Reading Notes #701

Modern infrastructure and AI agent development move fast, requiring a sharp eye on both backend stability and frontend polish. This week’s curated notes highlight critical shifts in observability, security best practices for autonomous agents, and practical updates for .NET MAUI apps. Check out these essential reads to stay ahead of the curve.

AI

• Build 2026: From observability to ROI for AI agents on any framework | Microsoft Foundry Blog (Sebastian Kohlmeier) - Foundry offers observability features and has many other whistles. There were a few sessions about that during Build. This post provides an overview and session names for demos.

Programming

• Give Your .NET MAUI Android Apps a Material 3 Makeover - .NET Blog ( Gerald Versluis) - So simple that it's hard not to try it

DevOps

• Why Choose Pulumi Over Terraform? (Pablo Seibelt) - I have never tried Pulumi or terraform, but they look great, and after reading this post, I'm very interested in learning more about ballooning

Data

• AI observability vs monitoring: What's the difference? (Jesse Sumrak) - Do you know the difference? You understand both, but where one ends and the other starts? Good post to clarify that.

MS Build

• How to Secure AI Agents: A Practical Overview (Srini Sekaran) - This post suggests grounded practices and explains the reasons behind them.

• Microsoft Agent Framework at BUILD 2026 | Microsoft Agent Framework (Shawn Henry) - List of Microsoft Build event sessions about the Agent framework.

~frank

Reading Notes #492

Good Monday, 

Already time to share new reading notes. It is a habit I started a long time ago where I share a list of all the articles, blog posts, podcast episodes, and books that catch my interest during the week. 

You think you may have interesting content, share it!

Cloud

• General availability: Azure API Management updates in January 2022 (Azure API Management team) - Nice new update coming up our way.

• Rightsize to maximize your cloud investment with Microsoft Azure (Diana Gao) - A very nice post to help us save money when deploying our resources in Azure.

Programming

• 7 Features of Blazor That Make It an Outstanding Framework for Web Development (Nishani Dissanayake) - I already liked Blazor, but the more I learn about it the more I love it.

• Authentication in ASP .NET Core (Chris Noring) - This is a nice tutorial with code and very clear explanations.

• CRUD operations on PostgreSQL using C# and Npgsql (Davide Bellone) - This post is a very good tutorial about how to make a simple query with all the code and explanation required for a great start.

• How to get the optimal image size for web (Joel Hans) - So many options are possible. This post explains the impacts of different contexts and provides guidance on how we could improve, or what we should look at.

Podcasts

• Ximena Vengoechea On How To Hear What Really Matters (What's Essential) - Very interesting conversation. Ximena is the author of the book Listen Like You Mean It. Well... It's just get added to my to-read list.
• L'intuition... pas juste une affaire d'alimentation! (Grand écart) - It's in French but really interesting. I think now I understand the intuitive idea about nutrition and exercise... Now it makes sense.
• Languishing? Here’s How to Turn it Around (Modern Mentor) - There is a name for feeling "meh"! And there are also things we can do to feel better. Very captivating, and now I want to learn more about it.
• My True Crime Episode with David Mittelman (A Bit of Optimism) - When I saw the title of the episode I was a bit confused... True Crime? WHat's the connection? But it was fascinating, so much passion!
• 139: Cloud Strategy, Tactics, and Leadership with Andrew Wertkin (CloudSkills.fm) - So much information and great ideas about leadership and mentoring, I love it.

Miscellaneous

• Dual-screen gaming on Microsoft Surface Duo - Surface Duo Blog (Nguyen Thanh Tung) - This is an interesting post from an established game developer who shares how they thoughts adapting their games for a dual-screen.
• Microsoft PowerToys 0.55.0 gets three new utilities ( Kunal Chowdhury) - This new release is packed with so many fixes and improvements. And the thing that is even better is that community works!
• Windows Terminal Preview 1.13 Release - Windows Command Line (Kayla Cinnamon) - Amazing post, yes we learn about the new features, but we also read about the learning and experimentation of this team and collaborators involvement. Great work.

~frank

Reading Notes #462

Every Monday, I share my "reading notes". This is a curated list of all the articles, blog posts, and books that catch my interest during the week and that I found interesting. It's a mix of the actuality and what I consumed.

Cloud

• Azure Functions in C# quick FAQs and tips ( Dominique St-Amand) - Nice post that answers the frequent questions and shares best practices.

• Using Multiple Accounts with Azure (Sam Cogan) - Nice tips a must. So helpful.

Programming

• ASP.NET Core Dependency Injection: What is the IServiceCollection? (Steve Gordon) - A very clear and complete tutorial.Taking us from zero and teaching us what it is, how it works, how to use it, and some best practices.

• Announcing Dapr v1.0 (Dapr project maintainers) - A great new open-source tool just got to v1. This post will tell you all about it.

• Building an Android app with .NET 6 (Nick) - This is so cool. Looking Good.

• DotNet Boxed includes prescriptive templates for .NET Core (Scott Hanselman) - This is super cool. I really like and appreciate how the .Net CLI is builded.

• Visual Studio 2019 Docker Tooling (Mark Heath) - A nice post that shows how those two great tools work together.

• What is the difference between a DTO and a POCO (or POJO) (Steve (ardalis) Smith) - A very clear explanation. Straight to the point.

