Reading Notes #97

Suggestion of the week

• Is the Windows user ready for apt-get? - I'm a big fan of Chocolatey since long time, and I found it extremely useful. Give it a try, and see by yourself!
  
• 12 Non-caffeinated Ways to Wake Up at Work - I know, by definition a developer is someone who transforms coffee into code... but having an alternative is good ... and healthier.
  
• Continuing the Windows 8 vision with Windows 8.1 - Wow! A huge number of really great improvement. It looks like little things but all together, it transforms the experience. Stay tune for more details...
  

Cloud

• Spelunking Azure, What does it Cost? - Quick post that gives the base about Azure prices.
  
• How To: Setup Windows Azure PowerShell - Quick post that explains how to get ready to play with Azure with PowerShell.

 Databases

• Entity Framework Power Tool Tips to View Model (A Feature I Depend On!) : Don't Be Iffy (Name) - Very promising tool. Thanks for the author of this post we will be able to enjoy avoiding these little issues.

Programming

• Making Passwords Obsolete (Minda Zetlin) - Interesting idea. Look forward to see how I could use/test it.
  
• Create location aware apps using geolocation and Bing Maps (Windows 8 Team) - Nice tutorial about using geolocation in our application.
  
• Intermediate RubyGem Development - Nice tutorial covering tests and naming convention when developing our Ruby Gem. Different libraries a referred as examples.
  
• Performance Considerations - Quick post about thinks to take into consideration about EF 5.0. The post also introduce many alternatives ORMs.

• Dojo for jQuery Developers - Incredibly clear tutorial here that compares Dojo with jQuery to explain how things are done with Dojo. The perfect post to get started. 

Miscellaneous

• Cool Tools – How to Be Invisible - The book looks interesting and this post, invent if it goes in the completely opposite direction is really interesting too.
  
• The Most Overlooked Leadership Skill - Interedting post about leadership.
  
• Delayed Gratification: Make It a Better Pill to Swallow - This post is a review/ summary of what looks like a very promising book about self-control. In this world of instant trophies and game achievements, learning how to control your needs is a great strength.
  
• 3 Games That Can Teach You Business Skills (Leigh Buchanan) - I'm happy to see that "educational" game don't only exists for kids...
  
• So You Think You Have ADD... (Marla Tabaka) - Some tips to stay productive and fight procrastination.
  
• 5 Mentor Archetypes I’ve Met – And How to Spot Them (Jennifer Dulski) - Nice post where the author share is vision of goods mentors and how to "spot them".
  
• Reviews of Super Weird Mice:The Microsoft Arc Touch and Wedge Mouse - Nice review, it feels really objective and practical.
  
• Deconstructing Google's Strategy: Will Google Eat Your Business Next? (Steve Faktor) - Interesting post about the strategy behind free Google's stuff.
  
• Facebook IPO & the Dark, Dirty Secrets of Facebook vs. Google Data (Steve Faktor) - I really like the comparison. I didn't though about it before, but it really make sense.
  
• Business Lessons from ‘Google Instant’, the Waifish Temptress of Search (Steve Faktor) - Interesting marketing "secrets" that Google uses to make always more money.

 
~Frank

Reading Notes #96

Suggestion of the week

• ASP.NET Bad Practices: What you shouldn’t do in ASP.NET (Part 1) - Something different, the bad practices... A must-read post.
  
• Powerpoint 2013: Visualizations Part 2: Creating Data Infographics with Charts and Graphs - Really good post that gives a lot of tips to improve the look and effectiveness of our charts. A post to bookmark and re-read before your next presentation or blog post.

 

Cloud

• Introducing Amazon Cloud Player for Windows Desktop (Paul Thurrott) - Interesting product from Amazon: Cloud player.
  
• Windows Azure SDK 2.0 Released!) (Brian H. Prince) - Nice quick recap detailed just enough to really what's new.
  
• Windows Azure Cache - Pessimistic Concurrency Model (Ravi Verma) - Nice tutorial to have a better understanding of a useful pattern: pessimistic concurrency model.
  
• How to setup a Load Balanced Web Farm of Virtual Machines (Linux or otherwise) on Windows Azure (command line) (Scott Hanselman)- Very good post. We don't see that often article about Linux VM. This ones very complete and gives methods through the portal or by command line.
  
