Reading Notes #138

Suggestion of the week

• Logging with the .NET backend for Azure Mobile Services (Carlos Figueira) - Great post that optimizes a logger by adding layers over layers of customization at every paragraph.

Cloud

• Azure: 99.95% SQL Database SLA, 500 GB DB Size, Improved Performance Self-Service Restore, and Business Continuity - A database for 5$ / Month! That's nice. This post explained all the new features around databases.

Programming

• Getting Started on the Roslyn Journey (Erik Dietrich) - This post announced an interesting series where we should get started with Roslyn.
  
• "It's just a software issue"- Edge.js brings Node and .NET together on three platforms (Scott Hanselman) - Great project that could be very useful in many different situations.

Mobile

• The Full Story of Featured and Spotlighted Apps on Windows Phone (Sébastien Lachance) - Interesting post to prepare the launch of our next mobile application.
  
• Build Some Ears on Your App and then Listen! (Mark B Schramm) - This post that listed the best practices about how we should take care of our apps once they are live.

~Frank

Reading Notes #112

Suggestion of the week

• UNIT of Work Design Pattern (Shivprasad koirala) - Good post that explains an important design pattern.

Cloud

• **Easy Background Processing with WebAPI and Windows Azure (Erez Harari) - Great tutorial that gets you ready to make your apps.
  
• Big Data – Role of Cloud Computing in Big Data – Day 11 of 21 (Pinal Dave) - Interesting post about Big Data history.
  
• CSI: Re-enabling Remote Desktop with PowerShell after you've blocked it with your own firewall rule (Scott Hanselman) - Very useful tips.
  
• Winsmarts.com (Sahil Malik) - Short post about how to get setup and enjoy Azure PowerShell.
  
• Using web.config transforms with NLog configuration - | Gunnar Peipman - Programming Blog - Nice post that explains how to configure our config file so it will work with transform, NLog and Azure.
  
• Developing Windows Azure Mobile Services server-side - Very complete tutorial with a lot of details that cover also tests.
  
• Microsoft SQL Server Hybrid Cloud Blog Series (Madhan_Arumugam_Ramakrishnan) - A lot of good article references.

Programming

• **Time Saving Tips to Get Your Windows Phone App Started (Lori Lalonde) - Useful post that quickly summarizes all the options you have when starting a new phone project.
  
• IEnumerable VS IQueryable (More..) - Nice quick post that explains clearly with sample two often mismatch classes.
  
• Var VS IEnumerable (More..) - Nice post that shows some subtile differences that could have an unexpected impact.
  
• Difference betweeen ASP.NET WebForms and ASP.NET MVC (Imran Abdul Ghani) - Aaah! Loud and clear.
  
• Announcing the Release of Visual Studio 2013 and Great Improvements to ASP.NET and Entity Framework (asp.net) - You probably eared about the brand new Visual Studio 2013, but to know what new in it, this is the post to read.

Miscellaneous

• Enterprise Architecture: Reflections on My Journey of Becoming A Systems Thinking Enterprise Architect (Alan Hakimi) - I liked this post where the author share is experience on how he became an architect.

~Frank

Reading Notes Special Books Edition

For the last months I read few technical books.  I thought it could be interesting to add it.  This is not a complete review and it only reflect my personal opinion.


Programming Entity Framework: Code First 
By Julia Lerman, Rowan Miller
Publisher: O'Reilly Media
Released: November 2011
ISBN 10:1-4493-1294-2

Note: By the time I write this post the version of Entity framework is 5.0.
Even if this book was about the previous version of Entity framework, it’s a golden mine of information. I found very useful the example that helps me to understand how to define the relation and more importantly what was the deference between the attribute way and the fluent way. It was easy to read, because well explains not because it was doing only the “beginner” stuff. Since EF is really useful when starting a new project or even for a POC, I think this book should be in all developer’s bookshelf.

 
Windows PowerShell 2.0 Best Practices
By Ed Wilson
Publisher: Microsoft
Released: December 14, 2010
ISBN-10: 0735626464

If you are a .Net developer and you still don’t know PowerShell or don’t know why you should consider PowerShell than this book is not for you… You should read some Introduction books or post THEN read this book.
This book is all about best practices. It will help you to structures your code or your library of scripts. That way, you will be able to understand and found and reuse all of it. Whether to do something in a build or to deploy something in Windows Azure or even just to quickly do a repetitive task this book will help to do it.  A book to keep nearby. 


