) - This post announces the integration of Austin in the cloud shell and visual studio. It somewhere we can learn more about it. I didn't know about it, but I really want t use in my next DevOps tasks.
• Announcing IoT extension for Azure CLI 2.0 (Chrissie Chi) - This post gives you everything you need to know: what it does, how to install it, and even some sample!
• Announcing integration of Azure Backup into VM create experience (Trinadh Kotturu) - Fantastic news, better be prepared then sorry.
• Azure Cosmos DB + Functions Cookbook— static client (Matías Quaranta) - Nice first post of a promising series that shares recipes, gotchas, and examples about two very powerful tools.
• Azure Functions Proxies (Eric Williams) - Azure Functions are a very useful thing to have in your toolbox. With the addition of Proxies, it becomes a must read a few ways to use them in this post.
• Jenkins on Azure: from zero to hero (Pui Chee Chan) - Jenkins is an extremely popular build server. This post list all the features pre-package for you when you deploy it in Azure in a few click.Pretty awesome.
• Migrate your classic storage account to Azure Resource Manager using PowerShell Azure v5.0.x (Stephane Lapointe) - Nice tutorial that shows how to move all (except vhd) your storage in the new format.

Programming

• How I use VSCode, VSTS and GitHub to develop Azure ARM Templates (Eric Leonard) - From A to Z, this post explains all steps in an application life circle; using only three simple tools.
• Dockerizing .NET Apps with Microsoft's Build Images on Docker Hub (Elton Stoneman) - This post explains how to package your .Net app, so the only dependency is... well Docker.
• Scalable and Performant ASP.NET Core Web APIs: Load Testing (Carl Rippon) - A great post that introduces multiple tools to load-test our API with ease BEFORE going to production. A must to all developers.

Databases

• My Favorite SQL Prompt Features (MarlonRibunal) - If you never try SqlPrompt and you write SQL in your day to day, stop read this, and go downloading it, or at least read this post that gives you a glimpse of it's feature.

Miscellaneous

• 5 Essential Trello Boards Every Remote Team Needs (Leah Ryder ) - This is a nice little post packed with good advice for remote workers.
• My Blog Now Has a Content Security Policy - Here's How I've Done It (Troy Hunt) - Interesting post again from Troy, who once more makes us think.

Reading Notes #297

Suggestion of the week

• How to uninstall Scrum (Erwin Verweij) - When you will read that post (because you must read it... Seriously), you will smile, giggle and maybe even laugh.

Cloud

• Azure Tips and Tricks Part 14 - Generate SSH public key to log into Linux VM with Cloud Shell (Azure Tips and Tricks Part 14 - Generate SSH public key to log into Linux VM with Cloud Shell was published on September 11, 2017.) - Doing a remote desktop on a Windows VM is trivial, but doing the same thing on a Linux machine required just a little more. After reading this post will be a walk in the park.

• Azure Tips and Tricks Part 16 - Deploy Jekyll Site Hosted on GitHub Pages to Azure (Azure Tips and Tricks Part 16 - Deploy Jekyll Site Hosted on GitHub Pages to Azure was published on September 13, 2017.) - I use Jekyll on Azure, and I love it. If you would like to try it, this post is all you need.

• Getting Started with Windows Containers (Alina Popa) - A cool tutorial that uses a few popular tech these days.

• Keep credentials out of code: Introducing Azure AD Managed Service Identity (Stuart Kwan) - Great post that explains what the new service is, and how it works.It also suggests a tutorial to learn how to implement it. Awesome!

• Why is Serverless Extensibility better than Webhooks? (Bobby Johnson) - A useful post that jumps right in the middle of the debate about the Webhook and serverless. Both are good but planning (as usual) is worth it.

Programming

• API Versioning with Azure API Management (Darrel Miller) - Great post that helps to find the peace, or at least make your ideas, about what kind of rules, you should follow.

• Microservices: The Good, the Bad and the Hype (Jennifer Riggins) - Nice post that explains some challenges when doing serversless. Because yes, it's a great architecture plan, but it's not magic.

• Microsoft Tech Summit is back – register for a free event near you! (Microsoft Azure team) - A big tour around the globe, check when they visit one of the fourteen cities near you.

Miscellaneous

• 3 Common Mistakes to Avoid When Selling to Small Businesses - Microsoft Partner Network (Carol Roth) - Interesting points to improve our skills.

