Reading Notes #179

Suggestion of the week

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

Cloud

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

Programming

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

~Frank B.

Reading Notes #176

Suggestion of the week

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

Cloud

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

Programming

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

Miscellaneous

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

~Frank B

Reading Notes #168

Suggestion of the week

• Lift and Shift of a Console Appication to Microsoft #Azure - Great post that explains all the steps required to deploy a console app to Azure.

Cloud

• Ghost 0.5.x from Source to Azure Web Sites (David Wesst) - If you prefer starting from the source code to deploy your Ghost blog, some steps could be less obvious. This post, the first of a series, will guide you through the deployment.
  
• Ghost 0.5.x from Source to Azure Web Sites–Part 4 (David Wesst) - Bonus post in the 3 part series, this is a useful tips to set https on an Azure web site, very clear.

• Deux cas d’exception où l’infonuagique n’aide pas (Pour consulter tous les articles de André Giroux →) - Nice post that explains two reel cases were going was not a good option.

Programming

• Clean Code – Is my code always readable? - A simple but very efficient way to think when we a writing or re-factoring our code. I like it.

• Grunt and Gulp Intellisense in Visual Studio 2013 (Google+) - Quick tips to get intellisense in javascript files.

• Could not load file or assembly… NuGet Assembly Redirects (blog.maartenballiauw.be) - Nice clever tricks to avoid losing time.

Miscellaneous

• 11 Tools We Use at Ghost for Distributed Teams & Digital Nomads - Many very nice tools. I fall in love with Slack and coffitivity.

See you in 2015!


~Frank B

Reading Notes #166

Suggestion of the week

• Unit Testing Asynchronous Code - This post is a wonderful source of information about how to test ascyn code following the best practices.

Cloud

• Security and Identity Management with Azure Mobile Services - Great article from MSDN Mag that provides important information.

• Comparing Clouds : IaaS Scalability Options (Richard Seroter) - Very interesting article that compares one the key feature: scalability between the biggest cloud providers.

• Scaling a Multi-Tenant Application with Azure DocumentDB (John Macintyre) - Very good post that reviews and explains different scaling strategies in the NoSql context.

• Applied Azure: Infographic of how “Have I been pwned?” orchestrates Microsoft’s cloud services - One year after the launch of Have I been pwned, see what this service has become, and what was learned during this journey.

Programming

• 5 Incredible Features in the Visual Studio 2015 Preview - (Michael Crump) - Still didn't try visual studio 2015? This post will describe so of his greatest new features.

• ASP.NET 5: Using POCO controllers - Very interesting tutorial that explains some functionalities of Asp. Net MVC 5.

• 3 Useful Tools for Local Development & Testing - (Brian Rinaldi) - It's always nice to find new toys.

• Getting ready for the future with the Microsoft .NET Portability Analyzer (Scott Hanselman) - So many great tools that can help us are available easily and for free.

Miscellaneous

• How to Use Google in the Most Unusual Way to Make Your Self-Editing Faster, and Better (Guest Blogger) - Nice and very clever tips.

• 5 Quick Questions with Robert Scoble: What Makes a Great Tech Blog? (Stacey Roberts) - Everything about how to have a good tech blog.

• This is your bank, please verify your details – No, you verify YOUR details! - This situation arrived to frequently. I got in the same situation and mostly at the equivalent conclusion... how about you?

• The Small Personal Risks That Actually Change Behavior - Interesting post where the author shares his life, experience, inspiring.

• Is Blogging Dead? How Blogs are changing and How You Can Stay on Top (Stacey Roberts) - Very interesting post about the evolution of the blogging platform as medium and suggestion n how bloggers should be adapted to today's reality.

• Top Blogging Tools For the Blogger’s Soul (Matt Banner) - A nice list of online tools.

• The real and complete story - Does Windows defragment your SSD? (Scott Hanselman) - Nice post that removes the voile on a great "mystery".

~Frank B.

Reading Notes #165

 

Suggestion of the week

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

 

Cloud

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

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

Programming

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

Integration

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

~ Frank B

Reading Notes #155

Suggestion of the week

• Azure: SQL Databases, API Management, Media Services, Websites, Role Based Access Control and More - Amazing new features that j4ust arrives in Azure!