Claims-based Identity Second Edition device
By Dominick Baier, Vittorio Bertocci, Keith Brown and Matias Woloski
Publisher: Microsoft
Releaed: April 21, 2010
ISBN-10: 0735640599

This is definitely THE book to get started with claims. It starts right at the beginning explaining what’s a claim, why we should use it.  Many different scenarios are presented. Each of them is presented with and without claims and most of the time how to migrate from one to the other.  The complete solution is available on codeplex.com and if a PDF is good enough for you; it's also available on codeplex for free. 


Building N-Layered Applications with ASP.NET 4.5
By Imar Spaanjaars
Publisher: Imar.Spaanjaars.Com
Released: July 2013

This document is, in fact, a series of post about the best practices related to Asp. Net 4.5. While writing this notes, only two or three posts were available online. To get the full document with the source code you must pay. Eventually, all parts of the rich document will be available for free, but it's only 20$ and its own is value.
The solution explained in this document is simple enough so it’s easy to understand the architecture but detailed enough to cover most of the case.  The solution will include a lot of technologies like: Entity Framework, Asp. Net MVC, WCF Services and many patterns: Dependency Injection, Repository, Unit Test, Mocking, etc.
It’s a really well done document, and I think it’s a must to any web developer or architect.

Microsoft SharePoint 2013 App Development

By Scot Hillier, Ted Pattison
Publisher: Microsoft Press
Released: November 2012
ISBN 10:0-7356-7498-1

I read this book to know more about the new “Apps” thing.  While I was ready, I understand that my project was not a good match for SharePoint App, so I didn’t finish it… yet. However, I found the book explications really clear, and it gives me all the tooling and options I needed to get started.
Since Apps are now very present in SharePoint, I decided to include it in my notes.



~Frank

Reading Notes #103

Suggestion of the week

• Architecture Patterns for Data Upload to Windows Azure (K. Dotchkoff) - Nice description of many patterns with their pros and cons. A post to read.

Cloud

• SQL Azure: Automated Database Export (Tara Shankar Jana) - Nice post that details all you need to know about the new Sql Azure Automated export: options, cost, etc.
  
• Cloud Service Fundamentals – Introduction into Fault-Tolerant Data Access Layer (AzureCAT) - Good post about the best practices.
  
• **Service Bus Error: The maximum entity size has been reached or exceeded for Topic (Ravi Verma) - Quick fix for a common error message. Be aware of the Default life time value.
  
• Meter and Autoscale Multi-Tenant Applications in Windows Azure (Bruno Terkaly, Ricardo Villalobos) - Great articles that explains how to setup diagnostics to be able to autoscale in a multi-tenant context. The article also refers different resources for more details and tools.
  
• Announcing the release of the Windows Azure SDK 2.1 for .NET (Scott Guthrie) - Learn more about all the enhancements and great new featured inside this last release.

Programming

• Just released: MvcSiteMapProvider 4.0 (Maarten Balliauw) - Sitemaps is a great tool, learn more about it and how easy it is to add why in your project.
  
• Don't fear the shell... - "Getting Started with PowerShell 3.0" jumpstart series - Mostly everything can be done with PowerShell, here a great list of tutorials to get started...
  
• Get started with some basic TFBuild Scripts - Great post that will gives you a new image about build scripts.
  
• Securing a Web API with Windows Azure AD and Katana (vibro) - Very complete post and tutorial that explains what is OWIN and project Katana (both in preview), and how to use it.
  
• July 2013 Release of the Ajax Control Toolkit - This post details all the great new features in the last release of Ajax Control Toolkit. So many useful tools...

Databases

• Fragmentation in SQL Azure! (Dilkush-MSFT) - Wow, a really interesting post that goes deeper than usual and explains database fragmentation in Azure.
  
• Take Control - Windows Azure SQL Database Application Life Cycle Management Made Easy! (Alexandre Brisebois) - The SQL Server Data Tools (SSDT) is definitely a must for all projects with a database.

