Reading Notes #697

This week’s reading notes cover a wide range of topics, from local AI workflows and Docker agent fleets to data privacy, SQL tips, and developer tooling updates. There’s also an interesting look at how AI may be reshaping platforms like GitHub, alongside practical articles and podcasts packed with ideas for developers and tech enthusiasts alike.

Programming

• The new Run dialog: faster, cleaner, and more capable (Clint Rutkas) - Nice boost to performance for Run dialog (currently only in the insider version)

• Ghostty Is Leaving GitHub (Mitchell Hashimoto) - I didn't realize it was that bad! It's true that I spend less time there, but did AI cause all those outages (by generating peaks of traffic)

• Run Gemma 4 with Ollama locally, and keep the Aspire LLM Insights (sparkles and all) (Erik Lieben) - Oh yes! Interesting tutorial that explains how to hook local AI to Aspire (a dev tool)

Data

• Things I Think I Think... Data Privacy - Data is the new gold, the new oil, now more than ever. This post shares an opinion of our future.

AI

• AI Agent Fleet for CI/CD: How Docker Ships Faster (Manuel de la Peña) - This is a nice post that describes a new tool that's great and also provides good tips on how to write your skills.

• Generate Images Locally with Docker Model Runner (Ignasi Lopez Luna) - I have a very similar setup, and I love having a local AI for my little tasks

• Burn Through Your Backlog With My /triage Skill (Matt Pocock) - This post explains a skill triage to help you in your repos. There is also a video version.

Databases

• Why COALESCE might be the most useful SQL function you’re not using right ( Lukas Vileikis) - If you don't know, coalesce this post for you. If you don't know any other alternative, this post is for you. If you're not sure when to use what this post is also for you

Podcasts

• Docker AI, what’s new with MCP, Agents, Sandboxes, and more (DevOps and Docker Talk: Cloud Native Interviews and Tooling) - Michael Irwin from Docker is on this episode and they go through alllll the recent releases and some major upcoming stuff, rellay interesting episode

• Making opinionated AI tooling decisions with Nimbalyst's Greg Hinkle (Hanselminutes with Scott Hanselman) - Interesting discussion around Nimbalyst, an AI tool that has a few pretty cool tricks up its sleeves

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 #393

Suggestion of the week

• GitHub stars won’t pay your rent (Kitze) - What a great story! This is an awesome journey of a developers who worked hard, took some risk and... Got result. All developer should read this.

Cloud

• 5 Minute Serverless Functions in Azure without an IDE (Heather Downing) - This post and videos are a fantastic way to get started with Azure Function the good way... With security.
• A quick introduction to Azure function proxies (Nadeem Ahamed) - A nice quick intro... That remind's me I should definitely use proxies in one of my project!
• Using KeyVault References to Read Key Vault Secrets (Scott Allen) - Excellent News!

Programming

• Blazor – on the server or on the client (Christian Nagel) - A great post about blazor that explains very well the current status of this very promising tool.
• What Are gRPC Web Services and When Should I Use Them? -- Visual Studio Magazine (Peter Vogel) - A very good post that clarifies things. I'm looking forward to see the example with .Net Core.

Miscellaneous

• Role Based Security in an ASP.NET Core Application (Mahesh Sabnis) - A great tutorial that gets you started with identity and asp.net core.

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 #277

Cloud

• Azure Functions Tools Roadmap (Andrew B Hall) - Interesting post that explains why we should prefer the Azure function template over the VS2015 tooling.
• Monitoring errors in Azure WebJobs with the ErrorTrigger extension (Vivien Chevallier) - Nice tutorial, with the full solution available on Github, that explains how to catch the error in our Azure webjobs.
• Unmasking your swagger with proxies in Azure Functions (Shayne Boyer) - This post explains how to use Azure functions Proxy to improve the developers' experience.
• Use a container to show your function swagger (Shayne Boyer) - Nice quick tutorial to get a more professional structure easily.