• TIP: Lazy Code Snippets in Visual Studio (Jonathan Rozenblit) - OMG this post just makes my day!

Cloud

• How Azure Mobile Services enable your Cloud First Mobile First World (AdarshaDatta) - Nice post to get started on Azure Mobile Services.

• Automating Integration Testing with Microsoft Azure - Great post that explains how to use Web Plaform Installer to leverage our unit tests.

• How to host a ClickOnce deployment in Azure Blob Storage - This post is a nice crossover with ClicOnce and Azure, it's explained how to prepare our deployment to do it.

• Troy Hunt: 10 things I learned about rapidly scaling websites with Azure (Troy Hunt) - Another great post about scaling in Azure; how much it cost, how to manage it, etc....

Programming

• Integrating OneDrive into Your Windows Store Apps - Excellent post that gets us started with the Live SDK, so we can add One Drive capabilities to all our applications.

• Revisiting - how to make your EF queries testable (tilovell09) - Interesting post about testing our EF query.

• Automatically strong name signing NuGet packages (Maarten Balliauw) - Who never needed to fight to include an unsigned DLL to a project?! Here is nice to that will help to do it.

• 5 skills every programmer needs in 2014 - This post is a good place to start if we are looking to learn a new language.

• Git: It’s Just Data! - This post shows us Git from a database point of view. Julie also gives really good reference for tool and book.

• Choosing a JavaScript Framework with Craig McKeachie - Really interesting episode talking on key features of your projects or code that you like to pick a Javascript framework.

Databes

• What is new in RavenDB 3.0: Client side (Ayende Rahien) - This post explains the major improuvment the the last RavenDB release.

Miscellaneous

• Upgrade to BlogEngine.NET 3.1 (rtur.net) - Time to upgrade your blog engine.

• Lineup of Windows books and ebooks (Kim Spilker) - Nice windows books list.

• How do you deal with anxiety when Live Coding in Technical Interviews? (Scott Hanselman) - Nice tips, a post to share.

• Authoring Markdown - What, Why, How - Interesting post to introduce markdown.

~Frank

Reading Notes #154

 

Suggestion of the week

• New handy Visual Studio extensions - Three great extensions that add this little thing that simplify our life...

Cloud

• Azure Automation: Reliable, Fault-Tolerant Runbook Execution Using Checkpoints (Chris Sanders) - Really interesting and complete post about automation in Azure and how to follow the best practices.
  
• Mostly Cloudy – Sept 5th, 2014 - Really interesting post that resumes the last release of Azure. It also gives a reference for every feature to get more detail.
  
• How do You Like Your Pizzas Delivered? - #Azure #PaaS - A short and simple explanation of what is in the cloud.
  
• Cloud Cover 152: Azure Search with Liam Cavanagh (Channel 9) (Chris Haishi Bai) - A really excellent web episode and a great demo of the new Azure Search.
  
• Making Azure Blob Storage Searchable Using Azure Search Service (Gaurav) - Great tutorial about the new Azure Search with a lot of details. The code is available online.
  
• Writing a Site Extension for Azure Websites (Elliott Hamai) - Great tutorial that explains how to build and test our Site Extention. It also explains how to publish it privately or publicly.
  
• Azure DocumentDB: first use cases (Vincent-Philippe Lauzon) - Interesting post that places the new DocumentDb compares to the other solution in Azure.
  
• Azure DocumentDB: Working with Microsoft's NoSQL Database in the Cloud (Gastón Hillar) - This post is a great tutorial to get started with Azure DocumentDB in C#.
  
• IaaS vs PaaS vs SaaS ? - Nice images to see the differences between each of them.

Programming

• #PowerShell Invoke-RestMethod - the underlying connection was closed - Useful tips to save some headache while developing.
  
• A chatroom for all! Part 1 - Introduction to Node.js - This post is the first tutorial of a series about developing a real application in Node.js and putting it to Azure. In this one, learns how to setup your Windows environment.
  
