How to Fix the [ERROR] Get-ChildItem when Deploying an Azure Resource Group in Visual Studio

Lately, I've been having some trouble when deploying from Visual Studio. First, I didn't care since I didn't have time to investigate and also because most of the time using PowerShell or Azure CLI. However, this issue was not usual of Visual Studio, so I decided to see what was the problem and try to fix it.

The Problem

In a solution, I added a simple Azure Resource Group deployment project just like this one.



Then when I try to right-click and do a Deploy...



I was having this error message:

 - The following parameter values will be used for this operation:
 - Build started.
 - Project "TestARMProject.deployproj" (StageArtifacts target(s)):
 - Project "TestARMProject.deployproj" (ContentFilesProjectOutputGroup target(s)):
 - Done building project "TestARMProject.deployproj".
 - Done building project "TestARMProject.deployproj".
 - Build succeeded.
 - Launching PowerShell script with the following command:
 - 'D:\Dev\local\TestARMProject\TestARMProject\bin\Debug\staging\TestARMProject\Deploy-AzureResourceGroup.ps1' -StorageAccountName '' -ResourceGroupName 'TestARMProject' -ResourceGroupLocation 'eastus' -TemplateFile 'D:\Dev\local\TestARMProject\TestARMProject\bin\Debug\staging\TestARMProject\azuredeploy.json' -TemplateParametersFile 'D:\Dev\local\TestARMProject\TestARMProject\bin\Debug\staging\TestARMProject\azuredeploy.parameters.json' -ArtifactStagingDirectory '.' -DSCSourceFolder '.\DSC'
 - 
 - 
 - Account          : Frank Boucher
 - SubscriptionName : My Subscription
 - SubscriptionId   : xxxxxxxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxxxxxxxxxx
 - TenantId         : xxxxxxxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxxxxxxxxxx
 - Environment      : AzureCloud
 - 
 - VERBOSE: Performing the operation "Replacing resource group ..." on target "".
 - VERBOSE: 7:06:33 - Created resource group 'TestARMProject' in location 'eastus'
 - 
 - ResourceGroupName : TestARMProject
 - Location          : eastus
 - ProvisioningState : Succeeded
 - Tags              : 
 - TagsTable         : 
 - ResourceId        : /subscriptions/xxxxxxxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxxxxxxxxxx/resourceGroups/TestARMProject
 - 
 - Get-ChildItem : Cannot find path 
 - 'D:\Dev\local\TestARMProject\TestARMProject\bin\Debug\staging\TestARMProject\azuredeploy.json' because it does not 
 - exist.
 - At D:\Dev\local\TestARMProject\TestARMProject\bin\Debug\staging\TestARMProject\Deploy-AzureResourceGroup.ps1:108 
 - char:48
 - + ... RmResourceGroupDeployment -Name ((Get-ChildItem $TemplateFile).BaseNa ...
 - +                                       ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
 -     + CategoryInfo          : ObjectNotFound: (D:\Dev\local\Te...zuredeploy.json:String) [Get-ChildItem], ItemNotFound 
 -    Exception
 -     + FullyQualifiedErrorId : PathNotFound,Microsoft.PowerShell.Commands.GetChildItemCommand
 -  
 - Deploying template using PowerShell script failed.
 - Tell us about your experience at https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=691202

Apparently the script is failling with Get-ChildItem because my script is missing?! I looked in the folder D:\Dev\local\TestARMProject\TestARMProject\bin\Debug\staging\TestARMProject, and indeed the files are missing! Fixing this is in fact really simple fortunately.

The Solution

The problem is very simple when Visual Studio is building the project, it doen't copies the script files in the build folder (in this case bin\Debug\Staging\). In fact, Visual Studio is doing exactly as we are telling it. Let see the build command for those files. Right-click and select Properties (or Alt+Enter) while azuredeploy.json is selected.



See the Build Action is set at None change that to Content (for all the scripts). Save and Deploy again.



Enjoy!

Reading Notes #309

Cloud

• Comment créer un nouvel usager dans votre Azure Active Directory (André Girard) - This post is a really nice little tutorial.
• New Azure management and cost savings capabilities (Jeremy Winter) - This post shares a few news feature to keep tracks of our consumption to keep it low.

