Tons of statistics and metrics for Microsoft Azure websites (not only Asp.Net)

Your website is finally online. That great, good job. But now, you have a lot of questions: How much visits do I have? Which part of the site is mostly visited? Does the site performs well? In this post, I will show you some tools that exist in Microsoft Azure that will help you to get some answers.

Request and Error

When you create a website in Azure, you automatically got some monitoring. Go on portal.azure.com (the preview portal), and select your website.



This will be useful to see how many requests and errors you got. You could create some alerts, by clicking the "+" sign, and you would be notified by e-mail if the number of request is greater than x, over the last hour.

Analytics

The first time you will click on this section all the instruction will be given to you.

To collect end-user usage analytics about your application, insert the following script into each page you want to track. Place this code immediately before the closing </headtag, and before any other scripts. Your first data will appear automatically in just a few seconds.

To get analytics for the whole web site, in an Asp.Net MVC site, a good place will be: \Views\Shared\_Layout.cshtml.

In a Ghost blog, if you are using the default theme, the file will be /content/themes/casper/default.hbs. Otherwise, just replace "casper" by your theme name in the path.

Once your website is re-deployed, re-open the website blade and click again on the Analytics graph. And you will be able to see a lot of information: Session per browser, information on page's views, slowest pages, details on sessions, etc.





When you click on a graph, the Metrics Explorer blade will be visible. On the top of this blade, you will have many different options to customize your results. You will be able to add a chart, change the time range, add some filter and even set some alerts.





Moreover, if you click on those Charts, tables or even on a row, you will have more details and options to fine-tune the result.

Application Insights

You thought it was enough? Well, Microsoft Azure still has one more tool for you, that will cover in this post: Application Insights. With this one, you will be able to see the health of your application by adding some tests, custom events, logs, errors, etc.
Adding Application Insights to your Asp.Net website, can easily be done via Visual Studio, like I explained in a previous post.

Since Azure is compatible with many different languages, chances are that you are using one of those. Let say you are running a node.js Ghost blog, how could you add Application Insights? By using website extensions. To add an extension you could use the Kudu interface. This interface is easy to access. In a browser, type the URL of the website but inject "scm" between the name of the application and the azurewebsites.net. Something like http://mybookmanager.scm.azurewebsites.net/





Once you are in the Kudu interface, click on the tab Site Extensions, then section Gallery. Add the Application Insights Extension.
It's also possible to add a website extension using the website blade.





This will gives you a lot of information already, but to add more customs metric in .Net by sure to add the Application Insights SDK to your porject. In node.js use the applicationinsights package from npm,

~Frank Boucher

References

• Microsoft Azure
• Ghost
• Application Insights Extension
• Write custom telemetry with Application Insights API
• Applicationinsights package (npm)
• Kudu

Reading Notes #175

Cloud

• Running the Ruby Middleman Static Site Generator on Microsoft Azure (Scott Hanselman) - Really nice post. It looks very fun. It's amazing what we can do with git and Azure!

• Lift and Shift of a Windows Service to Microsoft #Azure (Alexandre Brisebois) - Nice tutorial with a lot of clear explications for every step.

• Another reason to like azure web sites - free analytics - Nice quick post that summarizes a great Azure Friday episode about statistics.

• Using Stream Analytics with Event Hubs (Kirk Evans) - Great post that plays with both Azure event hub and azure stream analytics.

Programming

• Proper benchmarking to diagnose and solve a .NET serialization bottleneck (Scott Hanselman) - Another great post that will help to ask ourselves some better question when it's time to investigate so performance issue.

• Atom-Shell for cross platform desktop apps with Paul Betts (Scott Hanselman, Paul Betts) - Nice episode that clarifies things around Atom-Shell.

• Bad Practices Building Microservices (Jan Stenberg) - Interesting post that talks about what why shouldn't be doing.

Miscellaneous

• Becoming Great Remote Developer - Interesting thoughts and tips about remote work.

• Microsoft or Google? - This post shares some thoughts about a very common question that a lot of people are asking.