• Public Data Sources – finding them and using them - Useful post that lists different data sources.
  
• Introduction to Machine Learning Studio - Great article that introduces Machine Learning ML and shows us how to do a simple application in ML Studio...
  
• Two free video courses: Intro to ASP.NET MVC and Responsive UI with Bootstrap - Nice two courses (part of the Microsoft Virtual Academy) about an unavoidable tool these days: Bootsrap.
  
• Integrating OneDrive into Your Windows Store Apps - Excellent post that gets us started with the Live SDK, so we can add One Drive capabilities to all our applications.

Miscellaneous

• Can you hear me now? Unmute your microphone (Scott Hanselman) - This post published a useful tool that we should include in all our meeting description: HowToUnmute.com.
  
• Don't Check Your Email in the Morning (Scott Hanselman) - Who will raise this challenge?
  
• I can't hear you over the sound of how small your fonts are (Aaron Bertrand, JK Wood, lkh, Dandy Weyn BuckWoody) - Quick tips and indispensable tools for all speakers.

~Frank

Reading Notes #152

Suggestion of the week

• Azure: New DocumentDB NoSQL Service, New Search Service, New SQL AlwaysOn VM Template, and more (Scott Guthrie) - Here is the detailed description of all the new features in the Azure August release.

Cloud

• Microsoft NoSQL database and full-text search service previews available on Azure (Mary Jo Foley) - Quick introduction of the two last Azure services.
  
• Azure DocumentDB (Ayende Rahien) - A pretty hard review of the new Azure DocumentDB. Compare to RavenDB to make us understand the issues.
  
• Use Distributed Cache in Microsoft Azure - Great post that describes all the options we have to store our session state, and explains how to do it.
  
• Microsoft Azure Media Services - This article explains how works Azure Media Services by following a real case step by step.

Programming

• Getting Started with Git and GitHub (Dhananjay Kumar) - Very clear and simple tutorial that explains the basic command of Git Prompt and Git in VisualStudio.

Databases

• Documents, Databases and Eventual Consistency - A very interesting article about different types of database and their utilities.

UX

• 5 Strategies for Building Mobile Apps with Telerik (Cody Lindley) - Interesting post that explains different ways to build mobile app using Kendo UI.

Miscellaneous

• The Plague of Methods and Frameworks (Jurgen Appelo) - Interesting point of view.
  
• 10 Vital WordPress Security Tips (Guest Blogger) - This post provides the perfect quick review of our security knowledge when blogging.

~Frank

Reading Notes #148

Suggestion of the week

• Scaling a standard Azure website to 380k queries per minute of 163M records with loader.io (Troy Hunt) - Amazing post that shows and explains scaling tests over huge spike. It's a long post but the read worth the time.

Cloud

• Microsoft Azure cloud plugin for TeamCity (dabbling in Java code) (Maarten Balliauw) - Very promising teamcity plug in with Azure. Early tester requested...
  
• Azure Hybrid Connections (Tyler Doerksen) - Nice quick post about the new hybrid connection and what opens to.
  
• NodeJs, Azure and IIS (Ugo Lattanzi) - This post shares a very simple solution to a problem.

Programming

• ASP.NET Session State using SQL Server In-Memory (Ken Kilty) - Interesting introduction to a new feature that come with SQL Server 2014.
  
• Day 14: Bootstrap Alerts and MVC Framework TempData (James Chambers) - Really interesting wait to manage alerts in a Asp.Net MVC project. I like it. Day 18: Customizing and Rendering Bootstrap Badges - This post introduces quickly the bundle to manage our css files. Day 19: Long-Running Notifications Using Badges and Entity Framework Code First - This post introduces the mvvm pattern and the EF migration capability. Day 20: An ActionFilter to Inject Notifications This post explains how to create actionFilter: a powerful tool.
  
• Various strategies to initialize Database in Entity Framework (Sourav Kayal) - Nice post that explains the four options to initialize our database with EF.
  
• Visualizing Nuget packages dependencies without Visual Studio Ultimate (Pascal Laurin) - Great work! If you don't have the Visual Studio Ultimate edition, this post is for you. Discover a useful tool to see dependencies and how this tool was built.
  