Programming

• Dockerizing Nerd Dinner: Part 1, Running a Legacy ASP.NET App in a Windows Container (Elton Stoneman) - Interesting walkthrough where a legacy application is packaged in a Docker container.
• Dockerizing Nerd Dinner: Part 2, Connecting ASP.NET to SQL Server (Elton Stoneman) - Second step in a great tutorial that goes further than the usual hello word, showing how to migrate an application into a multi-container solution.
• Easy data generation with Faker.Data (Guy Barrette) - A quick introduction to a nice little gem that saves us a lot of time.
• Getting Started With Chart.js: Line and Bar Charts (Monty Shokeen) - I've use Chart.js in a project recently, and should I had this great tutorial would have saved me a lot of time.
• Using memory cache in ASP.NET Core (Gunnar Peipman) - Great quick tutorial to know how to setup cache and distributed cache (required in cloud solution).

Miscellaneous

• Bots are the new Apps – Part 2 (Alexandre Brisebois) - This post asks a lot of questions. .Bots are could be very powerful but are they easy to build? Iterate, test, fail, learn, and try again.

Reading Notes #259

Cloud

• 'But it works on my cloud!' – are your developers still making the same mistakes in a world of DevOps and PaaS services? (James Broome) - This post shares an interesting thought about the new situation of developers, who works with the cloud.
  
• Announcing Azure DevTest Labs support for creating environment with ARM templates (Xiaoying Guo) - Never heard of Azure Devtest lab? Well, you should! Now all your best formulas will be deployable with ARM, that's even better.
  
• Announcing general availability of preview features and new APIs in Azure Search (Liam Cavanagh) - Even if the 2015-02-28-preview is still supported, it will now be safe to change for something more ...recent.
  
• Azure App Service is really 2 services, not 4 (Chris Pietschmann) - This is an interesting post that explains how and why the Azure Apps are packages that way. Once you understand that you see that you will not be limited by your initial pick.
  
• Introducing: Time picker in Application Insights Analytics (Noa Kuperberg) - Nice little detail that will simplify our queries.
  
• Microsoft Azure Storage Explorer: November update and summer recap (Cristy Gonzalez) - Learn all the details about the new features and the old bug fixes in this post.
  
• Migrate a Storage Account to ARM (Alexandre Brisebois) - Important PowerShell tooling that we should ALL have... A least if you've been doing some Azure for a little while.
  
• Static Website Hosting in Azure Storage (Chris Pietschmann) - A website for 1$ by month yes, it is possible on Azure, but with some limitation.
  
• Step-By-Step: Multi-Site Azure VPN Revisited (Pierre Roman) - Great re-design of a network/ infrastructure in the cloud.
  
• Visual Studio Tools for Azure Functions (Andrew B Hall) - Since the day one of Azure Functions, this tool is requested by the community. The early adopter can now start using this first preview.

Programming

• Use Visual Studio Team Services As A Continuous Integration Platform for GitHub - These great tutorial shows how to realize a perfectly integrated CI solution between Github and VSTS.

Reading Notes #228

Cloud

• But Why Do You Trust Your Data? (Buck Woody) - I consider this post as a really great teaser. After ready his post most chances are you will check the video it recommended... and next give a shot to Azure data Catalog.

Programming

• An update on ASP.NET Core 1.0 RC2 - This post explains why the next release is taking "so long".
  
• PowerShell: Simplify Complex Function Calls (John Kirkham) - I love it! It's time to clean our scripts or at least stop writing more obfuscated ones.
  
• How to host your own NuGet Server and Package Feed - Wow, I didn't know it was that easy to have a private Nuget server...Definitely something to explore more deeply.

Data

• Analyzing your Azure Search traffic (Berni Torres Garayar) - Great post that explains how to improve our services by listening to our client's search requests, leveraging the new Azure Search Analytics and PowerBi.

Miscellaneous

• Give yourself permission to have work-life balance - In a connected world, it's easy not to slow down a moment and raise our head to look around us. Interesting post to read before you win the race to the burnout.
  
• Check out the new MVP Channel 9 page! - Channel9 has a brand-new section where you can see all MVPs video... see it by yourself.

~Frank

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 #224

Cloud

• An application revolution powered by the cloud (Mark Russinovich) - This post is a great introduction to the air of micro-services. It explains the evolution from the monolithic architecture and introduces some container system.
  
• Azure Active Directory Application (Vincent-Philippe Lauzon) - This post is a good intro to Azure Active Directory and how it could help us in our cloud applications.
  