~Frank

Reading Notes #174

Suggestion of the week

• How I Use Git On Windows – Setup and Tooling (Jesse) - Great post that gives a lot of little tips for Windows developers. A post to read.

Cloud

• Saving #Azure Resource Manager Templates to JSON files on disk (Alexandre Brisebois) - Useful post, learn how to manage your Azure resources.
  
• Configuring Internal Endpoints on #Azure Cloud Services (Alexandre Brisebois) - Quick post that explains how we can configure and deploy internal endpoint in our solution.
  
• Stories from the trenches: Sizing and penny pinching with Azure websites - Once again, a very interesting post on scaling and how the reality could differ for our expectation.
  
• Opening Windows Firewall Ports on #Azure Cloud Services - Great post that talks about how execute startup tasks in an Azure WebRole. At some point we will all need to do that, and this is the correct way.

Programming

• NuGet Package of the Week: A different take on ASP.NET MVC Forms with ChameleonForms (Scott Hanselman) - Interesting package that looks like a view engine, but that is, in fact, a kind of Razor forms booster.
  
• Using Bower with Visual Studio - Excellent tutorial to migrate projects package manager from nuget to bower. If you don't know bower, do a quick search on it first.
  
• Adding WinJS to your website (davidvoyles) - Nice tutorial to add different Javascript "tools" in our projects.
  
• Kanban split columns, inline adding and editing – Feb 18 - Great list of updates on VSOnline, good job!
  
• Why You Should Use Markdown for Your API Documentation - Nice post that talks about some useful tools when it comes to document our API.
  
• Proper benchmarking to diagnose and solve a .NET serialization bottleneck (Scott Hanselman) - Another great post that will help to ask our self some better question when it's time to investigate so performance issue.

~Frank Boucher

Reading Notes #173

Suggestion of the week

• Building Your Resume Like a Boss with CI (Steven Edouard) - I had so much fun playing with this…

Cloud

• Azure Data Factory Updates: Diagram View Enhancements (Gaurav Malhotra) - Really good work from Azure Data Factory team here, those changes are amazing.
  
• Enabling WP CLI in Azure Websites - Nice post that introduces some Azure WebSite Extension, and plays with Kudu.
  
• How to enable a Site Extension in Azure Websites - Nice post that explains the power of the Azure website extension.
  
• Get Started with the Enterprise Mobility Suite in Minutes (Simon May) - Nice post that gives a lot of very useful informations.
  
• Connecting on-premises Active Directory to Azure AD can give your org these 5 great advantages (Simon May) - Perfect pst to understand how azure active directory could be the perfect extension you are missing…
  
• Saving #Azure Resource Manager Templates to JSON files on disk (Alexandre Brisebois) - Useful post, learn how to manage your Azure resources…

Books

C# Tips
By Jason Roberts
Publisher: Leanpub
Released: December 2014

This book it undoubtedly for people who already know C#. If you want to learn C# by doing the best practices, I would strongly suggest to start with something else. However, if you already know how to code, and you want to improve your, or got this little plus; this book is a must.

It’s not a very big book, but all the zones are covered. It’s split into three parts. The first one will provides many good this to improve the performance of your code, customizes your debug experience, and more. The second part will focus on the very useful design patterns that we should all have in our back pocket. Finally, the third and last section introduces tools and frameworks (NUnits, Moq, etc.) to facilitate your work.

I would definitely recommend this book to any developer. The book is available in all the digital format for free, but if you like it consider giving a donation. :)

Miscellaneous

• Finding an Invisible NAS on a Network (Alexandre Brisebois) - I like those stories where people, like us, learn something the “hard way” , and share their fresh experience.

~Frank Boucher

Reading Notes #172

Suggestion of the week

• Using #PowerShell to Upload Content to #Azure Storage - Very useful script here that will save you a lot of time more than once… A post to bookmark!

Cloud

• Starting with Continuous Integration in the Cloud with Steven Edouard - Very interesting podcast episode to learn all about CI. I like the compilable resume.
  