• How to Deal with Slow Unit Tests with Visual Studio Test Runner - Interesting tips to be sure that a maximum of tests are executed as often as possible.
  
• The Repository Pattern in ASP.NET – Part 1 - Nice videos that explains a useful pattern in the .Net framework.

Miscellaneous

• Try.Fail.Learn.Improve (Steve Rowe) - Interesting thoughts about how we should approached life or any challenge.
  
• On Programmers Productivity (Patrick Smacchia) - Interesting sharing of positive productivity practices.

Reading Notes #147

Suggestion of the week

• What happened to Code Spaces could happen to you. On Amazon, Azure and any host out there. (Maarten Balliauw) - Great post that highlight today's security concerns and responsibilities.
  
• Day 12: Implement Search Using Inline Forms and AJAX (James Chambers) - Great tutorial to build a Ajax control in an Asp.Net MVC context.
  

Cloud

• Deploying WordPress on Azure and using MySQL in a VM (Chris) - Nice post where the author tells us his journey when he was looking for a new blog engine and how effortless it was to get it online.
  
• Microsoft #Azure – Where Should I Start? - This post is a great starting point for anyone looking for good references: books, e-books, podcast, websites, etc.
  

Programming

• NuGet Package of the Week: ASP.NET Web API Caching with CacheCow and CacheOutput (Scoot Hanselman) - Useful Nuget package to manage the cache.
  
• Day 8: Semi-Automatic Bootstrap – Editor Templates (James Chambers) - Nice post. simple and efficient. Day 10: HtmlHelper Extension Methods - Nice tutorial on how to create a Html Helper using Gravatar as context.
  
• CodeLens for Git improvements in Visual Studio 2013 Ultimate Update 3 RC (Real McCoy, Peter Jean-Marc Prieur) - Really amazing add-ons this CodeLens. I hope the next project I will work on will be on Git so I can try it. ;)
  
• ASP.NET Session State using SQL Server In-Memory (Ken Kilty) - Interesting introduction to a new feature that come with SQL Server 2014.
  

Miscellaneous

• Creating custom data graphics in Visio (Visio Team) - Nice tutorial that explains how to improve our diagrams very easily.

~Frank

Reading Notes #146

Suggestion of the week

• Day 2: Examining the Solution Structure (James Chambers) - Mandatory post to any new (or less new) web developers, learn what's in an MVC project.

Cloud

• Trying Redis Caching as a Service on Windows Azure (Scott Hanselman) - This post explains how easy it is to use Redis cache everywhere.
  
• ASP.NET Scalability: the Good, the Bad and the Hype (Dino Esposito) - Excellent post that explains everything we should know about the famous buzz word scaling.

Programming

• Day 0: Bootstrapping Mvc for the Next 30 Days (James Chambers) - Very promising series. Day 1, Day 3 , Day 4 , Day 5, Day 6
  
• Adventures in Custom Testing Infrastructure - This is an interesting post about building a unit test tool.
  
• Glimpse 1.8.6 released (Anthony van der Hoorn) - Nice update for glimpse.
  
• How to Automate IIS 7 Configuration with .NET -- Visual Studio Magazine (Patrick Steele) - This post is a incredibly well done tutorial that explains how to create a tool to automate configurations, exploiting the capabilities of the library Microsoft.Web.Administration.

Architecture

• The Onion & The Open Group Open Platform 3.0™ (The Open Group Blog) - This post expains the analogy between an onion and a business process and is limits.

Miscellaneous

• 5 Tough Questions You Should Ask Your Team Today BY Paul B. Brown  @FromPaulBBrown (Paul B. Brown) - Really interesting thoughs about how to make your company evolve.
  
• Sometimes Clothes Make the Presentation BY Steve Cody  @RepManCody (Steve Cody) - Interesting point of view about cloths...

~Frank

Reading Notes #145

Suggestion of the week

• Thinking About Strings, Quotes, Tokens, And Tildes In Less CSS - Less CSS seams really interesting. Next web projects, I seriously think use it.