Miscellaneous

• When You Have Nothing Unique to Say… (Darren Rowse) - A little blogger's pep talk.
  
• 5 Tips for Launching a Product On Your Blog Without Annoying Your Readers (Darren Rowse) - Great post where the author share is experience about a product launch and how do it «the right way».
  
  

~Frank

Reading Notes #102

Suggestion of the week

• 3 Rarely Discussed, But Valuable, Uses for Cloud Object Storage - Very interesting post that gives good ideas of how to use the to storage at our benefits.
• Windows Azure Virtual Machines – Stopped doesn’t equal Stopped Deallocated (Stephen W. Thomas) - Very well explain. Now it's clear what need to be done to save money.

Cloud

• Turbo Charging Your Windows Azure Cloud Services - Interesting post where we can read about a real cost and performance optimization.
• Windows Azure July Updates: SQL Database, Traffic Manager, AutoScale, Virtual Machines - Great news. I'm looking forward to try these new features.
• Windows Azure Traffic Manager – High Performance, Availability & Resiliency - Nice tutorial to use the new Azure Traffic Manager.
• Windows Azure Traffic Manager Explained (Maarten Balliauw) - Nice post about the Traffic Manager that explains what it is and why we should care.
• SQL Azure: Automated Database Export (Tara Shankar Jana) - Nice post that details all you need to know about the new Sql Azure Automated export: options, cost, etc.
• Handling Azure Storage Queue poison messages (Pascal Laurin) - Interesting second post of a series this one explains why we shouldn't delete our error message.

Databases

• Database Versioning and Source Control (m kramar) - Interesting solution to a common situation.

Programming

• If you're not using Glimpse with ASP.NET for debugging and profiling, you're missing out - This post remembers me that I still didn't use this great tool, and I just have the perfect project to try it.
• 12 Lessons I learned using unit tests/TDD - Interesting post that promotes all the benefits of writing unit tests.
• Performance Tip: A few words on ASP.NET session state (Frédéric Rivain) - Interesting post to remember what we should have in mind to get the best performance.

UX

• Why People Don't Understand How to Use Your Software - Interesting thought about how to keep our clear vision.
• Making Readability More Responsive (Tyler Gaw) - Nice improvement on the user experience from this great tool. This post explains the reasons behind these change.

Integration

• Using SendGrid with BizTalk360 for Easy Emails on IaaS - It always good to see application that "works together" (that are so easily compatible) for our benefit.

Miscellaneous

• Touch: Where Microsoft Went Wrong (Frederic Lardinois) - Interesting thought about Microsoft and its moves to "touch". In my case, I really enjoy Windows surface. It's not perfect, but I like it.
• Write Less, Say More - Nice post that proof that once again the proverb quality not quantity rules.
• Pluralsight Summer Watch List - Nice suggestions to refresh our knowledge, or learn new things.
• The impact of a compliment (Scott Hanselman)- Interesting thought about compliment.format(ComplimentType.Professional).
• Choosing the right Portable Power Phone/Tablet/Gadget Battery Charger (Scott Hanselman) - Nice review so many options "just" for charging device's batteries.

~Frank

Reading Notes #101

Suggestion of the week

• Windows Azure Storage Best Practices - Great post that reviews the today's best practices to get the best of Azure Storage.

Cloud

• Scaling Up and Scaling Out in Windows Azure Web Sites (Craig Kitterman) - Nice post that clarified that scaling options from the Azure Website point of view.
  
• Windows Azure Storage Queue with error queues (Pascal Laurin) - Nice tutorial about using Azure Storage Queues in an asynchronous pattern. You just need to attach an alert from the new Azure Mobile Services to the Error queue, and you are in business! Until you get notified, then we will need the next post.
  
• Windows Azure SQL Database Automated Backups are Finally Here! - That really a good news! I cannot see any reason why anybody wouldn't use it.
  
• Linking a resource to your Cloud Service? What does that mean (Ashish Goyal) - Good clarification about what is exactly a link resource and what it's not.
  
