Reading Notes #300

Cloud

• An introduction to Azure Web Apps on Linux (Christos Matskas) - Web App for all! Seriously, it's a really good news and it's already GA.
• Azure Logic Apps Monthly Update – September 2017 (Sriram Hariharan) - Get a good summary of all the new features in only one post. But of course, it's only an overview.
• Manage your Azure VM backups with Azure CLI 2.0 - Preview (Kartik P V R) - Azure CLI is so convenient, I know some will prefer graphical interfaces. However, CLIs are the only way for automation.
• Microsoft Integration (Azure and much more) Stencils Pack v2.6.1 for Visio (Sandro Pereira) - It's time (already..) to update our stencil to include the lastest and greatest. Thanks!

Programming

• Generating Google Slides from images using Apps Script (Wesley Chun) - Pretty neat features. Definitely worth the time to write a script when you need to edit tons of slides, or build a deck multiple times.
• 7 Hidden Gems in Visual Studio 2017 (Visual Studio Team) - This post shares not the usual tips. Seriously, how many you already knew before reading the article?
• Adding circuit breakers to your .NET applications | Richard Seroter's Architecture Musings on WordPress.com (Richard Seroter) - This post is a great introduction to Steeltoe and the circuit-breaker pattern. The code used in this sample is .net core but it also works with .Net framework. Perfect for all our micro-services.

Data

• Power BI Desktop October Feature Summary | Microsoft Power BI Blog | Microsoft Power BI (Amanda Cofsky) - Once again, this month release is packed with tons of great new features. I can't summarize thus the post, but the bookmarking capabilities alone worth your time reading this post or watching the video.

Miscellaneous

• #223: Mike Erwin—The Power of Solitude (Entreleadership - Mike Erwin) - Interesting reading suggests on leadership and the importance of solitude time.
• Microsoft announces next Azure OpenDev: October 25, 2017 (Ashley McNamara) - Awesome community event coming ... Save the date.
• Social Presentations with Mark Rendle (Carl and Richard) - That look like a very promising tool... except for the name that I continually forget... (but that's probably just me). I will definitely have a to the Github repo.
• The Simple Reason to Learn to Lead Yourself First (Joshua Spodek ) - Interesting thoughts about becoming a leader.
• What is a Cloud Developer Advocate? (Jeremy Likness) - Great article. A few of my friends joined that team, and even though I already had this talk with them, now I have a better picture.

Reading Notes #266

Suggestion of the week

• 22 tips to lower Azure pricing and optimize hosting costs (Matt Watson) - Fantastic list that overviews a lot of opportunities to lower the total of our Azure receipt.

Cloud

• Announcing the new Azure Marketplace experience (Shankar Sivadasan) - Another proof that Microsoft is really listening to his customers and partners, nice improvement.
  
• Azure Application Insights – An essential part of Microsoft DevOps Strategy (Subodh Sohoni) - Excellent post that explains why Application Insights is a must for all DevOps.
  
• Calling a Logic App from an HTML form (Jeff Hollan) - Nice usage of the HTTP trigger.
  
• Now available: Azure invoices emailed direct to your inbox (Adam Pickersgill) - Sweet! Now we talk.
  
• Understanding the Azure App Service Editor (Ken Cenerelli) - My first reaction was: No way, this is awesome! And it is. E was in place to implement this cool tool. However, remember that this is only to do some quick fix, because, at the next deployment, these changes will be lost.

Programming

• If You Automate Your Tests, Automate Your Code Review (Erik Dietrich) - Interesting post that explains the idea about automating our code reviews. It gives a book as suggestions to learn more about it.

Databases

• SQL Database Query Editor available in Azure Portal (Ninar Nuemah) - I was looking for this since the old query tool was removed. I will probably continue to use SQL studio management or VsCode, put what a time saving, and you are investigating a problem... Open a blade right from the Azure portal and voila!

Miscellaneous

• MVP API Intro (Daron Yöndem) - I love it! I already have few ideas in mind, and I'm curious to see what you will do guys.

Reading Notes #256

Cloud

• What’s this all about? (Alexandre Brisebois) - The cloud broth with him new patterns in the technology world, but knows that the business should also adapt.
• Azure Container Registry preview (Steve Lasker) - Containers, containers, containers, containers.... sound familiar? They are everywhere, learn more about this new service that will be available in preview in mid-November.
• Fluent API Libraries for Azure .NET SDK - These new azure commands definitely look good.
• Simpler Azure Management Libraries for .NET (Asir Selvasingh) - It looks very friendly, looking forward to trying it.
• Ten ways to minimize Azure costs (Iris Classon) - Nice few tips to save money... Time to do your checklist.