Programming

• Can I Have My CPU Back Visual Studio? (Rion Williams) - This is an interesting and easy solution to an annoying problem. Hopefully, a fix is coming soon.
• New Git Features in Visual Studio 2017 Update 5 (Kayla Ngan) - I switched a while ago to external tools to manage my git repository... I will definitely try it out.

Databases

• How to change the #PowerBI desktop file connection from data model to a Power BI Service dataset or #AzureAS (Erik Svensen) - A very clever hack that open crazy opportunities.

Miscellaneous

• Todo lists: The right way (Dan Clarke) - Nice post that shares ideas to structure our ToDos.

Reading Notes #305

Cloud

• A technical overview of Azure Databricks - This new product/ feature looks very interesting... More to come.
• Improvements to Azure Functions in Visual Studio ( Justin Clareburt ) - Wow. Azure Functions may evolve quickly but the tools are following, and this is impressive. Check out all the features that would be included in the next version (currently accessible in preview).

Programming

• Azure DevOps Project – public preview (Gopinath Chigakkagari) - This new type of project looks awesome, looking forward to trying it.

Miscellaneous

• Why speed is the skill I’m most dedicated to improving (Alex Mathers) - An interesting post that talks about the balance between skills.
• 4 Realities of Blogging All Bloggers Need to Talk About (ep 214) (Darren Rowse) - Very good and encouraging talk about some daily facts in blogger's life.
• How to Create a Style Guide for Your Blog (and Why You Should) (ep: 216) (Darren Rowse) - Hmm. I thought I was consistent, and then I went backward in my archives.... Well things change in ten years.
• How to Leverage People Analytics (ep: 323) (Dave Stachowiak) - Interesting talk about what is and what's not analytics.
• Are we partners or competitors? Yes, we are - Microsoft Partner Network (Gavriella Schuster) - An interesting and inspiring post that talks of course about partnership how its build and what it means.

Reading Notes #301

Programming

• Botwin offers an interesting alternative option for routing with ASP.NET Core (Scott Hanselman) - Interesting “addon” for web dotnet project, it’s something that worth some more time.
• Writing Precompiled Azure Functions in Visual Studio 2017 – Visual Studio Magazine (Jason Roberts) - Good little post that introduces the new Azure Function project part of Visual Studio. Sweet!

Data

• ASP.NET Core Identity and PostgreSQL (Mark Rendle) - Nice quick fix.
• Avoiding circular dependency errors in DAX (Alberto Ferrari) - Very interesting post that explains how to avoid (or understand why we have) circular references.
• Put your databases on autopilot with a lift and shift to Azure SQL Database (Lindsey Allen) - This post shares the different type of SQL Database available for us in Azure and briefly explains when each of them is at his best.
• Why data modeling is important in #powerbi (Marco Russo) - Interesting thoughts about data modeling.

Miscellaneous

• My First Year as an MVP, part 1 (Jen Kuntz) - Interesting post. It feels soooooo familiar, and yet so far now. I look forward to meeting you in March fellow Canadian MVP.

Reading Notes #300

Cloud

• An introduction to Azure Web Apps on Linux (Christos Matskas) - Web App for all! Seriously, it's a really good news and it's already GA.
• Azure Logic Apps Monthly Update – September 2017 (Sriram Hariharan) - Get a good summary of all the new features in only one post. But of course, it's only an overview.
• Manage your Azure VM backups with Azure CLI 2.0 - Preview (Kartik P V R) - Azure CLI is so convenient, I know some will prefer graphical interfaces. However, CLIs are the only way for automation.
• Microsoft Integration (Azure and much more) Stencils Pack v2.6.1 for Visio (Sandro Pereira) - It's time (already..) to update our stencil to include the lastest and greatest. Thanks!

