Reading Notes #586

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

• Serverless Architecture Patterns and Best Practices (Faith Oyama) - Nice overview of different patterns in the serverless world. Here AWS lamda are used but it's true for all serverless situation.

• Azure Static Web App - Authentication using pre-configured providers (Bart Wullems) - A quick intro to authentication and authorization for SWA, agnostics of any programmatic languages.

Programming

• FluentUI.Blazor v4.3 (Denis Voituron) - I recently migrate one of my website to use FlunentUI Blazor, and the experience is amazing. It looks great and required less code from me.

• WebAssembly: 4 Predictions for 2024 (Matt Butcher) - Nice post that review 2023 predictions and sets 2024 ones explaining why it could happened.

• Creating an ASP.NET Core Web App with Docker Support and GitHub Packages (Bjoern Meyer) - A nice quick but details tutorial with a step by step approach.

Podcasts

• Dockerfiles have versions? (DevOps and Docker Talk: Cloud Native Interviews and Tooling) - Interesting episode about a little thing that could have a big impact in our CICD and I'm sure is overlooked.

• Playing the YouTube game with Nick Chapsas (Coding After Work Podcast) - Great interview with a successful technical content creator that do things "the good way".

• Teammateship with NBA champion Shane Battier (A Bit of Optimism) - reat conversation about team work, what it really means and what to achieve it.

• How to Focus When the World Feels on Fire (Modern Mentor) - Quick thoughts and tips to stay focus. Sometimes it's harder and other times and having a fews tricks his always a good idea.

Miscellaneous

• Twitter Ruined Your Link Previews: Here's How Cloudinary Can Help (Salma Alam-Naylor) - Wow! This looks like an amazing tool.I need to look dipper into this.

• A Job at Microsoft: Getting and Passing the Interview (Rod Trent ) - Interesting post that will certainly be very helpful for many.

~Frank

Reading Notes #572

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.

A-30 bridge 

If you think you may have interesting content, share it!

Suggestion of the week

• Azure Developer CLI (azd) - September 2023 Release (Savannah Ostrowski) - Wow! I'm trying that today!

Programming

• Delay, Sleep, Pause & Wait in JavaScript — SitePoint (James Hibbard) - As an occasional JavaScript developer that post was pretty interesting.

• Async Lazy In C# – With Great Power Comes Great Responsibility (Nick Cosentino) - Great post from our friendly neiboor.But seriously very well explained.

• Exploring Blazor Changes in .NET 8 - Auto Render Mode (Jon Hilton) - Pretty cool changes coming up with .NET.

Open Source

• Unleashing the Entrepreneurial Spirit: Microsoft's Open-Source Solutions on Display (Japhlet Nwamu) - Open source it there, everywhere. Learn more about how it could help you transforming your ideas in real project!

Low Code

• Migration automatique grâce à l'IA… Oui et non (Frank Boucher) - We all have one of those Excel sheets that start just as a quick thing and became way too big. This video shows how to leverage AI to transform it into a PowerApp.

Books

Unreasonable Hospitality: The Remarkable Power of Giving People More Than They Expect 

Author: Will Guidara

- This book really resonate with me. It's a mix of auto-biography and business, and some may argue that hospitality motivated by profit is actually hospitality? But it's about working smarter, and respecting the human while doing business. Trying harder to find a solution that respect the human, the environment while achieving our goals.

~Frank

Reading Notes #516

Good Monday, it's time to share new ReadingNotes. Here is a list of all the articles, podcasts, and blog posts, that catch my interest during the week. 

If you think you may have interesting content, share it!

Cloud

• Azure Boards Summer Update (Dan Hellem) - Wow! So many nice improvements.If you are an Azure DevOps user I'm sure you will agree with me.

Programming

• 14 software architecture design patterns to know (Vicki Walker) - This post definitely shares common patterns for different situations or contexts.