• How to get a sticky load balancer in Windows Azure - Interesting post that comments the usage of sticky load balancer (to use session in a multi server context) and explains how to do it in Azure if you really need it.
  
• An Introduction to Windows Azure BLOB Storage (Mike Wood) - This incredibly complete post contains everything about Azure Blob storage. that the ultimate resource on that topics!
  
• Windows Azure SQL Database Automated Backup Frequency is in UTC (Coordinated Universal Time) - Nice catch! so UTC it is...
  
• Dev/Test in the Cloud - Every developer should now what is available for them in Azure. It is so quick and simple! And if you stop your VMs when you are not developing, you stop paying for it!
  
• Windows Azure Web Sites: How Application Strings and Connection Strings Work(Craig_Kitterman) - Great post that explains how to get a more secure website by using application string.
  
• Turbo Charging Your Windows Azure Cloud Services - Interesting post where we can read about a real cost and performance optimization.

 

Integration

• Windows Azure BizTalk Services & BizTalk 2013 - comparing the mapper (Glenn Colpaert)- Very complete comparison of the two mappers that really shows the pros and cons of each of them.

Programming

• Deployment tool (Fredrik Normén) - Interesting "pet project": building is own deployment tool...
  
• Four Ways to Implement Lazy Loading in C# (Francesco Cariaggi) - Interesting post that gives alternative to the really handy lazy loading pattern.
  
• TypeScript 0.9 Preview Release (S.Somasegar) - Learn more about the new features (generics) that bring the last version of TypeScript released not long ago.
  
• Some of the Anti Patterns - Interesting post that identified some anti patterns that reflects bad practices. Knowing them helps to improve our code, so it's good to refresh our memory.
  
• Use PowerShell to Sort CSV Files in Order - Who don't need to sort stuff? Next time indeed of opening Excell I will type one command line; thanks to this post!
  
• The Great New Features in JustDecompile (James Bender) - Nice post that walkthru the new features included in the new release of this useful tool.
  
• Building static websites with Middleman - Very interesting code. I didn't know Middleman before I'll definitly look at it.

 

Database

• SQL – Difference Between INNER JOIN and JOIN (Pinal Dave) - Don't cheat and answer this frequently asked question before reading the post. And, did you got it?
  
• How to choose a No SQL Database - No Sql database with theirs pros and cons.

 

Miscellaneous

• Is Agile Really Cheaper? (Scott Sehlhorst) - I like this post because it puts words on though that I had. A good post to be more prepare next time a client asks you the question.

~Frank

Reading Notes #100

I’m back! The blog is not dead. I was just super busy. First, I went to the Microsoft Build and it was very nice. Then I moved! I have now a gigantic stack of books and articles to read… so more to come.

This week marks an important milestone, the 100th Reading Notes! I want to thank you all my readers / followers to have been supporting me all along. Let’s go for under more!

Happy reading!

 Suggestion of the week

Don’t Write Code You Don’t Need (Erik Dietrich) - Very interesting post that gives some best practices to write better code.

Cloud

Failure is not an option for Netflix's service oriented architecture (Joe McKendrick) - Good proof that working with failure is not a synonym of fail.

Is there more to using SQL in Azure than redirecting your connection string? - Nice post that explains why we need to think differently when doing cloud.

Quick Recap of cloud announcements at BUILD and WPC 2013 - (Luis Panzano) - Nice! A two-week summary in one post!

Autoscaling Windows Azure Cloud Services (and web sites) (Maarten Balliauw) - One of the announcements that impressed me the most at build conference. Don't miss the chance to learn more about the new autoscaling feature of Azure.

Programming

Stop Doing Internet Wrong (Scott Hanselman) - Interesting list of some simple things to do to get a better experience online.

Cross-Platform Portable Class Libraries with .NET are Happening (Scott Hanselman) - Great post to get started about Portable Class Librairy (PCL) how are very useful to write app that run on many platforms.

Try Visual Studio 2013 Preview – There’s an Azure gallery image for that!(Tyler Doerksen) - Resistance is futile. It is so easy to try that you won't be able to resist. And if you don't know what's new in VS2013 check Scott Hanselman Build conference.

What is claims-based authentication? (Gunnar Peipman) - Nice post that gives a nice introduction to claims. It looks like the first of a series about this topic.