Programming

• 10 Tips for Using GitKraken (Sara) - I really like this kind of format for tips. You learn so much in a snap.
• Extensibility in Visual Studio '15': Increasing Reliability and Performance - This post lists few key elements for extension author, don't miss it.
• Mobile DevOps - The Source of Truth: The Role of Repositories in DevOps (Kraig Brockschmidt) - Very interesting article about devops real word.
• Stateless 3.0 - A State Machine library for .NET Core (Scott Hanselman) - Interesting tutorial that shows how that new lib could be useful.
• Using MongoDB with Web API and ASP.NET Core (Mahesh Sabnis ) - Dotnet core is now considerably more stable and so much more preferment. It worth try it.

Miscellaneous

• How to Make Time for Blogging During Your Lunch Break - Not a idea. However, I think it's more realistic to lower the number of posts produced... at least in my case.
• Introducing Markdown Monster - a new Markdown Editor (Rick Strahl) - Yet a markdown editor.... Will it be your new favorite? This post lists most of the feature and also contains a video if you prefer.
• Microsoft Flow is Now Available - Thurrott.com (Paul Thurrott) - Build on top of the excellent LogicApp platform Flow is free and doesn't require an Azure subscription but benefits from a lot of connectors.

ReadingNotes #256

Cloud

• Bots are the new Apps (Alexandre Brisebois) - This interesting post answers many questions and probably will make yourself ask as much.
• Azure Relay – cross-platform, open-protocol connections (Clemens Vasters) - Plenty of new services available on Azure that will help us in our integration solution.
• Visual Studio Talk Show : 0200 - Stephane Lapointe - Azure Functions - Cool podcast episode where you learn more about what serverless really means.

Programming

• Docker Container Anti Patterns (Arun Gupta) - 12 great anti-patterns to use with containers.
• Using dotnet watch test for continuous testing with .NET Core and XUnit.net (Scott Hanselman) - Nice tutorial that shows the next step after the Hello word…
• Entity Framework Tips and Tricks (Robert Green) - Awesome video from the queen of EF herself.
• The Source of Truth: The Role of Repositories in DevOps (Kraig Brockschmidt) - Very interesting article about devops real word.
• Data Points - Run EF Core on Both .NET Framework and .NET Core (Julia Lermans) - Great article that shows how to use the stuff we like all together, the good way.

Miscellaneous

• Automated notifications from Azure Monitor for Atlassian JIRA (Paul Bouwer) - Really cool integration.

Reading Notes #236

Suggestion of the week

• Running .NET Core on Docker (Jurgis Pasukonis) - Really cool tutorial that puts many blocks to work together.

Cloud

• Turning on Windows features using Powershell DSC extension and Azure CLI (Kirpa Singh) - Clever method to activate Windows feature on multiple VM.
  
• Running Docker Container on Azure Batch (Yiding Zhou) - Nice post that explains why and how Azure batch and Docker can really work well together.
  
• Microsoft Azure Storage Explorer preview: June update (Cristy Gonzalez) - A great tool got updated and now supports all four storage services. A must for all Azure developers.
  
• Move Resources via ARM Portal (Edward Dake) - Many tips on how to move stuff around; very handy.
  
• Cloud War: Microsoft vs Amazon – Feature 2 Feature Comparisons - Great tools I wish I had that long time ago.

Programming

• ASP.NET - Writing Clean Code in ASP.NET Core with Dependency Injection - Very interesting post that explains why dependency injection is good and how to do it leveraging the new AspNetCore. I used to all that using Ninject, Moq and many other tools. Today, it's all included.

Miscellaneous

• Happiness is DevOps’ Cornerstone (Alexandre Brisebois) - Interesting post that asks a lot of questions... I would like to see some graph or pie chart about our answers.
  
• 5 Habits that Help Code Quality (View all posts by Erik Dietrich) - Yet another post about how to code better, but this one is refreshing. It explains why the opposite would be harmful and also give us a training plan for better chance of success.
  
• What’s in your highlights folder? (Marc Gagne) - Because life is not only mistakes and bad luck.Here good tips to help you giving some sunshine into your life when needed.

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 #164

Suggestion of the week

• How Microsoft Is Taking Over The Cloud (David Thielen) - Very inspiring post about why choosing Azure for our cloud computing is a good decision.

Cloud

• Azure SDK 2.5 and Cloud Service Diagnostics (Gaurav) - Nice post that explains what changed in the Azure SDK.
• Azure Fridays - A Powershell script to Download RSS Videos (Marc Gagné) - Hum. What a create tool!

Programming

• Universal Windows Applications Across Multiple Form Factors Devices: From 4 to 82 Inches: - This post gives some keys things to remember when designing UI with Windows8.
• Does an insecure website compromise the security of a payment system in an iframe? - An interesting post that explains some of the myths security in an e-commerce web site.

• DevOps style deployment in Visual Studio 2015 preview - A detailed look (Derek M Muthukumaran) - Nice post that explains how to enjoy this new feature.

  Brian Keller’s Channel9 Video is a great place to start to learn more about this feature.

