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 #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 #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 #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

Reading Notes #85

Suggestion of the week

• Windows Azure Updates: Android Support, SQL Reporting Services, Active Directory, More… - Wow wow wow! So many new features, and in many spheres: mobile, reporting, service bus, etc.... A post to read!
• How To Train Your Robot: how I teach kids to program without computers - I really like the idea. An it could be sincerely funny... for the kids. ;)

Cloud

• Using nConf and Azure to avoid leaking secrets on GitHub » Encosia (Dave Ward) - Very clever utility. It will definitely find a place in my toolbox.
• 2 Cloud Computing Concerns And How To Deal With Them (business2community.com) - Yes going to the cloud mean that your expose to some risk, as not going to. Being well-informed and prepared is the key.
• AWS Free Usage Tier Now Includes Amazon ElastiCache - Good new for all AWS that gets more for the same 0$.
• Windows Azure Mobile Services adds Android support and extends availability to East Asia - Excellent overviews of the new Android capabilities of Windows Azure and nice reference to a tutorial on how to build your first app.
• Microsoft Acquires Cloud Performance Management Service MetricsHub, Makes It Available For Free On Azure (Frederic Lardinois) - MetricsHub a new free product to try!
• Windows Azure, now with more enterprise access management! (Alex Simons) - Nice introduction to the new Active Directory features available in the Azure portal.
• Moving Your Applications to Windows Azure - Very complete article about all aspects of what moving an application to Azure imply.

Databases

• Why am I Getting so Many Deadlocks From Windows Azure SQL Database?(Alexandre Brisebois) - Really great post that explains every detail of the problem and of its solution, even for EF.
• Do you know big data's top 9 challenges? -- Washington Technology (Mark Hoover) - Interinsting list, because it's true that challenge mean opportunity.
• Different ways to Backup your Windows Azure SQL database (Ki Yi) - Very complete list of eight solutions to take your SQL Azure database backup. The list also gives website references, pros and cons and for each solution.

Integration

• Data/Contract Coupling in Messaging (Channel 9) (Clemens V) - Excellent video that puts in simple words fundamental concepts.

Programming

• Chrome Dev Tools: JavaScript and Performance - And I though I knew my Chrome Dev Tools... very nice post.
• Polymorphism Part 2: Refactoring to Polymorphic Behavior (John Teague) - Going dipper this exellent post is the second in the series to explain the concept of polymorphism.
• Continuous integration using TFS on the Cloud (Stephen Ebichondo) - For many people continuous integration sound so complicated that they don't want to try it. Here is an excellent tutorial that will guides you through your first build.
• ASP.NET Web API Queryable with OData (Channel 9) (Brady Gaster Cory Fowler) - Nice show with a lot of info on new oData coming soon. Also, the first On Location interview Scott Hunter; tease of some new functionalities to come in VS.
• New Pluralsight Course: Building ASP.NET Web API OData Services - Overview of the new course available on the oData updated features.

Miscellaneous

• Want a More Productive Week? Clean Your Darn Desk! (Guest Blogger) - Because sometimes, its need it.
• 5 Things That I’ve Learned About Working Remotely (Richard Seroter) - Interesting post written in response to another post from Scott Hanselman.
• 10 Things Really Amazing Employees Do - As an employee, I'm looking forward to become one of those amazing people...
• Programming's not for you? How about thinking? Be empowered. (Scott Hanselman) - Very interesting thoughts on how to stimulate our kids or younger.
• Episode 101 - Real-World Windows Azure with Auth0 (Nick Harris, Nathan Totten) - Great show this demo was great.

~Frank

Reading Notes #63

This week a little bit less of notes since I went to the Windows Azure Global Summit at Seattle, where I met many interesting persons. A lot of amazing things are coming for Windows Azure... but this is for another post!  

Cloud

• Great Free Courses on Building HTML5 apps using ASP.NET Web API, Knockout.js and jQuery (Scott Gu) - Great post with a lot of amazing news for all developers.