Reading Notes #291

Cloud

• App Service Environment v2 release announcement (Christina Compy) - That a really good news let's go full PaaS.
• Fast and Easy Containers: Azure Container Instances (Corey Sanders) - A very promising new service in Azure.
• Import Power BI Desktop files into Azure Analysis Services (Josh Caplan) - A quick post that shows how convenient is the new AAS.

Programming

• .NET Application Architecture Guidance (Cesar de la Torre) - This post is like an amazing trailer about all the great things that will be created in this blog... Stay tuned for more.
• Docker Basics, Part Zero: Why Should I Care about Containers (and Microservices) Anyway? (Michelle Gienow) - Great post with the best description of what are containers I have ever read.

Miscellaneous

• Announcing Ghost 1.0 (John O'Nolan) - Wow! So happy and proud to be part of the early adopter of this platform. It never stopped to get better, and it stayed free. Now I just need to upgrade.
• Follow-up: The Windows Insider Program has lost its way (studio384) - Interesting thoughts about different Microsoft programs.
• Passwords Evolved: Authentication Guidance for the Modern Era (Troy Hunt) - Amazing post again from Troy, things are evolving we must also change.

Reading Notes #290

Cloud

• Artificial Intelligence tunes Azure SQL Databases (Veljko Vasic) - Very interesting article that shares a real-life situation where a Microsft Partner used SQL Auto tuning capability of SQL Database in Azure to optimize all his databases.
• Azure For Developers – Part 2: Your First App Service (Jesse Liberty) - Great new series that just started. It's a good point for beginners whom would like to have an overview.
• How Azure Security Center helps protect your servers with Web Application Firewall (Hayden Hainsworth) - Tools exist guys... They aren't perfect, but they will cover your ... for a good part. Take two minutes and have a look.

Programming

• A Comparison of Docker GUIs (Chris Ward) - This post surprises me by his very long list of graphical interfaces for Docker. I only knew the default one, but I'm now very tented to try other ones.
• Setting up Raspian and .NET Core 2.0 on a Raspberry Pi (Dave) - This post is packed with tons of little advice and tips that will save us time and energy.

Databases

• Building MEAN Apps with Cosmos DB - Part 1 (John Papa) - Pretty awesome series of little videos that explain step by step how to build the Mongo Express Angular Node (MEAN) application.
• First release candidate of SQL Server 2017 now available (SQL Server Team) - SQL server 2016 was such a big release, that it's nice to see that the 2017 version will also be packed.
• Tableau and Azure SQL DB, a match made in the cloud (Joseph Sack) - Interesting post that lists few best practices.

Miscellaneous

• 13 hours debugging a segmentation fault in .NET Core on Raspberry Pi and the solution was... (Scott Hanselman) - Aaaah, damn it. We all have those moments where nothing seems to make sense... Thanks for sharing Scott.
• Installing Visual Studio 2017 Made Easy (Mayur Tendulkar) - Pretty awesome tricks to install tons of Visual Studio without killing your Internet bandwidth.
• Monospaced Programming Fonts with Ligatures (Scott Hanselman) - Pretty cool hack. I mean I knew those characters existed, but I didn't know they had a name, and that we had display options.

Reading Notes #286

Cloud

• Azure Portal: The missing ClearDB MySQL database (Iris Classon) - Wooo! This is an amazing workaround of what could be a major problem. Good catch!
• Azure Site Recovery between Azure regions - Easier than ever.
• Enable client side monitoring in Azure with Application Insights (Beckylin Orooji) - Pretty slick new way to get client side Application Insights running.
• Tutorial: Login with Amazon Integrations - Auth0 - Cool tutorial to add more flexibility in our Amazon web apps.

Programming

• Docker for .NET Developers (Part 3) (Steve Gordon) - Great post that gives all the details on the context of this series. Why Docker, why .Net Core...etc.
• Testing ASP.NET Core MVC Controllers: Getting Started (Jason Roberts) - Nice little tutorial it shows us how to build our first test using moq and .Net Core.

