Reading Notes #239

Cloud

• Application Map: Filter and pin to a dashboard (Soubhagya Dash) - Aaah! Great, it's time to update our Azure Portal Dashboard, really cool.
  
• Deploying Azure Marketplace VMs via ARM Templates (Alexandre Brisebois) - Nice piece of code to be ready to deploy.
  
• Public preview of the Logic Apps Enteprise Integration Pack (Jon Fancey) - Important release this week from Logic App team they announced many BizTalk functionalities that will now be available in LogicApp and also a great VisualStudio Addon that I'm really looking forward to try.
  
• Use the power and simplicity of containers to tame your IT (James Staten) - Nice post that shares some reason about why containers are so nice.

Programming

• .NET Core 1.0 is now released! (Scott Hanselman) - Wow. Really impress by that new blend... Dotnet core is looking awesome.
  
• VIDEO: How to run Linux and Bash on (Scott Hanselman) - It's really cool, but also very useful ... O scripts will work on Linux and Windows environment...
  
• Visual Studio 2015 Update 3 Available Now (Eric Battalio) - Yep it's time to download and enjoy some great features.
  
• Visual Studio Code vs WebStorm (Radoslaw Rozanski) - Interesting post that compares the new kid in the block with an "older" IDE.
  
• Visual Studio Update 3 - Wahoo! Tons of new awesome features are included in this update.
  
• Why I Built Cycligent Git Tool (Carolyn Sullivan) - Git is a fantastic tool. Great UIs are difficult... Cytriogen is definitely something to look.

Miscellaneous

• How I prepared for the NDC keynote (and other speaker tips) (Troy Hunt) - Interesting post that shows and explains all the great work done to prepare a talk like a key note.
  
• Windows 10 Anniversary Update Available August 2 (Yusuf Mehdi) - Cool, summer is comings and with it the anniversary edition... Learn more about what will be included in this free upgrade for all the Windows 10 users.

Reading Notes #234

Suggestion of the week

• Observations and thoughts on the LinkedIn data breach (Troy Hunt) - These data breach posts are always very interesting but also a bit scaring.

Cloud

• Logic Apps: How to add several actions inside a Logic App condition branch (Sandro Pereira) - Nice little trick with Azure Logic App.
  
• Announcing general availability of Azure DevTest Labs (Xiaoying Guo) - Wow that's great, if you still not have tried it, the dev test is really good for any temporary environment, or that have a short live.
  
• Azure Marketplace: WordPress - Yep! Another great application that is available in the Azure Marketplace.
  
• Easily bring your SQL Server licenses to Azure VMs (Khalid Mouss) - Great news that announces a much simpler way to see licensing.
  
• Check out Azure Test Drives in preview (Bryon Surace) - If you wanna test an application on Azure without subscription or anything... Look at test drives.
  
• Diagnose and resolve issues with Azure Troubleshooting (Ritesh Garodia) - Nice post that helps us to know the troubleshooting tools available in the Azure portal.

Programming

• GitHub Pages now runs Jekyll 3.1 - Good news, Jekyll is a really nice generator what works with Marrkdown.
  
• Developer Tools Benchmarking 2016 survey (Cliff Simpkins) - Still a chance to win.
  
• Continuous deployment/delivery with Jenkins and VS Team Services (Anand Gaurav) - Jenkins doesn't need more introduction. This tutorial explains how to get setup in VSTS step by step.

Miscellaneous

• OneDrive and OneDrive for Business now MERGED into ONE CLIENT (Nazmus Khandaker) - Good news less app running in background and better user experience.

Reading Notes #229

Cloud

• Live Metrics Stream in Application Insights (Beckylin Orooji) - Wonderful, I'm looking forward to testing it.
  
• Create a Service Bus namespace using an ARM template - Awesome news! The service bus was expected in Azure Resource Manager for a very long time.
  
• Logic Apps: Tips and Tricks about the “new” Logic Apps Designer (Sandro Pereira) - This post introduces the great features brought by the redesign of the Azure Logic App designer.
  
• Logic Apps: How to add several actions inside a Loop (Sandro Pereira) - Another great post about Logic App. This time it explains how to do looping and other actions that were done differently in Biztalk.

Data

• Azure Stream Analytics and Power BI general availability (Ryan CrawCour) - Good news, having meta-data it's really nice but being able to see what it contains that's fantastic!