ASP.NET N-Layered Applications - Introduction (Part 1) - Very promising series where the author describes all steps of is application. For the architecture to the unit tests.

Miscellaneous

Why So Many Leadership Programs Ultimately Fail (Peter Bregman)- Interesting story, that proof once again that the best wait to learn something is to hump in and do it.

Is Agile Really Cheaper? (Scott Sehlhorst) - I like this post because it puts words on though that I had. A good post to be more prepared next time a client asks you the question.

 
~Frank

Reading Notes #95

Suggestion of the week

• The Unexpected Antidote to Procrastination (Peter Bregman)- A person a know also said: If you are not making mistakes, it means that you're not working hard enough.
  
• Lessons Learned: Taking the best out of Windows Azure Virtual Machines (Nuno Godinho) - This post is a must, it describes all the best practices to get the better of Windows Azure Virtual Machine (VM).

Reading Notes #93

Suggestion of the week

• Announcing the release of Windows Azure SDK 2.0 for .NET (Scott Gu)- Wow! Don't miss this post. It's a big one, but it's filled with a lot of good stuff. Enjoy!
  
• Released: Windows Azure Training Kit – April 2013 (SyntaxC4)- Yeah! New update of the Widows Azure Training Kit (WATK). Learn what updated in this post.
  
• Building a live blog app in Windows Azure - That why the cloud is so fantastic, we can build incredible stuff without big money! Great post!
  
• A Responsible Programmer - Excellent post. These are, in fact, the best practices to be a good programmer/ developer.

 

Cloud

• Help! I Cannot Attach My Azure Data Disk to my Windows Azure Virtual Machine (Stephen W) - Nice catch, the list of available disk and the reasons why some or unavailable could be clearer.
  
• Subscribe to Windows Azure Using Your Organization ID - Nice update, we can now sign-in as an organization to Windows Azure and use our AD credential.
  
• The Windows Azure SDK for Ruby (Larry Franks) - Nice post that details what is available for Ruby developers in Azure.
  
• Setting up software based Site-to-Site VPN for Windows Azure with Windows Server 2012 Routing and Remote Access - Nice tutorial about the new site-to-site feature of Azure.
  
• Just released - Microsoft Enterprise Library 6 (Grigori Melnik) - Nice update. If you don't know Enterprise Library (EntLib) it time to jump in! And for Azure developers check out the integration pack! It's a must.
  
• Episode 106 - Scott Guthrie Discusses Windows Azure SDK 2.0 (Channel 9) (Scott Guthrie) - Excellent presentation of the novelties.
  
• Copy files >2GB to your cloud VM (Paul Lou) - Very useful post that gives a solution to a very annoying problem.

 

Programming

• Script to automatically configuring Remote PowerShell for Windows Azure Virtual Machines on your machine - Useful PowerShell script shared.
  
• NuGet your Enterprise? - Interesting thoughts about NuGet.
  
• Visual Studio Tools for Git Update available (Brian Harry) - This post details the update of the VisualStudio extension. An extension to try.
  
• Utilize Roslyn to create the next level plugin capability (Filip Ekberg) - Nice presentation about this great idea: a compiler as a service! Roslyn
  
• Git Explained: For Beginners - If you don't know Git, or you still not familiar with it? This is definitely the post for you. From vocabulary to code sample this tutorial explains all you need to knows.

 

UX

• April Showers Lead to May Flowers…and an Updated Windows Store App (Jonathan Rozenblit) - Nice update to windows app due to the not so nice weather.

Miscellaneous

• The thoughtLEADERS Blog - Mentoring is gaining in popularity, and I'm happy with that because it really a win-win scenario.
  
• Upgrade Your Blogging Skills (Aaron Aders) - This post summarize an interesting book that easly found is place in my to-read stack.
  
• Swipe launches into beta as a Web app to create and share presentations to anyone on any device) (Ken Yeung) - This application look very promising. I really look forward to see what will come out of that.
  
• 8 Risks When You Ignore Social Media (Hollis Thomases) - Social media for business is an interesting discussion topic, but this article brings something that sure: ignoring is not a good solution.
  
