Reading Notes #318 - MVP Summit 2018

Last week, it was the 25 edition of the MVP Summit. An event, where Microsoft invites all his MVP to get to Seattle and spend some time with the products teams and learn on the latest news and best practices.

This year was particularly inspiriting by the Microsoft roadmap, of course,  but even more by all the amazing people a got the chance to meet and discuss with. I'm all pump-up, and I have tons of ideas and projects… more to come.

I already miss you…

Cloud

• Deploy Docker containers fast to Microsoft Azure (Michelangelo van Dam) - This is an excellent tutorial to get started with Docker and also to see what's possible with Azure Container Instance service (ACI).
• Testing Precompiled Azure Functions Locally with Storage Emulator -- Visual Studio Magazine (Jason Roberts) - Nice post that explains how to use the emulator.

Programming

• ASP.NET Identity for your custom user and roles models (Dominique St-Amand) - A nice detailed tutorial that explains clearly how to setup the identity with .Net Core.
• Upgrading a 10 year old site to ASP.NET Core's Razor Pages using the URL Rewriting Middleware (Scott Hanselman) - True upgrade story, I loved it.
• Upgrading my podcast site to ASP.NET Core 2.1 in Azure plus some Best Practices (Scott Hanselman) - Nice second post about a migration passing through today's best practices.

Reading Notes #297

Suggestion of the week

• How to uninstall Scrum (Erwin Verweij) - When you will read that post (because you must read it... Seriously), you will smile, giggle and maybe even laugh.

Cloud

• Azure Tips and Tricks Part 14 - Generate SSH public key to log into Linux VM with Cloud Shell (Azure Tips and Tricks Part 14 - Generate SSH public key to log into Linux VM with Cloud Shell was published on September 11, 2017.) - Doing a remote desktop on a Windows VM is trivial, but doing the same thing on a Linux machine required just a little more. After reading this post will be a walk in the park.

• Azure Tips and Tricks Part 16 - Deploy Jekyll Site Hosted on GitHub Pages to Azure (Azure Tips and Tricks Part 16 - Deploy Jekyll Site Hosted on GitHub Pages to Azure was published on September 13, 2017.) - I use Jekyll on Azure, and I love it. If you would like to try it, this post is all you need.

• Getting Started with Windows Containers (Alina Popa) - A cool tutorial that uses a few popular tech these days.

• Keep credentials out of code: Introducing Azure AD Managed Service Identity (Stuart Kwan) - Great post that explains what the new service is, and how it works.It also suggests a tutorial to learn how to implement it. Awesome!

• Why is Serverless Extensibility better than Webhooks? (Bobby Johnson) - A useful post that jumps right in the middle of the debate about the Webhook and serverless. Both are good but planning (as usual) is worth it.

Programming

• API Versioning with Azure API Management (Darrel Miller) - Great post that helps to find the peace, or at least make your ideas, about what kind of rules, you should follow.

• Microservices: The Good, the Bad and the Hype (Jennifer Riggins) - Nice post that explains some challenges when doing serversless. Because yes, it's a great architecture plan, but it's not magic.

• Microsoft Tech Summit is back – register for a free event near you! (Microsoft Azure team) - A big tour around the globe, check when they visit one of the fourteen cities near you.

Miscellaneous

• 3 Common Mistakes to Avoid When Selling to Small Businesses - Microsoft Partner Network (Carol Roth) - Interesting points to improve our skills.

Reading Notes #248

Programming

• Building Your First Bot using Microsoft Bot Framework - Nice tutorial to get started with the bot framework... An yes, you should care, because bots are the new apps.
  
• How to use Power BI Embedded with AspNetCore - Oh yeah! Quick and simple.
  
• StrathWeb. A free flowing web tech monologue. - Nice post that explains different paths (good and bad) to declare a controller in Asp.Net Core and explains why.

Databases

• Connect to Azure SQL Database V12 via Redirection (Kun Cheng) - Very interesting post about how to achieve great performance with our Azure solution.
  
• Improved Automatic Tuning boosts your Azure SQL Database performance (Vladimir Ivanovic) - Definitely something to try at the minimum... It looks fantastic.