• Windows Azure Blob Storage Service - Migrating Blobs Between Accounts - Nice tutorial that explains how to build in C# a very useful tools. In the same idea in PowerShell could be found on my blog here.
  
• Faster Save Experience Editing Scripts in the Windows Azure Mobile Services Portal (Nick Harris) - Ooh yes! A so little thing that is a so good news!
  
• Dealing with Windows Azure Storage transient faults (Grigori Melnik MSFT) - Excellent post that present Topaz to manage transient fault connections in an Azure Storage context. It also compares Topaz to the default retry mechanisms.

 

Programming

• Smart Watches are finally going to happen - Pebble Watch Reviewed (Scott Hanselman)- Learn more about the great new type of watch that is The Pebble.
  
• Team Foundation Service my new default GIT repository - New great tool with all the good of our old friend.
  
• “Confident Ruby” now in Beta! (Avdi Grimm) - Promissing book about Ruby, still in pre-release so cheaper... a good deal.
  
• A first look at SignalR - Rick Strahl's Web Log - Powerful, easy to use and well documented, SignalR is a library that we should definitely look at.
  
• Redirecting ASP.NET Legacy URLs to Extensionless with the IIS Rewrite Module (Scott Hanselman)- A post to bookmark. Nice tutorial, very clear.

 

Miscellaneous

• How to write a great blog post - Devices, Services, Life (Simon May) - Interedting post about the nonofficial rules to write a great post.
  
• Startups – The Importance of Momentum (Iain Hunter) - Nicepost that gives 10 rules to follow when time is missing or when you need to do more with less.
  
• Blogging Best Practices - Concepts, Ideas and Motives - Part 1 - This nice post and video can help you to define your idea to start a Blog... Because sharing is important.
  
• How to Prospect for New Customers (Geoffrey James) - Nice post that helps to structure our search for new customers.
  
• Blogging Best Practices - Writing an Interesting Blog - Part 3 - Quick tips to help us in front of the "white page."
  
• How Blogging Helped My Pitch (Francesca Louise Fenzi) - Interesting though about what can blogging brings to business.
  
• Cool Tools – How to Be Invisible - The book looks interesting and this post, invent if it goes in the completely opposite direction is really interesting too.
  
  

~Frank

Reading Notes #95

Suggestion of the week

• The Unexpected Antidote to Procrastination (Peter Bregman)- A person a know also said: If you are not making mistakes, it means that you're not working hard enough.
  
• Lessons Learned: Taking the best out of Windows Azure Virtual Machines (Nuno Godinho) - This post is a must, it describes all the best practices to get the better of Windows Azure Virtual Machine (VM).

Reading Notes #94

Suggestion of the week

• 10 Tips for Learning a New Technology) - Nice post that gives simple suggestion to have a better kick start when learning new stuff. It gives a lot of online training website references.
  
• Creating a “Flat File” Shared Database with Amazon S3 and Node.js - Very interesting and inspiring tutorial.
  
  

Cloud

• How Do You Choose Your Cloud Provider? (Toddy Mladenov) - This post doesn't give an easy answer, because it's impossible. However, it explains how to find your answer.
  
• Penny Pinching in the Cloud: Enabling New Relic Performance Monitoring on Windows Azure Websites - Indeed, NewRelic is an incredible tool. Check-it out.
  
• Microsoft working on DaaS solution hosted on Azure (Kenneth van Surksum) - That could be interesting.
  
• Moving all a website's images and assets to the Azure CDN - This one was on me stack since few days now, but I shouldn't have waited; really nice. I liked the live thing also, it gives a real idea of the effort. Time, and difficulty of the project. Note:Watch until the end.
  
• Windows Azure SQL Data Sync - The Maximum Limit For Index or Statistics Key Column List is 16 - Nice workaround of an Azure Data Sync limitation.
  
• Using Existing Windows Azure SQL Databases with Azure Mobile Services - Nice short post answering one common question about the Azure Mobile Services.
  
• Paper: Infrastructure-as-a-Service Product Line Architecture Fabric Architecture Guide (Kenneth van Surksum) - Two papers about IaaS Fabric Architecture got public...
  