Reading Notes #284

Cloud

• Azure TLS Certificates changes (Rashmi Jha) - Because security is always a big concern, I thought it would be nice sharing this post.
• Deploying Visual Studio 2017 Function Projects with VSTS (Donna Malayeri) - This tutorial explains in simple steps how to configure our build in vsts, a reel time saver.
• Docker for AWS and Azure: Secure By Default Container Platform - Docker Blog (Riyaz Faizullabhoy) - Like they say build it ship it run it.
• Kicking The Tires On This Serverless Thing (Rob Conery) - Very interesting post that introduces many different flavors of serverless.
• New sample model for Azure Analysis Services (Josh Caplan) - Nice little post that gives everything we need to get started.
• What is Azure PowerShell? How It Works, Installation, Best Practices, and More (Angela Stringfellow) - The perfect post to get started. It a really good source of references.

Programming

• .NET and Docker (Scott Hanselman) - Very interesting post that clarifies the purpose of all those dotnet container.
• Connecting Power BI to your Visual Studio Team Services Account (Charles Sterling) - It't always cool (and potentially useful to get better) to visualize our data like that.

Miscellaneous

• How to buy and read e-books in Windows 10 Mobile Creators Update (Cale Hunt) - Nice tips. However, I do read from tine to time books on my Surface, but I simply use the App from my e-book reader.
• Pomodoro Technique – the Good, the Bad and the Tomato | Rubik's Code on WordPress.com (Nikola Zivkovic) - Interesting method. Simple and yet efficient.
• The humble checkbox (OneNote Team) - Nice to see how a simple checkbox could change your work.

Reading Notes #282

Cloud

• Enhancements to Application Insights Smart Detection (Anton Fritz) - Really cool new service that will improve our way to detect problems.
  
• How to easily and silently obtain AccessToken (Bearer) from an existing Azure PowerShell session (Stéphane Lapointe) - Nice optimization of our environment and still be secure.

Programming

• Deploy Cognitive Toolkit model to Azure Web Apps (Ilia Karmanov) - Nice short demonstration, all the code is available on GitHub.
  
• Load Balancing Node.js Applications with NGINX and Docker (Bruno Krebs) - This is a really good tutorial that explains thing very clearly and simply.
  
• Using .NET and Docker Together (Rich Lander) - This post is a fantastic list of references to get started with .Net Core and Docker combination.
  
• Kubernetes in action: How orchestration and containers can increase uptime and resiliency (Brendan Burns) - Wow I was really impressed by how Kubernetes works and mange things effortless (for simple cases).

Reading Notes #281

Cloud

• 5 simple steps to create and test your first Azure Function App (Abhijit Jana) - It couldn't be simpler.
  
• Azure CLI 1.0 vs 2.0 Compared, Installation and Usage (Chris Pietschmann) - This is such a nice post. It compares side by side both versions.
  
• Upgrade classic Backup and Site Recovery vaults to ARM Recovery Services vaults (Aruna Somendra) - Nice post that shares a good overview of all the news related to vault.

Programming

• BUILD 2017 Conference Rollup for .NET Developers - Scott Hanselman (Scott Hanselman) - I'm sure we'll continue to see more of those MsBuild summaries, but this one is from Scott directly and focuses on .Net.

Databases

• Dear DocumentDB customers, welcome to Azure Cosmos DB! (Rimma Nehme) - This post explains where CosmoDB is coming from.
  
• Introducing Per Minute (RU/m) provisioning to lower your cost, increase your performance (Arnaud Comet) - Great post that explains the relation between RU/m and RU/s two very important notion in CosmoBD.
  
• Migrating to Azure Data Sync 2.0 (Joshua Gnanayutham) - I always found that tool useful, and I'm happy to see it continues to evolve.

Miscellaneous

• Don't tell people to turn off Windows Update, just don't (Troy Hunt) - A very interesting post about a painful situation, and user's obligations.
  
• Is There a Correct Way to Comment Your Code? - NDepend (Erik Dietrich) - Interesting post that tries to find the answer of the eternal question comment or not comment.
  
• Note-taking made easier for everyone—redesigning OneNote (OneNote Team) - Nice new features. To unload your Onenote, simply click on file (or th left arrow), then account, and finally the update button.
  
• Suggestions and Tips for attending your first tech conference - Scott Hanselman (Scott Hanselman) - I think I will do a copy of that one, and I will share-it with people who come with me on an event. Really nice.

Reading Notes #279

Cloud

• 5 Tips for Successful Azure App Development (Alex Bennett) - Nice simple tips to get started on th good foot and get the best of cloud architecture.
  
