Reading Notes #103

Suggestion of the week

• Architecture Patterns for Data Upload to Windows Azure (K. Dotchkoff) - Nice description of many patterns with their pros and cons. A post to read.

Cloud

• SQL Azure: Automated Database Export (Tara Shankar Jana) - Nice post that details all you need to know about the new Sql Azure Automated export: options, cost, etc.
  
• Cloud Service Fundamentals – Introduction into Fault-Tolerant Data Access Layer (AzureCAT) - Good post about the best practices.
  
• **Service Bus Error: The maximum entity size has been reached or exceeded for Topic (Ravi Verma) - Quick fix for a common error message. Be aware of the Default life time value.
  
• Meter and Autoscale Multi-Tenant Applications in Windows Azure (Bruno Terkaly, Ricardo Villalobos) - Great articles that explains how to setup diagnostics to be able to autoscale in a multi-tenant context. The article also refers different resources for more details and tools.
  
• Announcing the release of the Windows Azure SDK 2.1 for .NET (Scott Guthrie) - Learn more about all the enhancements and great new featured inside this last release.

Programming

• Just released: MvcSiteMapProvider 4.0 (Maarten Balliauw) - Sitemaps is a great tool, learn more about it and how easy it is to add why in your project.
  
• Don't fear the shell... - "Getting Started with PowerShell 3.0" jumpstart series - Mostly everything can be done with PowerShell, here a great list of tutorials to get started...
  
• Get started with some basic TFBuild Scripts - Great post that will gives you a new image about build scripts.
  
• Securing a Web API with Windows Azure AD and Katana (vibro) - Very complete post and tutorial that explains what is OWIN and project Katana (both in preview), and how to use it.
  
• July 2013 Release of the Ajax Control Toolkit - This post details all the great new features in the last release of Ajax Control Toolkit. So many useful tools...

Databases

• Fragmentation in SQL Azure! (Dilkush-MSFT) - Wow, a really interesting post that goes deeper than usual and explains database fragmentation in Azure.
  
• Take Control - Windows Azure SQL Database Application Life Cycle Management Made Easy! (Alexandre Brisebois) - The SQL Server Data Tools (SSDT) is definitely a must for all projects with a database.

Miscellaneous

• When You Have Nothing Unique to Say… (Darren Rowse) - A little blogger's pep talk.
  
• 5 Tips for Launching a Product On Your Blog Without Annoying Your Readers (Darren Rowse) - Great post where the author share is experience about a product launch and how do it «the right way».
  
  

~Frank

Reading Notes #91

Suggestion of the week

• Streaming Diagnostics Trace Logging from the Azure Command Line (plus Glimpse!) (Scott Hanselman)- Great post that shows us a lot of possibilities to trace our cloud application. I really like the stream log from Azure command line.
  
• Walkthrough to Configure System Center Management Pack for Windows Azure Fabric Preview for SCOM 2012 SP1 (Walter Myers) - As it says in this post: The wait is over. Don't miss the important news. Share it.
  
• Windows Azure Infrastructure as a Service General Availability (Bart Vande Ghinste) - Hurray! The IaaS is now ready for production and got a significant price reduction!!!

Cloud

• Walkthrough #3: Developing Multi-Tenant Web Applications with Windows Azure AD (vibro) - This post summarize the third par of an unavoidable tutorial about Azure and Active Directory.
  
• Creating a Windows Azure Virtual Machine - the RIGHT Way (Buck Woody) - Creating a VM is easy, but it's important to know how to do it correctly to get what we expect.
  
• Windows Azure IaaS is Live and BizTalk Server 2013 Hourly Pricing Released(Stephen W. Thomas) - This post explains how to calculus, our fees when running Azure BizTalk VM.
  
• Django now available on Windows Azure - Good news for Python developers.

Integration

• Service Bus Explorer 2.0 released (Paolo Salvatori) - Impressive tool that gives a lot of options to manage our Azure Service Bus.

Programming

• View your Kanban board - Nice post that gives more details on one of the new supported Visual Studio features. Really interesting and useful.
  
• jQuery 2.0 Released  - Good news. However, don't forget that the branch 2.x is met to support new browser. For IE 6, 7, 8 the branch 1.x will continue to be supported.

System Management

• Adding a Custom Domain to your Windows Azure AD (vibro) - Useful post that explains all steps of a common scenario when using AD.
  
• Why monitor Windows Azure with System Center? - Good question. And the answer is ev0en better... Thankfully.

Miscellaneous

• Rule No. 1: Get to the Point (Geoffrey James) - Quick and clear.
  
• Simple Trick to Finding Extraordinary Employees (Marla Tabaka) - Nice tips. Easy to use.
  
• Effectiveness and Efficiency - Nice post. It is, in fact, a good starting point to become better at what you do... or what you should be doing.

~Frank

Reading Notes #89

Suggestion of the week

• Pinching pennies when scaling in The Cloud (Scott Hanselman) - Great example of code optimization, and all that in the cloud.
• Mobile Services and Windows Azure Storage (Chris) - Great tutorial that explains how to change the usual SQL database to Azure storage with Azure Mobile services. The client parts are also available for iOS and Android.

Cloud

• Optimized Windows Azure IaaS Disk Mobility with Save-AzureVhd (Michael Washam) - Another quick post that demonstrates how to upload a VHD in Azure storage using the new Azure cmdlet feature.
  
