Reading Notes #182

Suggestion of the week

• Orchestrating massive parallelisation of Azure WebJobs for fun and profit (Troy Hunt) - An awesome post. I really like those post where we learn step by step what has been tried and failed, and how to move from point A to Z.

Cloud

• Azure Mobile Services and APIs – RESTful and Custom (Adarsha Datta) - Nice tutorial about how to use Azure service Api and customizes it.
• How Azure Web Apps Hosts an ASP.NET 5 Application (tugberkugurlu.com) - Interesting post th0at shows how aspnet works with Azure under the hood.
  
• NoSQL database service Azure DocumentDB now Generally Available (John Macintyre) - Know everything you need to get started on DocumetDB, now in GA. Nice free import tool was also released.

released the DocumentDB Data Migration tool, an open source solution that imports data from a variety of sources, including JSON files, CSV files, SQL Server, MongoDB and existing DocumentDB collections.

• Mostly Cloudy - April 14th - This post is a nice overview of the Azure actuality for April.
  
• Think #Microservices - Very interesting post that explains why microservices could be so promising.

Programming

• How to Update a Forked Repository (blog.falafel.com) - Nice little how to for Github and sourcetree.
  
• Understanding Internationalization in ASP.NET MVC (About the Author) - Nice tutorial that explains the difference between: Internationalization, localisation, globalisation and how to use them to build a nice app.net website.
  
• New book: Node.js for .NET Developers (KimSpilker Kim Spilker) - Today nodejs is an unavoidable language, this book explains how it works from a c# point of view.

Miscellaneous

• Free ebook: Managing Agile Open-Source Software Projects with Microsoft Visual Studio Online (KimSpilker Kim Spilker) - A free book, that's always welcome.
  
• Avoiding Common Executive DevOps Mistakes (Ericka Chickowski) - Interesting post about common mistakes when people are trying to do agile methodology.
  
• Microsoft BUILD Announces #BuildTour (MVP Award Program) - Great news!
  
• Dropbox can now open documents straight into Microsoft Office Online (Dave Yin) - Now that what I call a reel int0egration, and a great feature!

~Frank B.

Reading Notes #181

Suggestion of the week

• MVP Virtual Conference - A date to reserve, this conference look amazing.

Cloud

• The Kudu Debug Console, Azure Websites best kept secret (Jonathan Rozenblit) - This post is a nice introduction to a very useful debugging tool: Kudu.
  
• Node.js and Visual Studio: From Zero to a Cloud Foundry Deployment in 2 Minutes (Richard Seroter) - This great post shows us how to deploy a node.js app as in the same amount of time it took us to read the post.
  
• Azure API App and Logic App. In depth look into Hybrid Connector. Marriage between cloud and on-premise (Saravana Kumar) - Great tutorial / demo of an Azure logic app, the BizTalk way.
  
• First Look at Azure API Apps and Logic Apps (Ricardo Torre) - Great post that explains the similitude and difference between BizTalk and the new Azure Logic App.
  
• Introducing Azure Resource Explorer for the Azure Resource Management APIs (Scott Hanselman) - This project look great! It's a good opportunity to know more about what is happening under the hood. I'm looking forward to knowing more...
  
• Fail fast when the cloud fails you (Troy Hunt) - Very interesting true story about how to investigate an unpredictable problem involving the cloud.
  
• How we deploy Visual Studio Online using Release Management (Buck Hodges) - Interesting post that relates a reel d0eployment process.

Programming

• Node.js development with Visual Studio - Quick post to get stated with the new Node.js tool in Visual Studio.
  
• How to wait for DOM elements to show up in modern browsers - This post that explains how we should wait for an element in modern browser using javascript.
  
• How to Update a Forked Repository (blog.falafel.com) - Nice little howto for Github and Sourcetree.

Miscellaneous

• Making the Complex Simple - Not sure how to "classify" this post, is it a top list of the best bad practices, or literally "du bonbon"? A post to read, and relax.

Reading Notes #180

Suggestion of the week

• Microsoft Azure dev/test scenario considerations (Graham Smith, Kim Spilker) - Very useful articl0e with a lot of information. Many deferent scenarios are explained.

Cloud

• Microsoft Virtual Academy presents Developing Solutions with Azure DocumentDB (Ryan CrawCour) - A date to mark on our calendar. A free deepdive on DocumentDB.
  
• Azure, Cloud and Enterprise Icon Set - Nice icon pack.
  
• Azure Resource Explorer: a new tool to discover the Azure API (David Ebbo) - Nice post that introduces a nice tool. Azure Ressources Explorer is in preview but looks very promising.
  
• Delphi Automotive - Interesting post about IoT and the cloud.
  