Programming

• Generating Google Slides from images using Apps Script (Wesley Chun) - Pretty neat features. Definitely worth the time to write a script when you need to edit tons of slides, or build a deck multiple times.
• 7 Hidden Gems in Visual Studio 2017 (Visual Studio Team) - This post shares not the usual tips. Seriously, how many you already knew before reading the article?
• Adding circuit breakers to your .NET applications | Richard Seroter's Architecture Musings on WordPress.com (Richard Seroter) - This post is a great introduction to Steeltoe and the circuit-breaker pattern. The code used in this sample is .net core but it also works with .Net framework. Perfect for all our micro-services.

Data

• Power BI Desktop October Feature Summary | Microsoft Power BI Blog | Microsoft Power BI (Amanda Cofsky) - Once again, this month release is packed with tons of great new features. I can't summarize thus the post, but the bookmarking capabilities alone worth your time reading this post or watching the video.

Miscellaneous

• #223: Mike Erwin—The Power of Solitude (Entreleadership - Mike Erwin) - Interesting reading suggests on leadership and the importance of solitude time.
• Microsoft announces next Azure OpenDev: October 25, 2017 (Ashley McNamara) - Awesome community event coming ... Save the date.
• Social Presentations with Mark Rendle (Carl and Richard) - That look like a very promising tool... except for the name that I continually forget... (but that's probably just me). I will definitely have a to the Github repo.
• The Simple Reason to Learn to Lead Yourself First (Joshua Spodek ) - Interesting thoughts about becoming a leader.
• What is a Cloud Developer Advocate? (Jeremy Likness) - Great article. A few of my friends joined that team, and even though I already had this talk with them, now I have a better picture.

Reading Notes #295

Cloud

• Announcing Default Encryption for Azure Blobs, Files, Table and Queue Storage (Lavanya Kasarabada) - Awesome, now more secured without any efforts for our part, I like it that way.
• Azure Functions Visual Studio 2017 Tooling (Mark Heath) - One cool video lesson about the tooling.
• Creating distributed workflows with Azure Durable Functions (Tamir Dresherl) - A perfect post to get started and learn more about the new Durable Azure Functions.

Programming

• 4 Benefits of Migrating to ASP.NET Core 2.0 (Jonathan Danylko) - This post clarifies some ambiguities about the migration to Asp.Net Core.
• How to cook Azure Mobile Apps (node.js): Xamarin and .NET Standard (Sergiy Baydachnyy) - This great tutorial shows a few gotchas that could happen when developing a Xamarin App.

Databases

• Using PostgreSQL Document Databases with Azure Functions and Marten (Jason Roberts) - Quick in simple, I like it.

Reading Notes #292

Suggestion of the week

• I Almost Left Tech Today, Here’s Why (Clémentine Pirlot) - What a shame we are in 2017 and those behaviors not only still exist, but are tolerated.

Cloud

• Migrating a Web App from ClearDB to Azure Database for MySQL (Jason Anderson) - Great tutorial that explains step by step how to migrate your database. For all the people that use the Wordpress in Azure ns have complained about this very limited ( but free) ClearDB setup, this post is for you.
• The gap is filled: How Azure Container Instances completes the PaaS hosting spectrum at last – Opsgility (John Adams) - Learn a bit of PaaS history in this nice post.

Programming

• A proper terminal for Visual Studio (Scott Hanselman) - Hmmm. I like that idea...
• VS Code Quick Tip: Install Curl to Speed Up REST API Testing -- Visual Studio Magazine (David Ramel) - Great way to speed up API testing indeed, and very simple too.

Databases

• Introducing the #Azure #CosmosDB Change Feed Processor Library (Judy Hanwen Shen) - Cool post that lists a few scenarios where CosmoDB could really help you.

Miscellaneous

• Build apps faster with Azure Serverless (Raman Sharma) - Full automatic and all on demand, today's cloud offer a lot.

Reading Notes #277

Cloud

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

Programming

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

Miscellaneous

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

Reading Notes #274

Suggestion of the week

• Web Scraping In Power BI And Excel Power Query (Gil Raviv) - Just recently I've learned about Power BI web scrapping capability, then this! I didn't think it could be that great! Great post.

