Reading Notes #667

This week post explores the intersection of AI, cloud, and DevOps, featuring updates on Microsoft’s Logic Apps integration, practical .NET tools for system automation, and strategies to enhance documentation for AI-driven workflows. Whether you’re refining enterprise security practices with NuGet’s Trusted Publishing or diving into the ethical nuances of AI through vector databases, this post offers a blend of technical deep dives and thought-provoking discussions. Don’t miss the podcast highlights, from DevOps innovation to the business impact of employee well-being, perfect for developers, architects, and curious minds alike. Let’s connect the dots in a world where code, creativity, and collaboration drive progress.

Programming

• sleep-pc: a .NET Native AOT tool to make Windows sleep after a timeout (Andrew Lock) - Nice post, just like I like them explaining what works, what didn',t building an application, fixing a real-life issue.

• DOCX Meets Markdown: Preparing Enterprise Documents for AI (Bjoern Meyer) - I have been using Pandoc for years, but this also look like an nice tool.

AI

• Prompt Files and Instructions Files Explained - .NET Blog (Wendy Breiding) - One question I often hear is how can I tell Copilot the standard and conventions my enterprise uses. Well, now I can send them to this post. Well done!

• Here’s how to turn off Copilot (Mark Downie) - Thank you Mark for this post. Let me send you some people too😉

DevOps

• New Trusted Publishing enhances security on NuGet.org (Evgeny , Sean) - This tutorial explains how to use the new process with the 1h token for improved security.

Podcasts

• 113. Vector Databases and RAG for Grounding AI in Reliable Data - with Christian Peeters (Betatalks the podcast) - Great episode on tech education and how vector databases/RAG make AI more trustworthy with real data

• ohn Bristowe: The Latest from Octopus Deploy - Episode 368 (Azure & DevOps Podcast) - Loved this episode, I don't know a lot about Octopus. Discussing deployment pipelines, AI integration in DevOps, and the evolution from manual weekend deployments to automated, reliable workflows.

• The business case for employee well-being (Modern Mentor) - Really enjoyed this episode on how workplace wellbeing isn't just about perks but building better work systems that boost both results and employee experience

• Becoming A Podcast Guest Magnet: Sharing The Benefits Of Guesting On A Podcast (Feed Your Brand) - Packed episode on how to make your podcast irresistible to high-profile guests by focusing on what's in it for them and turning your show into a guest magnet.

• Making Video Games in 2025 with Celeste's Noel Berry (Hanselminutes with Scott Hanselman) - Cool episode about the tech-behind-the-scene of building indie games. I had so many WHATS!? listening to this one.

Miscellaneous

• Microsoft Introduces Logic Apps as MCP Servers in Public Preview - InfoQ (Steef-Jan Wiggers) - Interesting idea, I can totally see how an AI agent could use different workflows to start processes or get information and continue pretty cool

• llms.txt: Robots.txt for Docs in the AI Era (Dewan Ahmed) - Oh nice! Let's update this on our websites.

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 #552

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!

Cloud

• Resource Group Location Matters (Sam Cogan) - And voila! Planning is everything... Almost

Programming

• Visual Studio Code Day 2023 (Burke Holland) - An event is coming up for VS Code and you don't want to miss that. During that one day, so much will be shared about this amazing editor.

• Docker Gets up to Speed for WebAssembly (B. Cameron Gain) - Excited to see this wasm + docker story progressing. Should I give it a try or wait a little more... That's the questions

• Create a Custom Connector for your Web API from within Visual Studio (Marcel Ferreira) - Interesting! So the question is not IF I will create a connector, but more by WHAT should I start?!

• Static Methods vs. Non-Static Methods in C# (Matjaz Prtenjak ) - Learn all the differences, pros, and cons between the two. No stone is left unturned.

• Docker Compose Experiment: Sync Files and Automatically Rebuild Services with Watch Mode (Milas Bowman) - This preview command is available for an easier development time.

• Docker Gets up to Speed for WebAssembly (B. Cameron Gain) - take the best advantages of the Wasm ecosystem.

DevOps

• Choosing a container platform (Kit Dergilev) - This is a great post that shares different options for our container environment based on some scenarios.

Miscellaneous

• How to contribute to Microsoft documentation (Luke Murray) - Oh yes! You should give it a try the feeling you get when your changes are merged...

~Frank

Reading Notes #445

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

You think you may have interesting content, share it!

Cloud

• Azure Machine Learning helps customers stay ahead of challenges (Erez Barak) - A nice post to get us inspires to start our journey.

• Azure introduces new capabilities for live video analytics (Jason Hogg) - The custom vision was already as impressive as a service. So easy to use and powerful. But now in a video...that's incredibly cool.

Programming

• How to use, open, resize, and split Panes in the Windows Terminal (Scott Hanselman) - Tabs are so useful! And now it's native...awesome.

• 10 Azure DevOps – Work Items Tips & Tricks that you should know (Abhijit Jana) - Nice post. Did you know all those?

• GitHub Docs are now open source (Janice Niemeir) - Open-source documentation is the best. Faster updated, often more accurate and complete... And all of it at one URL easy to remember fantastic.

• How to use autocomplete at the command line for dotnet, git, winget, and more! (Scott Hanselman) - I love that shell/ terminal series... Learn something new each time.

• Writing JavaScript tools in other languages – a new trend? (Dr. Axel Rauschmayer) - Javascript or not javascript... I'm surprised how the opinions are so strong.

Podcasts

• #23 Fatal Conveniences™: Caffeine: Consuming Coffee With Caution (The Darin Olien Show) - Apparently not a usual episode ( I don't know it was my first one), but really interesting deep dive into the coffee world; the effect, origin and more.
• Podcast Crasher – The Binge Factor: Pat Flynn On Building An Online Business From a Podcast (Feed Your Brand) - This episode it the counterpart of another episode that happens on Pat Flynn show. Really interesting topic I don't think about my content that way... Maybe I should, a little.
• #54: Yihua Zhang - From Fitness to Coding [S03-E12] (The Solo Coder Podcast) - WHen you like what you are doing I think it shows. It doesn't mean you will always be a super start, but at least you will be happy and most of the time it will be really good for your career. Fantastic story, inspiring.
• Microsoft Identity for Developers (CloudSkills.fm) - Nice episode I think Identity/security is a really hard topic to abort, and those guys are doing a great

Miscellaneous

• 40 Microsoft Teams tips and tricks: from novice to expert. - Great tips for beginners to advanced Teams users.

~ Have a nice week!