• Deployment made easy with Zeit (Scott Hanselman) - Interesting podcast. I will definitely try both hyper console and that new deployment tool.
  
• Enabling Azure CDN from Azure web app and storage account portal extension (Manling Zhang) - Configuring a CDN as never been that easy. Awsome.
  
• In-order delivery of correlated messages in Logic Apps by using Service Bus sessions (Aprana Seth) - This post explains all the details on how to respect the message's publishing order when using LogicApp in your integration solution.
  
• Tactical Integration with Logic Apps (Michael Stephenson) - Interesting post about the advantages of doing integration using PaaS on Azure.

Programming

• Contributing to .NET for Dummies (Rion Williams) - Another post where the author shares his experience (I love those. That's the real life); this one about participating in an open-source project.

Databases

• Introduction to Azure PowerShell Modules for the SQL Server DBA Part 4 (Edwin Sarmiento) - Of course, things could be created outside of the Azure portal. This last post of the series puts all the pieces together... and even gives us the full script.
  
• Mashup: SQL Server on Linux in Docker on a Mac with Visual Studio Code (Julie Lerman) - Cool post where Julia shares with us the results of her "database in a container" experience.

Miscellaneous

• Reckon you've seen some stupid security things? Here, hold my beer... (Troy Hunt) - Ouf..... I'm not sure if I'm more scared or shocked.

Reading Notes #275

Cloud

• Do more or less with default values in the Azure CLI (Shayne Boyer) - That clever! Great optimization of the CLI.
  
• HTTP-triggered Azure Functions (Gunnar) - Azure functions are such a powerful tool. This post explains how to use them with a Http endpoint.
  
• How to send emails with SendGrid in Azure WebJobs using the SendGrid extension (Vivien Chevallier) - Nice tutorial that explains very clearly how to use SendGrid in our solution. All the code is also available.

Programming

• Microsoft + Docker – Investing in the future of your applications - It's a very exciting time to build an application. This post lists the Microsoft-related talks at the DockerCon.
  
• Testing Azure Functions with Postman and Swagger (Shayne Boyer) - Great update to an already awesome tool.

Miscellaneous

• Shutting down CodePlex ( Brian Harry) - If you have a project sitting at Codeplex, don't panic. This post explains what will happen, and if you would like to migrate, what are your options.
  
• Password managers don't have to be perfect, they just have to be better than not having one (Troy Hunt) - Interesting post about password managers. Are you using one? Learn here why you should.

~Frank

Reading Notes #271

 

 

Suggestion of the week

• Azure Functions vs Web Jobs: How to choose? (Chris Pietschmann) - Wow! This is the best post I've read about Azure Function. It really describes clearly the differences between the two. A must for every cloud developer.

Cloud

• Creating Azure Key Vault with logging using Azure Resource Manager ARM templates (Stéphane Lapointe) - Nice post that shows how to use the quick template and explains how pieces work together.

Programming

• Announcing New ASP.NET Core and Web Development Features in Visual Studio 2017 (Jeffrey T. Fritz ) - With the release of VS2017this week comes also a lot of great improvements in the .Net Core tooling, and that a good news.
  
• Azure App Service Authentication in an ASP.NET Core Application (Adrian Hall) - Interesting tutorial to learn more about security (authentification) with Asp.Net Core.
  
• Azure Functions Visual Studio Tools Preview (Chris Pietschmann) - Great improvement, we can now work, code, and debug in our "home " comfort.
  
• Simplifying Bundling and Minification in ASP.NET Core (Shayne Boyer) - This post is the perfect tutorial, short and complete. After reading it, you will be ready to use this package.

Databases

• Azure Data Lake Tools for VSCode (Preview) - March Update (Jenny Jiang) - Really cool extension.

Miscellaneous

• Azure Data Sync update (Joshua Gnanayutham) - This post shares the road map of a very useful tool. Glad to see it coming in the new Azure Portal.
  
• Microsoft has created an A.I. that can write its own code (QuHarrison Terry) - Interesting innovation, it will be nice to see where that will bring us.
  
• Swarm Mode with Fleet Management and Collaboration now in public beta, powered by Docker Cloud (Borja Burgos) - Interesting new feature available on all the main "Docker platform".