Cloud

• Azure Backup’s cloud-first approach and why it matters (Shreesh Dubey) - Nice post that explains the complete backup service in Azure.
• Azure functions - Just the CLI, hold the GUI, add some git (Shayne Boyer) - Nice tutorial that explains how to deploy an ARM template using Azure CLI simple commands.
• Interesting facts about Azure BizTalk Hybrid Connections! (Alexander Laysha) - Nice post that explains how works the hybrid connections.
• Trying ASP.NET Core on the Google Cloud Platform "App Engine Flexible Environment" (hanselman.com) - Interesting share that inspires to try .Net Core... outside of the happy path. Awesome.

Programming

• Model Binding in ASP.NET Core - Simple Talk (Dino Esposito) - Great tutorial that introduces the auto bindings and shows how to implement it.
• What’s New in Visual Basic 2017 (The Visual Basic Team) - It's been a while since I coded in VB but reading this post brought back all those souvenirs... Great work.
• 6 Reasons Why JavaScript’s Async/Await Blows Promises Away (Mostafa Gaafar) - Nice update. For a .Net developer, this is perfect!

Reading Notes #273

Cloud

• Analyze your data with Application Insights Analytics (Dan Hadari) - Nice sample that really shows the power of that tool.
  
• Announcing Azure Service Fabric 5.5 and SDK 2.5 (Vaclav Turecek) - Nice updates in the SDK, and now supports Asp.Net Core.
  
• Azure IoT Suite adds device management capability updates (Sam George) - Nice little post that lists the new features available with the last update.
  
• Azure API Management, Release Notes – March 17 (Vlad Vinogradsky) - This post lists the details about the new features.
  
• Short introduction to serverless architecture (Gunnar Peipman) - Great agnostic overview of was are these serverless services.

Programming

• Using Azure AD with ASP.NET Core (Gunnar Peipman) - A cool tutorial that explains very clearly how to use AD.
  
• Using Dependency Injection in Multiple .NET Core Projects (Juergen Gutsch) - An interesting tutorial that explains how to implement one of the most-used patterns with the new .Net Core.
  
• Visual Studio 2017 can automatically recommend NuGet packages for unknown types (Scott Hanselman) - Nice little post that shares cool tricks with VS that you probably didn't know.

Miscellaneous

• Introducing Microsoft Data Amp (Mitra Azizirad) - All we need to know about this new online event.

Reading Notes #272

Cloud

• Cloud Messaging – Amazon or Azure? (Steve Smith) - Great post that suggests an answer to the eternal question.
  
• Connect Tableau to an Azure Analysis Services server (Josh Caplan) - Nice integration.
  
• Visual Studio Talk Show - Les données et Azure (Guy Barrette) - It was really pleasant to record that podcast. I hope it is also to listen.
  
• Leverage the Azure CLI with these examples (Brian Benz) - If you would like to help Azure CLI to get better, this post explains how you could help.
  
• Using templates to customize restored VMs from Azure Backup (Trinadh Kotturu) - This post shares nice tips to get the maximum of our VMs backup.

Programming

• ASP.NET Core Error Management with elmah.io (Damien Bod) - Elmah is a fantastic tool. This tutorial explains how to use it with .NetCore.
  
• Options for CSS and JS Bundling and Minification with ASP.NET Core (Scott Hanselman) - Nice tutorial that shows the how to find our sweet spot with the minification in VS2017.
  
• ZEIT now deployments of open source ASP.NET Core web apps with Docker - Scott Hanselman (hanselman.com) - Interesting new tools. I'm looking forward to trying it myself.

Databases

• Planet scale aggregates with Azure DocumentDB (Aravind Ramachandran Program Manager) - Fantastic news that was requested a lot by all the users. Get all the details in this post about all these new capabilities.

Reading Notes #271

 

 

Suggestion of the week

• Azure Functions vs Web Jobs: How to choose? (Chris Pietschmann) - Wow! This is the best post I've read about Azure Function. It really describes clearly the differences between the two. A must for every cloud developer.

Cloud

• Creating Azure Key Vault with logging using Azure Resource Manager ARM templates (Stéphane Lapointe) - Nice post that shows how to use the quick template and explains how pieces work together.