• Security and Performance Tips for Azure Storage Queues - This post is a great list of tips, and you will also find answers to frequent asked questions about security.
  
• Free ebook: Microsoft Azure Essentials Fundamentals of Azure (Jan Kim Spilker) - Fantastic, all that in one book…a free book!
  
• Announcing Azure Preview Portal Improvements (Leon Welicki) - Wow! This preview portal is was nice, but with all those little tweaks… It a great tool.
  
• Azure vs Amazon vs Rackspace vs HP vs Google - Interesting infographic that compares some major cloud providers.
  
• Continuous Delivery on Windows Azure Websites using Visual Studio Online (VSO) - Great tutorial about doing continuous integration using Visual Studio Online. A must to all .Net developer.
  
• Azure WebJobs are awesome and you should start using them right now! - Everything is said in the title, Azure Websites are awesome.
  
• Securing Production #Azure SQL Databases - This post if the perfect security checklist.

Miscellaneous

• Automating Azure Virtual Machine Deployment with Chef (Diego Viso) - This post is a quick introduction about how Chef could help you in your automation.
  
• 10 Ways to Improve Your Pairing Experience - Interesting post to read before your next team work.
  
• VIDEO: Do you really know how to use Microsoft Word? The Power of Tabs and Indents (Scott Hanselman) - Awesome video. you must watch this.it for everyone!

~Frank B.

Reading Notes #171

 

Different readings which kept my interest during the week.

Suggestion of the week

• Automatic deployment of multiple repositories to Azure - Very powerful tips to deploy with a less common repository structure.

• Walyou (Jasmine Henry) - This is why you should care about Windows 10.

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 #157

Suggestion of the week

• Microsoft Azure Web Site Cheat Sheet - Wow! I really think that ALL the information about Azure website is on this page, and it's super clear. Amazing job.

Cloud

• Soup to Nuts: From Raw Hardware to Cloud-Enabled Device - Excellent article that shows very exiting Raspberry Pi projects with Azure Services.

• Cloud, cloud, everywhere - This post makes me realize how many different cloud solution I'm using.

Programming

• Three steps to use jQuery UI in ASP.NET MVC 5 (Dhananjay Kumar) - Direct to the point. This is a good tutorial to not losing time and gets our solution correctly configured the first time.

• 3 Essential Sublime Text Plugins for Node & JavaScript Developers (Scott Smith) - Great! Life is so beautiful when we have the right tools.

• Inception-Style Nested Data Formats (Scott Hanselman) - What seem to be a good solution at one point could put you in a big problem tomorrow. This post explains one possible cause.

• WordPress -> Ghost -> Harp (Remy Sharp) - Great post about customizing a Harp blog (node.js).

• **The Ajax Control Toolkit are now maintained by DevExpress - Good news for a very nice library.

• Visualizing Security Information with Fiddler (Eric Lawrence) - This post explains how to customize the view in Fiddler to see security information.

• I was wrong about AngularJS - In this post, the author explains why after a difficult start, he now prefers AngularJS to BackBone.

• Implement Step-by-Step Generic Repository Pattern in C# - Nice post to know more about howto implent this important pattern.

Database

• Azure SQL Database Point in Time Restore (Tony Petrossian) - Nice post to know more about Azure SQL database backup.
  
• Let's play with Azure SQL Database backup and the Point in Time Restore (Frank Boucher) - A simple post to demistify the new Backup/Restore service in Windows Azure. ;)

Miscellaneous

• The most marketable skill in the job market: communication! - Nice advice for all new people on the market.

• Markdown Style Guide - This post gives some simple tips to keep our Markdown document easy to read when not converted.

• Announcing Windows 10 (Terry Myerson) - Great news about features in the next Windows...

• Windows 10: First Impressions - Get some idea of how it feels..
• How to create a Virtual Machine for run Windows 10 Technical Preview (Sara Silva) - This post is perfect if you want to try by yourself the new Windows 10, it will guides you to be all set.

