Reading Notes #114

Suggestion of the week

• Episode 117: Introducing the new Windows Azure Management Libraries (Channel 9) - Very good explanation from Brady in this Cloud Cover show episode.
  
• Using a Surface 2 (RT/ARM) to get actual work done + Remote Desktop + Visual Studio + Azure - Amazing post full of tips and golden information. A must-read article.

Cloud

• Windows Azure Storage Queues VS Windows Azure Service Bus Queues - Nice and useful post that compares azure storage queues and Azure Service Bus queues.
  
• Remote PowerShell in Azure IAAS Virtual Machines (Sri Harsha BS) - Troubleshooting and resolving of different issues using Remote PowerShell.
  
• Snip/Shot by Toddy Mladenov - Good clarification about the very popular buzzword: as a Service.
  
• SoundCloud Now Reaches 250 Million Listeners In Its Quest To Become The Audio Platform Of The Web - See how this company has grown in the past few months.
  
• Some tips and tricks for azure table storage (Purbasha Ghosh) - Very interesting post that shows why it is to think differently to really take advantage of the cloud capabilities.
  
• Windows Azure Guidance - Cloud Design Patterns Alpha drop... - This post announced a new drop of an incredible source of information about Cloud Desing Pattern.
  
• Exploring the AutoScale feature in Windows Azure Websites - Nice tutorial that shows some of the new feature in Azure autoscale.

Database

• Create Database Diagrams of Your Windows Azure SQL Databases - Really? I though it was possible to connect with sql manager and make a diagram. I must try the dbforge tool, looks pretty slick.
  
• SQL Express v LocalDB v SQL Compact Edition (jerry-nixon) - Excellent post to demystify the differences between these Microsoft's database.

Programming

• Adaptive Access Layers + Dependency Injection = Productivity - Nice article that told how a company implemented some pattern to improve their productivity.
  
• Programming CSS: Bundling and Minification - Excellent article to get started with the bundling and minifying concept to get better performance.
  
• Configuring DB Connection and Code-First Migration for Identity Accounts in ASP.NET MVC 5 and Visual Studio 2013 - Good tutorial that explains really clearly how to use the migration feature in EF with the new as.net and VS.
  
• MVC Patterns (Active and Passive Model) and its implementation using ASP.NET Web forms (Khademul Basher) - Interesting post about MVC pattern using pasove Model.
  
• Katana 2 is Available! (Brian Benz) - This post announced the release of Katana 2.0 and reference another post to get started with this project.
  
• Command Pattern - Simple and very clear introduction to Commands Patter.

UX

• You Definitely Want to Beta Your App - Nice post where the author shares is experience about the benefit of beta testing our application.

Miscellaneous

• Got a HOT Post on Your Blog? Here’s What to Do To Find and Optimise It (Darren Rowse) - Interesting tips.

~Frank

Reading Notes #113

 

Suggestion of the week

• Windows Azure: Backup Services Release, Hyper-V Recovery Manager, VM Enhancements, Enhanced Enterprise Management Support - Wonderful! This news makes my week... Backup and Active Directory for the Azure Portal in the same release. I'm sincerely impressed by the quantity of features this week, and really happy to see the new Script Center.

Cloud

• Developing Windows Azure Mobile Services server-side - Very complete tutorial with a lot of details that cover also tests.
  
• WCF Worker Role Just Recycles on Windows Azure (Angshuman Nayak) - I really like this kind of post where the author shares with us how he investigated and found the solution for a problem.
  
• Run various Linux distributions with applications on Azure Cloud (gpillai) - Quick post that will show how we could, very easily, do SuSE CentOS or Ubuntu in Azure.
  
• Windows Azure: Announcing release of Windows Azure SDK 2.2 (with lots of goodies) - Good news. Learn all about the news virtual machine available in Windows Azure, the price drop and more in this post...
  
• Migration to AWS: part 1 - Very interesting story that shows how reel life considerations are taking in change, when moving to the cloud.
  
• Transient Fault Handling Application Block & Enterprise Library 6 - Nice post that summarizes all changes in Transient Fault Handleing Application Block of the last Enterprise Library release.
  
• Windows Azure Storage Queues VS Windows Azure Service Bus Queues - Nice and useful post that compares Azure Storage Queues and Azure Service Bus Queues.