• Microsoft Virtual Academy presents Developing Solutions with Azure DocumentDB (Ryan CrawCour) - Free training about documentDB... on the April 7.
  
• Getting interesting data into Azure Machine Learning (AzureML) (jennmar) - Nice post that explains what we needto get started with AzureML.

Programming

• What’s New in Fiddler 4.5 (Eric Lawrence) - Great news, this fantastic tool has just been updated.
  
• Node.js Tools 1.0 for Visual Studios - Nice post that explains how this new addon to Visual studio is helping us to debug our Node.js code.
  
• Continuous Integration for Node.js Projects with TeamCity - Nice tutorial that explains what are our free options to get started.
  
• Getting to know the new ASP.NET 5 configuration framework (Andrei Dzimchuk)- Great post that explains what are the new configuration options with the new .Net and how it works.
  
• On the importance of OpenSearch (Scott Hanselman) - Nice post. Looking forward to see more sites (and blog) using this feature.

Miscellaneous

• 9 Fundamental Laws of Effective Communication Skills - Interesting post about essentials skills.
  
• Microsoft reveals Surface 3 with Windows 8.1, starting at $499 and on sale May 5 - Nothing more to say...
  
• Deconstruct websites, get hired: hiding recruitment messages in source code (Troy Hunt) - Interesting post, and funny facts about site code.

~Frank B.

Reading Notes #177

Suggestion of the week

• The Modern JavaScript Developer’s Toolbox  - If you eared about those buzz words: Grunt, Gulp, Sublime, LESS, Angular, want to know more, This is THE post you are looking for.

Cloud

• Get Your Reading On: Azure eBooks (Jonathan Rozenblit) - 8 free books, what else to say... Thanks of course.
  
• Cloud Computing Can Make Any Old Beater a Connected Car (Alex Davies) - Interesting article about the close future.
  
• Azure API Management Part 1: An Introduction - Nice introduction about the APIM, nice warm up.
  
• Free ebook: Microsoft Azure Essentials: Azure Automation (Kim Spilker, Mark) - Nice free ebook.

Programming

• Getting Started with TypeScript – Classes, Types and Interfaces - Very nice and clear introduction wit also a video.
  
• Welcome Back! - The AJAX Control Toolkit March 2015 Update (Vittorio Bertocci) - Yeah! A long wait but it's here now... Learn all the nice features of this new release in this post.
  
• Comprendre et maîtriser npm - Introduction - The perfect post to get started, for whom read French.

Miscellaneous

• How Leaders Should React When Someone Disappoints (Peter Bregman) - Interesting post about how we should react, simple and efficient.

Reading Notes #174

Suggestion of the week

• How I Use Git On Windows – Setup and Tooling (Jesse) - Great post that gives a lot of little tips for Windows developers. A post to read.

Cloud

• Saving #Azure Resource Manager Templates to JSON files on disk (Alexandre Brisebois) - Useful post, learn how to manage your Azure resources.
  
• Configuring Internal Endpoints on #Azure Cloud Services (Alexandre Brisebois) - Quick post that explains how we can configure and deploy internal endpoint in our solution.
  
• Stories from the trenches: Sizing and penny pinching with Azure websites - Once again, a very interesting post on scaling and how the reality could differ for our expectation.
  
• Opening Windows Firewall Ports on #Azure Cloud Services - Great post that talks about how execute startup tasks in an Azure WebRole. At some point we will all need to do that, and this is the correct way.

Programming

• NuGet Package of the Week: A different take on ASP.NET MVC Forms with ChameleonForms (Scott Hanselman) - Interesting package that looks like a view engine, but that is, in fact, a kind of Razor forms booster.
  
• Using Bower with Visual Studio - Excellent tutorial to migrate projects package manager from nuget to bower. If you don't know bower, do a quick search on it first.
  
• Adding WinJS to your website (davidvoyles) - Nice tutorial to add different Javascript "tools" in our projects.
  
• Kanban split columns, inline adding and editing – Feb 18 - Great list of updates on VSOnline, good job!
  
• Why You Should Use Markdown for Your API Documentation - Nice post that talks about some useful tools when it comes to document our API.
  
• Proper benchmarking to diagnose and solve a .NET serialization bottleneck (Scott Hanselman) - Another great post that will help to ask our self some better question when it's time to investigate so performance issue.

~Frank Boucher

Reading Notes #158

Suggestion of the week

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

Cloud

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Programming

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Miscellaneous

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

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

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

~Frank

Reading Notes #156

Suggestion of the week

• Your Azure website CPU is going nuts and it’s not your fault (Troy Hunt) - This post tells us about a troubleshoot on Azure when looking for the casu of CPU spikes.