~Frank

Reading Notes #156

Suggestion of the week

• Your Azure website CPU is going nuts and it’s not your fault (Troy Hunt) - This post tells us about a troubleshoot on Azure when looking for the casu of CPU spikes.

Cloud

• Enabling Hybrid Scenarios on Microsoft Azure (haishibai.blogspot.ca) - Nice post that presents five hybrid cloud scenarios with Azure.
  
• #Azure Talk - Working with Microsoft Azure Resources - Useful post that compares many different tools that manage Azure resources.
  
• Azure Websites for the Enterprise with Virtual Networks - Nice quick tutorial about connecting an Azure website with an un-premises computer.
  
• Mostly Cloudy – Sept 19th, 2014 - This post introduces some nice opensource project and reminds us to update our OS Familly in Azure.
  
• How I used Azure Mobile Services in my Unity game (Mickey MacDonald) - This post shows us some of the options available to simplify our life when we want to use Azure Mobile Service in our mobile apps.
  
• Soup to Nuts: From Raw Hardware to Cloud-Enabled Device - Excellent article that gives very exiting Raspberry Pi project that uses Azure Services.

Programming

• Choosing a JavaScript Framework with Craig McKeachie - Really interesting episode talking on key features to pick a Javascript framework, base on our projects or code that you like .
  
• Jump-Location - A Change Directory (CD) PowerShell Command that reads your mind (Scott Hanselman) - Great little tools to have.
  
• Towards a better console - PSReadLine for PowerShell command line editing (Scott Hanselman) - Two really nice PowerShell tools in one post.
  
• Web API Documentation Tools -- Visual Studio Magazine (Terrence Dorsey) - Many great tools to generate API documentation.

Miscellaneous

• **Scaled Agile Framework: Using TFS to support epics, release trains, and multiple backlogs whitepaper (Gregg Boer) - This post introduces us to an interesting whitepaper.

~Frank

Setup an automatic deployment on Azure with Dropbox in 5 minutes

(this post is also available in French)

This post is about creating an automatic deployment that could be used by everyone. I picked Dropbox as source control because today mostly everyone got is account. If you need one, feel free to use this invite it will gives you 500 MB of bonus space for free!

Step 1: Configure the automatic deployment

To configure the deployment, connect to the Azure management portal. Although the new portal is my favourite to manage and visualize information on websites, as I write this post the features needed for the Dropbox deployment were not yet available. We must connect to "old" portal and select the Web site. You a website is not already created you can add one using the quick create.
After selecting the site, you need to click on the option: Set the deployment from source control, which is located at the bottom right of the dashboard code.




From the dropdown list, choose Dropbox and click the arrow. Microsoft Azure deployment will now aks you to have to access on a directory in your Dropbox account.

Step 2: Publish Web Site

From your computer, access Dropbox. If you left the default settings, the directory should be under Apps / Azure / [dirname]. You can now copy the code, images and all other files that you need. After synchronization with DroxBox completed (the small green checks everywhere) you can return to Azure portal.

It is now time to deploy. To do this you need to click Sync.




Once completed you'll get a message informing you that the deployment is done. You can now check the log to see the deployment steps in detail if you wish.



The new version of your website is now available!

Conclusion

Deploy a blog, a static business site, a family owned site with Dropbox is so simple! It`s even better than the good old FTP, if something goes wrong, you can redeploy by one click.

References

• Microsoft Azure Website
• DropBox

~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 #151

Suggestion of the week

• How I’ve started loving PowerShell (Fabien Dibot) - This nice post is a real pep-talk. And gives references for more information about PowerShell.
  
• MSDN magazine brings you a wealth of practical info about Azure Websites (Erez Benari) - Here why we soundn't miss the July's MSDN Magazine if we are interested to cloud computing...
  
• Automating Integration Testing with Microsoft Azure - This post gives a lot of detail on how a test environment could e build in Azure, iteration by iteration. Really interesting.

Cloud

• Introducing Azure Web Sites Services - This post describes an overview of the current Microft Azure Website situation.
  