• 5 tricks every C# dev should know about LINQPad (Davide Bellone) - Nice tricks! I didn't know the shortcut for writeline.

• Integrated Terminal in Visual Studio: New SSH integration for Linux targeting (Sinem Akinci) - An interesting new feature from Visual Studio.

• Modernize with Azure Migrate (Shiva Shastri) - Inspire, the Microsoft event starts today looking forward to the update in this world to ease the migration and best practices.

• PowerToys 0.60 Arrives with Windows 11 Features - If you never tried Power Toys before now is your cue. So helpful!

• Should I write a new JavaScript framework? (Salma Alam-Naylor) - For the JavaScript developer that may have that idea, here is a website to help you to start on the good foot.

Podcasts

• EP 011 | 2+ Million Subs While Living Off the Grid with My Self Reliance (Matti Haapoja Podcast) - When two of the YouTuber you like meet in a podcast to talk about trends and how you can follow them or not. It was delightful.

• How to overcome common workplace fears (Modern Mentor) - As usual great advice in a concise episode.

• How To Create An Inviting Podcast Intro That Hooks Listeners? (Feed Your Brand) - So true, and I would say that most of those advices also applies to videos.

• SPI 594: How to Heal Burnout with Valerie Hamaker (The Smart Passive Income Online Business and Blogging Podcast) - With so many people around the globe feeling tired and disconnected from themself, it's great to hear that there are tools and people to talk too. Don't wait.

• The future of supply chain with Ox's CEO Charu Thomas (Hanselminutes with Scott Hanselman) - This is inspiring. In my previous life, I did work in the inventory management world, and I was kinda surprised things didn't change much. But I like where it's going.

Miscellaneous

• Shut It Down (Michael Szul) - It's way hard than it looks to make those decisions.

~Frank

Reading Notes #511

Good Monday, it's time to share new reading notes. Here is a list of all the articles, blog posts, and podcast episodes that catch my interest during the week. 

 If you think you may have interesting content, share it!

Cloud

• Visual Studio Code Tools for Azure Revamped (David Ramel) - Time flies! Five years already... And probably the first extension I personally ever installed.

Programming

• Who should mark PR comments as resolved? (Dan Clarke) - In your team who is doing it?

• 14 Containerization Use Cases: Hit a Home Run with Containers (Hiren Dhaduk) - Nice list of real-life story and situation where docker shines and empower.

• Adding a CLA Bot to Your GitHub Repository (Calvin) - This seems simple to do... I assumed adding a bot in GitHub was more complicated than that. Nice post.

• Keep your experiments separate (Jessica Joy Kerr) - This post shares good practices when adding features to our app... Because we never know the full impact when we start.

• Static code analysis with NDepend (Andreas Nesheim) - I'm always curious about those tools. I think they could also be useful when connected to your CICD and automation processes.

• When WebAssembly Replaces Docker (B. Cameron Gain) - Interesting post that explains why WASM is indeed more interesting than docker in some scenarios.

Miscellaneous

• 5 great books for the summer (Bill Gates) - There are a few books that I put on my to-read list. There you go.

~Frank

Reading Notes #498

Good Monday, Already time to share my reading notes of the week. A list of all the articles, blog posts, that catch my interest during the week.

You think you may have interesting content, share it!

Cloud

• Tutorial: Using Azure Table Storage or Azure Cosmos DB with Microsoft Orleans (Nick) - A nice tutorial from a series this one focusing on Storage locally using Azurite.

Programming

• The Ultimate Web Dev Environment (Aaron Powell) - Extremely complete post that shows so many little details and how to make them work together.

• Containers on Azure App Service - Tips & Tricks - Philly.NET CodeCamp 2022 recording (Guy Barrette) - A cool video from my friend Guy sharing some tips and tricks. There is stuff to learn for everyone.

• Negative Space Scheduling (Oren Eini) - Very cool real-life scenario. So true! If you ever have worked on a scheduler, you know.