• What Does Your Cloud Disaster Recovery Plan Look Like? - Nice post that explains how you can use Azure Data Sync to backup your database.
  
• Running SSL with Windows Azure Web Sites Today - The perfect workaround to have a SSL Azure Website today is explained in this post. Using a web service to forward the traffic this is a good solution until SSL is supported.
  
• Put Your Windows Azure SQL Database on a Diet! - Nice post of a real case, real data and real prices.
  
• A Quick Guide to Getting Started with New Relic - Perfect starting point with a lot of information and reference on deeper tutorials.
  
• Three gotchas with the Azure Service Bus - Very interesting post that goes deeper than usual and explains clearly some details of the Azure service bus.
  
• Cloud Cover Show: Episode 103 - Windows Azure HDInsight (Nick Harris, Nathan Totten) - Don't miss this show, it explains what big data, why it is useful. What's the difference between it and HDInsight and in bonus, you got a demo.

 

Programming

• The Repository Pattern - Nice example of dependency injection. Really useful pattern.
  
• Problems with Copy Pasting Code - And Modifying Slightly... (Jason Singh) - Wow! I'm always impressed by tools that are available to get better code. That one is a must.
  
• Understanding Javascript Prototypes - Very clear post that explains what is a javascript prototype, what is not and how to use it.
  
• Why 30% of App Deployments Fail (Victor Cruz) - Interesting post that share result of a survey on deployment strategies.
  
• App Building Made Easier–Step 3 (Jonathan Rozenblit) - Great post. Start coding, you are not alone. Note that even if Jonathan didn't say it help is also available in French...
  
• Getting started with AngularJS - With all those JavaScript framework available it's difficult to know with one to pick or where to start looking. This post is a good place to start.

 

Integration

• BizTalk Anti Pattern – Don’t over complicate your maps (Michael Stephenson) - It is sometime difficult to find the limit of functoids to use in map to get the job done. But we shouldn't be afraid to .Net code.

I wrote a blog post a few years ago around the options for where you could put configuration settings in BizTalk (Click here).

• BizTalk 2013 worldwide launch events by Impack - Learn more about this important event that you shouldn't miss.

System Management

• BizTalk Monitoring Solutions (SCOM vs BizTalk360) white paper by Kent Weare (Saravana Kumar) - Nice intro to the white paper about monitoring BizTalk solutions. And of course, the reference to the white paper.

Miscellaneous

• The 3 Biggest Resume Mistakes - Few tips to get your social "you" more appealing. Because to have new contracts you need to demark yourself.
  
• How to: Add a ‘Copy Code’ Link to Your Blog Post and Colored Code Blocks (Jeff Sanders) - Simple tips to improve the code visibility and accessibility in your post.
  
• Surviving legacy code - Very complete article about legacy code and why the trash for person is the treasure of another.

• Move your Hotmail.com account to an Outlook.com account (Greg Shultz) - I use outlook.com for few months now, and I love it. This post explains how to migrate, what era your options and what will happen if you do nothing.

~Frank

Reading Notes #87

Suggestion of the week

• NuGet Package Source Discovery (Maarten Balliauw) - Wow an amazing idea. The potential is big, looking forward for other posts on that to see that devs are doing with it.
• Build great web apps, directly in Dropbox - Wow it cannot be more easy! Now everyone even no technical people can have their website on Azure, and for free!

 

Cloud

• Inserting & Modifying Large Amounts of Data in Windows Azure Table Storage Service (Alexandre Brisebois) - Nice post that explains best practices with Azure Table Storage.
  
• Size Matters! - Of course size matter, but the size of what? Excellent post that explains how to use to the maximum the available resources.
  
• Remote profiling Windows Azure Cloud Services with dotTrace (Maarten Balliauw) - Great tutorial that explains how to configures and use dotTrace with Windows Azure.
• Let there be Windows Azure HDInsight - Perfect post to keep in our bookmarks. It contains all kinds of reference to get started with Hadoop on Azure.
  
• Crunch Big Data in the Cloud with Windows Azure HDInsight Service(Craig Kitterman) - Details on the HDInsight likes prices and compatibility.
  
• Web Camp Session Video – Websites in the Cloud (Tyler Doerksen) - Nice video that shows 0everything about Azure website.

Programming

• How can I motivate coworkers to write unit tests? - Writing unit test is good. Here is all the tooling it needs to motivates other people( or even you) to do so.
  
• Dirk Strauss - Nice looking tool. It could be very interesting to compare the features with basiliq... more to come.
  
• Amazon Launches ‘Send to Kindle’ Button For Web Developers & WordPress Blogs - Great idea! Looking forward to more of these buttons.
  
• How to configure diff and Merge tool in Visual Studio Git Tools - Useful tips to have a better configuration and have your favourite tools working together.
  
• A Month of PowerShell (Wayne Sheffield) – Great series that I started reading. I liked the format (short post). It gives you time to practice a little everyday.
• Day 1 (Getting Started) - Learn why you should learn PowerShell and few basics explorative cmdlets in the first post of a series.
• Day 2 (Variables and Operators)  - Nice for the explanation about the quote double quote.
  
• Day 3 (Security) - Useful tips if you try doing PowerShell you will hit the problem solved in this post.
  