  

Programming

• Git Explained: For Beginners - If you don't know about Git, or you still not familiar with it? This is definitely the post for you. From vocabulary to code sample, this tutorial explains all you need to know.
  
• CDNs fail, but your scripts don't have to - fallback from CDN to local jQuery - Nice post that gives samples of CDN fallback, because we it will append, but we don't know when.
  
• Utilize Compilation as a Service to create the next level plugin capability (youtube.com) - Wow! This idea is fantastic. A nice video that explains how we could use Roslyn.
  
• Sublime Text (2) (Drew Barontini) - I discover Sublime Text 2 few months ago, and since then I'm installing it everywhere. Here is a nice post that presents important features and customizations.(To install using Chocolatey just type cinst sublimetext ).
  
• 10 Ways to Make Agile Design More Effective - Interesting post that gives nice tips to improve your journey in an Agile project.
  
• Merge Files with Git Merge Tool - Perfect tutorial for a beginner with Git (like me) , this post explains the basic of the merge process.
  
  

Databases

• SQL SERVER - Azure SQL Databases Backup Made Easy with SQLBackupAndFTP - Free and simple to use. That a nice tool.

Integration

• BizTalk 2013 Installation and Configuration – Important considerations before setup the server (Part 1) - Nice tutorial with some time-saver tips.

Miscellaneous

• 6 Things Exceptional Leaders Do Better (Peter Gasca) - Know what you need to improve.
  
• Are You Used to Delivering Working Software on a Daily Basis and Changing the Software in Response to Emerging Requirements? - A quiz for yourself to know how really responsive to change you are.`
  
  

~Frank

Reading Notes #93

Suggestion of the week

• Announcing the release of Windows Azure SDK 2.0 for .NET (Scott Gu)- Wow! Don't miss this post. It's a big one, but it's filled with a lot of good stuff. Enjoy!
  
• Released: Windows Azure Training Kit – April 2013 (SyntaxC4)- Yeah! New update of the Widows Azure Training Kit (WATK). Learn what updated in this post.
  
• Building a live blog app in Windows Azure - That why the cloud is so fantastic, we can build incredible stuff without big money! Great post!
  
• A Responsible Programmer - Excellent post. These are, in fact, the best practices to be a good programmer/ developer.

 

Cloud

• Help! I Cannot Attach My Azure Data Disk to my Windows Azure Virtual Machine (Stephen W) - Nice catch, the list of available disk and the reasons why some or unavailable could be clearer.
  
• Subscribe to Windows Azure Using Your Organization ID - Nice update, we can now sign-in as an organization to Windows Azure and use our AD credential.
  
• The Windows Azure SDK for Ruby (Larry Franks) - Nice post that details what is available for Ruby developers in Azure.
  
• Setting up software based Site-to-Site VPN for Windows Azure with Windows Server 2012 Routing and Remote Access - Nice tutorial about the new site-to-site feature of Azure.
  
• Just released - Microsoft Enterprise Library 6 (Grigori Melnik) - Nice update. If you don't know Enterprise Library (EntLib) it time to jump in! And for Azure developers check out the integration pack! It's a must.
  
• Episode 106 - Scott Guthrie Discusses Windows Azure SDK 2.0 (Channel 9) (Scott Guthrie) - Excellent presentation of the novelties.
  
• Copy files >2GB to your cloud VM (Paul Lou) - Very useful post that gives a solution to a very annoying problem.

 

Programming

• Script to automatically configuring Remote PowerShell for Windows Azure Virtual Machines on your machine - Useful PowerShell script shared.
  
• NuGet your Enterprise? - Interesting thoughts about NuGet.
  
• Visual Studio Tools for Git Update available (Brian Harry) - This post details the update of the VisualStudio extension. An extension to try.
  
• Utilize Roslyn to create the next level plugin capability (Filip Ekberg) - Nice presentation about this great idea: a compiler as a service! Roslyn
  
• Git Explained: For Beginners - If you don't know Git, or you still not familiar with it? This is definitely the post for you. From vocabulary to code sample this tutorial explains all you need to knows.

 

UX

• April Showers Lead to May Flowers…and an Updated Windows Store App (Jonathan Rozenblit) - Nice update to windows app due to the not so nice weather.