Reading Notes #269

Suggestion of the week

• Azure Functions Proxies public preview (Matthew Henderson) - I think this news is a game changer, in a very positive way, for Azure Functions. I'm really looking forward to trying it.

Cloud

• Service Fabric and Windows Containers sample (Service Fabric Team) - Another perfect repository to get started with Fabric, a little simple solution that shows a multi-container implementation.
  
• Protecting Azure Logic Apps Using Azure API Management - This is a good post. It introduces to backbends Azure services (and also less known), and explains how together get more powerful a d how they can help in our solutions.
  
• Penny Pinching in the Cloud: Running and Managing LOTS of Web Apps on a single Azure App Service - Scott Hanselman (Scott Hanselman) - Another great gem from Scott. This post is a must for all developers.

Programming

• Clean up unused git branches (Steve Smith) - Nice quick tutorial to help us cleaning our Git repositories.
  
• Configuring ASP.NET Core Applications in Azure App Service (Adrian Hall) - Fantastic post to get a little deeper with .Net Core and Azure.

Miscellaneous

• Are Manufacturers Taking the Right Precautions to Safeguard Cars Against Hacking Attacks? (Matthew Young) - Interesting post that asks that raises even more interesting questions.

Reading Notes #267

Cloud

• Announcing custom domain HTTPS support with Azure CDN (Manling Zhang) - Great new! Now https is supported end to end.
  
• Announcing general availability of Managed Disks and larger Scale Sets (Corey Sanders) - Wow! The world of Virtual Machine just got a fantastic push. It's now much easier than ever.
  
• Automating Azure Analysis Services processing with Azure Functions (Orsolya Gal) - Awesome tutorial that explains how to use Azure function as a real-live cron job.
  
• Getting Around Blocked Ports (Alexandre Brisebois) - Cool tutorial on how to configure our jumpbox in Azure using PowerShell and ARM.
  
• Preview the new enhancements to Azure Security Center (Sarah Fender) - Wow, so many new tools to helps us to detect security attack on vNets, VMs and databases.

Programming

• Introducing Docker Secrets Management - Docker Blog (Ying Li) - Thus post introduces the great new secret manager of Docker.

Miscellaneous

• 10 GitHub samples with Azure DocumentDB you shouldn’t miss! (Rimma Nehme) - Nice list where everybody should find something interesting in favorite code language.
  
• Trying out 'dotnet new' template updates and csproj with VS2017 (Scott Hanselman) - Nice update on both VS2017 and .Net Core.
  
• Ultimate Linux on the Desktop (Jessie Frazelle) - Interesting point of view about running a laptop all in containers and the structure it required.

Reading Notes #265

Suggestion of the week

• Dockerizing a real world asp.net core application (Thien Nguyen) - Fantastic post. I really like it when authors are sharing with us their trials and errors because it the best way to really learn something.

Cloud

• How Azure Functions Pricing Works (Chris Pietschmann) - This post cannot explain more clearly and simply the pricing formulas. At least for this service...
  
• How to download a file from Blob Storage using Azure API Management? (Alexander Laysha) - Great post that explains how we can optimize or performance without lowering our security.
  
• Job Handlers and Dependency Injection in Azure WebJobs (Vivien Chevallier) - A very useful tutorial that closes a series on Azure Web jobs.
  
• Manage App Service, SQL Database, and more - Azure Management Libraries for .NET (Asir Selvasingh) - It's time to try the new fluent interface. A good way to build an easy to read a script, that will build our solution.
  
• Single Instance VMs Now With 99.9% SLA - Good news, double with good SLAs.

Programming

• Calling Windows 10 APIs From a Desktop Application (Michael Crump) - Great! Windows IoT for all!
  
• Docker for Devs Part 1: Containerizing Your Application - Lock Me Down (Thien Nguyen) - Amazing post, first of series that explains how to use containers and Docker tools.

Databases

• Loading data into Azure SQL Data Warehouse just got easier (Casey Karst) - Interesting tips that can save us so much time...

Miscellaneous

• VIDEO: How to get started with technical public speaking! (Scott Hanselman) - This one-hour video is a great way to relief yourself a lot of pressure if you are, or want to start giving talks... It's definitely a good investment of your time.

Reading Notes #263

Cloud

• Announcing: New Auto-Scaling Standard Streaming Endpoint and Enhanced Azure CDN Integration (Cenk Dingiloglu) - Great, now integrated.
  