• Day 4 (Scripting) - The base of script structure: function, module, try-catch, and param.
  
• Day 5 (Scripting – Putting it together) - Nice post the puts all the things presented in previous posts in a sample script.

 

Databases

• implicit data type conversion and COALESCE - This great post explains how quickly and simply improve our SQL query. Any developers who writes query should definitely read that one.

Miscellaneous

• What a 14-Year-Old Can Teach You About Management - It's never too late or too early to learn something. A nice post that will show you your from in a different angle.
  
• 7 Simple Steps to Writing Great ‘How To’ Content on Your Blog - Good post explaining the good way to write a how to post.
  
• 9 Steps to Creating a Successful e-Course) (Darren Rowse) - A lot of useful information in this post to create interesting lessons.
  
• It’s Not Just Reader – Google Kills Its RSS Subscription Browser Extension, Too (Sarah Perez) - Last week was full of Google reader news, but the thing is bigger than that. Why this move?

~Frank

Reading Notes #86

picture from http://onsoftware.en.softonic.com/

Suggestion of the week

• Boxstarter - I really need to “box” my favourite applications, so each time I start working on a new VM all my stuff will be the way I like.
• Service Bus Messaging Deep-Dive (Clemens V) - If you must see only one video about Service bus is that one. Great job! Know more from A to Z in one shot.

Cloud

• Real-World Scenarios for Node.js in Windows Azure - This article the perfect get started to do not only your first Node.js website, but to do it in Azure.
• Using Windows Azure Virtual Machines to Publish and Synchronize a Web Farm(Wade) - Great tutorial that explains all the steps and scripts very clearly. Try It.
• 10 must-try cloud tools for business (Jack Wallen) - Great list of cloud solution available today.
• DevOps for Windows Azure (BuckWoody) - Great resources of references for all the devops needs. A post to bookmark.

Scaling Applications Using Windows Azure Cloud Services Poster
here: http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id =36837
you should also read this complete manual in preparation here: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh871440.aspx

• Does Your Data Really Belong in Your SQL Database? - Nice post that answers a really good question. When an application is moved into the cloud, most of the time a re-structuration is needed to enjoy the cloud capabilities.
• Integrate AWS with .NET applications by using a Visual Studio add-in (Tony Patton) - Perfect post for .Net developers to get started working with AWS in VisualStudio.
• All Things Distributed (Werner Vogels) - Nice post about Node.js, beanTalk and AWS.
• Guest Post: Getting started with Windows Azure Mobile Services - Really nice post. THE starting point to try Azure Mobile Services. Then you're done and will never want to stop...
• Cutting Costs on Windows Azure Isn't Always About Compromise - Interesting post that explains with reel numbers how you could save with Azure.
• Web Camp Session Video – Websites in the Cloud (Tyler Doerksen) - Great video that shows how to build, deploy and manage a Windows Azure Website and all the good tricks.

Databases

• Cassandra with a Hint of Azure (Neil Mackenzie) - Nicepost that introduces Cassandra. Its architecture, pros and cons. Reference to another post that compare Cassandra to other NoSql databases are also mentioned.
• SQL Server Data-Tier Application Framework (March 2013) Available - Describe the main features in the chagelog and how to upgrade your version.
• Introduction to the SQL BCP Utility - If you don't know this essential tool, the post is a must.
• AWS Scales Relational Database Service By Tripling Storage And IOPs (Alex Williams) - Wow triple the relational database maximum size?! That's huge!

Integration

• Using EDI Bridge to exchange B2B messages in Windows Azure Service Bus - Very nice tutorial (and rare) about EDI in Azure.

Programming

• Migrating ASP.NET Web Forms to the MVC Pattern with the ASP.NET Web API - Good tutorial explains how to integrate the MVC pattern in the asp.net web form.
• Introducing Google+ Sign-In for your Drive Apps - Nice new single sign-in addition.
• SQL Server Data Tools – Business Intelligence for Visual Studio 2012 (Jason Singh) - Great addition to Visual Studio.

Miscellaneous

• Majority of doctors opposed to full access to your own electronic records (Ken Fisher) - Interesting result, even if not that much surprise, I though the repartition was more even.
• Is It Possible to Have Too Many Ideas? (Chris Heivly) - Nice post that bust the myth by explaining that what's manner is what you do with that flow of ideas.
• 11 Simple Concepts to Become a Better Leader - Nice quick review of key concept to become better; period.
• 24 Ways to Save an Hour (Kevin Daum) - Good post to get started and have some optimization ideas... But I still missed one sleeping hour. ;)
• Tips for Google Reader users migrating to feedly - I'm trying Feedly as Google reader replacer, and I found those little tips interesting.
• Google Reader may very well rise again... as part of Google+ (Casey Johnston) - This resume the sadly news...
• Moving to Outlook from Google Reader (Abhinaba Basu) - Nice trick to continue reading your favorites RSS when Google Reader.
• 4 Myths About Open Source We Should Put to Rest (OX Rafael Laguna) - Very interesting post that bust myths about open source.

~Frank

Reading Notes #79

Suggestion of the week

• A personal approach to organizational time management - This is the most realistic and logic time management idea I heard from long time.
• Using the VM Depot - Get started with VM Depot.