Programming

• patterns & practices: Prism for the Windows Runtime - Home - Interesting patterns to develop on Windows 8.
  
• SCREENCASTS: What's New in Visual Studio 2013 - learn over lunch! (Scott Hanselman) - Great post that group many videos about the new Visual Studio 2013 features.
  
• How Do You Learn a New Framework? - Good post that introduces simplewebdev: a website that regroups information, blogs, articles about MVC pattern.
  
• How to become a better GIT - Very interesting post that provides details informations to pick your site and client, and explains how to act as a good Git contributor.

Database

• EF6 Connection Resiliency for SQL Azure* – When does it actually do it’s thing? : Don't Be Iffy - Nice post. Transient Fault exceptions are to be expected when developing in the cloud. Thanks to this post, we will save time trying to build Unit-tests.
  
• SQL Injection - Good sample that shows how easy it is to do SQL injection, and gives the final argument to protect your database.

Architecture

• Microsoft .NET: Architecting Applications for the Enterprise - This book looks very interesting.

Miscellaneous

• Make a Windows 8.1 Pinned Live Tile for YOUR website in minutes - Super! I'm just starting using Win8 on my personal machine. Now, I have plenty of idea on how to customize it... Or at lest, where I will to start.
  
• Ditch the Laptop: How to Work From a Tablet (Aaron Aders) - Nice post that gives good advices and accessories suggestions.
  
• Is OneNote the best ever App for Tablets? (Stu4rt) - I started using OneNote last year, and I never stop. It is a great application that works really smoothly on all devises.
  
• Working With Programmers: 3 Tips - This post make me smile....Ya, I know, I'm kind of a web developer....

~Frank

Reading Notes #112

Suggestion of the week

• UNIT of Work Design Pattern (Shivprasad koirala) - Good post that explains an important design pattern.

Cloud

• **Easy Background Processing with WebAPI and Windows Azure (Erez Harari) - Great tutorial that gets you ready to make your apps.
  
• Big Data – Role of Cloud Computing in Big Data – Day 11 of 21 (Pinal Dave) - Interesting post about Big Data history.
  
• CSI: Re-enabling Remote Desktop with PowerShell after you've blocked it with your own firewall rule (Scott Hanselman) - Very useful tips.
  
• Winsmarts.com (Sahil Malik) - Short post about how to get setup and enjoy Azure PowerShell.
  
• Using web.config transforms with NLog configuration - | Gunnar Peipman - Programming Blog - Nice post that explains how to configure our config file so it will work with transform, NLog and Azure.
  
• Developing Windows Azure Mobile Services server-side - Very complete tutorial with a lot of details that cover also tests.
  
• Microsoft SQL Server Hybrid Cloud Blog Series (Madhan_Arumugam_Ramakrishnan) - A lot of good article references.

Programming

• **Time Saving Tips to Get Your Windows Phone App Started (Lori Lalonde) - Useful post that quickly summarizes all the options you have when starting a new phone project.
  
• IEnumerable VS IQueryable (More..) - Nice quick post that explains clearly with sample two often mismatch classes.
  
• Var VS IEnumerable (More..) - Nice post that shows some subtile differences that could have an unexpected impact.
  
• Difference betweeen ASP.NET WebForms and ASP.NET MVC (Imran Abdul Ghani) - Aaah! Loud and clear.
  
• Announcing the Release of Visual Studio 2013 and Great Improvements to ASP.NET and Entity Framework (asp.net) - You probably eared about the brand new Visual Studio 2013, but to know what new in it, this is the post to read.

Miscellaneous

• Enterprise Architecture: Reflections on My Journey of Becoming A Systems Thinking Enterprise Architect (Alan Hakimi) - I liked this post where the author share is experience on how he became an architect.

~Frank

Reading Notes #111

Cloud

• Dev and Test in the Cloud: Explained (Jonathan Rozenblit) - For dev and tests environment, windows Azure is a must.
  
• Quick Script: Copy All Blobs to New Storage Account Using PowerShell (Tyler Doerksen) - Nice and useful script.

Programming

• jQuery UI Demystified: Part 1 - Since jquery and jqueryUI are so often used use these days, avoid just doing copy-paste. Take few minutes and read this nice tutorials that explains how to use the jqueryUI widget.
  