• Blazor on Desktop (Sam Basu ) - This post demonstrates by showing how to build those two flavors that it is possible to build a desktop app. Interesting.

Miscellaneous

• 7 Ways to Improve Your Developer Ads � DeveloperMedia - Marketing is hard. I'm not sure developers are that different than others. those tips felt good, they are probably good with all audiences.

~Frank

Reading Notes #161

Cloud

• Azure: New Marketplace, Network Improvements, New Batch Service, Automation Service, more - A great package of new features was announced last week, learn more about them in this post.

• Building myEcho - A real startup running on Azure - Great video about how Azure is really used in a real product. A must to see.

• Azure Table Storage little gem – InsertOrMerge (Boris Lipschitz) - An interesting post that explores the just as interesting method InsertOrMerge of the Azure storage.

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

Programming

• Building a working Robot controlled by a C#, an iPhone, and Monkey.Robotics (Scott Hanselman) - Really exiting stuff...

• ASP.NET MVC 5.1 New Features -- Visual Studio Magazine (Eric Vogel) - Nice post that introduces a new feature of Asp.net MVC 5 and shows how easy and powerful it becomes.

Miscellaneous

• Ghost Onboarding - How We Increased Conversion by Over 1,000% - This post is a nice proof that by knowing the impact of our product features we can achieve great things.
  
• Microsoft Office coming to Android in early November (Alex Cobb) - This is a good news, my tablet will become a real on the road device... until I go for a surface 3...

• 10 email security fundamentals for everyday people - This post gives all the best practices to stay out of trouble...

~Frank Boucher

Reading Notes #90

Suggestion of the week

• My New Pluralsight Course – Patterns of Cloud Integration – Is Now Live - Very promising training, looking forward to watch this.
  
• Visual Studio ‒ It Just Keeps Getting Better (Marc Gagné) - Wow! So many great features in one thing... The news that makes my day.
  
  

Cloud

• azure-scripty – Azure CLI scripting made even easier (Glenn Block) - Automating repetitive tasks is a must and Azure-scripty is surely a tool that should find a place in your toolbox.
  
• Windows Azure: Active Directory Release, New Backup Service + Web Site Monitoring and Log Improvements - Great new features in Windows Azure. This post details this new stuff with also updates on previous release.
  
• Affinity Groups are Important on Windows Azure - Good explanation of a very important feature. A post to share...
  
• How Cloud Computing Influences Digital Marketing (Xath Cruz) - Nice post that gives a real example of company using / moving to Windows Azure.
  
• But what can I do with Windows Azure? Create (Free) Websites and Applications - Nice tutorial that explains how you could easily install a free application on Azure by installing DotNetNuke.
  
• Large-scale Implementation on Azure Platform (Ajay Solanki) - One of the larger-scale implementation and surly very critical on Azure was the US election. This post explains how this application was design.
  
• Document oriented database with Azure Table Storage Service (Pascal Laurin) – Good tutorial that explains all the code needed for the exercises.
  
• Walkthrough #1: Adding Sign-On to Your Web Application Using Windows Azure AD (vibro) - Quick recap of an unavoidable tutorial about single sign-on.

• Episode 104: Building cross platform Android and Windows Store apps using Windows Azure Mobile Services (Channel 9) (Nick Harris Nathan Totten) - Don't miss this episode; it contains a very complete demo where you can see full connected application on Windows8 and Android. 

Integration

• BizTalk 2013 worldwide launch events by Impack - Learn more about this important event that you shouldn't miss. 

Programming

• Using jQuery to POST [FromBody] parameters to Web API » Encosia) (Dave Ward) - Useful tutorial that explains what to do and why.
  
• Créé une application Windows 8 pour votre site Wordpress - Offre limitée - Windows 8 achieved great things, and one of them is changing technology so it is accessible by everyone.
  
• EF6: Nested types and more for Code First (Arthur Vickers) - This post explains new features of the Entity Frameworks EF code first.
  
• SymbolSource support for NuGet Package Source Discovery (Maarten Balliauw) - How to be lazy in a professional manner...

• Confreaks - Really interesting video about the best practices of making library.
  
• Can You “Over Organize” JavaScript? - Interesting post questioning the re-factorization of JavaScript code.
  
• A Month of PowerShell – Day 12 (Logins, Users and Roles) (Wayne Sheffield) - This post gives useful tips to manipulate database users. A good example of practical scenario.

• The Art of Writing Functional Specs (Part 1) – What is a Functional Specification? - Promising series that propose to explains the art of being understood by technical people
  
• The Art of Writing Functional Specs (Part 2) – The Most Important Thing About A Spec - The key is simple, but easy to miss. This post highlight some traps to avoid.
  
• The Art of Writing Functional Specs (Part 3) – Spec Shapes (Saveen Reddy) - This post briefly categorizes specs and gives details for each type.
  
  

Miscellaneous

• Social Media: Not the Productivity Killer You Thought (Francesca Louise Fenzi) - Wow! I really surprised, and happy... ;)
  
• Why You Should Take the Blame - Good lesson that teaches us how to learn for our mistake.
  
• Five must-try cloud-based utilities (Jack Wallen) - Interesting tools, particularly Asana that I didn't know.
  
• The Importance of Scheduling Nothing – Interesting post that explains why scheduling nothing doesn't mean doing nothing.

~Frank