Cloud

• The Right Way to Handle Azure OnStop Events (Craig Kitterman) - This post contains a lot of details information about the Azure stop event.
• All Your Base Are Belong To Us - Create example of what can be done using Windows Azure Media Services.
• Find, deploy and share images for Windows Azure - Learn more about VM Depot this brand new community-drive web catalog.
• Broadcast push notifications to millions of mobile devices using Windows Azure Notification Hubs (Scott Gu) - Great addition to the Windows Services, this post explains how to get started.
• How to redeploy a deleted Windows Azure Virtual Machine - Good catch!
• ‘Pay for what you use’ cloud services may change the culture of IT project management in small businesses, for better - See how Windows Azure could help you in your next project by reading this true story about Datownia the winner of the UK Government Technology Strategy Board research and Development grant.
• The truth about PaaS vertical scaling and why you are being “oversold” (Ruslan Synytsky) - This post introduces Jelastic PaaS. A cloud solution for Java and explains how it is elastic.
• Windows Azure Store: New add-ons and expanded availability (Scott Gu) - Great new features! Learn everything about the newly available Windows Azure Store.

Database

• SQL SERVER – Select the Most Optimal Backup Methods for Server - While I was looking for backup detail in the cloud I found this article. It is a good review/explanation of all on-premise possibilities.
• SQL Server Backup and Restore to Cloud Simplified (Craig Kitterman) - This post explain how to backup our on-premise database in Azure. This way you have easily a backup offsite. Even more, since this backup can be restore on premise or directly in the cloud!

Practice

• All Effective Enterprise Architects Are Agile - Interesting post about the strength of Agile methodology.

Integration

• Windows Azure Service Bus EAI EDI Labs April Release – How can I Get Start - If you didn't have the chance to try Windows Azure Enterprise application Integration (EAI) part, this is your chance.

Programming

• The Mobility Iceberg (David Pallmann) - Interesting post that describes what is a superior mobile application.
• Build Yourself a Windows 8 App Dev Lab (Jonathan Rozenblit) - Perfect post to get started and build your first Windows 8 app.
• 10 Bonnes Pratiques JavaScript (Christophe Porteneuve) - A must to read. 10 simple best practices to improve your code.
• éco-conception logicielle : 10 fois moins de serveurs pour LinkedIn - Very interesting article about the design of LinkedIn and why it is so performan.
• Things I learnt creating a jQuery Plugin (Part I) - First post of a series, this post get you started with the best practice of a jQuery plugin structure.

Miscellaneous

• Managing Programs With Agile and Traditional Projects (Johanna) - Good tips about how we could manage a mixte of agile and no-agile projects.
• How to Refresh Your Brain--in 10 Minutes (Francesca Fenzi) - 10 minutes that's easy!
• You are not your code. (Scott Hanselman) – Nice pep-talk that motivate us to share. I can agree more.

~Frank

Reading Notes #76

 
Suggestion of the week

• Subscribe! (Clement Vasters) - An amazing new series about the Windows Azure Service Bus, really good video.
• Getting Started with Service Bus. Part 1: The Portal
• Getting Started with Service Bus. Part 2: .NET SDK and Visual Studio
• Getting Started with Service Bus. Part 3: Service Bus Explorer
• Getting Started with Service Bus. Part 4: Queues
• Getting Started with Service Bus. Part 5: Topics
• Getting Started with Service Bus. (Final) Part 6: Relay

Cloud

• New Windows Azure PowerShell Update – December 2012 (Michael Washam) - Nice update to the Azure PowerShell tool that gives more options to manage Virtual machine and Service Bus.
• Table Storage 2.0 (Tyler Doerksen) - Nice post that explains the new structure of the namespace in the library and gives some samples of code how to use it.
• Practical Azure #5: Windows Azure SQL Database - Perfect get started video about Azure Sql Database.
• Storing user uploads in Windows Azure blob storage (Maarten Balliauw) - Great solution to a simple real word question. Easily scalable and secure. I really like it!
• Azure Remote PowerShell (Dustin Metzgar) - This post explains how the author managed to get more information from an instance running in Azure. The code sample is also available.
• PaaS not cheap enough? AppFog has a deal for you! (Barb Darrow) - New lower prices for Cloud Foundry.
• Applications are now open for the Microsoft Accelerator for Windows Azure – 2013 (Scott Gu)- Great opportunity for business to start using Azure with a lot of resources.
• Cross-Post: Announcing Windows Azure Media Player framework Preview for iOS (Craig Kitterman) - Great new for iOS developers that can now enjoy the awesome Azure Media Services.
• Deploy an on-premise VM to Windows Azure with App Controller (John Joyner) - Hurray! A lot of people were waiting for this feature!

Integration

• BizTalk360 Deployment and Configuration best practices (Saravana Kumar) - Use must read/bookmark the great post. It explains all the best practices related to BizTalk360, all in one single post.

Database

• Windows Azure Import/Export Service and External References - Important notice that can save you a lot of time when exporting a database in Windows Azure.
• Available Today: SSDT—December 2012 - New updated version of Sql Server Data Tool (SSDT) now support unit testing.
• Getting Started with SQL Server Database Unit Testing in SSDT - Nice post that explains how to get started with the new testing features available in Sql Server Data Tool. From converting the 2010 test projects to customization.