• Tools: SlowCheetah - XML Transforms (Igor Zalmanovich ) - Definitively, a tool to have.
  
• Sorting with LINQ, Dynamically -- Visual Studio Magazine (Peter Vogel) - Nice quick tips to sort a grid by any columns dynamically.
  
• HTML5 Sparkline chart for data-intense, small-scale Data Visualization - Evangelism - Great tool, it looks easy to use and powerful enough for many different situations. Looking forward to trying it.
  
• How to Get Started with the Ignite UI Layout Manager - Interesting "UI organizer" and look simple to use.

Database

• ASP.NET MVC: Configuring ASP.NET MVC 4 Membership with a SQL CE Database - Nice tutorial that shows how to configure SqlCe to be used as a database for membership.
  
• Creating NONCLUSTERED INDEXES on Massive Tables in Windows Azure SQL Database - Nice post that demystify the indexes and explains why we should use them.
  
• SQL Server Compact 4 desktop app with simple Private Deployment and LINQ to SQL (ErikEJ) - Very complete tutorial that explains an easy deployment with SQLCE.

Miscellaneous

• Why You Should Be Able to Work from Home - Interesting thoughts about working from home and how it would be good for you, and your work.
  
• Stop asking people what they think! (and start watching what they do) - I agree. How many times did I ear don't give what the clients asks but what they needs.
  
• Have you seen Google Trekker? (Baffin Paddler) - Wow! Google always found a new way to impress me.
  

~Frank

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 #102

Suggestion of the week

• 3 Rarely Discussed, But Valuable, Uses for Cloud Object Storage - Very interesting post that gives good ideas of how to use the to storage at our benefits.
• Windows Azure Virtual Machines – Stopped doesn’t equal Stopped Deallocated (Stephen W. Thomas) - Very well explain. Now it's clear what need to be done to save money.

Cloud

• Turbo Charging Your Windows Azure Cloud Services - Interesting post where we can read about a real cost and performance optimization.
• Windows Azure July Updates: SQL Database, Traffic Manager, AutoScale, Virtual Machines - Great news. I'm looking forward to try these new features.
• Windows Azure Traffic Manager – High Performance, Availability & Resiliency - Nice tutorial to use the new Azure Traffic Manager.
• Windows Azure Traffic Manager Explained (Maarten Balliauw) - Nice post about the Traffic Manager that explains what it is and why we should care.
• 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.
• Handling Azure Storage Queue poison messages (Pascal Laurin) - Interesting second post of a series this one explains why we shouldn't delete our error message.

Databases

• Database Versioning and Source Control (m kramar) - Interesting solution to a common situation.

Programming

• If you're not using Glimpse with ASP.NET for debugging and profiling, you're missing out - This post remembers me that I still didn't use this great tool, and I just have the perfect project to try it.
• 12 Lessons I learned using unit tests/TDD - Interesting post that promotes all the benefits of writing unit tests.
• Performance Tip: A few words on ASP.NET session state (Frédéric Rivain) - Interesting post to remember what we should have in mind to get the best performance.

UX

• Why People Don't Understand How to Use Your Software - Interesting thought about how to keep our clear vision.
• Making Readability More Responsive (Tyler Gaw) - Nice improvement on the user experience from this great tool. This post explains the reasons behind these change.

Integration

• Using SendGrid with BizTalk360 for Easy Emails on IaaS - It always good to see application that "works together" (that are so easily compatible) for our benefit.

Miscellaneous

• Touch: Where Microsoft Went Wrong (Frederic Lardinois) - Interesting thought about Microsoft and its moves to "touch". In my case, I really enjoy Windows surface. It's not perfect, but I like it.
• Write Less, Say More - Nice post that proof that once again the proverb quality not quantity rules.
• Pluralsight Summer Watch List - Nice suggestions to refresh our knowledge, or learn new things.
• The impact of a compliment (Scott Hanselman)- Interesting thought about compliment.format(ComplimentType.Professional).
• Choosing the right Portable Power Phone/Tablet/Gadget Battery Charger (Scott Hanselman) - Nice review so many options "just" for charging device's batteries.