• The “Consumerization” of IT and the Dark Side of the Cloud (Bob Buck Woody) - Interesting thoughts about relation between IT and business.
  
• Moving 4th & Mayor to Windows Azure Web Sites - Interesting story of someone migrating, he's application from AWS to Windows Azure.

~Frank

Reading Notes #86

picture from http://onsoftware.en.softonic.com/

Suggestion of the week

• Boxstarter - I really need to “box” my favourite applications, so each time I start working on a new VM all my stuff will be the way I like.
• Service Bus Messaging Deep-Dive (Clemens V) - If you must see only one video about Service bus is that one. Great job! Know more from A to Z in one shot.

Cloud

• Real-World Scenarios for Node.js in Windows Azure - This article the perfect get started to do not only your first Node.js website, but to do it in Azure.
• Using Windows Azure Virtual Machines to Publish and Synchronize a Web Farm(Wade) - Great tutorial that explains all the steps and scripts very clearly. Try It.
• 10 must-try cloud tools for business (Jack Wallen) - Great list of cloud solution available today.
• DevOps for Windows Azure (BuckWoody) - Great resources of references for all the devops needs. A post to bookmark.

Scaling Applications Using Windows Azure Cloud Services Poster
here: http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id =36837
you should also read this complete manual in preparation here: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh871440.aspx

• Does Your Data Really Belong in Your SQL Database? - Nice post that answers a really good question. When an application is moved into the cloud, most of the time a re-structuration is needed to enjoy the cloud capabilities.
• Integrate AWS with .NET applications by using a Visual Studio add-in (Tony Patton) - Perfect post for .Net developers to get started working with AWS in VisualStudio.
• All Things Distributed (Werner Vogels) - Nice post about Node.js, beanTalk and AWS.
• Guest Post: Getting started with Windows Azure Mobile Services - Really nice post. THE starting point to try Azure Mobile Services. Then you're done and will never want to stop...
• Cutting Costs on Windows Azure Isn't Always About Compromise - Interesting post that explains with reel numbers how you could save with Azure.
• Web Camp Session Video – Websites in the Cloud (Tyler Doerksen) - Great video that shows how to build, deploy and manage a Windows Azure Website and all the good tricks.

Databases

• Cassandra with a Hint of Azure (Neil Mackenzie) - Nicepost that introduces Cassandra. Its architecture, pros and cons. Reference to another post that compare Cassandra to other NoSql databases are also mentioned.
• SQL Server Data-Tier Application Framework (March 2013) Available - Describe the main features in the chagelog and how to upgrade your version.
• Introduction to the SQL BCP Utility - If you don't know this essential tool, the post is a must.
• AWS Scales Relational Database Service By Tripling Storage And IOPs (Alex Williams) - Wow triple the relational database maximum size?! That's huge!

Integration

• Using EDI Bridge to exchange B2B messages in Windows Azure Service Bus - Very nice tutorial (and rare) about EDI in Azure.

Programming

• Migrating ASP.NET Web Forms to the MVC Pattern with the ASP.NET Web API - Good tutorial explains how to integrate the MVC pattern in the asp.net web form.
• Introducing Google+ Sign-In for your Drive Apps - Nice new single sign-in addition.
• SQL Server Data Tools – Business Intelligence for Visual Studio 2012 (Jason Singh) - Great addition to Visual Studio.

Miscellaneous

• Majority of doctors opposed to full access to your own electronic records (Ken Fisher) - Interesting result, even if not that much surprise, I though the repartition was more even.
• Is It Possible to Have Too Many Ideas? (Chris Heivly) - Nice post that bust the myth by explaining that what's manner is what you do with that flow of ideas.
• 11 Simple Concepts to Become a Better Leader - Nice quick review of key concept to become better; period.
• 24 Ways to Save an Hour (Kevin Daum) - Good post to get started and have some optimization ideas... But I still missed one sleeping hour. ;)
• Tips for Google Reader users migrating to feedly - I'm trying Feedly as Google reader replacer, and I found those little tips interesting.
• Google Reader may very well rise again... as part of Google+ (Casey Johnston) - This resume the sadly news...
• Moving to Outlook from Google Reader (Abhinaba Basu) - Nice trick to continue reading your favorites RSS when Google Reader.
• 4 Myths About Open Source We Should Put to Rest (OX Rafael Laguna) - Very interesting post that bust myths about open source.