[…] Read this getting started tutorial to walkthrough how you can build (in less than 5 minutes) a simple Windows 8 “To-do List” app that is cloud enabled using Windows Azure Mobile Services. Or watch this video of me showing how to do it step by step.[…]

• BizTalk 2010 R2 CTP: Azure Service Bus Integration–Part 1 (Kent Weare) - Great tutorial, easy to follow that show new features included in the BizTalk 2010 R2.
• BizTalk 2010 R2 CTP: Azure Service Bus Integration–Part 2 Brokered Message Properties (Kent Weare) - Nice tutorial, good way to bind those two great tools such as Biztalk and Azure. More two come in this serie about service bus and topics.
• Deploying Azure Websites with Git (Tyler) - Nice tutorial that how easy it is to manage our website with the new Github integration into the Windows Azure portal.
• What is the Difference Between Apprenda and Windows Azure? (Toddy Mladenov) - Interesting comparison between Windows Azure and Apprenda. I didn't know that last one, but it looks nice. It needs more investigation.
• Windows Azure Mobile Services Preview Walkthrough–Part 4: Customizing the Windows Store App’s UI (Roger Jennings) - Nice tutorial. This is the fourth of a serie but it could be read easily alone if you only interested of deploying an app in the Windows store.
• Logging Using Azure Table Storage (Michael R Duffy) - I'm use to see more logging solution using the Windows Azure storage with blob than with table. But it makes sense since now storage is so cheap. Great post.
• Connecting to Windows Azure Service Bus from BizTalk Server 2010 R2 CTP - Great post that explain how to leverage BizTalk using the Windows Azure Service Bus with topics.
• Innovation Across Multiple Screens and How Your App Idea Fits In (Paul Laberge) - Quick post about a more and more popular idea: 3 screens and a cloud.

Programming

• Generate Kindle (MOBI) ebooks with your ASP.NET Web API - Nice demo that show the pipeline of how those "send to Kindle" services.
• Why I’m done with Scrum (Jimmy Bogard) - Interesting thoughts about Agile method. Pros and cons.

Miscellaneous

• Turns out I’ll be writing a book - Nice idea. I hope this book will be published. I will love read this book.
• Everything's broken and nobody's upset (Scott Hanselman) - It is good to know you’re not alone. Scott told all the issue he as in... One week!?
• Everything’s Amazing and Nobody’s Happy (Richard Seroter)- Nice reply to the post of Scott Hanselman. I'm must say I going on Seroter side. ;)
• The Art of Writing Functional Specs (Part 1) – What is a Functional Specification? (Saveen Reddy) - Interesting thoughts about how should be written functional specs.
• What to Do When You Have to Work with Someone You Don’t Like (Peter) - Nice post, which forces us to think about our self.

Reading Notes #56

Cloud

• Comparing Windows Azure Blob Storage and Google Cloud Storage (Gaurav) - Always very interesting those posts where two or more products are compared...
• Best Practices for Performance Improvements Using Service Bus Brokered Messaging (msdn.microsoft.com) - Nice post with a lot of simple rules that will help to get better results.
• Windows Azure End to End Examples - Three different sources of information that could help you learning Windows Azure.
• What if we’re all wrong about the cloud? - Interesting thoughts about what is and what should be cloud storage.
• Architecting with AWS – Before You Go (Jeremiah Peschka) - Nice post about an architect training on AWS. The equivalent also exists for Azure... even if this post didn't talk about it.
• Windows Azure Storage – 4 Trillion Objects and Counting (Brad Calder) - Interesting post about Azure Storage all in numbers.... (Read stats).
• What's New? - Wow the perfect monster machine to run those NoSQL databases...
• All Things Distributed (Werner Vogel) - Nice post about the new high performance EC2 of AWS. All about the specs and features of this new instance type.
• 8 Questions to ask an AWS Expert - Good questions and good answers about key features of Amazon web Services AWS.