• Why Microsoft Azure? - Interesting post that explains major reasons why Microsoft is a lead in cloud computing.
• Load Balancing VMs in Azure Resource Manager (Vincent-Philippe Lauzon) - Another great tutorial from Vincent.
  
• Creating a Node.js Azure Mobile App from OS X or Linux - Excellent tutorial that shows step by step how to build a unique backend easily using Azure mobile services.
  

Programming

• Save money with Application Insights’ web SDK 2.0 (Beckylin Orooji) - Nice new version that gives us more flexibility, but be aware it also included important breaking changes.
  
• Visual Studio Code Jumpstart for Node.js Developers (Dave Johnson) - This post is a nice tutorial that explains about to get started in Node.js by setting up our dev environment from scratch.
  
• Introducing LINQPad.QueryPlanVisualizer (Giorgi) - Great tool.
  

Miscellaneous

• Save money with Application Insights’ web SDK 2.0 (Beckylin Orooji) - Nice new version that gives us more flexibility, but be aware it also included important breaking changes.

Reading Notes #202

 

Suggestion of the week

• Lost in Translation - Azure Networking For Cisco Professionals - A post to bookmark, very useful in our new network related discussion.

Cloud

• Source Control Integration in Azure Automation (Beth Cooper) - Fantastic news. This post shares with us how to take advantage of this useful new feature and configure our source control.
  
• Announcing general availability of backup for Azure IaaS VMs (Trinadh Kotturu) - Great! Now in GA, with some little new extra features like PowerShell script.
  
• How I passed my Azure Certification (MCP) Exams (marc) - Passing a Microsoft certification is a big commitment, this post shares some tips to pass it with success.
  
• Load Testing from different geographies with Cloud-based load testing (Charles Sterling) - Nice quick tutorial.
  
• Azure Adventures - Deploying a JSP Web App to Azure App Service - Great post, first of a series, to get started with the famous mix Java - Azure.
  
• Node.js support for Azure Mobile Apps (Openness Team) - Good news we now have one more option to code our App Service backend.
  
• What’s new with DocumentDB? (John Macintyre) - It's all in one post, all the latest and greatest news about DocumentDB.
  
• Azure Automation-Hybrid Runbook Worker FAQs (Ravi Kiran) - That a lot of very useful questions in one post.

Programming

• Web Development - Building Responsive Web Sites with Bootstrap - Because it's only a question of time before you need it, this is a nice introduction tutorial to a light UI framework.
  
• VSCode Documentation moves to GitHub (Chris Dias) - I really think the documentation is a major piece of VSCode. Having it " to the is a fantastic thing.
  
• How I Use Git On Windows – Remote Repositories (Jesse) - Interesting post that explains how to get setup to work with Git without loc repo.
  
• Free Training at Microsoft Virtual Academy - Introduction to ASP.NET 5 - Awesome series of video to learn very useful stuff.
  
• Dynamically Generating Sitemap.xml for ASP.NET MVC - Good tutorial about a dynamic and benefice tool for our website.

Miscellaneous

• How to write better and faster using templates - Interesting post that shares with us a way to speed-up our writing. Personally, found very productive the time to structure the post since use it to organize my thoughts. Like in "old time" when we were passing through the code to adjust the indentation.
  
• The home media technology of the future is depressingly fragile - Ok I admitted it. I laugh while reading this post, but only because I got an impression of deja vu...

Reading Notes #189

Suggestion of the week

• Search enable your applications with Azure Search (Andrei Dzimchuk) - Very interesting introduction, the perfect post to get started with Azure Search.

Cloud

• Moving to Azure DNS (Alexandre Brisebois) - Another awesome post that shows the power of Azure Resource manager and powershell.
  
• Azure : Event Hub A First Look (Sacha Barber) - This post a good introduction to Event Hub. It adds context to the MSDN documentation.
  
• Demystifying Azure Cloud Services – Part 1 (Adarsha Datta) - This post explains very clearly what is an Azure Cloud Services and demystify the common confusion about it.
  
• Auto-update your Azure Site Extension (Zain Rizvi) - Nice tips to simplify the upgrade.

Programming

• How to Compare files in Visual Studio Code ? - Nice tips.
  