• vscode.dev Visual Studio Code for the Web (Chris Dias) - There was already some kind of flavor of vscode with the dev.github.com, but there is something amazing about the standalone version. Brilliant!

Miscellaneous

• 5 Tips on Managing a Remote-first Development Team (Marcelo Wiermann) - As all of us have been working remotely for a while, it's a good moment to remember how communication is important and understand that in a more normal situation being remote can be good.

• Maximizing 1on1 time with your manager (Mark Downie) - I love that. It is definitely a good plan.

~frank

Reading Notes #485

It's Monday,

time to 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

• Announcing the Azure Identity 2.0 client library and plugin packages for JavaScript (Will) - Very nice update for the SDK that will be used with popular tools.

• General Availability of Azure Functions OpenAPI Extension (Justin Yoo) - What!? one year already and GA is on top of it. Wonderful.

• Is it time to start creating C# Azure Functions in isolated mode? (Mark Heath) - Nice post about the different options today and in the future.

• What is Cloud-Native? Is It Hype or The Future of Software Development? (Thorben Janssen) - My 2 cents, it's so much more than a heap. Excellent post that cover all the angles.

Programming

• Implicit Usings in .NET 6 (Scott Hanselman) - Ok yes, it's a cool feature to get started... BUT it's the first best practice you learn in VB (yes I remember Scott) do not use implicit... So fun, but that's it.

• 5 Reasons Why You Should use a DevTool (Michelle Pruit) - Yes, indeed and it is worth spending money on them to not be limited or blocked because you are using the free version or something.

• 7 unique software collaboration features in GitHub Discussions (Evi Liu) - I started using GitHub discussion while streaming and loved it. I was curious to learn different scenarios where there is also a benefit.

• Announcing ASP.NET Core in .NET 6 (Daniel Roth) - I've not been coding for a little while now, first thing on my to-do is to upgrade to.NET 6 my projects.

• [Cake v2.0.0 RC 1 released](Pascal Berger) (https://cakebuild.net/blog/2021/11/cake-v2.0.0-rc0001-released) - A great new version, and important notification of retirement. I should do a tour of my flows/ pipeline to avoid bad surprises.

• I made Squid Game with JavaScript (Shuvo) - I love it! Great post that shows us all the code used in this cool demo. There is also a short video to see the final game.

• Publishing Events from CRUD or Commands? (Derek Comartin) - Nice post/video about event-driven architecture.

• Should Controllers Reference Repositories or Services (Steve) - Very interesting dive into the layers of an application. There are reasons for different architectures.

• Shrink your WSL2 Virtual Disks and Docker Images and Reclaim Disk Space (Scott Hanselman) - Wonderful tips from Scott. To get back that pure performance of a clean dev environment.

Miscellaneous

• After Microsoft Ignite, keep the learning momentum going (Jeff Sandquist) - Very happy to see this news being public.

• How to get Windows 11 (John Cable) - It's out now and honestly, it is great! If you didn't get the automatic upgrade maybe it's because you don't meet the requirement. Following the steps, it could be a simple checkbox to check-in your current version.

• Introduction to GitHub Actions for .Net Developers (Dave Murray) - I'm not sure why but I always felt called by automation. Maybe because it's the ultimate proactivity of any task.GitHub Action is one of those extremely powerful tools that are worth your attention.

~frank

Reading Notes #455

The suggestion of the week

• Scott Hanselman's 2021 Ultimate Developer and Power Users Tool List for Windows (Scott Hanselman) - I'm a long-time big fan of that list. On many occasions, I discover tools that since then, are now always on my devices.

Cloud

• Using Azure Slots and GitHub for Personal Projects (Shawn Wildermuth) - A nice post that explains how to use the Azure deployment slots. It is really easy and useful.

• Automating Azure Site Recovery VMs with ARM and some magic (Dominique St-Amand) - The perfect place to get started with site and disaster recovery. This post is the best I read for a long time on this topic, great job.