~Frank

Reading Notes #74

Cloud

• Windows Azure Mobile Services: A Robust Back End for Your Device Applications - Great article that explains how Windows Azure Mobile services work through a nice tutorial. You must read that.
• Provisioning a MySQL Database from the Windows Azure Store (SyntaxC4) - Learn how to get add-on like a MySql database with the Windows Azure Store (currently only available in US).
• iOS Support with Windows Azure Mobile Services – now with Push Notifications (Scott Gu)- Another great news for iOS developers who want to use Windows Azure.
• Doctrine supports SQL Database Federations for massive scalability on Windows Azure - Great news for PHP developers since Doctrine is now supporting Azure SQL Database Federation. Note that other than Doctrine PHP developers can also use Symfony to code with Azure.
• Windows Azure now supports federation with Windows Server Active Directory (Alex Simons) - Amazing post. First, it shares some great identity-related improvements made to Windows Azure that leverage the capabilities of Windows Azure AD. Then a tutorial that explains how to do it.
• Windows Azure SQL Database Backup and Restore - A must. If you have data in Azure, then you must read this post.
• Introducing the AWS SDK for Node.js (Developer Preview) - Good news for Node.js developers.

Integration

• BizTalk Mapper Patterns: How to Map Name Value Pair to a Hierarchical Schema - Very interesting post that explains how to do this type of mapping with functoids and by XSLT script.
• We are presenting BizTalk360 at – BizTalk Summit 2012 (Saravana Kumar) - Nice event that is coming soon. I would love to see the Biztalk360 presentation by myself, but I will need to relay on my coworkers’ story.

[…]The session is going to be 100% technical, without a single sales slide. The session structure is going to be 15 minutes slides (intro/background) and 45 minutes demos. […]

• Setting Up BizTalk Server 2013 Beta on a Windows Azure Virtual Machine (Stephen W. Thomas) - This post is a little older(1 month), but gives more details. Since new Windows Azure images are available in the gallery, I think it should work better now.
• New minor release of BizTalk Scheduled Task Adapter for BizTalk Server 2010 is now available - Announce a new release of BizTalk Scheduled Task Adapter that fixes some minor issues.

Programming

• Resolving “certificate for the given thumbprint could not be loaded” error with Azure Tools for Visual Studio - Nice catch! With so many different account and development vm, I’m sure that this situation will append. Then I will know what to do.
• Web Essentials nightly builds - That tool looks awesome I'm looking forward to trying it.
• Tis the season (Tyler Doerksen) - Multiple web camp are coming soon and this week it was VS 2012.
• My collection of favourite TFS utilities - Great list of tools that can make our TFS better.
• Building Beautiful, Interactive, and Fast Web Sites (Jonathan Rozenblit) - Web developer this was a great web camps! In case you missed it, stay tuned for the video on-demand that should be publish sonly.
• AWS Tools for Windows PowerShell - AWS is finally let us use PowerShell to manage our environment. Over 550 cmdlets.

Miscellaneous

• 15 Super Useful Apps for Busy Entrepreneurs (Kevin Smith) - SwiftKey, Evernotes and a lot more of these applications that help us.
• When I’m most productive - Nice post that could help to find why we are more profitable sometimes and not that much on other.
• If You’re Afraid of Your To-Do List, It’s Not Working (JD Meier) - Nice quick tips to be productive.
• My next PC will be an Ultrabook (Scott Hanselman) - Didn't know that ultrabook could be that powerful. This type of PC starts to be really interesting then.
• Don’t let IT ground your company - Interesting article that explains the importance of planning and to have plan B... If you want to stay in business.
• Your Emails Are Too Long: Here's How to Fix Them - Interesting sharing.
• How to be a Consultant, Part 6: Effective Presentation Content (David Pallmann) - Nice post that explains what good presentations look like and what are the rules to create them.
• How Big Data and the Cloud are Changing Customer Service Solutions - Very interesting thoughts about what should be "smart application" today since the so much information is easily accessible through Big Data.
• Windows 8 Shortcuts (Lee Stott) - How to be quicker with a keyboard on Windows 8