Programming

• Announcing New ASP.NET Core and Web Development Features in Visual Studio 2017 (Jeffrey T. Fritz ) - With the release of VS2017this week comes also a lot of great improvements in the .Net Core tooling, and that a good news.
  
• Azure App Service Authentication in an ASP.NET Core Application (Adrian Hall) - Interesting tutorial to learn more about security (authentification) with Asp.Net Core.
  
• Azure Functions Visual Studio Tools Preview (Chris Pietschmann) - Great improvement, we can now work, code, and debug in our "home " comfort.
  
• Simplifying Bundling and Minification in ASP.NET Core (Shayne Boyer) - This post is the perfect tutorial, short and complete. After reading it, you will be ready to use this package.

Databases

• Azure Data Lake Tools for VSCode (Preview) - March Update (Jenny Jiang) - Really cool extension.

Miscellaneous

• Azure Data Sync update (Joshua Gnanayutham) - This post shares the road map of a very useful tool. Glad to see it coming in the new Azure Portal.
  
• Microsoft has created an A.I. that can write its own code (QuHarrison Terry) - Interesting innovation, it will be nice to see where that will bring us.
  
• Swarm Mode with Fleet Management and Collaboration now in public beta, powered by Docker Cloud (Borja Burgos) - Interesting new feature available on all the main "Docker platform".

Reading Notes #267

Cloud

• Announcing custom domain HTTPS support with Azure CDN (Manling Zhang) - Great new! Now https is supported end to end.
  
• Announcing general availability of Managed Disks and larger Scale Sets (Corey Sanders) - Wow! The world of Virtual Machine just got a fantastic push. It's now much easier than ever.
  
• Automating Azure Analysis Services processing with Azure Functions (Orsolya Gal) - Awesome tutorial that explains how to use Azure function as a real-live cron job.
  
• Getting Around Blocked Ports (Alexandre Brisebois) - Cool tutorial on how to configure our jumpbox in Azure using PowerShell and ARM.
  
• Preview the new enhancements to Azure Security Center (Sarah Fender) - Wow, so many new tools to helps us to detect security attack on vNets, VMs and databases.

Programming

• Introducing Docker Secrets Management - Docker Blog (Ying Li) - Thus post introduces the great new secret manager of Docker.

Miscellaneous

• 10 GitHub samples with Azure DocumentDB you shouldn’t miss! (Rimma Nehme) - Nice list where everybody should find something interesting in favorite code language.
  
• Trying out 'dotnet new' template updates and csproj with VS2017 (Scott Hanselman) - Nice update on both VS2017 and .Net Core.
  
• Ultimate Linux on the Desktop (Jessie Frazelle) - Interesting point of view about running a laptop all in containers and the structure it required.

Reading Notes #259

Cloud

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

Programming

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

Reading Notes #257

Suggestion of the week

• Microsoft Connect(); 2016 Recap (Joseph Hill) - Three full day of great content. However, if you are like me, you didn't that much free time. Fortunately, all the presentations are available in video on demand. You need a summary because even if the keynote was really good... it is still 2h30, this post is the place to start.

Cloud

• .NET Web Development and Tools Blog (Jeffrey T. Fritz) - Really cool tutorial with Visual studio, Docker, and Azure that repeat the Connect keynote demo.
  
• Five Days of Azure Functions (James Chambers) - Nice post to know more about these Azure functions that everyone is talking about.
  
• Azure App Services Continuous Delivery (Gopinath C) - This post explains how easy it is to setup a continuous integration with Azure.

Programming

• Visual Studio 2017 Release Candidate (John Montgomery) - More details about all the new stuff announced this week related to VS.
  
• The expanding Visual Studio family of products - Another post that lists all the new Visual Studio's news for the week.
  
• Using MongoDB with Web API and ASP.NET Core (Mahesh Sabnis) - Dotnet core is now much more stable and so much more performant. It worth to try it.
  
• Visual Studio Code just keeps getting better - with extensions (Scott Hanselman) - Visual Studio Code is awesome; get a list of some cool extensions in this post.