Cloud

• Enabling Hybrid Scenarios on Microsoft Azure (haishibai.blogspot.ca) - Nice post that presents five hybrid cloud scenarios with Azure.
  
• #Azure Talk - Working with Microsoft Azure Resources - Useful post that compares many different tools that manage Azure resources.
  
• Azure Websites for the Enterprise with Virtual Networks - Nice quick tutorial about connecting an Azure website with an un-premises computer.
  
• Mostly Cloudy – Sept 19th, 2014 - This post introduces some nice opensource project and reminds us to update our OS Familly in Azure.
  
• How I used Azure Mobile Services in my Unity game (Mickey MacDonald) - This post shows us some of the options available to simplify our life when we want to use Azure Mobile Service in our mobile apps.
  
• Soup to Nuts: From Raw Hardware to Cloud-Enabled Device - Excellent article that gives very exiting Raspberry Pi project that uses Azure Services.

Programming

• Choosing a JavaScript Framework with Craig McKeachie - Really interesting episode talking on key features to pick a Javascript framework, base on our projects or code that you like .
  
• Jump-Location - A Change Directory (CD) PowerShell Command that reads your mind (Scott Hanselman) - Great little tools to have.
  
• Towards a better console - PSReadLine for PowerShell command line editing (Scott Hanselman) - Two really nice PowerShell tools in one post.
  
• Web API Documentation Tools -- Visual Studio Magazine (Terrence Dorsey) - Many great tools to generate API documentation.

Miscellaneous

• **Scaled Agile Framework: Using TFS to support epics, release trains, and multiple backlogs whitepaper (Gregg Boer) - This post introduces us to an interesting whitepaper.

~Frank

Reading Notes #153

Suggestion of the week

• Azure Virtual Machines Part 0: A VM Primer - This post is "the reference" about the Azure VM. It explains mostly... everything about them.
  
• Azure Event Hubs, Queues and Workers (Jeff Levinson) - Really great tutorial that put together many different components.

Cloud

• Azure Search Scenarios and Capabilities (Pablo Castro) - This post is a nice summary of the Azure Search.
  
• Getting Started With Microsoft Azure Search - This post describes how to start playing with the new Azure search feature. A nice library that wrapped the REST API call is also used and shared on Github.
  
• Mostly Cloudy–August 21st 2014 - Nice post that summarizes what's new about the Azure world and what's coming.

Programming

• New feature in Pester 3.0: Code Coverage metrics (Dave Wyatt) - Pester continues to evolve. This post introduces the code coverage feature in the new release.
  
• Introducing Gulp, Grunt, Bower, and npm support for Visual Studio (Scott Hanselman) - This post presents a very promising integration for VS14, if you are web developer read this.
  
• Playing with Roslyn (Ayende Rahien) - Interesting "test" to play around with Roslyn.
  
• Using Visual Studio 2013 with TFS and Git repositories on same project - Nice tips!

Miscellaneous

• 10 Vital WordPress Security Tips (Guest Blogger) - This post provides the perfect quick review of our security knowledge when blogging.

~Frank

Reading Notes #140

 

Suggestion of the week

• Azure: VM Security Extensions, ExpressRoute GA, Reserved IPs, Internal Load Balancing, Multi Site-to-Site VPNs, Storage Import/Export GA, New SMB File Service, API Management, Hybrid Connection Service, Redis Cache, Remote Apps and more… (Scott Guthrie) - So many new great features that were expected since a long time.

 

Cloud

• Virtual Machines Best Practices: Single VMs, Temporary Storage and Uploaded Disks (Drew McDaniel) - Nice tips to improve vm’s users experience.
  
• Using OneNote API to count degustated beers - This short post describes a real and interesting project using OneNote, and how easy it looks!

Programming

• Tips to improve Entity Framework Performance (rahulgbhatia) - This post gives nice and simple tips to optimize our Linq to entities queries.
  
• Performance Considerations for EF5 - If you are doing or planning to do a project with Entity Framework, this white paper really worth the reading.

~Frank

Reading Notes #132

Suggestion of the week

• TypeScript for C# Programmers (Steve Fenton) - Great book that in less than hundred pages, explains to me how to code in TypeScript. I feel so comfortable already I will add TypeScript in my next web project, and I will strongly recommend this book to everyone. If you are a C# developer, know your base in JavaScript this book is available in PDF for free!

Cloud

• Cloud projects and cross-country moves ( Buck Woody) - Nice story a like the correlation with IT projects.
  
• I put my Azure website in the wrong location, now what?! - I like when posts are based on reel life "problem." This post is one of them, and is really interesting.
  