Programming

• 10 skills for developers to focus on in 2013 (Justin James) - Developers if you didn't see these coming, here is the top list of what you should learn/ improve in 2013.
• Why All The Lambdas? - This post explains very clearly how the lambdas are so useful by using a well use sample of code in Asp. Net MVC @Html.TextBoxFor(Model.Rating).
• Use Big Data to gain insight about small business customers (David Gitonga) - Interesting post that explains how BigData could be you in your business... even if you are in a small company.
• What Refactoring is, and what it isn’t - According to Kent Beck and Martin Fowler (Jim Bird) - While doing some refac****. I mean re writing in a project I found this post to be really interesting... and actual.
• 10 Tools To Get Kids Excited About Programming (Saikat Basu) - Wow those are great! I'm exited to show some of these to my kid. It's always good to transit passion ;)
• Essential Command-Line Tools for Web Developers - Interesting tools that can saves a lot of times doing repetitive tasks, specially during web development.
• JQUERY 1.9 BETA 1 RELEASED - Nice jQuery 1.9 is coming. Learn all about the new features ex: the multiple getter. Since big structural changes are maid in this version the jQuery team is providing migration tools. Learn where to find these and how-to uses them in this post.
• Recreate a VM .. over and over again (Priyo Lahiri) - Nice script that is a time saver. I would have liked to have it one month ago when I was testing deployment... Let's keep it for the future.
• So long and thanks for the all the Expression... Expression Design & Web are End of Life'd (but now free) [oh, and the rest of the Expression Suite is dead too] - If you still using VS2010 it's a good time to download Blend now. Also I wonder what application will replace/take the lead instead of SuperPreview (in Expression Web)?

Miscellaneous

• 15 Social Media Mistakes that are Strangling Your Success (Georgina Laidlaw) - This post suggested simple "rules" that are easy to follow, and that will make you more likeable on social media.
• Surface & iPad Collision Course  - Nice post that compares what could be compared between an iPad and a Surface... Nothing unexpected put still something to read.
• Backing Up WordPress? Don’t Make These 9 Mistakes - If you are a developer, you probably backup your machines and your code. That good. Do you do the same for your blog? You should, here is how-to do it the good way.

~Frank

Reading Notes #75

Cloud

• Bulk Database Migration from On-Premise SQL Server to SQL Azure - Step 1: Bulk .bacpac Export - First post of a series about exporting many databases on-premise to move then in Azure with a script of course.
• Azure VMs - Managing, Resizing & Interacting with VHDs! (David Baliles) - Nice post, with some good tips and tricks about Azure VM.
• 3 best practices for Windows Azure SQL Reporting development (Craig Kitterman) - Simple rules easy to apply that will make your project to follow best practices.
• Windows Azure IaaS Webcast Series: Part Four Creating Virtual Machines with PowerShell (Michael Washam) - Good serie of webcast series (video) that cover a lot about Azure virtual machine.
• Migrating from a relational to a NoSQL cloud database - Good advices about things to think before doing a migration from relational database to NoSQL.
• Windows Azure Active Directory Supports JSON Web Tokens (Alex Simons) - Good news, more features with Windows Azure Active Directory.
• Updated: Known Issues for Windows Azure Storage Client Library 2.0 for .NET and Windows Runtime - Keep tracks of the changes on the library. The team is working hard to fix these issues.
• Amazon Redshift - The New AWS Data Warehouse - Learn more about the brand-new Redshift from Amazon and how this new AWS data warehouse could help you.
• Monitoring Windows Azure with Foglight (James Newton-King) - That looks like a really good tool. I must try it... Stay tune…
• I Could Sure Use Some Windows Azure Code Samples… (Buck Woody) - Learn more about all the tools and code samples easily (and freely) available for you.
• Windows Azure Active Directory: Making it easier to establish Identity Management in the cloud - Great news about Active directory that announce free features.
• Using existing database with Azure Mobile Services - Nice trick that gives the opportunity to works with Windows Azure Mobile Services and existent database.
• Welcome Windows Azure Insider - Learn more about a new Azure column in the MSDN Magazine and about its authors.
• Windows Azure Service Bus: Messaging Patterns Using Sessions - Great article that explains how to build a messaging application with the Azure Service Bus using Topic. A great complement to the Servise Bus Lab in the Windows Azure Training Kit (WATK).
• Azure table storage WCF custom transport channel (Dustin Metzgar) - Nice post with a full coded solution that explains how to use Azure storage with WCF.
• Managing Multiple Windows Azure Web Site Environments using Visual Studio Publishing Profiles - Nice post that explains how to get the maximum of the publish profiles of Visual Studio and Azure.

Integration

• worldwide integration alliance announced - Congratulation to Breeze, Codit and Matricis Informatique for this worldwide alliance. Long life to Impack Alliance!
• Exploring REST Capabilities of BizTalk Server 2013: Exposing REST Endpoints - Great tutorial that explores the REST features of BizTalk 2013 with synch and asynch processes.
• Exploring REST Capabilities of BizTalk Server 2013: Consuming REST Endpoints - Second part of a nice tutorial. This time exploring how to consume services (Get, Delete).
• BizTalk Summit 2012, Redmond–Experience (Saravana Kumar) - Quick summary of what happens at the BizTalk Summit this year. More to come...
• BizTalk Server 2013 Image Available on Windows Azure Virtual Machines - Hurray! It finally arrive! Quick go to Windows Azure portal.
• BizTalk Mapper Patterns: How to map values from a repeating node into a single node using conditions – Again a great post to improve our mapping skills. Most of the time the clients prefer that we keep using only the functoids. This post may gives you arguments to go other ways and get real performance.