Cloud

• Lessons Learned – On #Azure, Log Everything!s (Alexandre Briseboi) - Great post about how we should use the Event Trace Windows (ETW) to do our logs.
• Using Time-based Partition Keys in #Azure Table Storage (Alexandre Briseboi) - Nice tips about how saving our logs in Azure.
• How to get notifications from a Windows Azure website - Wow, this is truly amazing and really easy to do.

Programming

• How to connect your Windows Phone 8 & 8.1 app to Yammer - Nice short tutorial to learn how connect Windows Phone (wp) apps to Yammer.
• PowerShell Tools - v0.8.0 - Now with REPL! - Time to get or update this great add-ons in our Visual Studio.
• Thinktecture.IdentityManager as a replacement for the ASP.NET WebSite Administration tool (Scott Hanselman) - This post introduces a great project to manage our memberships in our Asp.Net projects through a nice interface.

Mobile

• Windows First: A New Strategy for Mobile Development and Beyond - Programming multi platform application is becoming much easier. This post explains some of your options.

Architecture

• The Open Group Open Platform 3.0™ Starts to Take Shape (The Open Group Blog) - This post talks about an interesting white paper. What’s good in it and why we should read it. This new 3.0 platform look very promising.

Miscellaneous

• How to use an Xbox One controller on your Windows PC (Scott Hanselman) - Really.?! That simple? That’s great!
• Windows Live Writer going Open Source? - This post explains why our help is needed in order to give a future to Windows Live Writer.

Reading Notes #133

 

Suggestion of the week

• Rockin’ Windows Azure with Visual Studio (Jonathan Rozenblit & Paul Laberge) - Great video that takes the time to talk about all the great tools we have to develop with Microsoft Azure.

 

Cloud

• Microsoft is pushing Windows Azure BizTalk Services - Wiki Ninjas - Official Blog of TechNet Wiki - Site Home - TechNet Blogs - Stay up to date with Windows Azure BizTalk Services (WABS) by following the author in this list.
  
• The Windows Azure Service Bus and the Internet of Things, Part 2 - Very interesting, and a bit unusual, tutorial where we build a mobile application, that will control an Arduino through Microsoft Azure.

Programming

• Changes in the Microsoft MVP Program - MVPs for Open Source Contributions (Scott Hanselman) - Interesting change in the MVP program.
  
• Obtaining Twitter Access Tokens with ASP.NET Identity - Very complete tutorial about how to transform the user / pws of Twitter in a reel claims.
  
• Using Windows Azure Access Control Service (ACS) in MVC 5 Application Using Visual Studio 2013 (Gaurav) - Woh! Things look so easy in Visual Studio 2013... Very constructive reading.

Miscellaneous

• Back to Basics: When allowing user uploads, don't allow uploads to execute code (Scott Hanselman) - Wow, it's crazy how "bad" peoples always found a way inside our application.

Reading Notes #132

Suggestion of the week

• TypeScript for C# Programmers (Steve Fenton) - Great book that in less than hundred pages, explains to me how to code in TypeScript. I feel so comfortable already I will add TypeScript in my next web project, and I will strongly recommend this book to everyone. If you are a C# developer, know your base in JavaScript this book is available in PDF for free!

Cloud

• Cloud projects and cross-country moves ( Buck Woody) - Nice story a like the correlation with IT projects.
  
• I put my Azure website in the wrong location, now what?! - I like when posts are based on reel life "problem." This post is one of them, and is really interesting.
  
• Windows Azure = Security + Privacy + Compliance (Jonathan Rozenblit) - This post provides a very crisp answer for some essential cloud related questions.
  
• How do you Inject Configurations into Windows Azure Cloud Service Startup Tasks? - A great tutorial indeed! It shows how to have dynamic configuration in our startup tasks, and who doen't?
  
• Saved by a ZIP File and a Command Line - Interesting option to zipfile in a Windows Azure startup task. Could it be easier with PowerShell?

Programming

• Facade Pattern - Nice explanation of the facade pattern also knew as a proxy pattern.
  