~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 #83

Suggestion of the week

• Windows Azure IaaS Cmdlets Source Code is Now Available (Michael Washam) - Great! Really good code sample that implements a lot of functionality.
• Windows Azure Virtual Machine and Virtual Hard Disk Management Tool – Can save you Money! (Stephen W. Thomas) - Wow, that a great tool! This post tells you were to find this application, its features and how to use it. Good job.

Cloud

• Creating a Game for the Windows Store (Tyler Doerksen) - Great tutorial that explains how to write your first Windows store application.
• Publishing ASP.NET Web Sites to “Windows Azure Web Sites” Service - Quick overview of the new publish Web Site feature in Visual Studio.
• Global Windows Azure Bootcamp - april 27th (Maarten Balliauw)- Yeah! Are you free on April 27th?
• Want Better Personal Video? Think Underwater Tech And Free Cloud Storage (Michael Chang) - Interesting thoughts about today’s cloud business reality and the future of cloud platform applications.
• Announcing New AWS CloudFormation Deployment Enhancements – Major announcement from Amazon who is directly competing with Windows Azure PaaS.
• Microsoft DevRadio: (Part 11) Practical Azure with Jim O’Neil – Worker Roles (Jim O’Neil) - Nice short video that explains what is a worker role and his purpose.
• Amazon releases beta of application management solution called OpsWorks (Kenneth van Surksum) - Another post about the new AWS service OpsWork.
• Learn Windows Azure Cloud Services from Beginning: a Mini Online Course (Haishi) - Nice series of videos to get started with windows Azure.
• Improving Windows Azure Table Storage query performance (Ki Yi) - Quick post about best practices regarding querying Azure table storage.
• What's New? - Another release of AWS services this week; this one is about CloudFormation: a tool to enhance automatic task on EC2 instance to reduce the downtime when those tasks are to be execute.

Programming

• Why I Write Tests (Jason Whaley) - If you don't understand the benefice of working in TDD, or if you don't know what's the utility of those unit Tests, is post is for you.
• Getting Busy at Script Junkie (Michael Desmond) - Quick review of what have been done since the site has been moved "under" MSDN.
• Windows Store Apps: A Guide for WPF and Silverlight Developers, Part 1 - Nice post that explains the technical particularities and new concept of the "new" Windows RT platform.
• Using Markdown in Sublime Text 2 on Windows - It's nice to see that other people are playing around with these tools.
• You're just another carriage return line feed in the wall (Scott Hanselman) - This post talks about the issue with carriage return and line feed in merge tool... like github.
• Get Rolling With The Readability API (Richard Ziade) - Nice update for the developer's community.

Database

• Has the term "big data" completely lost meaning yet? - Thoughts about the buzz word Big Data.
• SQL SERVER - Shortcut to SELECT only 1 Row from Table - Good idea, I never think of that! So simple.

Miscellaneous

• Teach your kids to be fans (Scott Hanselman) - Good lesson. Today it's simple to send/ publish hard critics about anything... It is also that easy to congratulations... so do it.

~Frank

Reading Notes #82

Suggestion of the week

• Chasing an active Social Engineering Fraud at Amazon Kindle (Scott Hanselman) - Scary story... If you own a Kindle, you must read this post.
• Choosing between SQL Server in Windows Azure VM & Windows Azure SQL Database (Madhan Arumugam Ramakrishnan) - Great post to make your mind of the differences between the various scenarios and the pros and cons of each of them.

Cloud

• Three New AWS Reference Architectures for E-Commerce - Quick access to three good architectures using different AWS components.
• Windows Azure Virtual Machines - Common Questions (Narahari Dogiparthi) - Significant source of information important to know before planning to use IaaS.

This blog post summarizes the best practices to be used to protect Windows Azure Virtual Machines.

• All Things Distributed (Werner Vogels) - Good references on AWS Elastic Transcoder in video, perfect to make you a better idea of the beast.
• Windows Azure Powershell 0.6.10 is out and check out $DebugPreference feature to get Request and Response on PS console (Avkash Chauhan) - Great news! It's fantastic to see how active the Azure / PowerShell teams are.
• Windows Azure Guest OS Updates (Abhishek Anand) - Reference to stay updated on guest OS.
• Episode 100 - Introduction to the Windows Azure Service Bus Notification Hubs (Channel 9) - A lot of fun in this 100th show. Of course, it's not only about jokes since they are also doing a demo of Azure Service Bus Notification Hubs.