Programming

• Full Tagging Support Now Available in the Readability API (David Sleight) - Yeah! It's time to update my script. More to come in a future blog post.
• Updating my Windows Phone App to Windows Phone 8 (Scott Hanselman) - Nice tutorial that highlight some key features that need to be addressed in order to build a nice Windows Phone 8 applications.
• Comparing two techniques in .NET Asynchronous Coordination Primitives (Scott Hanselman) - The logical following of the previous post ... in this one Scott is comparing different methods to do async.
• Announcing the ASP.NET and Web Tools 2012.2 Release Candidate (Scott Gu)- Details on what's in the new Entity Framework EF 6 beta 2.
• Do You Really Want To Be Agile? (Marc Clifton) - A long but very complete post/story/tutorial about building an application using agile.
• SQL Server Data-Tier Application Framework (November 2012) Available - More details about what new or fixed in the new release of DACFx.
• ASP.NET and Web Tools 2012.2 (Release Candidate) (Scott Hanselman) - Learn more about the new release of web tools that the asp.net team move to open source. And if you ever want to know why they’re doing that, this is the post to read.

Miscellaneous

• Big Data - Very interesting thoughts about what should be "smart application" today since the so much information is easily accessible thru Big Data.
• Try Meditation to Strengthen Your Resilience - If the resilience is good for our code, it should be good for ourselves too!? Nice post that tip-off how to improve our resilience.
• Windows Surface RT: Pros & Cons (John Brandon) - Interesting thoughts about popularity in the tablet device word.
• How to be a Consultant, Part 5: Verbal Communication Skills (David Pallmann) - Great add-on to the serie: How to be a Consultant. This post gives good tips to improve the communication skills. This is for everyone since nobody works alone in his basement without seeing someone once in a while.
• Painting the Walls, with IdeaPaint - What a nice idea! We always need more space on the dry board...

~Frank

Reading Notes #73

Cloud

• A Refresh of the Windows Azure Authentication Library Developer Preview (Vittorio Bertocci) - Really nice a complete post. Explain the new change and improvement of the Azure Authentication Library (AAL).
• Adding Auth and Logging out of an iOS Windows Azure Mobile Services App (Chris Risner) - Nice explanation of a real life situation. This post is done using the iOS but it's true for all other platform also.
• Windows Azure SQL Database Management (Shay Yannay) - This post explain how you could do a PowerShell script to speed up your deployment by automating the database creation and some other tasks.
• Adding multiple endpoints to your Windows Azure Virtual Machines by using a CSV file - Really useful script to automatize endpoint creation on Azure VM. I really need to see how this script works.
• Visual Studio Identity Support Works with .Net 4.5 Only - Good! That confirmed some assumption that I made.
• Connecting Windows Azure Web Sites to On-Premises Databases Using Windows Azure Service Bus - Very nice article that combine multiple elements on-premise and in the cloud. It clearly reflect the reality of many companies. Also available in video on Channel9.
• Windows Azure Training Kit - November 2012 - What?! Already! Wow that what I call staying up to date.
• PHP 5.4 available in Windows Azure Web Sites - Great news for the PHP developers. It will be a lot easier now for them.
• Windows Azure Virtual Machines - Make Sure You Follow the Documentation (Buck Woody) - Good advice. It will save us a lot of time.
• Windows Azure Active Directory Processes 200 Billion Authentications - Connecting People, Data and Devices Around The Globe (Bill Hilf) - Very interesting post that explain Active directory in numbers and also gives different possible scenarios.

  […]respond to 9,000 requests per second and in the U.S. the average authentication takes less than 0.7 seconds. […]

• easyJet transforms business model with cloud and Azure (HowieT) - Interesting real life story about a company who leverage is legacy application and then use this to build something completely new.
• Configuring Online Backup for Windows Server 2012 - Good tutorial about how to configure the great feature of Windows Server 2012 such as online backup (with Windows Azure).
• Amazon Web Services Blog: Enable Single Sign On to the AWS Management Console - Great news using Active Directory in business context is so convenient!
• Cloud is begging for governance, analyst argues | ZDNet (Joe McKendrick) - Interesting article; the cloud is still young and people still need to learn.
• Google’s approach to Big Data is BigQuery (Scott Matteson) - Very interesting post learn more about BigQuery and Google Sql Database.

  […]the first 100GB of data you process each month is free[…]

• Windows Azure Mobile Services: A Robust Back End for Your Device Applications - Great article that explain how Windows Azure Mobile services works truth a nice tutorial. You must read that.

Integration

• October Images of Windows Server 2008 R2 and Windows Server 2012 Available for Windows Azure Virtual Machines (Stephen W. Thomas) – Aah… That great I will also to that then. Looking forward to try the new BizTalk 2013.

Programming

• Use Big Data to gain insight about small business customers (David Gitonga) - Interesting post that explains how BigData could be you in your business... even if you are in a small company.
• Combining Files in PowerShell (Robert Bernstein) - Nice PowerShell tips.
• SqlDependency with Entity Framework 5.0 - Very nice tutorial that explain how to get change notification with EF and beyond... Good job.

