Reading Notes #123

Suggestion of the week

• Scott Hanselman's 2014 Ultimate Developer and Power Users Tool List for Windows (Scott Hanselman) - A post to read, and bookmark. I always find awesome tool that I didn't know.
  
• Introducing Visual Studio Online - This post is a lot more than only an introduction. It explains all the options we will encounter to start our first project, but it also describes how to use it, build with a CI, test, monitor, etc.

Cloud

• A new year's present: introducing Glimpse plugins for Windows Azure (Maarten Balliauw) - Really interesting tools that provide a lot of useful information. I need to try this.
  
• Quick ways to edit your files hosted in Windows Azure Web Sites (WAWS), other than re-deploying - Nice quick tips that can save you a lot of time... and troubles.
  
• Do you serve your Azure Web Site hot or cold? - Useful use for the scheduler to improve website performance.
  
• New Windows Azure Network Security Whitepaper (Ashwin Palekar) - This is the post to improve your knowledge about network security, since it references the windows Azure white paper on the topic.
  
• Cloud Cover Show - Episode 125: Getting started with Application Insights for Visual Studio Online - Really great video. If you don't have time to read the MSDN Mag article or to get a better of the Online experience, this is the video.

Programming

• Composite Pattern: Handling child node collections - Interesting code solution. To read a second time.
  
• Temporary is The New Permanent - Interesting point of view about caring about our code.
  
• The Quality of Code (Paul W. Homer) - One of the best posts I read about this topic since a long time. It explains very well how easy it is to lose the focus.
  
• TypeScript: A New Language for .NET and JavaScript Developers - Nice introduction and quick overview of TypeScript.
  
• Prefixing ID columns with the table name in Entity Framework - See a time saving tips in this post to rename all ID property of your datamodel.

You can find out more about these conventions in the blog post Custom Code First Conventions (EF6 onwards)

Architecture

• How to Become a Software Architect - Interesting list.

Miscellaneous

• Finding a low-memory browser (Scott Hanselman) - Interesting information, and a simple but useful PowerShell script to get the info.
  
• What blogging was - Interesting thoughts about what blog became.

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 #119

 

Suggestion of the week

• BizTalk Summit 2013 Wrap-up (Kent Weare) - Very important news from the integration world. This post is a very complete summary of the event. Good job.

 

Cloud

• Installing Ghost from the Azure Web Site Gallery (Jeremiah Billmann Software engineer most of the time.) - That a wonderful news. See my other post/video about it on Cloud en francais
  
• Scaling your Windows Azure Web Site (benjaminperkins) - Very clear tutorial that explains all the possibilities for scaling windows Azure Website, and proof how easy it is.

Databases

• NoSQL Design Patterns for Relational Data (Rob) - Nice post that introduces the NoSQL basics options to design our database.
  
• The “NoSQL” way of storing data - Nice and quick introduction about NoSQL. More a "what is" then "how to".
  
• Steps Towards Optimized Windows Azure SQL Databases - Nice post that helps us to ask our self how could we improve the performance of our database.

 

Programming

• Mixing Command and Transaction Script Patterns - Interesting post where real-life example of some pattern are presented.
  
• Book Review: Effective JavaScript - The book looks very interesting indeed, even more as it is a book for professional Javascript developers.

Miscellaneous

• Human Computer Interaction Diversity - 7 Devices that AREN'T a mouse and keyboard (Scott Hanselman) - Good post presents some really useful tools. Let's add some of them to my wish list.
  
• 21 Web Applications I Use and Can’t Live Without - Nice post that presents a very impressive list of tools.
  
• How To Become a Jedi Knight (James Altucher) - Interesting thoughts... but yah I'm a star wars fan...
  
• Why professional in-house content management matters? - | Gunnar Peipman - Programming Blog - Interesting post that demonstrates why a well-structured intranet is important.
  
• “The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People”: I Transformed Myself Into a Fact Finder - Interesting reading suggestions.

~Frank

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 #117

Suggestion of the week

• One ASP.NET – Welcome to the Web Development Buffet! - Great post that introduces quickly a really nice project Asp.net One and how it's integrated with the new Visual Studio 2013.

Cloud

• Migrating Database Workloads to the Cloud - Great source of information. This article describe all the scenarios with the pros and cons then helps you in the steps to do it.
  
• First look at Visual Studio Online “Monaco” - | Gunnar Peipman - Programming Blog - The idea is fantastic, let's see how all this will turn in few months.
  
• Amazon takes Virtual Desktop to the Cloud (Paul Thurrott) - That a incredibly cheap solution that a lot of people / companies will definitely appreciate.
  