Miscellaneous

• The thoughtLEADERS Blog - Mentoring is gaining in popularity, and I'm happy with that because it really a win-win scenario.
  
• Upgrade Your Blogging Skills (Aaron Aders) - This post summarize an interesting book that easly found is place in my to-read stack.
  
• Swipe launches into beta as a Web app to create and share presentations to anyone on any device) (Ken Yeung) - This application look very promising. I really look forward to see what will come out of that.
  
• 8 Risks When You Ignore Social Media (Hollis Thomases) - Social media for business is an interesting discussion topic, but this article brings something that sure: ignoring is not a good solution.
  
• The “Consumerization” of IT and the Dark Side of the Cloud (Bob Buck Woody) - Interesting thoughts about relation between IT and business.
  
• Moving 4th & Mayor to Windows Azure Web Sites - Interesting story of someone migrating, he's application from AWS to Windows Azure.

~Frank

Reading Notes #92

Suggestion of the week

• BizTalk Mapper Extensions UtilityPack v1.5 - New version available with 7 new functoids - Great utility Pack that will save us a lot of time, and it's free!

Cloud

• NoSQL Data in the Cloud with Windows Azure Tables - Really great article that explains all aspects the Azure Storage Table from the architecture to the querying.
  
• Cloud Cover Show - Episode 105 - General Availability of Windows Azure Infrastructure as a Service - Great show. I really liked the code presentation; it gives a lot of details.
  
• How To Find a Certificate in the Certificate Store - Nice helper, be sure to save this somewhere close.
  
• New Preview Features for Windows Azure Active Directory (TheRockyH) - This post gives more details about the new capabilities of Active Directory.
  
• Publishing from Dropbox to Windows Azure Web Sites (Kaushal Kumar Panday) - It couldn't be more clearly explained. A screenshot by step you will learn how to deploy a website on Azure with Dropbox as the repository.
  
• Building Windows Azure Cloud Services App with Web Role, Worker Role, Table Storage and Service Bus - Great tutorial that shows how to build a multi-tier application. The code is also available.
• Improvements to Virtual Networks, Virtual Machines, Cloud Services and a new Ruby SDK (Scott Gu)- New features like Remote PowerShell, Linux SSH provisioning enhancements, and a new Ruby SDK to play with Azure Storage and Service Bus.

Programming

• 88% of spreadsheets have errors (Jeremy Olshan) - This post gives you suggestions to stay in the few spreadsheets that doesn't contains error.
  
• How to Write a Chrome App for your Website in 5 Minutes (Amit Agarwal) - Interesting post. Some testing or diagnostic tool could be useful for web developer team. It's 5 minutes wisely spent.
  
• Running Bash Commands From Ruby - Useful tips that all coder should now.
  
• Ruby Versions Demystified - Very interesting post that explains in one article all the differences between Ruby's components versions.
  
• Introducing: Practical JavaScript (Peter Vogel) - Nice post that describes quickly the evolution of JavaScript. This post could be the first of an interesting series about using JavaScript (and some framework) today in real projects.
  
• Penny Pinching in the Cloud: How to run a two day Virtual Conference for $10 - Wow interesting project that combines a lots of really good stuff.

• Metaprogramming Fibonacci (Eno Compton) - A fun exercise with recursively in Ruby.

UX

• Magic Numbers in CSS - If you are doing web development this reading is a must. For all the other read it, you will learn important css base.
  
• Stop Your Console App The Nice Way) (Mike Hadlow) - This post some best practice to do a better management of the console application. It's not because it's a console app that UX is not important.

Miscellaneous

• The Blog of Scott Hanselman - Interesting post for all bloggers, you are not alone...
  
• How to Make a Decision When Your Team Doesn't Agree (Margaret Heffernan) - Interesting post on well kwon situation.
  
• What to Do When You’ve Made Someone Angry - Nice and simple. This advice could have a big impact on your entourage.