• Evolving ASP.NET Apps–Javascript (Simon Timms) - Interesting post that explains how to structure our Javascript code in our solutions.

~Frank

Reading Notes #179

Suggestion of the week

• Welcome Azure App Service. Some of my thoughts (Sam Vanhoutte) - Interesting post about the new apps thing that just been announced and the "link" with BizTalk.

Cloud

• Pragmatic IoT on Azure Part 1: Introduction - Interesting post about a very popular topic, a series to follow...
  
• ScottGu's Blog - ScottGu's Blog - Perfect post to have a high level overview about this great Azure update.
  
• Announcing Azure App Service (Bill Staples) - Get all the information about the new Azure App Services.
  
• Introducing Azure App Service - You missed the live announcement? Look the recorded conference here.
  
• A Dev and Test Adventure on (Alexandre Brisebois) - If like Alex, you're one of those who are still not using Azume VM for your dev... Here is your chance, the scripts and the Vm are all done for you.

Programming

• dotnetConf 2015 - If you missed this online event, all videos are available here on demand.
  
• Using Gulp for ASP.NET 5 & Visual Studio 2015 (Shayne Boyer) - Until the new release that will include template using Gulp, here is a great tutorial that will show how to achieve that.
  
• Visual Studio Tools for Windows 10 Technical Preview (S.Somasegar) - Get an idea of what' s coming next... with our favorite tool.
  
• The Dew Review – DevExpress TestCafe - This post introduces an interesting test tool. We can try it 30 days for free.

~Frank B.

Reading Notes #165

 

Suggestion of the week

• OmniSharp - Making cross-platform .NET a reality, and a pleasure (Scott Hanselman) - This is both really exciting and easy to bring in your environment.

 

Cloud

• Azure : Blob Storage / Retrieval (sachabarber) - Excellent post to get started with the azure storage blob.

• Security and Identity Management with Azure Mobile Services - Great article from MSDN Mag that provides important information on how the cloud can help line-of-business (LOB) application developers create and support all platforms.

Programming

• Visual Studio 2013 Community - "Professional" development for free (Greg Duncan) - This post gives all the detail about this new community version: what is in, how to get it, the compatibility or incompatibility... everything.
• The Blog of Jason Roberts (Jason Roberts) - This book looks awesome, and the author Jason Roberts offer that we pay what we want. More to come.

Integration

• Azure BizTalk Services: An Introduction - This is the second post of a series on BizTalk. We are still in an introduction mode, but this is good, BizTalk is not a little application or system, and in this time of the Internet of things, it's good to have the good tools.

~ Frank B

Reading Notes #134

Cloud

• Speak to the Lonely Cloud Data Center Workers (Bill Wilder) - Smiley.
• PowerShell Remoting with Azure Windows VMs (Ravikanth C) - This post contain all the useful code we need to improve our Powershell scripts.
• BUILD 2014 day 1 Keynote recap (Laurent Duveau) - Great one page summary of the build day 1.
• BUILD 2014 day 2 Keynote recap (Laurent Duveau) - Nice quick recap of what was as been presented on day 2 of the //Build.

Programming

• C# Extension Methods Demystified - This tutorial explains the extends methods with simple code sample.
• Git for Team Foundation Developers–Branches (Kirk Evans[MSFT]) - Clear 101 tutorial, that bring TFS users more comfortable with Git.

In my previous post, Git for Team Foundation Developers , I showed how to create a project in Visual Studio Online,

• Azure Mobile Services in Project Siena (James Quick) - Very cool tutorial that play with mobile services in a Windows app.

Miscellaneous

• Scott Hanselman’s Complete List of Productivity Tips (hanselman.com) - If you didn’t have the chance to see this talk here is your chance to have a summary of the content.
• Drive Productivity by Limiting Work in Progress - Interesting reading suggestion.
• Nouvelles | Bière + l’entraînement = un bon mélange? - Interesting facts about a beer after doing sports.
• What to Do When You Don’t Feel Like Writing and You Have Nothing to Say (John Sonmez) - Really interesting and motivating post about how overcome the inercy when it’s time to write.
• Video Tutorial and Screenshots: Windows 8.1 Update 1 (hanselman.com) - Great recap of all the features in the new Windowws 8.1 update. It also include a useful tutorial video.