 

~Frank

Reading Notes #39

Cloud

• Amazon data center size - Interesting post that gives an opportunity to put numbers on the cloud architecture, in this case AWS servers.
• Using Import-Subscription in WAPPSCmdlets 2.2.2 - Explains quickly one of the new features of Azure PowerShell Cmdlets last release: caching the Azure subscription by importing it.
• Windows Azure Security Best Practices – Part 7: Tips, Tools, Coding Best Practices (Bruce Kyle) - Again a lot of really good advices about security with Azure and many good references.

[…]shows a friendly face to customers and still provides the detailed technical information developers will need in his article Rich Custom Error Handling with ASP.NET. […]

[…]Wade Wegner describes the steps he recommends in his post Using ELMAH in Windows Azure with Table Storage. […]
[…]To learn more about ELMAH, see the MSDN article Using HTTP Modules and Handlers to Create Pluggable ASP.NET Components by Scott Mitchell and Atif Aziz.[…]

• Building Hybrid Applications in the Cloud on Windows Azure (Ferglo) - The third book of a series about Windows Azure. A lot good information, scenarios and details about hybrid application.
• Do We Need A Desktop OS Anymore? - A nice reflection about our future.
• Azure Storage and its Various Abstractions (Chris Clayton) - Nice post that explain how to configure and use local storage in an Azure WebRole.
• Versioning SQL Azure Schemas by Using Federations - Wow this is a really good idea. Using Azure SQL federation to maintain different schemas version in a single or multi-tenant scenario.
• The Hidden Risk of a Meltdown in the Cloud - Interesting post that explain why companies should think about moving to the cloud to see if they saw (and understand) all the pros and cons.
• 'Personal Cloud' to Replace PC by 2014, Says Gartner - This nice post talks about the emergence of the "personal cloud" and is progression against PC.
• New Tools for Windows Identify Foundation and ACS (Wade Wegner) - Great show (Cloud cover Show) again this week, with Wake and David that present a lot of nice functionalities of the Windows Identity Foundation (WIF).
• Windows Azure™ and X509 Certificates (Chris Clayton) - A very useful post from Chris that specify all steps you need to do (screenshots and code snippet) in order to setup your X509 certificates.
• My Disappointments with Amazon DynamoDB - DynamoDB is a pretty young product, but still some of the limitations look disappointing. However I think that is this king of database binaries, images and big files shouldn't be in. They should be in storage and the url/path is in the db.
• Leaving Microsoft (Wade Wegner) - Another big evangelist of Windows Azure is leaving Microsoft. Wade is someone to follow.
• Using CSPack and CSRun With a Worker Role (Jason Haley) - Nice post where Jason try to fix a result discrepancy between using Visual Studio or CSPack-CSRun to create a Azure project. But the question remains...
• How Do I Get Started On My Developer Workstation? - Nice tutorial to get started with Windows Azure. Or to setup a new clean VM.
• Beware Fake Clouds - Good post that help to demystify what the cloud is computing and what is not be by hi-lighting the differences.
• Why do I need two Instances in Windows Azure? - This is a really important fact to understand when planning/developing a project with Windows Azure. A clear answer for a good question.
• The Microsoft Private Cloud whitepaper (Nikosan) – A reference to a PDF document that contains a lot a info about all the options you have if you planning to go with Private cloud.
• Best practices for migration to the cloud - Nice post that contain all the link you need in one place to read all the best practice and useful information on migration to the cloud.

Programming

• Improving Launch Performance for Your Desktop Applications (Brandon Bray) - See how the and witch new tools in Visual Studio 11 will improve the launching speed of our application.
• EF Code First Migrations, Update-Database outside of Visual Studio - Nice! This post introduces a great console tool that gives the opportunity to update a database using PowerShell.
• EF Code First Migrations Update-Database Parameters Documentation? - Useful information about all the parameters of the EF Migration tool.

Miscellaneous

• 3 Great Things My Mentors Taught Me - Great thought. Simple and efficient.

~ Frank