• Welcome to the OneNote API! - Great news, a new API to build great application and/or tools.
  
• Stupid Azure Trick #9 – Embrace SSL During Development when authenticating with Azure Active Directory (Bill Wilder) - Nice quick tips with a fantastic introduction to security using certificates.
  
• Five Reasons ASP.NET Developers Should Care About Node.js - This post is a strong, but very honest, promotion of Node.Js and highlights the reasons why .Net developer's myth be interested in.
  
• Automate your development tasks using Grunt (Marco Franssen) - This post explains what's Grunt, and how to configure and execute Grunt tasks.
  
• Pester - This is the readme of an incredibly easy to use PowerShell unit test framework.
  
• Sublime is Sublime Part 1 - I do like sublime, really. However, myth I be interested to use it instead of VisualStudio.... that's another story but in this series, the author explains how SublimeText could become your IDE for everything. Part 2, part 3, part 4, part 5, part 6, part 7

Miscellaneous

• OneNote and Microsoft's quiet API revolution (Scott Hanselman) - This post explains the impacts and meaning of the new OneNote features (API) release.

Reading Notes #120

Suggestion of the week

• Working with 154 million records on Azure Table Storage – the story of “Have I been pwned?” - Truly one of the best posts a read about azure windows storage. Thanks to Tom Walker (@Tinytoot) for the suggestion.
  
• Windows Azure: New Scheduler Service, Read-Access Geo Redundant Storage, and Monitoring Updates (Scott Gu) - Great update from Windows Azure, I'm really happy about the scheduler release. It's a very useful feature.

Cloud

• The Truth About Windows Azure PowerShell (wordpress.com) - Your right.
  
• AWS Migration Patterns (Frank Kelly) - Really interesting post. And you, how do you prefer to do your migration the "big bang" way or bit by bit.
  
• Application settings in Azure Mobile Services (CarlosFigueira) - Nice tutorial with a real case and good code sample.
  
• ASP.NET MVC–Azure Websites and EF Model First Connection Strings when Deploying from Github - Useful tutorial about how to manage our code when deploying from source control directly in Azure.
  
• Le cloud, les nuages et puis quoi encore (Frank) - Quick French introduction about the cloud that a wrote on my new blog.
  
• Building a Windows 8.1 Developer Environment in Windows Azure - Great workaround to be able to build win8 or 8.1 application in an Azure VM.

Programming

• **Be a productive coder with Productivity Power Tools 2013 (Lori Lalonde, Tom Walker) - I'm a big fan of VisualStudio productivity power tools since vs2010. If you did try it yet it time more than ever.
  
• I Was Wrong About JavaScript and Responsive Design - Interesting post where the author share how he realizes that javascript and responsive UI was indeed important.

Databases

• [Video] The Secrets of TempDB - Wow, that an explication. You must see this video. It will probably change the way you write you're SQL queries.
  
• Colored Status Bar in SQL Server Management Studio - Nice tips to differentiate different environments, and who knows maybe saving you from a big mistake in prod...
  
• NoSQL Data Modeling Techniques - Good post to get started with NoSql. It could definitely help before starting designing your database.

Architecture

• Composite Pattern (Gunnar Peipman) - Good post that explains clearly a pattern with code sample.

Miscellaneous

• To Feedly readers - Really? What kind of things, ads? I must to some screen capture compare.
  
• Feedly WAS (is) Hijacking Shared Links And Cutting Out Original Publishers (Nate Hoffelder) - Interesting thoughts about Feedly new "feature" that you should know.
  
• Three all new Windows 8.1 video tutorials - what's new in 8.1, keyboard shortcuts, and managing windows (Scott Hanselman) - Great video, very clear and instructive for a super user or a complete newbie.
  
• 10 Ways to Switch Your Brain to Writing Mode When Working From Home (Stacey Roberts) - Nice useful tips that help to get you started.

Reading Notes #118

Suggestion of the week

• Windows Azure: General Availability Release of BizTalk Services, Traffic Manager, Azure AD App Access + Xamarin support for Mobile Services - New Windows Azure features walkthrough by Scott Gu.