Miscellaneous

• Who am I really logged in as on Visual Studio Team Services? (Willy-P. Schaub) - Nice tips... That will solve so many questions.
  
• You might be a creative if … (docjamesw@gmail.com) - A post to read in the morning. It's like a little pill of energy.
  
• You’re doing it wrong: Demos (Gil Zilberfeld) - Nice quick post that helps us to definitely pick a side when the question "Should we demo that?" popped.

Reading Notes #233

Cloud

• Map storage scenarios to services in Microsoft’s cloud (Joe Davies) - Cool gigantic pdf that contain all the information about cloud storage.
  
• How to turn cloud economics to your advantage (James Staten) - Nice post that asked important questions. Did you ask to yourself these?
  
• Announcing collaboration with the Jenkins project (Corey Sanders) - Great news about Jenkins. Now with the Microsoft's teams involved, we can expect only the best.
  
• Detecting threats with Azure Security Center (Tomer Teller) - Interesting post that explains fundamental difference between servers and individual attack and introduces briefly Azure security center.
  
• Troubleshooting Azure Stream Analytics jobs with SELECT INTO (Ken Wang - MSFT) - Fantastic debug session that explains how, with streamanalitics we can debug a query.
  
• HowTo: Purge an Azure CDN endpoint using Azure PowerShell v1.x (Stéphane Lapointe) - Useful piece of script that will save us time.

Programming

• Upgrading from ASPNET Core RC1 to RC2 Guide (Steve Smith) - Nice tutorial that covers all pieces of the puzzle.

Miscellaneous

• Going dark: online privacy and anonymity for normal people - Wow... And we thought using a strong password was safe enough. Great text.

Reading Notes #133

 

Suggestion of the week

• Rockin’ Windows Azure with Visual Studio (Jonathan Rozenblit & Paul Laberge) - Great video that takes the time to talk about all the great tools we have to develop with Microsoft Azure.

 

Cloud

• Microsoft is pushing Windows Azure BizTalk Services - Wiki Ninjas - Official Blog of TechNet Wiki - Site Home - TechNet Blogs - Stay up to date with Windows Azure BizTalk Services (WABS) by following the author in this list.
  
• The Windows Azure Service Bus and the Internet of Things, Part 2 - Very interesting, and a bit unusual, tutorial where we build a mobile application, that will control an Arduino through Microsoft Azure.

Programming

• Changes in the Microsoft MVP Program - MVPs for Open Source Contributions (Scott Hanselman) - Interesting change in the MVP program.
  
• Obtaining Twitter Access Tokens with ASP.NET Identity - Very complete tutorial about how to transform the user / pws of Twitter in a reel claims.
  
• Using Windows Azure Access Control Service (ACS) in MVC 5 Application Using Visual Studio 2013 (Gaurav) - Woh! Things look so easy in Visual Studio 2013... Very constructive reading.

Miscellaneous

• Back to Basics: When allowing user uploads, don't allow uploads to execute code (Scott Hanselman) - Wow, it's crazy how "bad" peoples always found a way inside our application.

Reading Notes #130

Suggestion of the week

• Distributed Automated Browser Testing with Selenium and BrowserStack (Scott Hanselman) - Testing the UI is never a walk in the park, and often the easiest solution is to use reall users. This post talk about two tools to automate these processes.

Cloud

• Azure: ExpressRoute Dedicated Networking, Web Site Backup Restore, Mobile Services .NET support, Hadoop 2.2, and more - Once again, a lot of new features available in windows azure are presented in this post. I'm looking forward to try this Expressroute and the web api support.
  
• Announcing Windows Azure ExpressRoute, new partnership with Level 3 and exciting updates to other Azure Services (StevenMartinMS) - This post gives more details about the new ExpressRoute of Azure presented last week.
  
• Windows Azure Mobile Services with .NET Backend (Shiju Varghese) - Great code sample that demonstrates how easy it is to do .Net web api for azure mobile services.
  
• WindowsAzure Lessons Learned : Be Stateful - Very interesting post that compares efficiency and cost of stateful application versus stateless.
  
• Code in the Cloud Using Visual Studio Online - It's magic! You can have Visual Studio without any installation...