Integration

• How to Create your First SQL Server Integration Services (SSIS) Package - Part 1 (Md. Marufuzzaman) - For people who don't know SSIS, this is the perfect get started tutorial.
• BizTalk360 Windows 8 application is available in the app store (Saravana Kumar) - This great post announces not only the release of version 2 of BizTalk360 and it presence in Windows Store, but also describes most of its features.

Programming

• Unfortunate Things with JSON, jQuery UI Datepicker, and Dates - Because we all one day or another play with date and DatePicker, it's good to read what other have done.
• TFS, Automated Testing and Continuous Integration (Hamada Shather) - Interesting tutorial that explains how to use TFS as a test framework.
• PowerShell Remoting – The Double Hop Problem And A Solution - This post explains a solution to a problem when running remote PowerShell script using Credds.
• Elegant Code » It’s Markdown, no, PowerShell. Wait its Markdown formatted PowerShell. (Jason Jarrett) - Nice mix of Markdown and PowerShell.
• Update to VS Git tooling - Stay updated on Visual Studio add-ons.
• Responsive web design – Convertir rapidement un site web en une version mobile (lorys pognon) - Simple tutorial that shows how to use "less" (the language) to produce a Responsive We Design.
• Gérer les dépendances de vos librairies JavaScript avec Bower (Thierry LAU) - Great node.js tool that can simplify the JavaScript library management.
• jQuery Object Quacks like an Array Duck (Elijah Manor) - Interesting sharing about jQuery "inner code."
• Working with SqlBulkCopy - Nice async functionality in C# 5 and other great features of SqlBulkCopy class.
• Behind the scenes of PowerShell and SQL (Rob Farley) - Very interesting post that shows how PowerShell use SQL.
• Is Big Data the New Black Gold? (Arvind Singh) - Interesting thoughts about the value of Big Data and its future.

Miscellaneous

• Copy as path instead of a send to program - Cool tips. I didn't know that one.
• Markdown - I'm playing around for 2-3 weeks now with Markdown, and I thought of sharing this for those who like me, didn't know about it.

~Frank

Reading Notes #78

Suggestion of the week

• The Missing Windows 8 Instructional Video (Scott Hanselman) - Finally! Someone did it. Great video that helps to get started with Windows 8. Bookmark, share and re-share.

Cloud

• (Some) Best Practices for Building Windows Azure Cloud Applications (Gaurav) - Good post that reviews the most important best practices. Take 2 minutes and review them.
• New Windows Azure Mobile Services Getting Started Content (James Conard) - Perfect post to get started with Azure mobile services. It contains a lot of references to others great content.
• Knowing when to choose Windows Azure Table Storage or Windows Azure SQL database - Simple questions to know what kind of "table" you need. Simple and effective.
• WordPress Database Error on Azure (Schwammy) - Nice catch. These tips will save a lot of time to anyone having a Wordpress blog hosted on windows Azure.
• Manage your subscriptions with the Windows Azure Tools for Visual Studio - This post explains the features of the new available tools Studio to manage our Azure. Since Vs is the principal tool for all the .Net developers and that this add-on is very powerful, I highly recommend to read this post.
• Interacting with Clouds From Visual Studio: Part 2 – Amazon Web Services - Second post of a series about AWS this one explain how to install and use the new add-on to Visual Studio to manage your Amazon Web Services.
• Episode 98 - Mobile Services, ASP.NET Facebook Template, and Github Publishing Demos (Channel 9) (Nick Harris Nathan Totten) - Great show that quick recap the news of the past 2 weeks and well introduce new capabilities of the mobile services and how to works with the Github publishing integration.
• Bret Stateham's Blog - If one day you forget what was the username used to connect to your Azure Sql Server, here is what you should do.
• Windows Azure Active Directory Cartoon (Channel 9) - This video is fantastic. In only few minutes it’s explain very clearly what is Active directory.
• Build your own SQL Server Agent for Windows Azure SQL Database with the Scheduler - Great post/ tutorial that use the mobile services to create a Sql Server Agent.