Miscellaneous

• 10 Simple Things you should do to Protect your Privacy - Good tips... and I think I should do more of them.
• Why Great Teams Build Great Products - Does (n x developer) = output? Really? This post explains why.
• 6 Concrete Ways to Improve Business Communication - Nice way to improve
• What are the best and worst things about working at Microsoft? - Learn the truth about was it is to work at one of the biggest tech company.
• How to Publish Your Blog on Amazon Kindle (Guest Blogger) - Since I’m a Kindle user I confirm that I would love to see more 0blog available on this platform.

~Frank

Reading Notes #69

Cloud

• This Site Now Powered By Windows Azure Websites! (Chris) - In this post Chris is sharing is experience when moving is web site to Windows Azure.
• Declarative Architectures in Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) - In this post Buck is sharing method and third party to design architecture where the cloud is part of the solution.
• Windows Azure Store Preview - Quick post to introduce some feature of the new Windows Azure Store.
• How to use MongoDB from PHP in Windows Azure Web Sites - Really nice tutorial that explain how to create the just announced MongoDB as a service and use it from a Windows Azure website.
• Announcing Second Generation Standard instances for Amazon EC2 and a price reduction for M1 instances - AWS announce a new generation of EC2 instance with nothing less than 50% more computational capability/core.
• SQL Data Sync now available in the East and West US Data Centers! - Announce of SQL Data Sync availability in two data center.
• Where in the world is SQL Data Sync? - Nice catch, learn how from the new Azure portal to access the Azure data sync page.
• Episode 92 - iOS SDK for Windows Azure Mobile Services (Nick Harris, Nathan Totten) - Great episode that show how easy it is now to use Windows Azure with iOS.
• Episode 93 - Real-World Windows Azure with Mural.ly (Nick Harris, Nathan Totten) - An amazing video take 45 minutes and watch this podcast. It's energizing to see someone with so much passion. And try Mural.ly.
• Single Sign On with Windows Azure Active Directory: a Deep Dive - Nice deep dive that stay clear even if very detailed.

Programming

• Your Visual Studio, Your Colors - Great it will now be easier than even to customize the color of VS2012 with is new add-on.
• TechDays 2012, une nouvelle ère débute - A lot of great opportunities are coming this fall for all Canadian.
• Développer un site web avec node.js et tous les outils - Wow. Perfect tutorial to get started with Node.js. It explains how to setup a nice working environment, sometime saving tips, etc. (en francais)
• Windows Identity Foundation Tools for Visual Studio 2012 RTM (Vittorio Bertocci) - I missed that one when it came out... Great tool!
• The Hanselminutes - Glimpse gets a benefactor - can open source and commercial software live together? - If you’re doing web development you should listen this and you must try Glimpse.
• The Hanselminutes - What is Typescript and why with Anders Hejlsberg - Loud and clear. The best description of what is Typescript and why I should start using it.
• Podcast Update with Guest Spots and a New Show - October 2012 (Scott Hanselman) - A list of interesting podcast in different domains suggested by Scoot Hanselman.

Integration

• BizTalk Mapper Patterns: How to Map Hierarchical Schema to a Name Value Pair - Nice post that describe the pros and cons of four method to accomplish a mapping from hierarchical schema to a name value pair.
• BizTalk Server 2010 ESB Training Kit (Saravana Kumar) - Free resources, this is a link to bookmark.
• Service Bus Messaging: Queues, SB-Messaging Adapter (Steef-Jan Wiggers) - Great tutorial using Windows Azure Service Bus with BizTalk.

Miscellaneous

• Windows 8 upgrade: your hardware and software options explained (Sean Hollister) - The perfect post to help everyone to takes the good decision regarding Windows 8.A link to share.

~Frank

Reading Notes #68

Cloud

• Getting Database Connection Information in Windows Azure Web Sites - Great clarification about how to access connection string in Azure using PHP or Node.js
• Node.js specific diagnostics for Windows Azure - Great source of detailed information that will speed-up your next bug investigation.
• How To Create a Base Disk or Image in Windows Azure Virtual Machines and Share It Across Accounts (Stephen W. Thomas) - Great tutorial to prepare a master custom virtual image for Azure.

[…]Shan McArthur has a great blog post on the difference between an Image and a Disk. […]

• Trying Out the New Windows Azure Portal Support for Relay Services - Nice walk around of the new Windows Azure features focusing on the service bus capabilities.
• Jolicloud Pivots Again, Now As A Start Page For Cloud Services — Have they Cracked It This Time? (Mike Butcher) - I really like the idea being Jolicloud. I'm not sure I will use it that often, but it's a good idea.
• Readability Comes to Jolicloud (David Sleight) - Nice! Jolicloud is useful when on the road. Now I can keep track of me reading too.
• Announcing Public Availability of Service Bus for Windows Server (Service Bus 1.0) (Himanshu_Singh) - Great news. We will now be able to develop with the Service Bus for Windows server than switch, if we want, to Windows Azure Service Bus on prod, transparently!