• Introduction to WebSockets on Windows Azure Web Sites (Mark Brown) - Very nice tutorial to use websocket in an Azure website.
  
• SaaS’s Real Triumph (Geoffrey Moore) - Good post that explains why we should embrace the SaaS in our enterprise.
  
• How much data can you put on VSOnline? (Brian Harry) - Interesting numbers and calculus about estimating the quantity of code we can put before having issues.

Programming

• Using web.config transforms with App.config files - | Gunnar Peipman - Programming Blog - Nice post that explains the few steps you need to do, to have a different config file for different compile setup.
  
• LICEcap – best screen capture tool I’ve ever used - Definitely, a very convenient tool that generates animated GIF of your screen capture. A tool to add to our toolbox...
  
• Things to avoid when customizing TFS work items (Dan Hellem) - The best time to read this post is before going in with TFS. But still, it's never to late!
  
• Scott Hanselman - Nice update about portable class library and great news for Xamarin and mobile device developers.
  
• A Better Syntax For Unit Tests (Andrew Binstock) - This post describes how nice is the syntax of some unit tests frameworks.
  
• Enterprise Library 6: Developer’s Guide Released (Grigori Melnik) - This book is a must in your bookshelf. And h0ey good news it's free!
  
• Linqpad – bring the power of LINQ to SQL Server development - Linqpad is a great wonderful tool. If you never have the chance to try it, now will be the time.;) And you won't recreate it.

Miscellaneous

• December Exam Preparation: Exam 70-487: Developing Windows Azure and Web Services (Sarah Arnold) - Nice initiative. Does this event happen in other cities?
  
• Personal branding, the recording of my presentation - Interesting presentation for all bloggers or people with a more public profile.
  
• 10 Surprising Social Media Statistics That Will Make You Rethink Your Social Strategy (Belle Beth Cooper) - Interesting thoughts about how we can reach more people that we expect, using the good social media for the targeted public.

Reading Notes #115

Suggestion of the week

• Windows Azure: Import/Export Hard Drives, VM ACLs, Web Sockets, Remote Debugging, Continuous Delivery, New Relic, Billing Alerts and More - So many good news that I don't know where to start. Some of my clients are waiting for this features since long time... A post that you must read.
  
• How to install the nodejs Ghost blogging software on Azure Websites (Scott Hanselman) - Very exiting project. Thanks Scott to share all that with us.

Cloud

• Clone an Azure VM using Powershell - Powershell scripts are so useful, and code sample are always welcome.
  
• Getting started with Windows Azure - part 2 (Usman Ur Rehman Ahmed) - Second part of a serie that offer a nice tutorial.
  
• Evolving IT for Today and Tomorrow - Interesting event that's coming in many Canadian city...
  
• Announcing the Preview of Windows Azure Import/Export Service and Several Enhancements for Web and Mobile Solution Scenarios (Steven Martin) - Quick summary about the new Windows Azure release of this week.
  
• Programming Windows Azure Media Services - An Overview (Albert (Gong) Cheng) - Very clear introduction to what is Windows Azure Media.
  
• Azure Websites vs Cloud Services (Tyler Doerksen) - Great post that amazingly clarifies the differences between these two Azure services.
  
• Why does an Azure storage account have two access keys? - This post answered a more than often asked question.
  
• Amazon CTO: Open source software and the cloud allows startups to focus on innovation (Ben Woods) - Interesting thoughts: the cloud is more a business evolution than a technology evolution.
  
• My List of Windows Azure Podcasts (Alexandre Brisebois) - Nice Windows Azure podcast list.

Databases

• WebLog of Ken Cox - I find out that using the migration wazard was the best option in my case... Until they update Sql Management Studio.

UX

• Build a Responsive and Modern UI with CSS for WinJS Apps - Good article to start doing your apps with the good tools and best practices.

Programming

• Using ASTs with ISE to make scripting more productive - Great PowerShell 3 scripts, this idea is genial.
  
• Microsoft Swings Its Web Sword - This post explains the context of the "new" Katana project and its relation with OVNI, Aspnet MVC, etc.
  
• Why do my Font Awesome icons show up as blank squares? (Scott Hanselman) - Nice catch. A lot of time could be saved.
  
• Getting Started with Oak - This article describes the C# / Ruby projects this Oak. A project to follow.
  
• Getting Started with the Katana Project - Looking forward to see where this project is going. This post explains the basics.
  
  

Miscellaneous

• PowerCfg - The hidden energy and battery tool for Windows you're not using (Scott Hanselman) - Really interesting investion about power consuption.