• Azure Communication Services – Building an experimental messaging solution (Abhijit Jana) - Cool demo. It's the first time I read about communication services.

Programming

• Design patterns in C# - The Proxy Pattern (Carmel Eve) - I really like those little posts about code patterns. There is everything to learn in a consumable bit size.

• How To Install An ASP.NET Core In .NET 5 App On Ubuntu 20.04 (David Grace) - There it is. Simple and it works.

• Should I use self-contained or framework-dependent publishing in Docker images? (Andrew Lock) - Interesting question and answer.

Miscellaneous

• Using multiple APIs in Blazor with Azure AD authentication (Damien Bod) - Nice post with all the code you need to get started.

Reading Notes #450

Cloud

• Announcing Az Predictor (Damien Caro) - Very nice tool to add. Why it didn't exist before?

• Cross-Platform App Authentication with Azure AD B2C And The Uno Platform (Ian Bebbington) - This is a great post that covers a lot. If you are or planning to build an app...it a must.

• Tip 294 - 5 Things you didn't know about Azure Kubernetes Service | Azure Tips and Tricks - Nice stuff as usual those tips and tricks.

Programming

• Announcing ASP.NET Core in .NET 5 (Daniel Roth) - It's definitely, exciting news that .Net 5

• Design patterns in C# - The Facade Pattern (Carmel Eve) - Pretty cool post and so interesting. I need to dig for more of those pattern explanations it's awesome.

• Introducing a UI for the Syncfusion Blazor Project Template for Visual Studio Code (Dheepa Kumar) - It definitely interesting, I'm curious to try it and also to see if it slow down vscode.

Podcasts

• Cake 1.0 with Mattias Karlsson (.NET Rocks!) - I'm a fan of Cake and of the team working on this project for a long time. Great show with our glorious Carl and Richard.

• 496: How to Generate Quick Wins, with Andy Kaufman (Coaching for Leaders) - Great conversation about how Agile should be view, and a few tips about how you could start this turn in your entourage.

• #65: James Montemagno - From Printer Software to Xamarin (The Solo Coder Podcast) - Great Interview of James. I learn a lot about in this episode. Nice show.

• #399: The Practice of Shipping Creative Work with Seth Godin (The EntreLeadership Podcast) - I knew who Seth Godin was, and read one of his books recently (Tribes). And honestly, I feel like I will read another one soon. Great mind, I like how clear is the example... Great episode.

Miscellaneous

• Run Your Legacy .NET in the Cloud with Tanzu (David Dieruf) - An interesting solution for a legacy application.

• Creating a question friendly environment (Scott Hanselman) - Does the environment are very important and we must do our best to preserve them.

~frank

Reading Notes #418

Every Monday, I share my "reading notes". Those are 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. Enjoy!

Cloud

• How to live-stream meetups on Twitch without any special equipment (Alex Casalboni) - Really cool experimentation and ideas using AWS cloud.

• Run Azure PowerShell in a Docker Container (Thomas Maurer) - Really useful tips to use different versions of PowerShell without having to install them.

Programming

• How to migrate an ASP.NET MVC app from .NET Core 2.2 to .NET Core 3.1 (Claudio Bernasconi) - This is a good step by step tutorial for a migration.

• EF Core 5.0: Using ToQueryString() method to translate LINQ query to SQL (Gunnar Peipman) - Nice little and cool feature coming up in the next version.

• How to create better code using Domain-Driven Design - Software House Altkom Software & Consulting (null) - A really interesting and complete article that explains it all.

• Introducing the New Pull Request Experience for Azure Repos | Azure DevOps Blog (Apeksha Awasthi) - Wonderful PR used to be a GitHub only feature... Really happy to see that it is now also present on Azure DevOps Repos.