• Building Cloud Apps with Microsoft Azure - This book fantastic, and fill with important pattern and best practices. Even more because it's a free book!
  
• Desktop in the cloud: synchronize user logon and log off with Microsoft Azure - Interesting trick to get one step further in automating the Azure VM start stop process. Simple but cleaver.
  
• Azure Mobile Services .NET Updates (Henrik Frystyk Nielsen) - Great new update in the azure services, learn more here.
  
• Architect for the Cloud Using Azure Web Sites - That the article we need to read before doing our website on Azure. From A to Z, everything is explained to plan exactly what we need.
  
• Hybrid Connectivity: Connecting Azure Web Sites to LOB Apps Using PortBridge - Excellent deep-dive post / tutorial about a connection on a premise to the cloud.
  
• Azure Storage Explorer Preview 3 Now Available: Queue Support, Blob and Table Enhancements (David Pallmann) - Very happy about these new features.

Programming

• NuGet Package of the Week: MarkdownLog makes log files much prettier - I like markdown I found it very easy to read or edit on any platforms or devices. This package could be very useful.
  
• ASP.NET MVC 6: New HttpContext - Interesting post that talks about what is coming next in the MVC framework.
  
• Kendo UI Grid Custom Columns: How to Show a List of Links (Rachel Hagerman) - Nice tutorial for my co-worker that are on a project where Kendo grid is really present...;)
  
• Tips for Best Practices in WordPress Development - Tuts+ Code Article (Damian Logghe) - This post explains the best practices to follow when "playing" with WordPress. It's true that some info are available on the WordPress website, but here is a little "je ne sais quoi" that make it very clear.
  
• Migrating from Subversion to Git with svn2git on Windows (the tricky bits explained) (Troy Hunt) - Useful walkthrough.

UX

• Hey Developers - is it UI, UX, UI/UX or Something - Very interesting post that explains things clearly.

Miscellaneous

• The Experience Paradox -How to Get a Job Without Experience (simpleprogrammer.com) - Great post that can help junior developers to get started, or even the not so young to continue...
  
• How to create a file with a . dot prefix in Windows Explorer - Nice tip!
  
• Surface Pro 3 - Initial Impressions - Really good review of the Surface 3 from a user / tech guy point of view.

~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 #139

Suggestion of the week

• Refactoring your CSS with LESS in Visual Studio Web Essentials (David Paquette) - Web essentials is really essential! This post explains how easy it is to manage our CSS files with LESS.

Cloud

• Simple Web Site Backup retention policy with WebJobs (Eduardo Laureano) - That’s a really nice tutorial that explains how to use Azure webjobs.
• Basic Tier Virtual Machines (Kenai Kwa) - It’s time to save money. We need to change the type of our VM to be basic for all Azure VMs that don’t need load balancer or scalability.
• IIS Reset on Windows Azure Web Role (Value Maker) - Safe yourself sometimes and gray hair by reading this post before you got to do IISReset on an Azure VM…
• Cloud Power: How to scale Azure Websites globally with Traffic Manager (Scott Hanselman) - Great example of scaling a website with Azure.
• Managing your Azure Storage account with Zudio - This post introduces a very intuitive tool for when we want a quick and simple view of our stuff.

Programming

• Save Time, Money, and Your Sanity: Coded UI Testing for the Windows Phone - Part 1 (Lori Lalonde) - This post lists the prerequisites required to do a UI unit test that will be explains in a future post.
• What should I be looking for during Code Reviews? - Very interesting post that gives us a good idea of what we should think about when doing a code review.
• ASP.NET MVC Helper - MoreLessText (James Curran) - That’s a nice HTML helper simple and efficient, like all the best are.

Mobile

• Build Some Ears on Your App and then Listen! (Mark B Schramm) - This post lists the best practices about how we should take care of our apps once they are live.