Programming

• What Exactly Is GitHub Anyway? (Klint Finley) - Excellent post that demystify all unknown about GitHub. Nice work! A post that you should definitely read.
• Azure CDN – with AzureCdn.Me and MVC3 (Iain Hunter) - Nice post and great tool. The AzureCdn.Me even has a NuGet package... This tool will simplify so much your work with the Azure content delivery network (CDN).
• Advanced queries with Lucene.NET (codewrecks.com) - Lucene.NET is the best option to do full text search in Azure. This great post explains how to perform advanced queries.
• Entity Framework and Open Source (Scott Gu) - I'm really happy to see that the Entity Framework is now completely open source and on CodePlex. Learn a bit more about version 5 and even 6.
• Five Rules to Simplify Large Scale BizTalk Orchestration Development (Stephen W. Thomas) - Simple rules that will help for sure.
• Entity Framework Magic Unicorn (and much more!) is now open source with take backs (Scott Hanselman) - Another great post about the even greater Entity Framework. The big news EF is going open source on CodePlex with GitHub. Also see code snippets from EF6.
• ASP.NET Web API and Azure Blob Storage (Yao - MSFT) - Super tutorial that show step by step how to manage your Azure Blob Storage by code, by doing a nice helper class.

Miscellaneous

• 5 Sleep Mistakes You Don’t Know You’re Making (And How They’re Hurting Your Blog) (Guest Blogger) - Interesting post. How many of those rules do you follow... and do you have any sleeping issue?
• The Patient Knows What’s Wrong with Him - Nice thoughts, we shouldn't expect the solution from the user... only partial information. The analogy with the doctor is a really good idea, I’m sure I will reuse it someday...

[…]And the user exclaimed with a snarl and a taunt, “It’s just what I asked for, but not what I want!” That was 30 years ago, and I doubt the poem was new then.[…]

• Windows Azure Quietly Puts Its Pieces Into Place (Alexander Haislip) - Nice post talking about the global strategy of Microsoft.
• ScrumMaster Tales – New People on the Team (Mark Levison) - Nice post about a new people in an Agile team. When some frictions popup what you should do...
• Is Daddy on a call? A BusyLight Presence indicator for Lync for my Home Office (Scott Hanselman) - I definitely want one of those. The idea is so simple but so genius! Nice post.

~Frank

Reading Notes #50

Cloud

• 5 Reasons Why Your Company Is Safer in the Cloud - This is only 5 reasons why your data is safer in the cloud but 5 good one. What do YOU do to make your data safe?
• Simple .NET Database Programming using SQL Azure - Nice tutorial to get started with Azure SQL when developing an application.
• Cool Azure InfoGraphic - See how the cloud is creating job...
• Azure Store XRay - Great tool that improve the simplicity to work with Azure Storage Analytics. Available on CodePlex, a project to follow.
• Windows Azure Multi-Tenant (Hosted) Sample - Another nice Codeplex project that will require our attention.
• Outside-the-Box Pizza, Part 5: Hosting the Front End in the Cloud (David Pallmann) - I like this series about buildind a complete application. This post is focusing on how to structure your front end to be cost efficient and stay scalable.
• Announcing New Windows Azure Services to Deliver “Hybrid Cloud” (blogs.msdn.com) - This is a great news! Joy Joy Joy! (this is me dancing the happy dance) When this note will be posted the Meet Windows Azure event will be past, I hope you didn't miss it.
• New - Programmatic Access to AWS Billing Data - Good idea, this could be very useful for a multi-tenant solution. With this tool you can parse your billing data and breakdown the information to generate some invoices.
• Meet the New Windows Azure - Really nice summary of the keynotes. If you can’t watch the video (or want shorter version) then this post is for you.

Programming

• Site44 Turns Dropbox Folders Into Websites - Really good initiative! It couldn't be easier to build AND maintain a web site than doing it using DropBox.... brilliant.
• Using GitHub for Windows with non-GitHub repositories - Get started with GitHub for Windows. This post is doing step by step everything so be connected with a Codeplex project.
• Marked As Pertinent - The perfect post to read when looking for a NoSql (or a key/value store), because this post compare a lot of them.

Miscellaneous

• How to Speak More Strategically (Peter) - Nice post and nice reflection too.
• You're Not Trying Hard Enough (Dave Jafari) - Nice post that explains working harder is less efficient than working smartly.
• It’s not about them, it’s about you - Easier to say then to do. It's true that the ideas of what other people will think is difficult or forget, but if you succeed you will be free.

~ Frank