Programming

• Using Claims in your Web App is Easier with the new OWIN Security Components (suhasbj, levibroderick, betty, on ap standa Daniel Roth) - Very useful informations about own and his ability to manage easily claims.
  
• Remove unused CSS in your Web Application - Nice tips to get better performance.

UX

• New UI and capabilities for Windows Phone App Studio Beta developers - Nice update for windows phone developer.

Reading Notes #67

Cloud

• Cloudy Thoughts by SyntaxC4 - Nice post that demonstrate where are the environment variables base on different languages.
• Windows 8 and the Cloud: Better Together (David Pallmann) - Good post that told how and why it a good thing to use Windows Azure to leverage your Windows 8 applications.
• .NET Framework 4.5 Support in Windows Azure Web Sites (Channel 9) - Nice video podcast about new feature in Windows Azure and what you should do with your web/worker roles.
• Windows Azure Mobile Services: New support for iOS apps, Facebook/Twitter/Google identity, Emails, SMS, Blobs, Service Bus and more - Great news! This new features will gives a lot more of flexibility. And all these are already available for iOS!! That major. Good job.

[…]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.[…]

• Windows Azure Training Kit – October 2012 - This post present what’s new in this update and gives the new GitHub link of the Windows Azure Training Kit.
• Blob Storage and Shared Access Signatures (Stephen Kaufman Stephen Kaufman Microsoft MSFT 6,797 Points 1 2 1 Recent Achievements Blogger III Blog Conversation Starter Blogger II View Profile) - Useful tutorial that explain how to setup a shared access signatures in c#.
• Modifying the contents of cscfg file while deploying a cloud service with PowerShell (18 2012 Ercenk October) - Great script! Must keep this in our tool box...
• Implementing Entity Services using NoSQL – Part 1: Outline - Nice post, first of a series that explains a Java project to build a Data Services using NoSql.
• Cloud Cover Show Episode 91 - Windows Azure Mobile Services Updates – Very nice good demo about some mobile new capabilities and a big tease for the next episode 92…

Integration

• What’s new in BizTalk360 version 5.0? Available for immediate download (Saravana Kumar) - Nice post that explain the 5 major new features in the last version of the great BizTalk360. Looking very promising.

Programming

• Why Mocking Matters - Nice explanation of what the differences are between fakes, stubs and mocks.

[…]This is easy to do with Telerik JustMock. I wrote about using JustMock to get you started in From Legacy to Dependency Injection. […]

• Expressing Ruby Code in Natural Language - Wow, that look like a lot of fun. That what I call a good "pet project".

[…]This is called rubber duck debugging, because you could have solved the problem by explaining it to a rubber duck on your desk. […]

• First try with TypeScript - A developer share is first thoughts of TypeScript and explains it with code sample.
• SSDT & DACFx (October 2012) Compatibility Notes - Details about a update that will fix some compatibility issue.
• 10 Tips to avoid the typical Windows 8 design traps - Essential for any developer. If you want to distinguish yourself from the other in the apps store, this is where it's start.
• Stored procedures DO NOT increase performance (Shivprasad koirala) - Interesting post that hi-light the difference between inline code and store procedure. I agree with the conclusion. Sprocs are better to facilitate the maintainability.
• Visual Studio 2012 Update 1 CTP - Wow an update already with new features that great. Reference to download pages.
• Supporting agile teams
• Continuously enabling quality
• SharePoint development
• Windows development
• How do you estimate with Story Points and determine Velocity when you’ve not done it before? (johnv petersen) - Nice post that with help you to start doing estimation.
• Get In on the Action: Learn Windows 8 with Hands-on Labs « Jonathan Rozenblit - Get started to the Windows8 development with these 17 labs references.

Miscellaneous

• If You’re Too Busy to Meditate, Read This (Peter) - This post explain how a little meditation is possible and how it can help.
• 7 Tips For Building a 'Power Network' on LinkedIn - Quick tips to improve your LinkedIn network.
• Instapaper delivered to your Kindle changes how you consume web content - Plus IFTTT, blogs and more (Scott Hanselman) - Of course you can do this... I prefer Readability but the idea is the same...