Miscellaneous

• SonicAgile Now with Dropbox Integration - Nice new add-on to this great management tool.
• FREE Pluralsight video: “Get Involved” in community! (Scott Hanselman) - Excellent video that will help you to get started. You don’t have any excuse anymore since it’s free!
• VM Image PowerShell ‘How To’ Blog Post (Christine Avanessians) - Really useful post that gives a lot of code snipets with the explication on what they do. A must.

~Frank

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 #131

Suggestion of the week

• Build End-to-End Apps with TypeScript (Gil Fink) - Amazing tutorial that gives the opportunity to learn a lot about recent language and tools. A mandatory reading for all web developers.

Cloud

• Windows Azure Websites online tools you should know about (Nir Mashkowski) - Nice quick and clear introduction to Kudu dashboard.
  
• Stupid Azure Trick #8 – Take control of Management Certificate names (Bill Wilder) - Nice clarification about certificate and security management in Windows Azure.
  
• Remote Administration of Windows Azure Websites using IIS Manager (Nir Mashkowski) - Soooo convenient. This post explains how we can remotely connect to a Windows Azure website with IIS.
  
• Stupid Azure Trick #7 – Use Windows Azure’s Local Storage Emulator with Web Sites & VMs (Bill Wilder) - Nice trick that explains how to use Azure emulator, because it's something we (or will) need.
  
• #WindowsAzure Lessons Learned : Don't be Afraid to Duplicate Data - Interesting re-design of a cloud solution.
  
• Announcing General Availability of Oracle Software on Windows Azure and Updates to Windows Azure Traffic Manager (Steven Martin) - Great new images and useful feature are now available.
  
• Tutorial: Finding Virtual Machine Images for Windows Azure in VM Depot (Ross Gardler) - That a very nice upgrade: an amazing search/sort engine.
  
• Is Your Application Built for the Cloud? - Interesting questioning about when to know if our application is built for the cloud, and nice list of pattern that are really well compatible with cloud solutions.

Programming

• NuGet Package of the Week: FluentAutomation for automated testing of Web Applications (Scott Hanselman) - Interesting tools to automate things like the ScriptCS.(Available via Chocolatey).
  
• Remove that dirty CSS! - Very useful tutorial that uses Node.js and Grunt.

Miscellaneous

• How to Clear Your Mind in 15 Minutes (Kevin Daum) - Sometimes to get more productive, we need to pause. Here are few tips on how-to achieve that.
  
• Why NOT measure progress using subjective percents - | Gunnar Peipman - Programming Blog - Interesting point of view about calculating project progress.
  
• Keepin' Track of Your Views - I found this post interesting because it explains how pageviews are counted.
  
• Logiciel libre : soyons clairs! (Laurent Bounin) - Very interesting point of view about open-source software (in French).
  
• Back to Basics: Assert your assumptions and diff your source code (Scott Hanselman) - Aah debugging... Never assume something. Thanks for sharing this story, I feel less alone now.

~Frank

Reading Notes #129

Suggestion of the week

• Auto-Healing Windows Azure Web Sites (Mark Brown) - Amazing new feature, that will simplify our lives. A post to read.

Cloud

• Stupid Azure Trick #5 – Got a Penny? Run a Simple Web Site 100% on Blob Storage – Cost Analysis Provided (Bill Wilder) - I can easily imagine plenty of scenarios where this static (and mostly free) website could be really useful.
  
• This Day on WindowsAzure Will be Back Shortly - This post is announcing a really promising series about the re-editing of a cloud application.
  
• Best Practices: Windows Azure Websites (WAWS) (Mark_Brown) - Interesting post that explains how we should use the tools and services available to follow the best practices.
  
• Using the Windows Azure Content Delivery Network (CDN) - Nice update on a post that is still very true today.
  
• Microsoft has Released a Set of Symbols/Icons to Visually Represent Windows Azure Solutions - Time to refresh our presentations, and schemas....
  
• WindowsAzure Lessons Learned – Continuous Services Require Continuous Attention - The best way to improve is to learn for our "problems" or perhaps those of others.

Programming

• Content Negotiation and Web API for the ASP.NET MVC Developer - Web API is a big step forward in a web architecture.
  