• WSL2 will be generally available in Windows 10, version 2004 | Windows Command Line (Craig Loewen) - WSL2 is the next best thing I install on my PC since Win10 and used with the new Docker for Windows... It's fantastic

Shameless plug

• How to know how much your application is consuming on Azure (Frank Boucher) - Great post and video in both French and English that explains how to plan, visualize and monitor the cost of your applications in the cloud. And there is also a great MS Learn Azure Cost Management module.

Podcasts

• Des fonctions courtes, qui font une chose (Les Semi-Colons) - First time for me listening to this podcast, third time for them. A very interesting podcast in "Canadian French". They are passing through the book Clean Code of Robert C. Martin. This episode was about chapter 3.

• vygl - Le balado Ep.17 (vygl) - Great podcast in French. It was my first try and I really liked it. We can ear the experience of the speaker in their voice but also by the quality of this audio.

• Episode 14: What developers should know about security with Troy Hunt (Software Engineering Unlocked) - Okay, I know I've been a big fan of Troy for years, but this podcast is an incredibly interesting interview.

Miscellaneous

• An Update on the MSDN and TechNet Migration to docs.microsoft.com (Jeff Sandquist) - It was looking mostly like an impossible mission, but with a lot of work, it is really incredible the things that can be achieved. This post shares the status of the migration of each section.

~

Reading Notes #408

Every Monday, I share my reading notes. Those are 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.

Cloud

• Deploying Azure Functions With Github Actions | LINQ to Fail (Aaron Powell) - Fantastic post that shows how with only a few lines of code you can auto-deploy to Azure your serverless components.

• How to Prepare for a Successful Cloud Migration (Aaron Woods) - This post list the questions we should ask ourselves before migrating. This will definitely help to reduce the bumps of a migration.

Programming

• Future Ready Blazor Application Architecture (S.Ravi Kumar) - Great tutorial that explains how to build our own component and start to reuse code.

• How to Add Infinite Scrolling to Your React App (John Au-Yeung) - Nice react tutorial for an optimized webpage.

• Solving Sudoku with backtracking : Algorithms for the masses (Julian M Bucknall) - Interesting post to read about code patterns applied to something we all know... Sudoku.

Miscellaneous

• Mastering the all-remote environment: My top 5 challenges and solutions - A great post. That really list the challenges you can encounter as a remote worker with there solutions, or suggestions to ease them.

☁️

Reading Notes #387

Cloud

• Announcing preview of Azure Data Share (Mike Flasko) - Looking forward to use this new feature in my project.

Programming

• Intro Guide to Dockerfile Best Practices - Docker Blog (Tibor Vass) - Would it be for a review because you know your way with Docker or to get started, this post is excellent.
• Dependency Injection in ASP.NET Core MVC (Code Maze) - An interesting article introducing an important patern.
• My Personal Git Tricks Cheatsheet (Antonin Januska) - This is a list of awesome tricks and idea for our Git daily usage.
• Using EasyAuth (AppService Authentication) with ASP.NET Core (Maxime Rouiller) - A cool tutorial that explains a workaround to do an easyAuth in .Net Core.

Podcasts

• Methods to Organize Your Learning Process with Lourdes Montano (Scott Hanselman) - Great episode, a few methods, or ideas of organization resonate with me. Definitely interesting.
• How to Use External Storage in Docker (Brett Fisher) - Nice short episode that explains how to think (or when to think) about storage while working with containers.
• Episode 68: The Rise of the Cloud-First Generation with Christina Warren (Corey Quinn) - A very interesting episode. They is no "best way", all path go somewhere and have advantages. As my journey was not straight forward, I totally agree with that.
• #313: 3 Steps to Finding Freedom to Focus (Ken Coleman and Michael Hyatt) - The work-life balance... not an easy thing to answer... I enjoyed this episode exploring, suggesting a way to improve (get closer) to a balance.
• Ubuntu, with Mark Shuttleworth (Craig and Adam) - It was so nice to learn more about Mark Shuttleworth and his projects. Like always... an awesome episode.
• 418: The Way to Nurture New Ideas, with Safi Bahcall (Dave Stachowiak) - Very interesting episode where we learn that there are always multiple sides to a story... And knowing them will change our perception.
• 403: Transition Well Through Your Day, with Gretchen Rubin (Dave Stachowiak) - Doing a little bit of catching up with this podcast, but I'm glad I did! Not only the episode was good but now I have to books that I'm really looking forward to read!
• Which Online Courses are Worth Investing In? (and how do you decide?) (Meredith Marsh - Great question! I then to try to go the source and try/learn it by my self... what do you do?