~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 #88

Cloud

• Avoid these five cloud storage pitfalls (Rick Vanover) - Good advices that will help thinking through a cloud migration.
• Tips for a successful submission to Windows Azure App Gallery (mksunitha) - Great tutorial that explains every step to create and submit a Windows Azure application, so it can be part of the Azure app Gallery.
• Windows Azure Mobile Services - for Organizations and the Enterprise (Channel 9)(Clemens V) - Nice video that focuses on the business capability of the services.
• 10 reasons to outsource your cloud (Jack Wallen) - Nice post. These are really the top reasons.
• New blob storage cmdlets in Azure PowerShell 0.6.12 (Abhishek Anand) - This post lists the great new features included in the new version of Azure PowerShell.
• 12 reasons why public clouds are better than private clouds | ZDNet (Joe McKendrick) - Aaah Musphy's law; I was talking about that just yesterday with a client. Nice post.
• Windows Azure PowerShell Cmdlets Now Supports Storage! (Michael Washam) - Yeah! they finally been integrated (and more polish) in the Azure PowerShell cmdlets! (before only available in azure command line, and less friendly)
• 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 cmdlets feature.

Programming

• Taking It to the Next Level(Jonathan Rozenblit) - Nice post that explains how to can use the Ads from Microsoft to get more from your developer's skill training.
• TFS as perfect tool for Scrum (Part 1) - Introduction in Scrum and TFS - A promising series about Scrum methodologies and how it could be used with TFS.
• A Month of PowerShell – Day 6 (Exporting and Importing) (Wayne Sheffield) - Ah. What if I want to full text in one variable?
• A Month of PowerShell – Day 7 (Script Input/Output) (Wayne Sheffield) - Very useful cmdlets in this one to improve trace and user experience: interacting, getting feedback, etc....
• Changing ASP.NET web.config inheritance when mixing versions of child applications (Scott Hanselman) - Nice catch! A good trick to know.
• Nice Tool for Presenters who use Visual Studio 2012 - Great! I'm already using the productivity tool, but I didn't know about this feature.
• A Month of PowerShell – Day 8 (Working with Snippets in the ISE) (Wayne Sheffield) - Presenting snipetsType and their utilities.
• Understanding method lookup in Ruby 2.0 – Interesting post that goes under the hood of Ruby Language.
• A Month of PowerShell – Day 9 (Getting Started with SMO) (Wayne Sheffield) - This post focuses on MsSql tools (SMO).
• Building Single Page Apps on the Microsoft Stack (Stephen Walther) - Nice post and presentation to get started.

Database

• Diagnosing differences between production and development - Get a better ideas of what are your options to compare database schemas.
• The ODataLib Dependency Issues in the Storage Client Library for .NET are Now Resolved - Learn why you should be happy about this new version.

System Management

• But what can I do with Windows Azure? Backups (Buck Woody) - Know better your options when it comes to backup using the cloud (Azure).

Miscellaneous

• The 30 Minute Meeting (Janine Popick) - Interesting thoughts about long meeting.
• Introducing: The New Readability for Chrome and Tags in iOS (blog.readability.com) - Wow the speed improvement of the new chrome extension is amazing.
• //BUILD 2013 Announced (David Jung MSFT) - Time to plan... ;)
• How to Use Temptation to Strengthen Your Willpower - Interesting post. Try to rest eating while reading it...
• The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business (Charles Duhigg) – I was very impressed by this book. I learned a lot about the brain and how it’s possible to re-program the brain.

~Frank

Quick trick: From Feedly to your eReader in one click

I’m reading most of the time in common transport and offline, on my eBook reader.  So part of my morning routine is to look for new articles to read, and send it to my reading device. Since this week, because of the new Readability updates, I can do this in only one click! Let me share this with you.

The Tooling

Readability

I’m using Readability to keep tracks of all the posts I’m reading.  It also very useful, because it cleans everything and keeps only the text of the article. Readability can also send you automatically post to your device.

Readability extension for Chrome

I’m also using the Extension let you from anywhere send a page or a link to your reading list. No need to copy-paste the post’s URL. Since last week, options are also available in the context menu.

Feedly

To keep tracks of all the RSS I’m following I use Feedly.  The interface is very polish and the application is always improving. The application is also available on iPhone and Android in addition to being a web app.

The Trick

Finally, because Feedly is running in a web browser, you can use the Readability extension. So from now on, when I found interesting article, I can left-click and send it to my eBook reader.

Enjoy!