• Windows Azure = Security + Privacy + Compliance (Jonathan Rozenblit) - This post provides a very crisp answer for some essential cloud related questions.
  
• How do you Inject Configurations into Windows Azure Cloud Service Startup Tasks? - A great tutorial indeed! It shows how to have dynamic configuration in our startup tasks, and who doen't?
  
• Saved by a ZIP File and a Command Line - Interesting option to zipfile in a Windows Azure startup task. Could it be easier with PowerShell?

Programming

• Facade Pattern - Nice explanation of the facade pattern also knew as a proxy pattern.
  
• Welcome to the OneNote API! - Great news, a new API to build great application and/or tools.
  
• Stupid Azure Trick #9 – Embrace SSL During Development when authenticating with Azure Active Directory (Bill Wilder) - Nice quick tips with a fantastic introduction to security using certificates.
  
• Five Reasons ASP.NET Developers Should Care About Node.js - This post is a strong, but very honest, promotion of Node.Js and highlights the reasons why .Net developer's myth be interested in.
  
• Automate your development tasks using Grunt (Marco Franssen) - This post explains what's Grunt, and how to configure and execute Grunt tasks.
  
• Pester - This is the readme of an incredibly easy to use PowerShell unit test framework.
  
• Sublime is Sublime Part 1 - I do like sublime, really. However, myth I be interested to use it instead of VisualStudio.... that's another story but in this series, the author explains how SublimeText could become your IDE for everything. Part 2, part 3, part 4, part 5, part 6, part 7

Miscellaneous

• OneNote and Microsoft's quiet API revolution (Scott Hanselman) - This post explains the impacts and meaning of the new OneNote features (API) release.

Reading Notes #83

Suggestion of the week

• Windows Azure IaaS Cmdlets Source Code is Now Available (Michael Washam) - Great! Really good code sample that implements a lot of functionality.
• Windows Azure Virtual Machine and Virtual Hard Disk Management Tool – Can save you Money! (Stephen W. Thomas) - Wow, that a great tool! This post tells you were to find this application, its features and how to use it. Good job.

Cloud

• Creating a Game for the Windows Store (Tyler Doerksen) - Great tutorial that explains how to write your first Windows store application.
• Publishing ASP.NET Web Sites to “Windows Azure Web Sites” Service - Quick overview of the new publish Web Site feature in Visual Studio.
• Global Windows Azure Bootcamp - april 27th (Maarten Balliauw)- Yeah! Are you free on April 27th?
• Want Better Personal Video? Think Underwater Tech And Free Cloud Storage (Michael Chang) - Interesting thoughts about today’s cloud business reality and the future of cloud platform applications.
• Announcing New AWS CloudFormation Deployment Enhancements – Major announcement from Amazon who is directly competing with Windows Azure PaaS.
• Microsoft DevRadio: (Part 11) Practical Azure with Jim O’Neil – Worker Roles (Jim O’Neil) - Nice short video that explains what is a worker role and his purpose.
• Amazon releases beta of application management solution called OpsWorks (Kenneth van Surksum) - Another post about the new AWS service OpsWork.
• Learn Windows Azure Cloud Services from Beginning: a Mini Online Course (Haishi) - Nice series of videos to get started with windows Azure.
• Improving Windows Azure Table Storage query performance (Ki Yi) - Quick post about best practices regarding querying Azure table storage.
• What's New? - Another release of AWS services this week; this one is about CloudFormation: a tool to enhance automatic task on EC2 instance to reduce the downtime when those tasks are to be execute.

Programming

• Why I Write Tests (Jason Whaley) - If you don't understand the benefice of working in TDD, or if you don't know what's the utility of those unit Tests, is post is for you.
• Getting Busy at Script Junkie (Michael Desmond) - Quick review of what have been done since the site has been moved "under" MSDN.
• Windows Store Apps: A Guide for WPF and Silverlight Developers, Part 1 - Nice post that explains the technical particularities and new concept of the "new" Windows RT platform.
• Using Markdown in Sublime Text 2 on Windows - It's nice to see that other people are playing around with these tools.
• You're just another carriage return line feed in the wall (Scott Hanselman) - This post talks about the issue with carriage return and line feed in merge tool... like github.
• Get Rolling With The Readability API (Richard Ziade) - Nice update for the developer's community.

Database

• Has the term "big data" completely lost meaning yet? - Thoughts about the buzz word Big Data.
• SQL SERVER - Shortcut to SELECT only 1 Row from Table - Good idea, I never think of that! So simple.

Miscellaneous

• Teach your kids to be fans (Scott Hanselman) - Good lesson. Today it's simple to send/ publish hard critics about anything... It is also that easy to congratulations... so do it.

~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