Cloud

• How much data can you put on VSOnline? (Brian Harry MS) - Interesting numbers and calculus about estimating the quantity of code we can put before having issues.
  
• Windows Azure Cache: Feature Comparison Matrix (Ashish Goyal) - Ashish did a great job here by bringing all the features of the Azure Cache side by side so we can compare them easily.
  
• Windows Azure IaaS Host OS Update Demystified (Pradeep M G) - Important notice. If you are an Azure user, you should have received an e-mail about it... There is a Windows Azure maintenance that is coming...
  
• SaaS, PaaS, IaaS… que choisir? (1/2) (Pour consulter tous les articles de Nadia Bourha →) - Very interesting article about where the cloud comes from. (in french / en fancais)
  
• SaaS, PaaS, IaaS… que choisir? (2/2) (Pour consulter tous les articles de Nadia Bourha →) - Second part of a serie that explain, in French, what are the advantages to use the cloud for a business.
  
• Free ebook: Microsoft System Center: Cloud Management with App Controller (KimSpilker, Devon Musgrave karsz) - Free e-book in different format: pdf, epub and mobi.
  
• Understanding NoSQL Technologies on Windows Azure (David Chappell) - White paper on nosql with azure. The paper focuses on what these technologies are and why you'd use them, rather than how to use them.

Programming

• Visual Studio 2013 Launch Highlights (Jonathan Rozenblit) - This post highlights some moments of Visual Studio presentation.
  
• Introducing node.js Tools for Visual Studio (Scott Hanselman) - It's pretty incredible how Microsoft technologies is evolving these days, and here is another example of that.
  
• Microsoft Launches Node.js Tools For Visual Studio (Frederic Lardinois) - Another post that lists some of the best features included in the brand new Visual Studio tool.
  
• Test Cases with NUnit - I love that! I didn't know... Get how I will write my next tests?

Miscellaneous

• Software Architecture (Paulo Zemek) - Interesting post about "home-made" framework.

~Frank

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 #107

Suggestion of the week

• Windows Azure IaaS Deployment Methodology with PowerShell Part One (YungChou) - First of every promising series, this post explains that basic of a good Azure deployment.

Cloud

• Losing the Remote Desktop (RDP) connectivity with Cloud Services targeting Window Azure SDK 1.7/ SDK 1.8 (Pradeep Kumar C[MSFT]) - Nice catch! Very simple to if when you know what to do.
  
• Windows Azure for Research (Microsoft Research Connections Team) - Learn more about new program Azure Research.

Programming

• How to Run Grid-based Web Applications and Databases at Scale in the Cloud (BrunoTerkaly) - Great tutorial, all you need to know to get started developping a grid apps.
  
• Announcing the Visual Studio 2013 Release Candidate (S.Somasegar) - Get a pick of what is waiting for you in the next Visual Studio 2013 and some news about Windows 8.1.

Miscellaneous

• Hate your job? Here’s how to fix it. - Interesting thoughts.
  
• 10 things you should NEVER say during presentations (Boris) - Good reminder of best practices for a speaker

~Frank

Reading Notes #106

Suggestion of the week

• Easily Copy Files from One Cloud Service to Another (Amit Agarwal) - Really useful tool and it looks so easy to use.
  
• Windows Azure: New Distributed, Dedicated, High Performance Cache Service + More Cool Improvements (Scott Guthrie)- A lot of brand-new features as just been release again. Learn more about the super easy to use cache services and all the new possibilities to scale and log and more in this post.

Cloud

• Opinari - Interesting point of view, where SLA match more with price than quality.
  
• Have You Met The Canadian Windows Azure Community Experts? - You may recognize some of them...
  
• Why is The New Windows Azure Cache Service Important? - This post explains why we should care about the new Azure cache services, and the difference between the old and the new version.
  
• Backup WordPress Site to Windows Azure Storage using “BackupToAzure” Plugin (Gaurav) - This post introduces a great free and open source to backup your WordPree.
  
• Public vs. Private Cloud: No Comparison - Interesting point of view about private cloud.