~Frank

Reading Notes #109

 

Suggestion of the week

• 10 Easy Steps to Azure Web Site Custom Domains (Bret Stateham) - The best tutorial a saw on this topic, very clear, with screenshots and tips.

Cloud

• Delivering push notifications to millions of devices with Windows Azure Notification Hubs - Create post that explains push notification and notification hubs in Windows Azure.
  
• Windows Azure: New Virtual Machine, Active Directory, Multi-Factor Auth, Storage, Web Site and Spending Limit Improvements - Okay! That a big release a new VM type, some new feature in the billing section (I known a lot of people that will be very happy) and new more convenient maintenance features.
  
• Important: Update to Default PHP Runtime on Windows Azure Web Sites - Nice post that explained how to keep control of the PHP version running on our website in Azure.

Programming

• Generically Implementing the Unit of Work & Repository Pattern with Entity Framework in MVC & Simplifying Entity Graphs - Nice tutorial about some really useful pattern.
  
• Power Tools and other Extensions for VS/TFS 2013 RC - Nice update!
  
• Visual Studio Tips: Starting to code your class project in TFS (Susan Ibach) - Great post whit a lot of tips, the perfect get started post to use TFS as source control.

Database

• Auto-delete Azure SQL Database Servers with no databases - Nice catch! Be aware that this can append to you.

Miscellaneous

• Developer – Best Practices for Daily Stand-Up or Daily Scrum – Rules and Regulations (Pinal Dave) - Quick recap of what should be a SCRUM meeting. Team...
  
• Sometimes You Have to Slow Down - Interesting post that talks about how to improve the comprehension of the students into a class room. But it's true for all kinds of audience.
  
• Sit, Stand, Walk, Type - Using a Treadmill Desk (Scott Hanselman) - At the beginning, I found this concept funny, but while reading the post the idea makes is way in my head, and finally, I think it's a great idea! Good job!

~Frank

Reading Notes #104

 

Suggestion of the week

• Penny Pinching in the Cloud: When do Azure Websites make sense? - Great Q&A that answers probably all the questions you might have about Azure Website

Cloud

• Hosting a Single-Tenant Application as a Multi-Tenant Application on Windows Azure (idea)) - Interesting idea to manage application in Azure.
  
• Windows Azure Training Kit - December 2012 - More details about what's new in this release: demos, exercises, presentations...
  
• Azure MSDN Subscription Intro (Tyler Doerksen) - This post quickly explained how to use our MSDN subscription with Azure and why we should do it.
  
• SQL Database Automated Backup–Before and Now (admin) - Yes, with Azure SQL Database we still need to do backups; this post explains what are the options.
  
• Using Windows Azure Caching efficiently across multiple Cloud Service roles(Pascal Laurin) - Great post that explains some details that we might had miss about Azure cashing and its options.

 

Programming

• A rich new JavaScript code editor spreading to several Microsoft web sites - Interesting discovery. I use it, and I didn't notice the similarity... Nice catch.
  
• Asp.Net 4.5 features - Part 1 - Good post that explains features introduced by .Net 4.5. Like the author specify this is not a get started in .Net posts nether a complete list of all new features, but it contains a lot of info.
  
• SSDT Schema Compare - Damm! I was assuming it was part of the Visal Studio updates...
  
• SSDT SQL Menu Options - Nice post that introduce SSDT feature.

 

Databases

• SQLite (Deepthi Anantharam) - Look like a very nice product! Looking forward to try it in a POC or just for fun...

Miscellaneous

• 5 awesome reasons your Start Menu is better in Windows 8.1 (Jerry Nixon) - If you still did try Wondows 8.1, here what you are missing.
  
• Add Social Sharing Links to your Blog without widget JavaScript - I like that! Less noise, more speed and still sharing that good.
  
• What's the Deal with Windows 8.1? (Scott Hanselman, Pete Brown) - Nice Podcast episode about why we care about Windows 8.1 (because we really should). Or Is it 8.5?! ;)
  
  

Next week, something special; c’est un rendez-vous!

~Frank

Reading Notes #91

Suggestion of the week

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

Cloud

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

Integration

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

Programming

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

System Management

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

Miscellaneous

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

~Frank

Reading Notes #90

Suggestion of the week

• My New Pluralsight Course – Patterns of Cloud Integration – Is Now Live - Very promising training, looking forward to watch this.
  
• Visual Studio ‒ It Just Keeps Getting Better (Marc Gagné) - Wow! So many great features in one thing... The news that makes my day.
  