Books

Dare to Lead: Brave Work. Tough Conversations. Whole Hearts. (Brené Brown) - A nice book. pack with a lot of information. A lot's of stories to emphasize her points, I always like that. It was maybe a little too much cartesian for me... many steps. Or maybe I was not in a good mindset. Good book however.








~

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 #244

Cloud

• Azure DevTest Labs: Set expiration date for a virtual machine - How could we have lived without that all that time... awesome
  
• Creating “Codeless” Swagger Connectors for Logic Apps (Jeff Hollan [MSFT]) - This post is a great tutorial about how to create an API App ready to be used by Azure Logic App (or anything else of course).
  
• Deploying an Angular 2 App to Azure with Github - Nice tutorial that leverage many frequently used tools, a popular framework and my favorite cloud platform.
  
• Logic Apps Reaches General Availability - This post is a great summary of the changes introduced by the last release aka GA.
  
• Microservices Cookbook: Design Principles and Solution Recipes for Microservices (Neil McEvoy) - Because something is done using a specific new tech that doen't automatically makes that thing better... Learn more about best practice and useful pattern.

Programming

• A .NET IDE for the iPad? - Exploring Continuous with Frank Krueger - Wow! That look just fantastic. I cannot try it since I'm not a "jThing" owner, but I really like the idea of such a powerful and useful tool on a tablet. Looking forward to see how that will go.

Miscellaneous

• GitKraken Pro git client teaming up with NightScout to support Open Source Diabetes software - Have you tried this awesome tool? I've been using it since the first private preview, and I love it. I really think it' s a must as git user interface
  
• Windows Insider Program.next() (Dona Sarkar) - The Windows 10 anniversary edition is out since August 2nd. This post is about the community who made that possible, and explains how you could join.

Reading Notes #243

Suggestion of the week

• IaaS isn’t your only path to outsized gains (James Staten) - Excellent post full of true and interesting facts that, at a very high level, explains the real power of the cloud.

Cloud

• Azure Advanced Data Center Bootcamp class now available (mwasham) - Great opportunity to pass at the advanced level.
  
• Azure PowerShell support for Enterprise Integration pack features now available (Jon Fancey) - Quick tutorial that uses PowerShell to create LogicApp.
  
• Getting to Know Actors in Service Fabric - This is the post is about all we need to know about microservices with actors. Even few patterns are described.
  
• Why Does My SQL Server Availability Group Need a Load Balancer in Azure? (Paul Burpo) - This post is the answer of a very common question and also explains how to do it correctly.
  
• Introducing Microsoft Stream: the secure destination to manage and share videos for businesses of all sizes (James Phillips) - Really exiting news, get started in less than 5 seconds and share video only for the viewer(s) you wish, on any devices, and securely.

Programming

• Exploring a minimal WebAPI with ASP.NET Core - Interesting new series that explores the possibilities with dotnet and different component.

Miscellaneous

• Azure Logic Apps Reaches General Availability (Jeff Hollan) - Exiting news, the availability of so many great features and tool like the LogicApp editor inside VS.
  
• Stop the madness! Ridiculous security scare tactics revealed - Like always, by being informed half the problem is already solved.

Reading Notes #242

Cloud

• Amazon launches QuickSight, a cloud-based business intelligence tool (Jordan Novet) - This post announces a powerful tool in the BI world. It looks very nice.
  