Programming

• Become a Visual Studio 2015 Power User (Allison Buchholtz-Au, Andrew Hall) - All Visual Studio developers must watch this video, big chance you had a d in your hand and didn't know about it.

Miscellaneous

• It's a new blog! (Troy Hunt) - A delicious post, thanks Troy to share that with us.

Reading Notes #227

Suggestion of the week

• Secure Authentication of Azure Resource Management Deployments (John Kirkham) - Nice tips about security, true all the time but they take all their sense in a context of continuous deployment.

Cloud

• New diagnostics and analytics capabilities in Application Insights (Merav Davidson) - This post is a great tour of the nee features of Applcation Insights.
  
• Planning and creating Azure Search indexes - | Gunnar Peipman - Programming Blog (Gunnar Peipman) - A fantastic tutorial about all the thinking we need to do before creating Azure Search index creation.
  
• DocumentDB goes planet scale with global databases, new pricing and more developer choices (John Macintyre) - Perfect post to be up to date with the latest DocumentDB: availability, prices, new compatibility.
  
• Using SOAP Services with Logic Apps (Jeff Hollan) - Interesting tutorial that gives all the details about how to configure SOAP Services with Azure LogicApp.
  
• Global Azure BootCamp 2016 - The global event is planned for next week, did you reserved your seat?

Reading Notes #223

Cloud

• Background tasks for your web site using Azure WebJobs (Jon Hilton) - Interesting post that introduces storage queues and webjob to manage background process.
  
• Azure Logic Apps Connectors (Jeff Hollan) - This post is a nice introduction to trigger. These ca be use in Azure Logic Apps but also in Power Apps.
  
• Download Azure Resource Manager Tools for VS Code - Another nice extension for Visual Studio Code (vscode).
  
• Get Last Sync Time for Read-Access Geo-Redundant Azure Storage - This post contains a lot of detail and information about disaster recovery and how to create a nice PowerShell module as a tool to help us.
  
• Accessing v1 APIs and BizTalk APIs from Logic Apps (Jeff Hollan) - Nice post that shares interesting tips about Azure API Apps.
  
• Getting to Know #Azure Mobile App - Nice tutorial that leverage the recently GA Azure Mobile App to build AskAlex: an universal application that looks promising...;)
  
• Exception Handling with Logic Apps (Jeff Hollan) - Great tutorial that shows how to solve a extremely frequent problem... the exception handling.
  
• Using Logic Apps Webhook Triggers (Jeff Hollan) - Fantastic tutorial that shows how to create an HTTP trigger in today's interface/ designer.
  
• Deploying in the Logic Apps Preview Refresh (Jeff Hollan) - Very interesting post for the initiated that explains few pro tips when deploying our Azure Logic App.
  
• Using the Azure Resource Manager: Part 1 Virtual Machines (Rachel Hagerman) - First post in a very promising series. This on sets the table and shows how to use VS to deploy a VM.
  
• Using the Azure Resource Manager: Part 2 Networking Templates (Rachel Hagerman) - This second post in this series gives more details about a very common piece in our deployments the network.

Databases

• Making Entity Framework 7 and Azure Data Sync work together (Gunnar Peipman) - Nice tweak to solve a problem in small database context.

Programming

• Automated Testing with Visual Studio (Lachezar Arabadzhiev) - An episode to watch... Everyone should do tests.

Miscellaneous

• Microservices as an Evolutionary Architecture - Interesting post about an architecture pattern that becomes more popular.

Reading Notes #222

Suggestion of the week

• Long Running Tasks in Logic Apps (Jeff Hollan) - This nice post explains how Logic App support natively long running task, and how to do it.

Cloud

• Deploying Nano Server to Microsoft Azure (Alexandre Brisebois) - Another great tutorial / recipe like we love them... with all the code then the explorations.
  
• Announcing more open options and choice on Microsoft Azure (Corey Sanders) - Cool announce that should satisfy Linux lovers.
  
• Leverage OCR to full text search your images within Azure Search (Liam Cavanagh) - Interesting post that shows options until OCR capability is integrated to Azure Search to extract texts for images.
  
• Upload a VHD to Azure Storage Using AzCopy (Alexandre Brisebois) - We all needed or will need this tool at one point in time... a post to remember.
  