References

• Readability : http://www.readability.com
• Feedly: http://www.feedly.com
• Readability Extension: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/readability/oknpjjbmpnndlpmnhmekjpocelpnlfdi

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 #86

picture from http://onsoftware.en.softonic.com/

Suggestion of the week

• Boxstarter - I really need to “box” my favourite applications, so each time I start working on a new VM all my stuff will be the way I like.
• Service Bus Messaging Deep-Dive (Clemens V) - If you must see only one video about Service bus is that one. Great job! Know more from A to Z in one shot.

Cloud

• Real-World Scenarios for Node.js in Windows Azure - This article the perfect get started to do not only your first Node.js website, but to do it in Azure.
• Using Windows Azure Virtual Machines to Publish and Synchronize a Web Farm(Wade) - Great tutorial that explains all the steps and scripts very clearly. Try It.
• 10 must-try cloud tools for business (Jack Wallen) - Great list of cloud solution available today.
• DevOps for Windows Azure (BuckWoody) - Great resources of references for all the devops needs. A post to bookmark.

Scaling Applications Using Windows Azure Cloud Services Poster
here: http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id =36837
you should also read this complete manual in preparation here: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh871440.aspx

• Does Your Data Really Belong in Your SQL Database? - Nice post that answers a really good question. When an application is moved into the cloud, most of the time a re-structuration is needed to enjoy the cloud capabilities.
• Integrate AWS with .NET applications by using a Visual Studio add-in (Tony Patton) - Perfect post for .Net developers to get started working with AWS in VisualStudio.
• All Things Distributed (Werner Vogels) - Nice post about Node.js, beanTalk and AWS.
• Guest Post: Getting started with Windows Azure Mobile Services - Really nice post. THE starting point to try Azure Mobile Services. Then you're done and will never want to stop...
• Cutting Costs on Windows Azure Isn't Always About Compromise - Interesting post that explains with reel numbers how you could save with Azure.
• Web Camp Session Video – Websites in the Cloud (Tyler Doerksen) - Great video that shows how to build, deploy and manage a Windows Azure Website and all the good tricks.

Databases

• Cassandra with a Hint of Azure (Neil Mackenzie) - Nicepost that introduces Cassandra. Its architecture, pros and cons. Reference to another post that compare Cassandra to other NoSql databases are also mentioned.
• SQL Server Data-Tier Application Framework (March 2013) Available - Describe the main features in the chagelog and how to upgrade your version.
• Introduction to the SQL BCP Utility - If you don't know this essential tool, the post is a must.
• AWS Scales Relational Database Service By Tripling Storage And IOPs (Alex Williams) - Wow triple the relational database maximum size?! That's huge!

Integration

• Using EDI Bridge to exchange B2B messages in Windows Azure Service Bus - Very nice tutorial (and rare) about EDI in Azure.

Programming

• Migrating ASP.NET Web Forms to the MVC Pattern with the ASP.NET Web API - Good tutorial explains how to integrate the MVC pattern in the asp.net web form.
• Introducing Google+ Sign-In for your Drive Apps - Nice new single sign-in addition.
• SQL Server Data Tools – Business Intelligence for Visual Studio 2012 (Jason Singh) - Great addition to Visual Studio.

Miscellaneous

• Majority of doctors opposed to full access to your own electronic records (Ken Fisher) - Interesting result, even if not that much surprise, I though the repartition was more even.
• Is It Possible to Have Too Many Ideas? (Chris Heivly) - Nice post that bust the myth by explaining that what's manner is what you do with that flow of ideas.
• 11 Simple Concepts to Become a Better Leader - Nice quick review of key concept to become better; period.
• 24 Ways to Save an Hour (Kevin Daum) - Good post to get started and have some optimization ideas... But I still missed one sleeping hour. ;)
• Tips for Google Reader users migrating to feedly - I'm trying Feedly as Google reader replacer, and I found those little tips interesting.
• Google Reader may very well rise again... as part of Google+ (Casey Johnston) - This resume the sadly news...
• Moving to Outlook from Google Reader (Abhinaba Basu) - Nice trick to continue reading your favorites RSS when Google Reader.
• 4 Myths About Open Source We Should Put to Rest (OX Rafael Laguna) - Very interesting post that bust myths about open source.

~Frank