• Azure Infographic: Cloud Design Patterns - Wow! A fantastic infographic that shows many different patterns that should be used when developing with Azure.
  
• Azure PowerShell support for Enterprise Integration pack features now available (Jon Fancey) - Quick tutorial that uses PowerShell to create LogicApp.
  
• Create the roadmap for your enterprise cloud strategy (James Staten) - A book based on the real-live situation and Microsoft best practices... Sounds really useful to me.
  
• Querying the VSTS Work Items API directly from Power BI - Very impressive work, I know few managers who will love that tool. And the good news is that it is entirely customizable.
  
• Release notes (Matt Farmer) - Easier than ever, no more need to dig to know what new in each release. Read what the Api Management team has cooked for us.
  
• Why Does My SQL Server Availability Group Need a Load Balancer in Azure? (Paul Burpo) - This post is the answer of a very common question and also explains how to do it correctly.

Programming

• Exploring dotnet new with .NET Core (Scott Hanselman) - I discover the different types in dotnet new command during Julie Lerman's talk at DevTeach and now this post shows a list of incredible opportunities.

Miscellaneous

• 3 Significant Flaws in the Concept of Googliness (Melissa Burns) - Interesting point of view about what look first as good idea that could turn out as bad ideas...
  
• The 3 Things Scrum Teams Get Wrong - Interesting post, how your team score?
  
• Why I Left Google Redux (James Whittaker) - Interesting article about Google's business model and few other things.

Reading Notes #241

Cloud

• Announcing the release of the Azure Usage and Billing Portal (Chris Risner) - I have been waiting long time to get a tool like that. I will definitely clone it this week.
  
• Azure Infographic: Cloud Design Patterns - Wow! A fantastic infographic that shows many different patterns that should be used when developing with Azure.
  
• Azure Search Suggesters: Helping users to find search keywords - Nice demo that shows the power of suggesters and how to implement them.
  
• Create your first botframework bot in Azure! (Robin Osborne) - This post is a nice tutorial that gives a lot of ideas about what you could do with the botfrmework.
  
• Writing simple REST-client for Azure Search (Gunnar Peipman) - Quick demo to show how developing with Azure Search is easy.

Programming

• 5 Impeccable Reasons Node.js is Great for Startups (Keval Padia) - It all makes sense, but I didn't think about it before reading those five reasons.
  
• Visual Studio Code, your new Markdown editor - Another post that affirms how VisualStusio Code is great. It must be true... ;)

Miscellaneous

• 3 Significant Flaws in the Concept of Googliness (Melissa Burns) - Interesting point of view about what look first as good idea that could turn out as bad ideas...
  
• New Microsoft and Open Source Partner Community (Openness Team) - Nice ne community that just begins.
  
• The Anti-Meeting Culture (James Whittaker) - Very interesting thoughs about meetings and an even more interesting ways to make them more productive.

Reading Notes #199

Suggestion of the week

• First look at Application Insights (Andrei Dzimchuk) - Excellent post. Perfect to make your idea about why and how we should use Application Insights. Nice touch to the config.

Cloud

• Integration with Azure Service Bus (Vincent-Philippe Lauzon) - Great post that summarizes best practices and important tips related to Azure service Bus.
  
• Azure Backup update – New features in IaaS VM backup support (Trinadh Kotturu) - Very amazing backup services.
  
• Deploying Flynn Clusters on Azure - Promising deploying tool. A thing to follow.
  
• Using Azure CLI to Capture and Deploy a CentOS Virtual Machine - Another way to create an image of an Azure VM. Useful script that will work in any environment.
  
• Announcing the Azure SDK 2.7.1 for .NET (Brady Gaster) - This post describes the major new features in this release.
  
• Do-until looping in logic apps - Useful addition to the loops in Logic Apps.
  