• SQL Server AlwaysOn Cluster Template updated with internal listeners and optimized performance (Ninar Nuemah) - This post introduces a great infrastructure for high-performance solution without compromising the security.
  
• Annotations detail blade now available in Application Insights (Mike Gresley) - So much information at the tips of our fingers .
  
• Background tasks for your web site using Azure WebJobs (Jon Hilton) - Interesting post that introduces storage queues and webjob to manage background processes.

Data

• Introducing: Elasticsearch with Azure File storage (Hans Krijger) - Great tutorial that explains how to get started.

Reading Notes #221

Suggestion of the week

• Why You Should Learn JavaScript in 2016 (Ken Powers) - I eared a lot of people complaining about Javascript, this excellent post explains why you undeniably, we should all know it, an if it's not the case why 2016 is a great time to learn it.

Cloud

• Azure Logic Apps : Orchestrating business processes and systems integration (Carey Payette) - This is a very nice tutorial that shows how to build an Azure Logic App with twitter and Sql Databe's connector.
  
• How to Setup Application Insights in an Azure WebJob (Jon Gallant) - Nice quick post that will make you save a lot of time.
  
• Azure IoT Hub general availability overview (Nayana Singh) - IoT Hub is finally GA, get to know all included components in this nice overview.
  
• Azure Search indexer for Azure Blob Storage now in public preview (Eugene Shvets) - This excellent tutorial explains how we can benefite of all the magic in this azure search preview.

Programming

• VisualStudio Code v0.10.8 (January 2016) - Learn more about what's new in this latest release.
  
• Search now available on Visual Studio Marketplace (Harysh Menon) - Did you know you can add extension to visual studio team services (vsts) and code (vscode)? This is the perfect post to get started.
  
• Chris Pietschmann - Nice post that explains very clearly why we really soundn't be writing none tested code.

Data

• Power BI Service February Update (Amanda Cofsky) - Fantastic! This update will give us the possibility to share outside ou organization... And many other things.

Miscellaneous

• What Does a Petaflop Look Like on Azure? (Alexandre Brisbois) - Interesting dive in the supercomputer universe.
  
• ASP.NET MVC: Keep Private Settings Out of Source Control - Simple an efficient.
  
• Multitasking is Killing Your Brain — Life Tips. (Larry Kim) - Really interesting post that comment on a very popular debate: Can w multitask?

~Frank

Reading Notes #220

Suggestion of the week

• Microsoft Azure IoT Reference Architecture - Great post that explains part in IoT and micro-services with their respective roles.

Cloud

• Azure Search .NET SDK roadmap (Bruce Johnston) - All in one post, the list of new features and the ones coming next.
  
• What is Azure Stack? - Usually, we refer to the stack as a group of products from the same provider. Azure stack is a little of that, but with a little twist... it's on-premises! This post explains it all.
  
• Azure welcomes Parse developers (Glenn Gailey) - Interesting server who is now well supported in Azure.
  
• Azure Logic Apps Monthly Update – January 2016 (Sriram Hariharan) - Nice summary of the Logic App team's January video updates.

Programming

• Application Insights announces availability of Release Annotations (Mike Gresley) - A useful feature that is explained in this post.
  
• Why I No Longer Use MVC Frameworks - Very complete and moreover, very interesting article about strengths and weaknesses of different patterns and frameworks.
  
• Introducing Insiders Builds (Chris Dias [MSFT]) - The Insider's previews are back in a more convivial structure.

Data

• General availability: Azure SQL Database Query Performance Insight - What an awesome tool that gives us the ability to get the biggest resources consumer over a long period... and that, without redeploying.
  
• Queries To Debug SQL Server Replication Issues (Tim Smith) - If you are using database synchronization in your system, you should definitely bookmark this post that provides nice tools to us to diagnose problems.

Book

• Software Development Book Giveaway! - Cool! A great opportunity, 3 free books are given: Building Microservices, Working Effectively with Legacy Code, and Javascript: The Good Parts.

Miscellaneous

• GitHub Pages now faster and simpler with Jekyll 3.0 - Important changes announced for github and Jerkel users. And alternatively an important note to al Markdown users.

Reading Notes #210

Suggestion of the week

• Connect(); // 2015 - All keynotes, Q&A and the technical videos are here...

Cloud

• Load data into Azure Search with zero code required (Evan Boyle) - Great news the Azure Search team had been working very hard, and they give us a super data import tool.
  