• Unit Testing 101: Creating Flexible Test Code - Interesting way to structure unit tests.
  
• EF 6.1: Creating indexes with IndexAttribute (Arthur Vickers) - Nice tutorial that introduces the index management in EF 6.1.
  
• How to Write Unit Tests to Check Your HTTP Headers (and Other HTTP Request Stuff) in C# - This post is a good tutorial that will help to write HTTP unit tests.
  
• Converting AutoMapper to a Portable Class Library (Jimmy Bogard) - Good post that explains the conversion of the automapper (a great tool, btw) to a Portable Class library(PCL).
  
• A cleaner way to use setTimeout and anonymous callbacks (Dave Ward) - Nice tricks, It's a lot clearer.
  
• How I Work Around The require(“../../../../../../../”) Problem In NodeJS - This post shows one possible solution to the unpleasant ...... problem.

Databases

• Gartner Report: Big Data will Revolutionize the Cybersecurity in Next Two Year (Saroj Kar) - Interesting point of view about the impact of bigdata in a near future.
  
• How to count the number of rows in a table in SQL Server - Interesting demonstration of the cost generated by a simple row count operation.
  
• Not unit testing your databases? You should be - Interesting post that explains how we could (should) test our databases. It also quickly introduces tSQLt framework.

Miscellaneous

• How do we know if mobile apps are secure? (Scott Hanselman) - Outch! I was hoping the stats would be better. We definitely need to pick our apps more carefully.

Reading Notes #127

Suggestion of the week

• Source Control considered harmful - Excellent post! Don't stop at the first paragraphs, everything will be clear as you read through.

Cloud

• Stupid Azure Trick #3 – Create a Dev Virtual Machine in Windows Azure (Bill Wilder) - Very simple and efficient.
  
• Can I use Multiple Monitors with Remote Desktop (RDP)? Yes. Here’s how. (Bill Wilder) - How could I have missed that?!
  
• Gartner's 2014 MQ for PaaS: Organizing the Chaos - This post is sharing interesting though about the new PaaS Gardner's Quatran.
  
• Deploying TWO websites to Windows Azure from one Git Repository - This post explains a ninja trick with Azure Website and Git.
  
• Where’s Azure? Mapping Windows Azure 4 years after full General Availability. (Bill Wilder) - Interesting quick post that maps Azure today.
  
• WordPress 3.8 on Windows Azure Websites (Mark_BrownMS) - It's time to upgrade our blog on Azure website.
  
• Le Global Windows Azure Bootcamp à Montréal (Samedi 29 mars, 2014) - Time to reserved your place!
  
• Amazon is Still the Leader When it Comes to Cloud Pricing (Saroj Kar) - Good news for cloud user, the prices are going down...
  
• Brownfield Windows Azure Solutions & Hidden Treasures - Nice example of how a simple website could be optimized / become scalable in multi iteration so it doesn't affect negatively the user experience.
  
• Amazon Launches New Reporting Tools For EC2 (Frederic Lardinois) - Great new tools that help seeing stats of all kinds about resources and billing.

Programming

• For your convenience, please disable security warnings - This post explains why we soudln't turn-off security warning. It looks obvious, but ...
  
• Here’s how Bell was hacked – SQL injection blow-by-blow - About sql injection.
  
• Pro NuGet second edition is out - A book to add in your bookshelf (virtual or not)
  
• 10 Reasons Web Developers Should Learn Angular - Whatever it is because you need munitions to get Angular to be adopted at your work or because you what to know more about it, this excellent post is for you.
  
• Web Essentials 2013: Where is the TypeScript support? (Google+) - Important explanation for TypeScript user.

Databases

• Hadoop 2.0 – A Big Step For Big Data (Saroj Kar) - Nice post that introduces MapReduce v2 (MRv2) one the best new feature of Hadoop last release.

Integration

• Streaming Xml Transformations (Christos Karras) - Great tutorial that explains very clearly what are our solutions when we are in front of a complex XML transformation.

