Reading Notes #78

Suggestion of the week

• The Missing Windows 8 Instructional Video (Scott Hanselman) - Finally! Someone did it. Great video that helps to get started with Windows 8. Bookmark, share and re-share.

Cloud

• (Some) Best Practices for Building Windows Azure Cloud Applications (Gaurav) - Good post that reviews the most important best practices. Take 2 minutes and review them.
• New Windows Azure Mobile Services Getting Started Content (James Conard) - Perfect post to get started with Azure mobile services. It contains a lot of references to others great content.
• Knowing when to choose Windows Azure Table Storage or Windows Azure SQL database - Simple questions to know what kind of "table" you need. Simple and effective.
• WordPress Database Error on Azure (Schwammy) - Nice catch. These tips will save a lot of time to anyone having a Wordpress blog hosted on windows Azure.
• Manage your subscriptions with the Windows Azure Tools for Visual Studio - This post explains the features of the new available tools Studio to manage our Azure. Since Vs is the principal tool for all the .Net developers and that this add-on is very powerful, I highly recommend to read this post.
• Interacting with Clouds From Visual Studio: Part 2 – Amazon Web Services - Second post of a series about AWS this one explain how to install and use the new add-on to Visual Studio to manage your Amazon Web Services.
• Episode 98 - Mobile Services, ASP.NET Facebook Template, and Github Publishing Demos (Channel 9) (Nick Harris Nathan Totten) - Great show that quick recap the news of the past 2 weeks and well introduce new capabilities of the mobile services and how to works with the Github publishing integration.
• Bret Stateham's Blog - If one day you forget what was the username used to connect to your Azure Sql Server, here is what you should do.
• Windows Azure Active Directory Cartoon (Channel 9) - This video is fantastic. In only few minutes it’s explain very clearly what is Active directory.
• Build your own SQL Server Agent for Windows Azure SQL Database with the Scheduler - Great post/ tutorial that use the mobile services to create a Sql Server Agent.

 

Integration

• BizTalk360 a monitoring and support tool for BizTalk Server environments (Part 1) - First post a big series this one introduce Biztalk360 and explain why it should be considerate as a great tool.
• In which BizTalk360 differs from other tools? (Part 2)
• Advanced capabilities for managing permissions (Part 3)
• Monitoring and Alert Notification capabilities (Part 4)
• Complexity abstraction of certain tasks (Part 5)
• Productivity Tools (Part 6)
• Governance and Auditing Capabilities (Part 7)

Database

• Windows Azure SQL Database Security Scenarios and Tips - Simple rule that will make your database more secured.
• Secure Your Windows Azure SQL Database - Get started with database security with this post that defines some major rules.
• Windows Azure SQL Database and SQL Server -- Performance and Scalability Compared and Contrasted - Excellent post that explainsth0e differences of Azure SQL database and SQL Server and the limitations.
• Creating a SQL Server Database Project in Visual Studio 2012 - Very clear post about how-to use the SSDT in different scenarios.

Programming

• Building and Deploying Windows Azure Web Site with Node.js and MongoDB by using Microsoft WebMatrix (Shiju Varghese) - Clear explanation. The final solution is also available online.
• Catching Exceptions in PowerShell - Quick post with a simple code snippet. Perfect to understand how to trap specific exception.

Miscellaneous

• 8 Tips to Sell Windows Store App - Nice post that complete all those how-to build your app to the windows store. This one explains how to maximize your impact and get as many download as possible.
• Managing Programs With Agile and Traditional Projects (Johanna) - Good tips about how we could manage a mixt of agile and no-agile projects.

