Showing posts with label best practices. Show all posts
Showing posts with label best practices. Show all posts

Reading Notes #700

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Seven hundred weeks.

When I started taking notes about the articles I was reading, I never imagined I would still be doing it 700 weeks later.


Back then, my notes lived on a USB key. I carried a small personal wiki with me and used it to save interesting articles, ideas, and discoveries. It was a simple way to build my own searchable knowledge base so I could find things again when I needed them.

In 2011, I started sharing those notes publicly on my blog, Franky's Notes. A few months later, I made another important change: I switched from writing in French to writing in English. At the time, I wasn't fluent, but I wanted to improve. "Notes de lecture" became "Reading Notes", and every week became an opportunity to learn something new while practicing a language that would eventually become a big part of my career.

Over the years, the format evolved. Articles were joined by podcasts, books, videos, and whatever else helped me learn and stay curious. Technology changes constantly, and one of the things I enjoy most about working in this industry is that there is always something new to discover.

What never changed was the habit itself.

Most mornings start the same way: a coffee, my e-reader, and a few articles. Throughout the week, I collect the things that made me think, taught me something, or simply felt worth sharing. Then, every Monday, I publish a new edition.

Seven hundred weeks later, these reading notes have become much more than a list of links. They are a record of what caught my attention, what I was learning, and how both technology and I have changed over the years.

If you've been reading along for a while, thank you. If you're new here, I hope you discover something interesting in the links below.

Suggestion of the week

AI

Programming

Miscellaneous

~frank

Reading Notes #691

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This week’s notes bounce between terminals, copilots, and the shifting shape of AI tools in our daily work. From real-world experiments in large .NET projects to small quality-of-life improvements that just make coding smoother, there’s a lot to chew on. A few links stood out more than expected and might change how you approach your setup or your workflow.

All ready the end of the month!

Open Source

AI

Miscellaneous

~frank


Reading Notes #690

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AI keeps changing how we build, think, and even feel about software. This batch of posts & episodes mixes practical agent skills, vibe coding, and faster shipping with a bit of reflection on the old internet and why it still sticks with us.


AI


Podcasts

  • Your Images are Out of Date (probably) - The Silent Rebuilds problem (DevOps and Docker Talk: Cloud Native Interviews and Tooling) - Very interesting episode. I guess I never realized how true it is that as soon as you download your image, they are outdated. This episode talks about the concept of silent rebuilds and tools to help us solve that issue.

  • 503: Welcome to Tiny Tool Town (Merge Conflict) - With a name like Tiny Tool Town, my head always goes to Looney Tunes. No idea why, but this episode is not about that. It's about the collection of open source tools named: Tiny Tool Town, and they also talk about different models in GitHub Copilot.

  • Building Software using Squad with Brady Gaster (.NET Rocks!) - Turn your Coplot to 11 with Squad. Carl and Richard talk to Brady Gaster about Squad, a tool for creating an AI development team using GitHub Copilot.

  • Daniel Ward: AI Agents - Episode 393 (Azure & DevOps Podcast) - In this episode, they talk about the different AI tools used by developers and DevOps people, and the trends.

  • Everything Is a Graph (Even Your Dad Jokes) with Roi Lipman (Screaming in the Cloud) - Nice episode about different database and most obviously about graph databases. Very interesting to learn more about all that explosion of database types.


Miscellaneous


Sharing my Reading Notes is a habit I started a long time ago, where I share a list of all the articles, blog posts, podcasts and books that catch my interest during the week.

If you have interesting content, share it!

~frank


Reading Notes #687

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Welcome to this new Reading Notes post, a collection of interesting articles and resources I've been absorbing lately! This week's roundup dives into a variety of topics, from practical storage solutions and leveraging AI for code upgrades to exploring the intersection of AI and business value. Get ready for a diverse mix of tech insights and management reflections.


Programming

AI

Books



The Making of a Manager: What to Do When Everyone Looks to You (Julie Zhuo) - Most management books are written by advanced managers, people with a lot of experience who already have the "manager" mindset well established in their heads. This book feels different, more accessible, closer to a conversational tone. In this book, Julie shares her stories of becoming a manager and the advice she learned along the way. I think it's a good book to get started on this topic, especially if you are new to that position or thinking about it, to understand and be better equipped for the new challenges coming your way.


Miscellaneous

~frank



Reading Notes #686

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This week's Reading Notes is packed with AI insights, open-source discoveries, programming tips, and podcast episodes that will leave you eager to dive in. From Ralph Wiggum's coding secrets to the dangers of one-shot glamour, we've got it all covered. So grab your favourite beverage, settle in, and get ready to level up your tech game!