Miscellaneous

• 8 million GitHub profiles were leaked from GeekedIn's MongoDB - here's how to see yours (Troy Hunt) - Interesting post about a leak of information related to Github account.
  
• Reconnect Outlook 2016 or Outlook 2013 to Outlook.com to fix issues after Outlook.com upgrade - Outllook.com is doing a facelift. That an important upgrade could impact your access to it. If you are syncing it from Outlook on your desktop. This post explains what to do, when to it, and how to proceed.
  
• Docs.microsoft.com - I didn't have the chance to look yet, but now that have done it... Wow great job, and well organized.

Reading Notes #256

Cloud

• What’s this all about? (Alexandre Brisebois) - The cloud broth with him new patterns in the technology world, but knows that the business should also adapt.
• Azure Container Registry preview (Steve Lasker) - Containers, containers, containers, containers.... sound familiar? They are everywhere, learn more about this new service that will be available in preview in mid-November.
• Fluent API Libraries for Azure .NET SDK - These new azure commands definitely look good.
• Simpler Azure Management Libraries for .NET (Asir Selvasingh) - It looks very friendly, looking forward to trying it.
• Ten ways to minimize Azure costs (Iris Classon) - Nice few tips to save money... Time to do your checklist.

Programming

• 10 Tips for Using GitKraken (Sara) - I really like this kind of format for tips. You learn so much in a snap.
• Extensibility in Visual Studio '15': Increasing Reliability and Performance - This post lists few key elements for extension author, don't miss it.
• Mobile DevOps - The Source of Truth: The Role of Repositories in DevOps (Kraig Brockschmidt) - Very interesting article about devops real word.
• Stateless 3.0 - A State Machine library for .NET Core (Scott Hanselman) - Interesting tutorial that shows how that new lib could be useful.
• Using MongoDB with Web API and ASP.NET Core (Mahesh Sabnis ) - Dotnet core is now considerably more stable and so much more preferment. It worth try it.

Miscellaneous

• How to Make Time for Blogging During Your Lunch Break - Not a idea. However, I think it's more realistic to lower the number of posts produced... at least in my case.
• Introducing Markdown Monster - a new Markdown Editor (Rick Strahl) - Yet a markdown editor.... Will it be your new favorite? This post lists most of the feature and also contains a video if you prefer.
• Microsoft Flow is Now Available - Thurrott.com (Paul Thurrott) - Build on top of the excellent LogicApp platform Flow is free and doesn't require an Azure subscription but benefits from a lot of connectors.

ReadingNotes #256

Cloud

• Bots are the new Apps (Alexandre Brisebois) - This interesting post answers many questions and probably will make yourself ask as much.
• Azure Relay – cross-platform, open-protocol connections (Clemens Vasters) - Plenty of new services available on Azure that will help us in our integration solution.
• Visual Studio Talk Show : 0200 - Stephane Lapointe - Azure Functions - Cool podcast episode where you learn more about what serverless really means.

Programming

• Docker Container Anti Patterns (Arun Gupta) - 12 great anti-patterns to use with containers.
• Using dotnet watch test for continuous testing with .NET Core and XUnit.net (Scott Hanselman) - Nice tutorial that shows the next step after the Hello word…
• Entity Framework Tips and Tricks (Robert Green) - Awesome video from the queen of EF herself.
• The Source of Truth: The Role of Repositories in DevOps (Kraig Brockschmidt) - Very interesting article about devops real word.
• Data Points - Run EF Core on Both .NET Framework and .NET Core (Julia Lermans) - Great article that shows how to use the stuff we like all together, the good way.

Miscellaneous

• Automated notifications from Azure Monitor for Atlassian JIRA (Paul Bouwer) - Really cool integration.

Reading Notes #249

Suggestion of the week

• Trying out the “standard” and “enterprise” templates in Azure Logic Apps (Richard Seroter) - Another excellent post from Seroter who shows us a quick simple logic app, and also a more "complex" one using the new integration account.

Cloud

• A Step-by-Step Guide to Creating Functions Within Azure’s IoT Hub - Great tutorial to build a scalable solution.
  