Databases

• Friends Don’t Let Friends use Lazy Loading on Windows Azure! - Very nice post that describes how to avoid big database issue on the cloud, but also in other situations.

Programming

• Are you missing an assembly reference? Why, yes I am. So kind of you to ask. (Bill Wilder) - Discover how NuGet could be so good that it will solve this problem for you.
  
• Jon Galloway - Interesting post that explains asp.net MVC routing. Most of the time MVC Routeing is just magic and easy, but it could be also a bit tricky.
  
• Claims-Based Authentication and Authorization (David Rogers Dev) - Really interesting tutorial on how to build a claims-based authentication and authorization for a website. All the code is available online.
  
• Coding for Domain-Driven Design: Tips for Data-Focused Devs - After reading this post, if you didn't know about Domain-Driven Design (DDD), good chance are that you want to know more...

Integration

• Collection of Visio 2013 Stencil for BizTalk Server updated with new stencils - Great, let's refresh our Visio's shapes.

Miscellaneous

• Scott Hanselman - It so easy and convenient that we sometimes forget how "dangerous" it could be...
  
• The Power of Habits (JD) - About the strength of habits versus knowledge.
  
• Four Areas Where Senior Leaders Should Focus Their Attention - Interesting post to help us on improving a meeting efficiency.

~Frank

Reading Notes #77

 

Suggestion of the week

• Windows Azure 1.8 SDK– Queue to Queue Transfers (Kent Weare) - Very interesting post that uses one of the new features available in Windows Azure 1.8 SDK to illustrate the Fan In pattern.

 

Cloud

• Table Storage 2.0 – Queries (Tyler Doerksen) - Understand the power of the table storage library version 2.0, by seeing all the query capabilities.
• Migrate a Virtual Machine to Windows Azure with PowerShell (Michael Washam) - Nice script very useful to save time or in automating processes.
• Working with Windows Azure command line tools from within Visual Studio (Maarten B) - Nice post that explains who to use two great tools together.
• Using your free Azure VM to host Visual Studio 2012 - Two short video show how to install a full legit version of Visual Studio 2012 Express on Windows 8 VM for free.
• 10 Considerations When Transferring Enterprise Applications to the Cloud - Nice list of questions you should ask before going to the cloud. And one that is often forgotten: the licensing.
• Automating the cloud with Windows Azure Command Line Tools - Great scripting references sources.
• Using OS disk VHD to create a new Virtual Machine if OS VHD is still on lease in Windows Azure Virtual Machines (Avkash Chauhan) - Good catch! This is a recurring question. Here are all the solutions depending of what you’re trying to do.
• Upgrading Windows Azure Cloud Services to Server 2012 and .NET 4.5 (Michael Washam) - Nice walkthrough that explains how to upgrade your cloud services to a more recent version of the OS family and .Net framework.

 

Programming

• Fix for WordPress Plugin Update Issues on Windows Azure Web Sites (syntaxc4) - Clear explication of how the thing works and why the issue appends... and how to fix it in one click.
• How to keep your ASP.NET database connection strings secure when deploying to Azure from Source (Scott Hanselman) - Quick tip about protecting your connection string.
• Public service announcement: time to update your CSS3 (David Storey) - Be aware web developers and bloggers, it's time to check your css. And once it's done don’t forget to minify it...

 

Integration

• Error while deleting send port from party (Dieter Gobeyn) - Very useful fix method, but for advice users only.
• Parser Optimization in a Flat File Schema (Mathieu Vermote) - Good tips to be ready to write your next flat file schema in Biztalk.

 

Miscellaneous

• Backing Up WordPress? Don’t Make These 9 Mistakes - If you are a developer, you probably backup your machine and your code. That's good. Do you do the same for your blog? You should, here is how to do it the good way.
• iPad, Surface, Ultrabook: Are we there yet? (Scott Hanselman) - The comparison we were all waiting for. A MUST READ post. I’m a little sad that no Android device has been included. I think the Asus transformer could be confederates. a bit sad that any Android device was included. I think the Asus Transformer could be ferly confederated.
• 10 Easy Ways to Get More Done (Geoffrey James) - As always how achieve more with less.

~Frank