 

Integration

• BizTalk360 a monitoring and support tool for BizTalk Server environments (Part 1) - First post a big series this one introduce Biztalk360 and explain why it should be considerate as a great tool.
• In which BizTalk360 differs from other tools? (Part 2)
• Advanced capabilities for managing permissions (Part 3)
• Monitoring and Alert Notification capabilities (Part 4)
• Complexity abstraction of certain tasks (Part 5)
• Productivity Tools (Part 6)
• Governance and Auditing Capabilities (Part 7)

Database

• Windows Azure SQL Database Security Scenarios and Tips - Simple rule that will make your database more secured.
• Secure Your Windows Azure SQL Database - Get started with database security with this post that defines some major rules.
• Windows Azure SQL Database and SQL Server -- Performance and Scalability Compared and Contrasted - Excellent post that explainsth0e differences of Azure SQL database and SQL Server and the limitations.
• Creating a SQL Server Database Project in Visual Studio 2012 - Very clear post about how-to use the SSDT in different scenarios.

Programming

• Building and Deploying Windows Azure Web Site with Node.js and MongoDB by using Microsoft WebMatrix (Shiju Varghese) - Clear explanation. The final solution is also available online.
• Catching Exceptions in PowerShell - Quick post with a simple code snippet. Perfect to understand how to trap specific exception.

Miscellaneous

• 8 Tips to Sell Windows Store App - Nice post that complete all those how-to build your app to the windows store. This one explains how to maximize your impact and get as many download as possible.
• Managing Programs With Agile and Traditional Projects (Johanna) - Good tips about how we could manage a mixt of agile and no-agile projects.

~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 #74

Cloud

• Windows Azure Mobile Services: A Robust Back End for Your Device Applications - Great article that explains how Windows Azure Mobile services work through a nice tutorial. You must read that.
• Provisioning a MySQL Database from the Windows Azure Store (SyntaxC4) - Learn how to get add-on like a MySql database with the Windows Azure Store (currently only available in US).
• iOS Support with Windows Azure Mobile Services – now with Push Notifications (Scott Gu)- Another great news for iOS developers who want to use Windows Azure.
• Doctrine supports SQL Database Federations for massive scalability on Windows Azure - Great news for PHP developers since Doctrine is now supporting Azure SQL Database Federation. Note that other than Doctrine PHP developers can also use Symfony to code with Azure.
• Windows Azure now supports federation with Windows Server Active Directory (Alex Simons) - Amazing post. First, it shares some great identity-related improvements made to Windows Azure that leverage the capabilities of Windows Azure AD. Then a tutorial that explains how to do it.
• Windows Azure SQL Database Backup and Restore - A must. If you have data in Azure, then you must read this post.
• Introducing the AWS SDK for Node.js (Developer Preview) - Good news for Node.js developers.

Integration

• BizTalk Mapper Patterns: How to Map Name Value Pair to a Hierarchical Schema - Very interesting post that explains how to do this type of mapping with functoids and by XSLT script.
• We are presenting BizTalk360 at – BizTalk Summit 2012 (Saravana Kumar) - Nice event that is coming soon. I would love to see the Biztalk360 presentation by myself, but I will need to relay on my coworkers’ story.

[…]The session is going to be 100% technical, without a single sales slide. The session structure is going to be 15 minutes slides (intro/background) and 45 minutes demos. […]

• Setting Up BizTalk Server 2013 Beta on a Windows Azure Virtual Machine (Stephen W. Thomas) - This post is a little older(1 month), but gives more details. Since new Windows Azure images are available in the gallery, I think it should work better now.
• New minor release of BizTalk Scheduled Task Adapter for BizTalk Server 2010 is now available - Announce a new release of BizTalk Scheduled Task Adapter that fixes some minor issues.

Programming

• Resolving “certificate for the given thumbprint could not be loaded” error with Azure Tools for Visual Studio - Nice catch! With so many different account and development vm, I’m sure that this situation will append. Then I will know what to do.
• Web Essentials nightly builds - That tool looks awesome I'm looking forward to trying it.
• Tis the season (Tyler Doerksen) - Multiple web camp are coming soon and this week it was VS 2012.
• My collection of favourite TFS utilities - Great list of tools that can make our TFS better.
• Building Beautiful, Interactive, and Fast Web Sites (Jonathan Rozenblit) - Web developer this was a great web camps! In case you missed it, stay tuned for the video on-demand that should be publish sonly.
• AWS Tools for Windows PowerShell - AWS is finally let us use PowerShell to manage our environment. Over 550 cmdlets.