• Azure Active Directory Labs Series – Creating an AD Forest (Vincent-Philippe Lauzon) - This post is a step by step lab. You will create everything you need without trouble.
  
• Azure Portal + Azure AD Management in Public Preview - Really happy to see new tools available (finally) to manage Active directory in the Azure portal.
  
• Visual Studio 2015 update for Logic Apps (Jon Fancey) - Nice update to the on-premise tool. Have you tried it yet?

Programming

• Entity Framework Pitfalls: Null Semantics - This post explains important gotchas, in one of the most popular ORM frameworks.
  
• Getting Started with YAML in Node.js using js-yaml (Dave Johnson) - Interesting post, I've been using YAML for few years now. However, it's true that when I did some work with Node.js I switched to json... Next time then...
  
• New book: Begin to Code with C# (Kim Spilker) - C# is a very popular and powerful language, I'm happy to see new books to bring more people aboard.

Databases

• Azure DocumentDB powers the modern marketing intelligence platform (Aravind Ramachandran) - This post is a great story about a real-life scenario where DocumentDB was selected as NoSQL solution and gives an overview of his structure.

Miscellaneous

• Want to know if you've been hacked? Troy Hunt has all the details - Excellent article, security breach, servers hack are not only in movies... Learn more about Troy Hunt who shares them with us.
  
• Why Programmers Should Track Their Time (Even if They Don't Charge Hourly) - It's so painful but so true.

Reading Notes #248

Programming

• Building Your First Bot using Microsoft Bot Framework - Nice tutorial to get started with the bot framework... An yes, you should care, because bots are the new apps.
  
• How to use Power BI Embedded with AspNetCore - Oh yeah! Quick and simple.
  
• StrathWeb. A free flowing web tech monologue. - Nice post that explains different paths (good and bad) to declare a controller in Asp.Net Core and explains why.

Databases

• Connect to Azure SQL Database V12 via Redirection (Kun Cheng) - Very interesting post about how to achieve great performance with our Azure solution.
  
• Improved Automatic Tuning boosts your Azure SQL Database performance (Vladimir Ivanovic) - Definitely something to try at the minimum... It looks fantastic.

Miscellaneous

• Who am I really logged in as on Visual Studio Team Services? (Willy-P. Schaub) - Nice tips... That will solve so many questions.
  
• You might be a creative if … (docjamesw@gmail.com) - A post to read in the morning. It's like a little pill of energy.
  
• You’re doing it wrong: Demos (Gil Zilberfeld) - Nice quick post that helps us to definitely pick a side when the question "Should we demo that?" popped.

Reading Notes #247

Cloud

• AWS vs Azure vs Google Cloud Platform – Mobile Services - A very interesting comparison of the major cloud provider with mobile development perspective.
  
• Accelerate your insights with Application Insights Performance Counters (Mackenzie Frackleton) - Get always more with Application Insights...
  
• Fixing Azure Portal Errors - Errors are inevitable, this post explains how to workaround most of them and when nothing works how let the support team knows.
  
• What is Serverless Computing? Exploring Azure Functions (Scott Hanselman) - Great post that demos an Azure Function and also explains more about that new expression: severless.

Programming

• 9 Docker .NET App Templates: A Complete Guide - Fantastic post that shows many different ways to leverage container and also explains why containers are so useful.
  
• 9 Visual Studio Productivity Tools (Dustin Davis) - An incredible video, definitely a must. How could I didn't know so much?!
  
• Exploring HockeyApp data in Application Insights: introducing the Bridge App (Evgeny Ternovsky) - Nice post that explains how to use your metadata in HockeyApp.
  
• Pimp my report with Docker (Gabriel Schenker) - Cool example of how docker could help us.
  
• Publishing an ASP.NET Core website to a cheap Linux VM host (Scott Hanselman) - Great tutorial to learn quickly how to play with dotnetcore on linux VM and not busting our budget.
  
• Why Is .NET Core Important? - Interesting post that explains what been achieved by donet core.

Miscellaneous

• The Dropbox hack is real - It's time to change your password, and do not use the same everywhere...