• Azure Storage Queues New Feature: Pop-Receipt on Add Message (Sercan Guler) - This post shows how to use the new queue feature in a great demo.
  
• SoftNAS Cloud® on Azure - Cloud NAS Storage made easy (Lutful Khandker) - Interesting product that clearly fill-up a need in the online storage. Let's talk about it after the 30-day trial.

Programming

• Two-Factor authentication in ASP.NET Identity 3 using TOTP authenticator (Dominique St-Armand) - Excellent post, perfect to get started on 2 factor authentication.
  
• What .NET Developers ought to know to start in 2017 (Scott Hanselman) - Nice work from John and Scott... Sweet checklist for beginners and all the other too.

Databases

• Azure SQL Database is increasing read and write performance (Jan Engelsberg) - Perfect timing! Better performance for the same price.

Reading Notes #253

Suggestion of the week

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

Cloud

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

Programming

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

Databases

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

Reading Notes #252

Cloud

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

Programming

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

Databases

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

Reading Notes #249

Suggestion of the week

• Trying out the “standard” and “enterprise” templates in Azure Logic Apps (Richard Seroter) - Another excellent post from Seroter who shows us a quick simple logic app, and also a more "complex" one using the new integration account.

Cloud

• A Step-by-Step Guide to Creating Functions Within Azure’s IoT Hub - Great tutorial to build a scalable solution.
  
• Azure Active Directory Labs Series – Creating an AD Forest (Vincent-Philippe Lauzon) - This post is a step by step lab. You will create everything you need without trouble.
  
• Azure Portal + Azure AD Management in Public Preview - Really happy to see new tools available (finally) to manage Active directory in the Azure portal.
  
• Visual Studio 2015 update for Logic Apps (Jon Fancey) - Nice update to the on-premise tool. Have you tried it yet?

Programming

• Entity Framework Pitfalls: Null Semantics - This post explains important gotchas, in one of the most popular ORM frameworks.
  
• Getting Started with YAML in Node.js using js-yaml (Dave Johnson) - Interesting post, I've been using YAML for few years now. However, it's true that when I did some work with Node.js I switched to json... Next time then...
  
• New book: Begin to Code with C# (Kim Spilker) - C# is a very popular and powerful language, I'm happy to see new books to bring more people aboard.

Databases

• Azure DocumentDB powers the modern marketing intelligence platform (Aravind Ramachandran) - This post is a great story about a real-life scenario where DocumentDB was selected as NoSQL solution and gives an overview of his structure.

Miscellaneous

• Want to know if you've been hacked? Troy Hunt has all the details - Excellent article, security breach, servers hack are not only in movies... Learn more about Troy Hunt who shares them with us.
  
• Why Programmers Should Track Their Time (Even if They Don't Charge Hourly) - It's so painful but so true.

Reading Notes #247

Cloud

• AWS vs Azure vs Google Cloud Platform – Mobile Services - A very interesting comparison of the major cloud provider with mobile development perspective.
  
• Accelerate your insights with Application Insights Performance Counters (Mackenzie Frackleton) - Get always more with Application Insights...
  
• Fixing Azure Portal Errors - Errors are inevitable, this post explains how to workaround most of them and when nothing works how let the support team knows.
  
• What is Serverless Computing? Exploring Azure Functions (Scott Hanselman) - Great post that demos an Azure Function and also explains more about that new expression: severless.

Programming

• 9 Docker .NET App Templates: A Complete Guide - Fantastic post that shows many different ways to leverage container and also explains why containers are so useful.
  
• 9 Visual Studio Productivity Tools (Dustin Davis) - An incredible video, definitely a must. How could I didn't know so much?!
  
• Exploring HockeyApp data in Application Insights: introducing the Bridge App (Evgeny Ternovsky) - Nice post that explains how to use your metadata in HockeyApp.
  
• Pimp my report with Docker (Gabriel Schenker) - Cool example of how docker could help us.
  
• Publishing an ASP.NET Core website to a cheap Linux VM host (Scott Hanselman) - Great tutorial to learn quickly how to play with dotnetcore on linux VM and not busting our budget.
  
• Why Is .NET Core Important? - Interesting post that explains what been achieved by donet core.

Miscellaneous

• The Dropbox hack is real - It's time to change your password, and do not use the same everywhere...