• Deep Diagnostics for Web Apps with Application Insights (Merav Davidson) - This post does a very good summary of the announcement yesterday at the Connect about the role that play Application Insights into the ALM.
  
• Announcing the Azure SDK 2.8 for .NET (Brady Gaster) - This post explains all the new featutes that are included in the new SDK 2.8.
  
• Azure Diagnostics Integration with Application Insights (Harel Broitman) - Nice post that shows how Application Insights can help us to find the bottleneck while debugging, thanks to the new SDK upgrade.
  
• Using Azure PowerShell 1.0 to Deploy an ARM Template - Awesome post that gives a good example with the new Azure PowerShell v 1.0.
  
• Azure App Service Updates – November 2015 (Jeffrey Fritz) - This post shares the last news of azure app services.
  
• Using Azure Automation in Azure - everywhere (Gary Keong) - Interesting post that highlights the difference between different Azure cloud and how to adapt our scripts.
  
• Azure Mobile Apps November 2015 Update (Matthew Henderson) - Great news features are all explains in this post.

Databases

• Using Power BI with SQL Data Warehouse (Drew DiPalma) - Another nice example how to connect PowerBI to something else to get awesome results.

Reading Notes #209

Cloud

• Microsoft and Red Hat partner to deliver more flexibility and choice (Scott Guthrie) - Great news.
  
• Using Redis as a Service in Azure to speed up ASP.NET applications - Nice post that shares some good reasons why we should use Redis cache (Azure SaaS).
  
• Azure Runbook – A complete (simple) example (Vincent-Philippe Lauzon) - This post is a great introduction to Azure automation (aka runbook).
  
• Azure Logic Apps Automation - Nice quick post to tease us about what we can do with Azure Logic App.
  
• Application Insights Content Pack for Power BI (Dale Koetke) - Really cool content pack that was announced.

Databases

• DocumentDB: The move towards NOSQL – Part 1 (Adarsha Datta) - Nice little post of a series to get us started about documentDB.

Programming

• Visual Studio Update 1 RC - It's already the time of an new release...
  
• Trace your Application Insights events inside Visual Studio Diagnostic tools (Abhijit Jana) - Wow! Application Insights alone is awesome, with the new VS2015 it's just turn it to eleven.

Reading Notes #207

Suggestion of the week

• A Beginner’s Mind - A very inspiring article, especially for the younger, but also for the more experienced, that want to keep their interior flame.

Cloud

• Build it, Use it, Destroy it! - Interesting thoughts about a different approach when working with VMs.
  
• Public Cloud Anxiety – Dealing with maintenance & failures of VMs (marc) - Very nice pot that explains how Azure can be stable even during "bad" events.
  
• How to Incorporate Application Insights into a JavaScript Web App (Mansib Rahman) - An incredibly detail and precise tutorial about Application Insights.
  
• Playing with Azure Connectors (Adarsha Datta) - Twilio IFTTT and Logic App are incredible connectors.

Databases

• How to create a MySQL Database on Azure (Susan Ibach) - Excellent post that explains how to have a MySQL database in Azure.
  
• October update for Azure SQL Data Warehouse (Matt Usher) - Learn more about the latest improvements.

Programming

• Lazy Loading Images on the Web - (Brian Rinaldi) - Very cool post that share (and explains) a lot of tools and frameworks to implement a lazy loading process.
  
• Integrating Visual Studio Code with dnx-watch to develop ASP.NET 5 applications - Cool task in VsCode to auto-refresh asp.net website.
  
• It's happening - OpenSSH for Windows...from Microsoft - Great news for any and every PowerShell user. We are moving forward!
  
• An Introduction to the new TFS/VSO Build System (Lachezar Arabadzhiev) - Great video that will give you everything you need for doing your next project in VSO.
  
• ASP.NET - ASP.NET 5 Anywhere with OmniSharp and Yeoman - Amazing post, the perfect starting point to all developers on Mac... or Linux.
  
• Visual Studio - Bower: Modern Tools for Web Development - Fantastic post that demystify bower and an excellent tutorial.
  
• How to use Visual Studio Online to Streamline Your Application Development with Agile Methodology (Mansib Rahman) - Great tutorial that gives us a little tour of VSO work section.

Miscellaneous

• My Story: How I work, the services I use (Simon May) - Interesting post where the author shares his favourite tools and how he uses them.