~Frank

Reading Notes #77

 

Suggestion of the week

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

 

Cloud

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

 

Programming

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

 

Integration

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

 

Miscellaneous

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

~Frank

Reading Notes #76

 
Suggestion of the week

• Subscribe! (Clement Vasters) - An amazing new series about the Windows Azure Service Bus, really good video.
• Getting Started with Service Bus. Part 1: The Portal
• Getting Started with Service Bus. Part 2: .NET SDK and Visual Studio
• Getting Started with Service Bus. Part 3: Service Bus Explorer
• Getting Started with Service Bus. Part 4: Queues
• Getting Started with Service Bus. Part 5: Topics
• Getting Started with Service Bus. (Final) Part 6: Relay

Cloud

• New Windows Azure PowerShell Update – December 2012 (Michael Washam) - Nice update to the Azure PowerShell tool that gives more options to manage Virtual machine and Service Bus.
• Table Storage 2.0 (Tyler Doerksen) - Nice post that explains the new structure of the namespace in the library and gives some samples of code how to use it.
• Practical Azure #5: Windows Azure SQL Database - Perfect get started video about Azure Sql Database.
• Storing user uploads in Windows Azure blob storage (Maarten Balliauw) - Great solution to a simple real word question. Easily scalable and secure. I really like it!
• Azure Remote PowerShell (Dustin Metzgar) - This post explains how the author managed to get more information from an instance running in Azure. The code sample is also available.
• PaaS not cheap enough? AppFog has a deal for you! (Barb Darrow) - New lower prices for Cloud Foundry.
• Applications are now open for the Microsoft Accelerator for Windows Azure – 2013 (Scott Gu)- Great opportunity for business to start using Azure with a lot of resources.
• Cross-Post: Announcing Windows Azure Media Player framework Preview for iOS (Craig Kitterman) - Great new for iOS developers that can now enjoy the awesome Azure Media Services.
• Deploy an on-premise VM to Windows Azure with App Controller (John Joyner) - Hurray! A lot of people were waiting for this feature!

Integration

• BizTalk360 Deployment and Configuration best practices (Saravana Kumar) - Use must read/bookmark the great post. It explains all the best practices related to BizTalk360, all in one single post.

Database

• Windows Azure Import/Export Service and External References - Important notice that can save you a lot of time when exporting a database in Windows Azure.
• Available Today: SSDT—December 2012 - New updated version of Sql Server Data Tool (SSDT) now support unit testing.
• Getting Started with SQL Server Database Unit Testing in SSDT - Nice post that explains how to get started with the new testing features available in Sql Server Data Tool. From converting the 2010 test projects to customization.

Programming

• 10 skills for developers to focus on in 2013 (Justin James) - Developers if you didn't see these coming, here is the top list of what you should learn/ improve in 2013.
• Why All The Lambdas? - This post explains very clearly how the lambdas are so useful by using a well use sample of code in Asp. Net MVC @Html.TextBoxFor(Model.Rating).
• 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.
• What Refactoring is, and what it isn’t - According to Kent Beck and Martin Fowler (Jim Bird) - While doing some refac****. I mean re writing in a project I found this post to be really interesting... and actual.
• 10 Tools To Get Kids Excited About Programming (Saikat Basu) - Wow those are great! I'm exited to show some of these to my kid. It's always good to transit passion ;)
• Essential Command-Line Tools for Web Developers - Interesting tools that can saves a lot of times doing repetitive tasks, specially during web development.
• JQUERY 1.9 BETA 1 RELEASED - Nice jQuery 1.9 is coming. Learn all about the new features ex: the multiple getter. Since big structural changes are maid in this version the jQuery team is providing migration tools. Learn where to find these and how-to uses them in this post.
• Recreate a VM .. over and over again (Priyo Lahiri) - Nice script that is a time saver. I would have liked to have it one month ago when I was testing deployment... Let's keep it for the future.
• So long and thanks for the all the Expression... Expression Design & Web are End of Life'd (but now free) [oh, and the rest of the Expression Suite is dead too] - If you still using VS2010 it's a good time to download Blend now. Also I wonder what application will replace/take the lead instead of SuperPreview (in Expression Web)?

Miscellaneous

• 15 Social Media Mistakes that are Strangling Your Success (Georgina Laidlaw) - This post suggested simple "rules" that are easy to follow, and that will make you more likeable on social media.
• Surface & iPad Collision Course  - Nice post that compares what could be compared between an iPad and a Surface... Nothing unexpected put still something to read.
• Backing Up WordPress? Don’t Make These 9 Mistakes - If you are a developer, you probably backup your machines and your code. That good. Do you do the same for your blog? You should, here is how-to do it the good way.