AI


Open Source


Programming


Podcast

~frank


Reading Notes #677

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This week I'm looking at some interesting .NET stuff like Typemock's architecture and how Copilot Studio uses WebAssembly to boost performance. There's also a good reminder about why setting up CI/CD early (when your app is tiny) saves you tons of headaches later. Plus, I found a couple of great podcast episodes on building modern SaaS products and what actually makes a personal brand different from just having a reputation.

the toughther salad resisting to snow 

Programming

DevOps

AI

Podcast

~frank

Reading Notes #674

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This week: Cake v6.0.0 is out, Docker Desktop adds helpful debugging tools, and .NET 10 brings a ton of changes worth exploring. Plus some thoughts on working with AI coding assistants and a great cybersecurity podcast.

AI

DevOps

  • Cake v6.0.0 released - Great news! I will have to upgrade my pipeline. Hopefully, the upgrade will be smooth.

  • Docker Desktop 4.50 Release (Deanna Sparks) - Nice update, and oh wow! I'm looking forward to try that debug, that's great news

Programming

Podcasts


Sharing my Reading Notes is a habit I started a long time ago, where I share a list of all the articles, blog posts, and books that catch my interest during the week.

If you have interesting content, share it!

~frank


Reading Notes #671

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From debugging Docker builds to refining your .NET setup, this week’s Reading Notes delivers a sharp mix of practical dev tips and forward-looking tech insights. We revisit jQuery’s place in today’s web stack, explore AI-enhancing MCP servers, and spotlight open-source projects shaping tomorrow’s tools. Plus, PowerToys gets a sleek upgrade to streamline your Windows workflow. 

Let’s check out the ideas and updates that keep your skills fresh and your systems humming.

Programming

AI

Miscellaneous

Sharing my Reading Notes is a habit I started a long time ago, where I share a list of all the articles, blog posts, and books that catch my interest during the week.

If you have interesting content, share it!

~frank

Reading Notes #666

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Welcome to another edition of my reading notes! This week I've gathered some interesting finds across programming, AI, and general tech topics. From exciting Cake updates to practical AI implementation advice, here are the articles that caught my attention recently.



Programming

  • Cake.Sdk 5.0.25257.82-beta released (devlead) - I'm happy to see the new release of this cake version coming to a recent .NET version. I have one of my projects using cake, and I was waiting for it; this is amazing

AI

Miscellaneous


Sharing my Reading Notes is a habit I started a long time ago, where I share a list of all the articles, blog posts, and books that catch my interest during the week.

If you have interesting content, share it!

~frank



Reading Notes #654

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Welcome to another edition of my reading notes! This week, I’ve gathered a selection of insightful articles and resources covering topics like AI, cloud security, open source, and developer productivity. Whether you’re interested in best practices, new tools, or thought-provoking perspectives, there’s something here for everyone. 

Dive in and enjoy the highlights!

Suggestion of the week

  • Copilot, The Good Parts: Efficiency (Rob Conery) - I love that post, it's so true! There are good and bad ways to use any tools. And I personally would really like seeing Rob build his stuff. Let's him know If you think like me.

Programming

Open Source

Databases

Miscellaneous


~frank


Reading Notes #635

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This week Reading Notes, covers various topics in programming and databases. Discover the latest ASP.NET Core release, the importance of clear error messages, and coding with voice commands. Learn about new features in Azure EasyAuth and Microsoft Entra Authentication for Azure PostgreSQL. We also bid farewell to Azure Data Studio as it moves to VS Code extensions.
 
Let's get started!
ski path in a winter forest

Programming

Databases

Miscellaneous

Sharing my Reading Notes is a habit I started a long time ago, where I share a list of all the articles, blog posts, and books that catch my interest during the week. 

 If you have interesting content, share

 ~frank


Reading Notes #633

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This edition of Readings Notes covers the synergies between C# and Rust, open-source software licensing challenges, and securing the software supply chain. It also feature a beginner’s guide to programming C# in Visual Studio Code. Finally, we delve into the evaluation process of AI models for GitHub Copilot. 

Enjoy the read!

man looking at the camera with a frozen lake behind him
Programming

Miscellaneous

  • How we evaluate AI models and LLMs for GitHub Copilot (Connor Adams, Klint Finley) - This is an interesting post that shares the methods used to test the different models before they can be included. Testing a model is different than testing a regular piece of code, what are they looking for, and what's important?
Sharing my Reading Notes is a habit I started a long time ago, where I share a list of all the articles, blog posts, and books that catch my interest during the week.

If you have interesting content, share 

~frank

Reading Notes #568

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It is 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, and books that catch my interest during the week. 

 If you think you may have interesting content, share it!

Programming






Data


Low Code


Open Source


~Frank

How to make your deployments successful every time

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You are done with your code and you are ready to deploy it in Azure. You execute the PowerShell or Bash script you have and BOOM! The error message saying that this name is already taken. In this post, I will show you a simple way to look like a boss and make your deployment working all the time.