~Frank

Reading Notes #124

Suggestion of the week

• Windows Azure: Staging Publishing Support for Web Sites, Monitoring Improvements, Hyper-V Recovery Manager GA, and PCI Compliance (ScottGu) - Great update again this week, may of the new features will be very appreciated.

Cloud

• Windows Azure Websites Development Stacks Support (Mark_BrownMS) - Nice post about how Azure website manages config version with his different supported languages.
  
• Using the Same Client-Side User with Multiple Azure Mobile Services (Chris Risner) - This nice post explains what are our options to bridge a UserID across multiple mobile application.
  
• GUIDs VS. IDs on Windows Azure SQL Database - Nice post, where the author gives is answer to a timeless question.
  
• Announcing E-book version of Scott Guthrie’s “Building Real-World Cloud Apps with Windows Azure” - Interesting talk that you can now download as text. However, the video is still available...

Programming

• Code First Goodies in Entity Framework 6 - Nice article that explains more in details some new features of EF 6.0.
  
• Comments should be sentences (About me) - Interesting point of view about how should be the comments and why.

Miscellaneous

• WTF is an Architect Anyway? - Interesting thoughts about the definition of the role architect.
  
• How Do I Get Things Done? New Pluralsight Course Reveals All My Secrets - Learn the best tips from a real Jedi.
  
• 5 Myths that Can Ruin Project Management - Interesting post that uncovers some myths in project management.
  
• 30 Ways To Leave Google Apps Behind (Ciara Byrne) - Great post not because I agree or disagree with the title idea, but because it presents a lot of great applications.

Reading Notes #81

 
Suggestion of the week

• Make your own gem - Very useful post that explain very clearly, with code sample, what need to be done in order to create a Gem (...in Ruby).

Cloud

• Cloud Latency Issues? Dedicated Network Connections Will Help (Jelle Frank van der Zwet and David Strom) - Good post to understand why some latency is to be expected in the cloud and what to do to keep it at the minimum.
• SQL Reporting Services Pricing Update (Steven Martin) - Woohoo 82% less, that’s something!
• Powershell script to detect the Windows Azure SDK in Azure Cloud Service VM and fix the Powershell execution issue (Avkash Chauhan) - A script to keep for sure.
• A Helping Hand Through the Building An App Maze (Jonathan Rozenblit) - Learn more about this great opportunity for developpers to get help and finally start the new pet project there thinking about...
• Windows Azure and VM Depot – Better Together (Craig Kitterman) - Aaah that great. Nice new little add-on to the windows Azure portal.
• IAAS Preview – Unable to delete VHD, “There is currently a lease on the blob…” - Simple steps, but SOOO useful...
• [Sample Of Feb 6th] Azure WebRole for frontend + backend work (Philip Fu) - Very good idea. It's always nice to have those code sample to see how other did things. Or just to speed-up some POC we are doing. A site to subscribe, or bookmark.
• Three New AWS Reference Architectures for E-Commerce - Quick access to 3 good architectures using different AWS components.
• What's Coming in the Command Line Tools for Windows Azure with Glenn Block – Great great show… Looking forward to have more cmdlets!

Integration

• Service Bus Notification Hubs-Part 4 The Solution (Kent Weare) - Last post of a great series that conclude how you could enhances BizTalk BAM Alert with a toast notification using Azure service bus notification hubs. If you missed this series here the other posts:
• Service Bus Notification Hubs – Part 1
• Service Bus Notification Hubs–Part 2 Improving Customer Engagement
• Service Bus Notification Hubs–Part 3 My Solution Overview

Database

• Why you should be Using SQL Prompt! - I agree with the author of this post give it a try, you will wonder how you got along without it.

Programming

• Testing Browser Compatibility Made Easy (Jonathan Rozenblit) - Great post that introduces a nice wizard and some even nicer offer. Something definitely to try.
• Turn Your Future into a Hobby (Jonathan Rozenblit) - Great post. Read it and jump on some ideas of yours... start coding!
• Simultaneous Editing for Visual Studio with the free MultiEdit extension (Scott Hanselman) - Nice post that introduces a useful add-on to Visual Studio.
• Publishing your gem - Perfect post to get started about publishing in Ruby. This post gives different options that are easily available.
• Productivity Add-Ins: Bruce Lee vs Batman (Erik Dietrich) - Interesting thought about productivity tools and black-belt coder.
• Automating ClickOnce Deployment (Joe Wrobel) - Great tutorial (and rare) that gives all the details you need to build outside VS.