  

Cloud

• azure-scripty – Azure CLI scripting made even easier (Glenn Block) - Automating repetitive tasks is a must and Azure-scripty is surely a tool that should find a place in your toolbox.
  
• Windows Azure: Active Directory Release, New Backup Service + Web Site Monitoring and Log Improvements - Great new features in Windows Azure. This post details this new stuff with also updates on previous release.
  
• Affinity Groups are Important on Windows Azure - Good explanation of a very important feature. A post to share...
  
• How Cloud Computing Influences Digital Marketing (Xath Cruz) - Nice post that gives a real example of company using / moving to Windows Azure.
  
• But what can I do with Windows Azure? Create (Free) Websites and Applications - Nice tutorial that explains how you could easily install a free application on Azure by installing DotNetNuke.
  
• Large-scale Implementation on Azure Platform (Ajay Solanki) - One of the larger-scale implementation and surly very critical on Azure was the US election. This post explains how this application was design.
  
• Document oriented database with Azure Table Storage Service (Pascal Laurin) – Good tutorial that explains all the code needed for the exercises.
  
• Walkthrough #1: Adding Sign-On to Your Web Application Using Windows Azure AD (vibro) - Quick recap of an unavoidable tutorial about single sign-on.

• Episode 104: Building cross platform Android and Windows Store apps using Windows Azure Mobile Services (Channel 9) (Nick Harris Nathan Totten) - Don't miss this episode; it contains a very complete demo where you can see full connected application on Windows8 and Android. 

Integration

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

Programming

• Using jQuery to POST [FromBody] parameters to Web API » Encosia) (Dave Ward) - Useful tutorial that explains what to do and why.
  
• Créé une application Windows 8 pour votre site Wordpress - Offre limitée - Windows 8 achieved great things, and one of them is changing technology so it is accessible by everyone.
  
• EF6: Nested types and more for Code First (Arthur Vickers) - This post explains new features of the Entity Frameworks EF code first.
  
• SymbolSource support for NuGet Package Source Discovery (Maarten Balliauw) - How to be lazy in a professional manner...

• Confreaks - Really interesting video about the best practices of making library.
  
• Can You “Over Organize” JavaScript? - Interesting post questioning the re-factorization of JavaScript code.
  
• A Month of PowerShell – Day 12 (Logins, Users and Roles) (Wayne Sheffield) - This post gives useful tips to manipulate database users. A good example of practical scenario.

• The Art of Writing Functional Specs (Part 1) – What is a Functional Specification? - Promising series that propose to explains the art of being understood by technical people
  
• The Art of Writing Functional Specs (Part 2) – The Most Important Thing About A Spec - The key is simple, but easy to miss. This post highlight some traps to avoid.
  
• The Art of Writing Functional Specs (Part 3) – Spec Shapes (Saveen Reddy) - This post briefly categorizes specs and gives details for each type.
  
  

Miscellaneous

• Social Media: Not the Productivity Killer You Thought (Francesca Louise Fenzi) - Wow! I really surprised, and happy... ;)
  
• Why You Should Take the Blame - Good lesson that teaches us how to learn for our mistake.
  
• Five must-try cloud-based utilities (Jack Wallen) - Interesting tools, particularly Asana that I didn't know.
  
• The Importance of Scheduling Nothing – Interesting post that explains why scheduling nothing doesn't mean doing nothing.

~Frank

Reading Notes #89

Suggestion of the week

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

Cloud

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

 

Programming

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

 

Integration

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

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

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

System Management

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

Miscellaneous

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

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

~Frank

Reading Notes #87

Suggestion of the week

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

 

Cloud

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

Programming

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

 