____ with given name ____ already exists.

The tricks other use


You could try to add a digit at the end of the resource name (ex: demo-app1, demo-app2, demo-app123...), but that’s not really professional. You could create a random string and append it to the name. Yes, that will works, once. If you are trying to redeploy your resources that value will change, therefore it will never be the same.
The solution would be to have a unique string that is constant in our environment.

The solution


The solution is to use the function UniqueString() part of the Azure Resource Manager (ARM) template. If we look in the documentation, UniqueString creates a deterministic hash string based on the values provided as parameters. Let’s see a quick example of an ARM template to deploy a website named demo-app.

{
    "$schema": "https://schema.management.azure.com/schemas/2015-01-01/deploymentTemplate.json#",
    "contentVersion": "1.0.0.0",
    "parameters": {},
    "variables": {
        "webAppName": "demo-app"
    },
    "resources": [
        {
            "type": "Microsoft.Web/sites",
            "apiVersion": "2015-08-01",
            "name": "[variables('webAppName')]",
            "location": "[resourceGroup().location]",
            "tags": {
                "[concat('hidden-related:', resourceGroup().id, '/providers/Microsoft.Web/serverfarms/frankdemo-plan')]": "Resource",
                "displayName": "[variables('webAppName')]"
            },
            "dependsOn": [
                "Microsoft.Web/serverfarms/frankdemo-plan"
            ],
            "properties": {
                "name": "[variables('webAppName')]",
                "serverFarmId": "[resourceId('Microsoft.Web/serverfarms/', 'frankdemo-plan')]"
            }
        },
        {
            "type": "Microsoft.Web/serverfarms",
            "apiVersion": "2016-09-01",
            "name": "frankdemo-plan",
            "location": "[resourceGroup().location]",
            "sku": {
                "name": "F1",
                "capacity": 1
            },
            "tags": {
                "displayName": "frankdemo-plan"
            },
            "properties": {
                "name": "frankdemo-plan"
            }
        }
    ],
    "outputs": {}
}

If you try to deploy this template, you will have an error because the name demo-app is already taken... no surprise here.

Let’s create a new variable suffix and we will use the Resource Group Id and Location as values. Then we just need to append this value to our name using the function concat().

    "variables": {
        "suffix": "[uniqueString(resourceGroup().id, resourceGroup().location)]",
        "webAppName": "[concat('demo-app', variables('suffix'))]"
    }

It’s that simple! Now every time you will deploy a unique string will be added to your resource name. That string will always be the same for a Resource Group-Location deployment.

Because some resource types are more restrictive than others you may need adapt your new name. Maybe the name of your resource plus those thirteen characters hash will be too long... No problem, you can easily make it shorter and all lower case just by using substring() and toLower().

 "parameters": {},
    "variables": {
        "suffix": "[substring(toLower(uniqueString(resourceGroup().id, resourceGroup().location)),0,5)]",
        "webAppName": "[concat('demo-app', variables('suffix'))]"
    }

Voila, and now by using ARM template you can deploy and redeploy without any problem reproducing the same solution you built. To learn move about the ARM template you can jump in the documentation, where you will find samples, step-by-step tutorials and more.


If you have a specific question about ARM templates or if you would like to see more tips like this one, don't hesitate to ask in the comments section or reach out on social media!

In a video, please!


I also have a video of this post if you prefer.




Image by StartupStockPhotos from Pixabay

How to save huge money by shutting down your VM automatically

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Updated on 2018-03-14

Virtual machines (VM) are used in most solutions nowadays as a [ProcessName] server, temporary machine to run tests or make demos, and sometimes even as a development machine. One of the great benefits of the cloud is that you only pay for what you use. So unlike the old server, that you keep paying for, you won pay virtual machine's CPU for when you turned off! In this post, I explain how to do it with your existing machines and also what to do with all the future one that you will be creating.

(Ce billet en aussi disponible en français.)

Already have a VM up and running, here what to do


From the Azure portal (portal.azure.com), select the Virtual Machine (VM) that you which to edit. Then look at the option panel, on the left, for Auto-Shutdown in the Operations section. You should have something that looks like this:

auto-shutdown

At any time you can enable and disable that functionality, it won’t affect the running VM.

Now, to activate it click on the Enabled. Then Select the time you would like to see the VM shutdown. Be sure to select the good time zone, by default it’s UTC. You can adjust the at for UTC of change the time zone, both options are valid.