• Getting started with Azure Backup (Viswanath Tata) - An essential tool for any production environment, backup is now very easy to setup and secure.

Programming

• On a Cloud: Queues (Jef King) - This post suggests two short videos that talked about queues and how to use them.
  
• Help, my diagram doesn’t fit on one page! - Interesting thoughts about how to “cut” diagrams.
  
• Deploy Jekyll Pages using Git and Travis CI - Interesting deployment setup that looks simple and efficient.

Databases

• Get the DocumentDB SQL query cheat sheet (Aravind Ramachandran) - Confuse sometime with the syntax of noSql, this post shared a cheatsheet that should be saved (or printed).
  
• Announcing Great New SQL Database Capabilities in Azure - Great announcement to the database world with this two new release described in this post.

Miscellaneous

• On Disconnecting - Choose your poison: workaholic, social addict or “paranoia”… Oh! Scott is definitely not alone.
  
• Building Trust with 100% Distributed Team & 100% Flexible Schedules (Brian Whipple) - Very interesting thoughts about trust and the place it should take between employees and companies.
  
• The Role of QA in Cloud DevOps - Interesting thoughts regarding the QA role and how it could change.

Reading Notes #177

Suggestion of the week

• The Modern JavaScript Developer’s Toolbox  - If you eared about those buzz words: Grunt, Gulp, Sublime, LESS, Angular, want to know more, This is THE post you are looking for.

Cloud

• Get Your Reading On: Azure eBooks (Jonathan Rozenblit) - 8 free books, what else to say... Thanks of course.
  
• Cloud Computing Can Make Any Old Beater a Connected Car (Alex Davies) - Interesting article about the close future.
  
• Azure API Management Part 1: An Introduction - Nice introduction about the APIM, nice warm up.
  
• Free ebook: Microsoft Azure Essentials: Azure Automation (Kim Spilker, Mark) - Nice free ebook.

Programming

• Getting Started with TypeScript – Classes, Types and Interfaces - Very nice and clear introduction wit also a video.
  
• Welcome Back! - The AJAX Control Toolkit March 2015 Update (Vittorio Bertocci) - Yeah! A long wait but it's here now... Learn all the nice features of this new release in this post.
  
• Comprendre et maîtriser npm - Introduction - The perfect post to get started, for whom read French.

Miscellaneous

• How Leaders Should React When Someone Disappoints (Peter Bregman) - Interesting post about how we should react, simple and efficient.

Reading Notes #176

Suggestion of the week

• Autoscaling Azure–Virtual Machines (Kirk Evans) - Great tutorial that explains very clearly how to work scaling with azure vms.

Cloud

• Announcing Azure Preview Portal Improvements (February Update) (Leon Welicki) - A really nice update, good work.
  
• Introducing Get-AzureVMDscExtensionStatus cmdlet for Azure Powershell DSC Extension - Windows PowerShell Blog - Site Home - MSDN Blogs - Great, very useful new command.
  
• Using Windows Azure Mobile Services in ASP.NET MVC (Mahesh Sabnis) - Nice tutorial that shows how versatile are Azure Mobile Services.

Programming

• Make Debugging Faster with Visual Studio (Andrew B Hall) - A big deep dive in fine tuning Visual Studio to get the best performance session.
  
• Simplicity Principles and Anti-Patterns (Timothy Klenke) - Nice post that talks about pattern and anti-pattern, because simpler is often the better.

Miscellaneous

• 3 Thinking Tools for Minimizing Dependencies Between Products - (Mike Cottmeyer) - Interesting post about products planning best practices.
  
• One Example of How to Use an Agile Tool with Balance (peter) - Interesting post about how a team is using Jira.

~Frank B

Reading Notes #171

 

Different readings which kept my interest during the week.

Suggestion of the week

• Automatic deployment of multiple repositories to Azure - Very powerful tips to deploy with a less common repository structure.

• Walyou (Jasmine Henry) - This is why you should care about Windows 10.