Databases

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

Miscellaneous

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

~Frank

Reading Notes #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 #70

Cloud

• Let's see : Attach an Azure blob drive in windows 7. (Nicolas Dorier) - A lot of information in this post where Nicolas Dorier explain how he pass through all the problems.
• New Powershell command line goodies for Windows Azure at #bldwin (Glenn Block) - This post explains some of the new features in the last release of Azure Powershell cmdlets.
• A tool to simplify and automate your SQL Azure database backup - Make backup is so important that it shouldn’t be human related. Here are some tools to help you reaching this goal.
• Disaster and the Cloud - An actual story about how the cloud helps in a disaster recover situation.
• Why should a startup use Windows Azure? (Shaymaa A) - If you are in a start-up bookmark this short post, because it's the perfect page to get started with BizSpark.
• Windows Azure: Automated UI testing using the power of cloud (Anuj Chaudhary) - Nice deep dive in a test case scenario using Windows Azure around the globe.
• Here's What's New with Windows Azure (Bill Hilf) - Recap of the Windows Azure related news at the //Build event.
• The Developer Movement & Windows Azure (Marc Gagné) - Goodies alert! How to get 3000 points and some great goodies...
• Manu Cohen-Yashar's Blog - I did search where the old portal link was... here is the answer.
• Microsoft Access 2013: A Cool New Rapid Development Tool for the Cloud (Gregory Leake) - Great news about Office 2014 and really nice way to use Azure...
• Top 5 Cool New Things with Windows Azure Web Sites (Nir Mashkowski) - Nice walkthrough the last new features of Windows Azure Website.
• Continuous Deployment with Windows Azure Websites and Bitbucket - Nice since I also use Bitbucket for some of my personal projects... I looking forward to try this!
• Announcing: New System Views for Windows Azure SQL Database (Gregory Leake) - Good news about the Azure SQL database, it's now possible to query the even log and views.
• Un voyage vers le cloud sur Windows Azure présenté par Matricis Informatique - Présentation en français sur Windows Azure a Montréal.

Programming

• The Hanselminutes Podcast - Loud and clear. The best description of what is TypeScript and why I should start using it.
• What's New? (amazon.com) - Nice update for DynamoDB.
• SSDT Team at PASS Summit - List of the presentation about SSDT at the PASS Summit.
• Reactive Extensions (Rx) is now Open Source (Scott Hanselman) - Learn more about Rx and is new open source status.
• TypeScript - Tutorial (typescriptlang.org) - Directly from the official TypeScript website, this tutorial get you up and ready in a few. Well explain. And a really nice repl page.

Integration

• BizTalk Server 2013 BETA (Saravana Kumar) - A lot of people was seeing it dead, but BizTalk 2013 is stronger than ever with a lot of the great improvement and new features... be ready!

Miscellaneous

• Infographics Are Hot, Your Boring Data Is Not (Janine Popick) - It's a fact that it's a lot easier to understand data with a visual support, this post points out 5 tools to help.
• Your Employee Is an Online Celebrity. Now What Do You Do? (Alexandra Samuel) - Witch question should be questions should be asked to validate if the co-existence between co-branded employee and the company.
• A retrospective of an unproductive day - Nice tips to feel better in those days when you feel like you did nothing...

Reading Notes #69

Cloud

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

Programming

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

Integration

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

Miscellaneous

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

~Frank

Reading Notes #66

Cloud

• Announcing: Improvements to the Windows Azure Portal - Great news! Nice features that will facilitate the resources management.
• Windows Azure REST API Sample and Tool – GET, POST, & DELETE with One Click - Great tool, even more since it is embedded in visual studio. For quick and easy stuff. For more advanced stuff SoapUI remains.
• What PartitionKey and RowKey are for in Windows Azure Table Storage (Maarten Balliauw) - Very well explain. The best post on partition a read.
• Windows Azure Disk Partition Preservation - Quick post that show what append with disk partitions from PaaS stateless VM when different events append in a nice table view.
• Online Data Storage: Is it okay to Move to the Cloud? - Nice post that should be share and re-post to reach the maximum of people. Backing up the cloud is easy and safe. But off course it's not THE solution, but part of the solution.
• Website Pricing, Shared or Reserved (Tyler Doerksen) - Short post that explain very clearly the difference between the Windows Azure Website options.
• BlogEngine.NET and Windows Azure Web Sites - Good news, BlogEngine.Net is finally available in the Windows Azure Website gallery and configured to not be using a SQL database.

Programming

• Help your users record and report bugs with the Problem Steps Recorder (Scott Hanselman) - How could I didn't know this application!?
• Booleans are Baaaaaaaaaad - Nice tips about how you should build your data, illustrated with a Ruby sample.
• Get In on the Action: Start with Your Windows Store Developer Account (Jonathan Rozenblit) - Everything you need to know to get ready and publish your apps thru the Windows store.
• Why Mocking Matters - Nice explanation of what the differences are between fakes, stubs and mocks.

Miscellaneous

• Why you can’t focus on a single great idea - Interesting thoughts.
• Top 10 Ways to Make Yourself Look (and Be) Smarter (Whitson Gordon) - Some of these tips makes you smarter, not only look like.
• Amazon Kindle Paperwhite 3G/Wi-Fi Review (Scott Hanselman) - I like sooo much my Kindle. With is keyboard so I can take my notes. When I read about the Paperwhite I thought it was perfect. But since my use of this device is very similar to Scott... I will pass.