Miscellaneous

• 15 Super Useful Apps for Busy Entrepreneurs (Kevin Smith) - SwiftKey, Evernotes and a lot more of these applications that help us.
• When I’m most productive - Nice post that could help to find why we are more profitable sometimes and not that much on other.
• If You’re Afraid of Your To-Do List, It’s Not Working (JD Meier) - Nice quick tips to be productive.
• My next PC will be an Ultrabook (Scott Hanselman) - Didn't know that ultrabook could be that powerful. This type of PC starts to be really interesting then.
• Don’t let IT ground your company - Interesting article that explains the importance of planning and to have plan B... If you want to stay in business.
• Your Emails Are Too Long: Here's How to Fix Them - Interesting sharing.
• How to be a Consultant, Part 6: Effective Presentation Content (David Pallmann) - Nice post that explains what good presentations look like and what are the rules to create them.
• How Big Data and the Cloud are Changing Customer Service Solutions - Very interesting thoughts about what should be "smart application" today since the so much information is easily accessible through Big Data.
• Windows 8 Shortcuts (Lee Stott) - How to be quicker with a keyboard on Windows 8

 

~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 #71

Cloud

• Bootstrapping a Virtual Machine with Windows Azure (Michael Washam) - Nice quick tutorial about going forward with startup task but with vm.
• WaIISHost.exe.config does not work with Windows Azure SDK 1.8 - Nice catch and nice workaround.
• How to upload an Image to Windows Azure Storage using Mobile Services (Nick Harris) - Nice tutorial to upload directly your images (gif, jpeg) into blob storage.
• Backup SQL Database Federation (Herve Roggero)- Introduction to a very useful tool call Enzo Cloud Backup that gives you the ability to backup and restore Azure Federation Database. These options are available through a graphic interface and API. You can even setup a schedule.
• Windows Azure Virtual Machine: A look at Windows Azure IaaS Offerings (Part 1) (admin) - Nice recap of the offer of Azure from PaaS to IaaS.
• Developing a Support Plan for Cloud Applications (Buck Woody) - Quick post about the importance of thinking about a good support plan of your cloud applications.
• Embrace the Cloud: Your Customers Are! (Clayton M) - 4 out of 10 of your customer are using the cloud. If you don't move, they will continue without you. This is the main premise of this post.
• Free online Windows AzureConf this Wednesday (Scott Gu) - Nice conference with some amazing presentations that you should really watch. When this post will be publish the video should be available on Channel9.
• Amazon S3 Now Supports Archiving Data to Amazon Glacier - AWS announce a very cheap archive solution for S3.
• Microsoft Acquires StorSimple (Michael_Park) - News from the acquisition of StorSimple, the great product to extend really easily your local storage.
• Upgrading to Azure SDK 1.8 (Tyler Doerksen) - Great post the pass through some migration issue that you can have when a VS2010 Azure project is open the first time in VS2012.
• Practical Azure #2: What About Blob? - Great video on everything you should know on Azure Blob.

Integration

• BizTalk Server 2013 BETA–Window 8 Configuration issues (Saravana Kumar) - This post expose some issue when installing BizTalk 2013 on a real computer and how to fix it.

Programming

• The Internet is not a black box. Look inside. (Scott Hanselman) - Nice demonstration of why we should use all our nice tools...
• Great Apps Are Inspired by Pure Imagination (Jonathan Rozenblit) - Good initiative to get a lot of ideas, tricks and contacts wild doing some nice code...

Miscellaneous

• LinkedIn Endorsements Changes Everything. Here's Why (Dave Kerpen) - A little change on Linkedin web site that could have a big effect on your profile.
• The Computer Backup Rule of Three (Scott Hanselman) - Nice post about the importance of doing backup. Be scare and do it!
• Tagging Comes to Readability (David Sleight) - Great add-on to a great tools. I'm a big fan of Readability and looking forward to upgrade my script using the API.
• 10 Leadership Practices to Stop Today (Paul Spiegelman) - What your score...? Is it time to change?
• 5 Ways to Use Images to Make Your Posts Irresistible (Darren Rowse) - Maybe it's my photographic background but I found that post to be absolutely true. The web is graphic so you must use image for all type of posts or articles.

~Frank