Miscellaneous

• Internet of Things or Thing on the Internet? - Interesting thoughts about today's and tomorrow's Internet.
  
• Fixed: The Synology NAS with Plex Server and mismatched version numbers - Nice catch. If you don't know Plex here to read about it.
  
• The Heart of Innovation: How to Prepare for Brainstorming - Nice post to help us to improve our meetingproductivity.

Reading Notes #125

Suggestion of the week

• Get Better Acquainted with Azure (Mark BrownMS) - Wow! All kinds of resources are coved here. A post to read to find your next book or blog to subscribe.
  
• With great Azure VM comes great responsibility(which is why you really want an Azure Web Site) - Great post that compares website and VW.

Cloud

• Announcing Reduced Pricing on Storage - How can we be not happy to pay less for a nice service?!
  
• 2013 Year in Review: New AWS Technical Whitepapers, Articles and Videos Published - Great recap of all the AWS resources published in 2013.
  
• Identity in your own apps with Windows Azure Active Directory (MVP Award Program) - Great tutorial that explains how to use Windows Azure Active Directory in a web project with the new VS2013.
  
• Measuring all the things with Azure Web Sites and friends - Great post, a lot of information on the tools available to help us tracking info in our Azure website.
  
• Introducing Windows Azure WebJobs – Wow, webjob is so simple to use compare to all the steps that we needed to with a worker role.
  
• Stupid Azure Trick #1 – Rename Your Windows Azure Subscription (Bill Wilder) - Nice tips to get a more structured subscription list in Azure.

Programming

• Roslyn performance (Matt Gertz) - Cool post that gives a good insight about how performance is treated in Microsoft team.
  
• Simple Git workflow is simple - Good post that explained the workflow. Now we just need to practice it.
  
• Why TDD Makes Me a Happy Developer - Interesting opinion about TDD. If you don't know what is TDD, this post is for you.
  
• NuGet Package Manager Console tip (Girish stuartle) - Nice tips, like the author I had never tried that before.

Architecture

• What makes models interesting (Nick Malik) - Interesting post about enterprise business model.
  
• Why is Software Architecture Important? - Very nice analogy.

Miscellaneous

• Why You Should Stop Pretending To Be So Important - Wisdom post that remembers us to give time, to be there for other.
  
• Yak Shaving Defined - I'll get that done, as soon as I shave this yak. - Ha ha ha. It explains also why retreated people have no free time...

~Frank

Reading Notes #124

Suggestion of the week

• Windows Azure: Staging Publishing Support for Web Sites, Monitoring Improvements, Hyper-V Recovery Manager GA, and PCI Compliance (ScottGu) - Great update again this week, may of the new features will be very appreciated.

Cloud

• Windows Azure Websites Development Stacks Support (Mark_BrownMS) - Nice post about how Azure website manages config version with his different supported languages.
  
• Using the Same Client-Side User with Multiple Azure Mobile Services (Chris Risner) - This nice post explains what are our options to bridge a UserID across multiple mobile application.
  
• GUIDs VS. IDs on Windows Azure SQL Database - Nice post, where the author gives is answer to a timeless question.
  
• Announcing E-book version of Scott Guthrie’s “Building Real-World Cloud Apps with Windows Azure” - Interesting talk that you can now download as text. However, the video is still available...

Programming

• Code First Goodies in Entity Framework 6 - Nice article that explains more in details some new features of EF 6.0.
  
• Comments should be sentences (About me) - Interesting point of view about how should be the comments and why.

Miscellaneous

• WTF is an Architect Anyway? - Interesting thoughts about the definition of the role architect.
  
• How Do I Get Things Done? New Pluralsight Course Reveals All My Secrets - Learn the best tips from a real Jedi.
  
• 5 Myths that Can Ruin Project Management - Interesting post that uncovers some myths in project management.
  
• 30 Ways To Leave Google Apps Behind (Ciara Byrne) - Great post not because I agree or disagree with the title idea, but because it presents a lot of great applications.