Now you could decide to enable the notification. That could be useful if you may want to postpone the shutdown for one or two hours, or integrate the shutdown to another process like backup, cleaning…

To activate the notification option just click on the enabled, and enter the email address. If you want to attach the shutdown to a Logic App or an Azure Functions use the webhook. Here an example of notification email, see the Postpone options link.

emailsample

What if you have many VMs running


Let's say you have already twenty (or more) VMs running, you could have executed a PowerShell script like:


$myMVsName = @("franDev1", "frankBuildserver", "demo_sales2018")

For ($i=0; $i -lt $myMVsName.Length; $i++) {     
    Set-AzureRmDtlAutoShutdownPolicy $myMVsName[$i]
    [...]
}

Update - 2018-03-14
Well, today this is only possible for VM part of a DevTest Labs. Not for "regular" VM. However, I'm sure that day will come pretty quick.Does that mean that you need to go in all your VMs and set it manually? No. You can use an Azure Automation that will stop a list of VM on a regular schedule. A big advantage of this solution is that you can be more creative since it offers a lot more flexibility. You could identify the VM to shutdown base on some TAGS, you could have a different schedule base on the week vs weekend. You could even have a task to start VMs in the morning... More to come on that topic in a future post... If you want to read about how to get started to Azure Automation click here.

Multiple VMs that already exist, no problem

Obviously, if you have multiple virtual machines that already exist it is not very efficient to change their configuration one by one via the portal. Here is a small script to change the configuration of a large amount of VM in one shot.


    '# Login-AzureRmAccount

    $Subscription = Get-AzureRmSubscription -SubscriptionName 'YOUR_SUBSCRIPTION_NAME'
    Select-AzureRmSubscription -Subscription $Subscription.Id

    $selectedVMs = Get-Azurermvm -ResourceGroupName cloud5mins
    foreach($vm in $selectedVMs) 
    { 
        $ResourceGroup = $vm.ResourceGroupName
        $vmName = $vm.Name
        $ScheduledShutdownResourceId = "/subscriptions/$Subscription/resourceGroups/$ResourceGroup/providers/microsoft.devtestlab/schedules/shutdown-computevm-$vmName"
    
        $Properties = @{}
        $Properties.Add('status', 'Enabled')
        $Properties.Add('targetResourceId', $vm.Id)
        $Properties.Add('taskType', 'ComputeVmShutdownTask')
        $Properties.Add('dailyRecurrence', @{'time'= 2100})
        $Properties.Add('timeZoneId', 'Eastern Standard Time')
        $Properties.Add('notificationSettings', @{status='Disabled'; timeInMinutes=60})

        New-AzureRmResource -Location $vm.Location -ResourceId $ScheduledShutdownResourceId -Properties $Properties -Force
    }

The variable $selectedVMs contains all the VMS that we wish to edit. In this sample, I only get VMs contained in the RessourceGroup cloud5mins, but there are no limits to what you can do. You could select all VMs with a specific OS, tags, location, name, etc.

The variable $ScheduledShutdownResourceId will be the identity for the configuration for the auto-shutdown we wish to inject. Note that the provider is microsoft.devtestlab.

Next, we create a collection of properties in $Properties. status the one that active or deactivate the auto-shutdonw. targetResourceId is the resourceID of the VM we target.

The only things left is to specify the time and timezone.

If you prefer, I also have a video version that explains all the steps.

How to shutdown automatically all your existing VMs



End Update

Let's create a VM with the auto-shutdown pre-configured with ARM


Of course, a much more efficient way to set the auto-shutdown is at the creation time by adding a new resource of type Microsoft.DevTestLab/schedules to your template. This option was previously only accessible for DevTestLab, but recently was made available to any VMs.
Here an example of the variables that could be added to your template.

"variables": {

    "ShutdowTime": "21:00",
    "TimeZone": "UTC",
    "emailRecipient": "frank@frankysnotes.com",
    "notificationLocale": "en",
    "timeInMinutes": 30
}

And here an example of Microsoft.DevTestLab/schedules resource. One of these should be added for every VM you wish to auto-shutdown. Because your script is for one server, however, only one instance is required.

{
    "name": "[concat('autoshutdown-', variables('vmName'))]",
    "type": "Microsoft.DevTestLab/schedules",
    "apiVersion": "2017-04-26-preview",
    "location": "[resourceGroup().location]",
    "properties": {
        "status": "Enabled",
        "taskType": "ComputeVmShutdownTask",
        "dailyRecurrence": {
            "time": "[variables('ShutdowTime')]"
        },
        "timeZoneId": "[variables('TimeZone')]",
        "targetResourceId": "[resourceId('Microsoft.Compute/virtualMachines', variables('vmName'))]",
        "notificationSettings": {
            "status": "Enabled",
            "emailRecipient": "[variables('emailRecipient')]",
            "notificationLocale": "[variables('notificationLocale')]",
            "timeInMinutes": "[variables('timeInMinutes')]"
        }
    },
    "dependsOn": [
        "[concat('Microsoft.Compute/virtualMachines/', variables('vmName'))]"
    ]
}

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