• ASP.NET 5 (vNext) Work in Progress - Exploring TagHelpers (Scott Hanselman) - Wow very interesting feature. An invite to get involve.
• Post-Release Goodies (Lucian Wischik,, John Dan) - This post helps us to get started with the .Net.Core open source project by listing some links.
• Introducing Smart Unit Tests (Pratap Lakshman) - This post is perfect to get started with the new unit test features. It contains also a link to a quick introduction video.

  If you have not already seen the brief video on the Smart Unit Tests feature , I urge you to do so;

 

Miscellaneous

• How to Overcome the 5 Biggest Distractions at Work (and Life) (Erik Sherman) - This post remembers us some simple things to stay more focus.
• 3 Qualities Every Leader Needs to Succeed on a Team - Interesting thoughts that an enterprise is in fact, a team of teams, and that the need to work together.
• “Have I been pwned?” – now with RSS! - It's all in the title...;)

~Frank B

Reading Notes #135

 

Suggestion of the week

• Patterns and Anti-Patterns for Scalable and Available Cloud Architectures (Jonathan Allen) - Fantastic overview of some really useful pattern and anti-pattern to improve the performance of our cloud applications.

Cloud

• Cloud Load testing with Visual Studio Online - Launching General Availability (Charles Sterling) - Nice walktrouth of this great new feature available in Visual Studio online. Also available in video.
  
• Blogging On Virtual Machines (Corey Sanders) - This is the first post of a new blog, focusing n IaaS. That's a good news.
  
• Creating an Azure Mobile Services .NET backend from scratch (Carlos Figueira) - Great tutorial here without magic. Every steps are well explained.

Programming

• Windows Phone 8.1 for Developers-Choose your weapons - Nice post that enumerates the options newly available to develop on Windows Phone.
  
• Announcing TypeScript 1.0 - Great news, TypeScript is finally version 1.0! No more excuses.

Book

• What is DevOps? (Mike Loukides) - Interesting short and free book that gives you a historical overview of devOps.

Miscellaneous

• DevOps, Cloud, and the Lean “Wheel of Waste” - An Interesting post about devops advantage by avoiding waste.
  
• Microsoft Quiet On New APIs for Windows Phone 8.1 - This post lists the new features in windows Phone 8.1.
  
• On Critics, Criticism and Remarkability (Seth Godin) - An Interesting post that could improve team spirit.

Reading Notes #108

Suggestion of the week

• Windows Azure IaaS Deployment Methodology with PowerShell Part One (YungChou) - First of a very promising series, this post explains that basic of a good Azure deployment.

Cloud

• Don’t Budget for Cloud (Jason Bloomberg) - Nice post that helps to understand how to budget for the IT future of companies; It could be in the cloud, could be not, and it could be a mix...
  
• Connecting Clouds – Creating a site-to-site Network with Amazon Web Services and Windows Azure (mwasham) - Great post! A post to bookmark, that a nice tutorial to build a fail over solution cross cloud provider.
  
• Dell mantra: one cloud, not even Amazon’s, doesn’t fit all - This post explained how deferent Dell wants to be in his cloud services.
  
• Architecture, Agile and Cloud Challenges - Good post that explains how we should analyses changes in our project architecture when deploying in the cloud. (Here it's Azure but it could be all other providers).
  
• Inside Dropbox’s Quest to Bury the Hard Drive (Marcus Wohlsen) - Interesting post to know more about what's planning this big player.
  
• WordPress with SQL Azure on Windows Azure Websites (mksunitha) - What1? It's that easy? No more excuse.
  
• Delivering push notifications to millions of devices with Windows Azure Notification Hubs - Create post that explains push notification and notification hubs in Windows Azure.

Programming

• Internal tools – cheap and tasteless? - DevOps definitively worth more of our attention.
  
• Top 10 ASP.NET MVC Interview Questions (Imran Abdul Ghani) - If you eared about asp.net mvc, and want to know more about it, here's the post for you.
  
• Book Review: Building Interactive Queries With LINQPad (Latish Sehgal) - Interesting book that introduces the very useful linqPad and the omnipresent LinQ.
  
• New Online Course: TDD and BDD in Ruby - 5 days to be up to speed with testing, mocking in Ruby... or get your money (35$) back.
  
• 30 Days of TDD: Day Three – Your First Test (James Bender) - Third post of a very promising series to learn from nothing how to build our tests (unit tests, integration tests, etc.) in a .Net environment. The tools used in the series are nunit, justmock, justcode and nuget of course.

Miscellaneous

• 10 Web apps to help you plan and promote a great event (Brinda Ayer) - Nice tools to know.
  
• Scott Hanselman - Interesting post, it's nice to see explication of what I though was happening.
  
• It’s not Scrum if… (Mark Levison) - Nice post that helps us to get back on the good path.
  
• Keeping Your Life Synced Up - Nice recap of the most popular tools to help us.
  
  

~ Frank