[…]APIs exposed for developing applications are consistent with those of the public cloud service, making it easy to develop applications for either and switch between the two. […]

• Exporting and Importing VM settings with the Azure Command-Line Tools - Great idea! Very useful! I can easily see one or two script staying on my desktop waiting to be double click...
• .NET 4.5 now supported with Windows Azure Web Sites (Scott Gu) - Perfect timing, ready to upgrade and be able to use the last version of EF.
• Using Trace in Windows Azure Cloud Applications (Himanshu Singh) - Useful tips to get easily a nice trace from Windows Azure project.
• Windows 8 and Windows Azure: Convergence in the Cloud - Nice article from MSDN Mag. This tutorial explain how to build a windows 8 application that pull data from Windows Azure.

Integration

• BizTalk 2010 R2 CTP: Azure Service Bus Integration–Part 5 Sending messages to Service Bus Queues using Sessions (Kent Weare) - Nice demo using session, I like this alternative.

Programming

• What is SSDT? - Since I try this tool I can’t live without.
• Analyse : Différentes façons d'intégrer un script Javascript - Nice analyse I will bookmark it to use it as reference.
• CoffeeScript 1.4.0 Released, No Sign of Source Maps - Good news for Node.js user.
• Welcome to Windows 8! (Paul Laberge) - Know your options as developer.

Miscellaneous

• Bounce Rates High? Why? (Darren Rowse) - Nice post that explain how to understand your blog bounce rate.
• 3 Characteristics of Amazing Presentations (Margaret Heffernan) - Quick tips to improve easily your presentation.
• The Undercover Interview Technique (Jeff Haden) - Interesting point of view but I prefer the coffee meeting, where you meet few co-worker in a relax context.
• 5 Goals Every Blogger Should Set Up in Google Analytics - Nice post that explain clearly how to setup goals and their utility.
• Book review: Think Like a Programmer - <sigh> So let ready only the chapter one than...

~Frank

Reading Notes #63

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

Cloud

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

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

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

Programming

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

Miscellaneous

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

Reading Notes #57

 

Cloud

• How to Assess Costs of using Windows Azure for your Applications (Himanshu Singh) - Quick post about a windows paper that provide all the information on Azure usual monthly charges.

Check out the paper.

• Hands-on Windows Azure Services for Windows (Maarten Balliauw) - M. Balliauw is asking a good question, that I ears often: Why should I do this?
• Windows Azure Visio Shapes - Yahooooo! I never enough Visio shape... Thanks Buck Woody!
• Service Bus for Windows server, the new features - Good post that introduces the new features of the service Bus and explains them quickly.
• Cloud Cover – Episode 84 - Windows Azure Storage Updates and a Preview of the Client Storage Library vNext - As usual nice video (shorter than last time ;) ). It reviews the new features available in Azure Storage, and show a preview of the Azure Storage libraries that will be release soon.

Programming

• ASP.NET Web API and Azure Blob Storage (Yao) - Super tutorial that show step by step how to manage your Azure Blob Storage by code, by doing a nice helper class.
• The 5 thing to immediately grab from EF Open Source - Good post that point out some place where you can see good code sample.
• When do you need a 3-tier architecture? - Good question! And this post is trying to answer it.
• Building an Offline HTML5 Application - Great tutorial about a well-structured HTML5 application that will also works offline.
• Entity Framework 5 and 6 Roadmap - The list of interesting features of the EF5 and some that are planned for the version 6.
• Beyond Agile Estimation Part I: Measuring Key Data Points - Nice post that summarize how to use some keys counters in order to have a better estimation of the project delivery date.
• CloudSurvey (Nathan Totten) - Nice work. A great sample to see how things are done.
• WCF - Top 10 Interview Questions (Imran Abdul Ghani) - Excellent post and excellent revision of what is WCF. Short and clear.
• Exterminating Common jQuery Bugs (Elijah Manor) - Wow what a great video. It goes through all most frequent mistake we make, explain why it doesn't works and fix it. Take a look at the tool he is using. An open source (soon) presentation framework. Very nice!
• 10 Application Performance Tuning Tips - Nice tips, simple and efficient.
• So you want to contribute to EF? Part 1: Introduction (Arthur Vickers) - Excellent series not only to kwon more about how to contribute with the Entity framework (EF) but with any kind of open source project.

Miscellaneous

• 5 Ways to Think Wisely in Development (Dimitrios Kalogirou) - Nice post that expose 5 ways to be a wiser developer.
• Sitting is Making You Fat and Killing You - Nice warning post that explains why say sit for a long period is bad and gives some tips to improve our comfort.
• Who Are You Really Mad At? (Peter) - This is about a life lesson: Pause. And like in the post you will be reward.
• Time to stop reusing your passwords - Nice reminder of the reason why we shouldn't reuse our e-mail.
• Get The Most Out of Your Mornings - Nice post that explain how to you could use your mornings to add 280 hours in your year.
• Time Management Tips #3 - Three Wins for the Week (JD Meier) - Simple tips from the book Getting Results the Agile Way that will help you to have a better week.
• 10 classic mistakes that plague software development projects (Justin James) - Nice post that make me smiling. I challenge you to pass through the list without thinking: oh yeah that's so true...
• True Secret to Success (It's Not What You Think) (Geoffrey James) - Suggest a very simple mental exercise to make your day more positive.
• I Won't Hire People Who Use Poor Grammar. Here's Why. (Kyle Wiens) - I agree the grammar is really important, even if I’m not good as I want to be.
• 3 Interview Questions That Reveal Everything (Jeff Haden) - Nice post. I like the questions it's true that you should learn a lot from them even if the candidate is not "verbose".

~ Frank