Miscellaneous

• 10 Apps for Creativity - Nice tools... more to come.
• A Helping Hand Through the Building An App Maze (Jonathan Rozenblit) - Learn more about this great opportunity for developers to get help and finally start the new pet project there thinking about...
• Are you having fun? (futureperfectenglish.blogspot.ca) - Motivating post that gives some ideas to set motivated when learning a new language.
• 4 Ways to Train Your Brain for Positivity (Jessica Stillman) - Nice post that suggests simple exercises to improve our brain and gives more references for a dipper knowledge.

~Frank

Reading Notes #80

Suggestion of the week

• Cross Browser Debugging integrated into Visual Studio with BrowserStack (Scott Hanselman) – Wow! Wow! Wow! Great addition to Visual Studio. That the first thing I will do next time I 'm opening VS. And just when Expression suite is going down. Hum…

Cloud

• Windows Azure VM Development: Part 1 (Bryan Bolling) - Great post about how to get started working with VM in Azure. First post of a promising series.
• YouTrack — Agile Issue & Project Tracker - Great tutorial that explains a steps from A to Z how install YouTrack in an Azure VM to enjoy Agile project tracking.
• Access SQL Azure Data Using Java Script (Angshuman Nayak) - Interesting exercises. It could be used in a local web page.
• Announcing Amazon Elastic Transcoder - Amazon is replying to the Windows Azure Media Services that was releasing last week by announcing a service of the same kind.
• Startup Accelerator for Windows Azure: Demo Day (Scott Gu)- Exiting program for start-ups. See what you did missed and how you could jump-in.
• Maarten Balliauw {blog} (Maarten Balliauw) - Get tutorial for continuous development. I'm looking forward to see more tools/framework from .Net that will be supported.
• Using Fiddler to decipher Windows Azure PowerShell or REST API HTTPS traffic (Avkash Chauhan) - Great use of PowerShell to deploy.
• 39 design patterns to boost your cloud architecture (Joe McKendrick) - Post to bookmark, it contains also SOA references.
• “Key not valid for use in specified state” exception when working with the Access Control Service – Great tutorial/ workaround to manage issue with the certificate when deploying with Azure.

Database

• Backup TO DISK, TAPE and now URL - Backup On-Premises SQL Server Databases to Azure Storage - Enjoy the new way to do your on-premise Sql database backup.
• Build better VHDs with expanded SQL SysPrep support in SQL Server 2012 SP1 CU2 - A lot of information about the SysPrep tool and the new feature to get more control on your Sql Database VM. These prepared VM are supported on-premise or in Azure.
• How Does the Cloud Change a Database Administrator’s Job? - Excellent post if you are DBA or even only database related. This post gives a good summary of the cloud database ecosystem and a lot of other good references.

Programming

• TFS and VS 2012 Update 1 Released (Bryan) - Announce of the new update in Visual Studio 2012 and is correlation with TFS... update now.
• TFS Power Tools Issues (Dustin Metzgar) - Little tips to be able to enjoy TFS PowerShell cmdlets.
• Developer Movement Windows Phone App Challenge (Jonathan Rozenblit) - Developers you have until end of February to take this challenge!
• Git support for Visual Studio - Git, TFS, and VS put into Context (Scott Hanselman) – Woo hou! Great news! I now a lot of friends that will be really happy of that... If they believe me.
• Learning JustMock for Working with Nasty Dependencies(frazzleddad) - Good post that compare rhino mock and justmock with some code samples.

Miscellaneous

• 3 Tactics to Breed Innovation - Easy rules to stimulate new ideas and creativity in your team.
• Executing Powershell commands in Windows Azure Web or Worker Role VM Instance return exception (Avkash Chauhan) - Nice tips!
• Plex is the media center software ecosystem I've been waiting for (Scott Hanselman) - Plex was a big discovery for my in the holidays. Since then I can’t imagine how I could do without it.

~Frank