~Frank

Reading Notes #75

Cloud

• Bulk Database Migration from On-Premise SQL Server to SQL Azure - Step 1: Bulk .bacpac Export - First post of a series about exporting many databases on-premise to move then in Azure with a script of course.
• Azure VMs - Managing, Resizing & Interacting with VHDs! (David Baliles) - Nice post, with some good tips and tricks about Azure VM.
• 3 best practices for Windows Azure SQL Reporting development (Craig Kitterman) - Simple rules easy to apply that will make your project to follow best practices.
• Windows Azure IaaS Webcast Series: Part Four Creating Virtual Machines with PowerShell (Michael Washam) - Good serie of webcast series (video) that cover a lot about Azure virtual machine.
• Migrating from a relational to a NoSQL cloud database - Good advices about things to think before doing a migration from relational database to NoSQL.
• Windows Azure Active Directory Supports JSON Web Tokens (Alex Simons) - Good news, more features with Windows Azure Active Directory.
• Updated: Known Issues for Windows Azure Storage Client Library 2.0 for .NET and Windows Runtime - Keep tracks of the changes on the library. The team is working hard to fix these issues.
• Amazon Redshift - The New AWS Data Warehouse - Learn more about the brand-new Redshift from Amazon and how this new AWS data warehouse could help you.
• Monitoring Windows Azure with Foglight (James Newton-King) - That looks like a really good tool. I must try it... Stay tune…
• I Could Sure Use Some Windows Azure Code Samples… (Buck Woody) - Learn more about all the tools and code samples easily (and freely) available for you.
• Windows Azure Active Directory: Making it easier to establish Identity Management in the cloud - Great news about Active directory that announce free features.
• Using existing database with Azure Mobile Services - Nice trick that gives the opportunity to works with Windows Azure Mobile Services and existent database.
• Welcome Windows Azure Insider - Learn more about a new Azure column in the MSDN Magazine and about its authors.
• Windows Azure Service Bus: Messaging Patterns Using Sessions - Great article that explains how to build a messaging application with the Azure Service Bus using Topic. A great complement to the Servise Bus Lab in the Windows Azure Training Kit (WATK).
• Azure table storage WCF custom transport channel (Dustin Metzgar) - Nice post with a full coded solution that explains how to use Azure storage with WCF.
• Managing Multiple Windows Azure Web Site Environments using Visual Studio Publishing Profiles - Nice post that explains how to get the maximum of the publish profiles of Visual Studio and Azure.

Integration

• worldwide integration alliance announced - Congratulation to Breeze, Codit and Matricis Informatique for this worldwide alliance. Long life to Impack Alliance!
• Exploring REST Capabilities of BizTalk Server 2013: Exposing REST Endpoints - Great tutorial that explores the REST features of BizTalk 2013 with synch and asynch processes.
• Exploring REST Capabilities of BizTalk Server 2013: Consuming REST Endpoints - Second part of a nice tutorial. This time exploring how to consume services (Get, Delete).
• BizTalk Summit 2012, Redmond–Experience (Saravana Kumar) - Quick summary of what happens at the BizTalk Summit this year. More to come...
• BizTalk Server 2013 Image Available on Windows Azure Virtual Machines - Hurray! It finally arrive! Quick go to Windows Azure portal.
• BizTalk Mapper Patterns: How to map values from a repeating node into a single node using conditions – Again a great post to improve our mapping skills. Most of the time the clients prefer that we keep using only the functoids. This post may gives you arguments to go other ways and get real performance.

Programming

• Full Tagging Support Now Available in the Readability API (David Sleight) - Yeah! It's time to update my script. More to come in a future blog post.
• Updating my Windows Phone App to Windows Phone 8 (Scott Hanselman) - Nice tutorial that highlight some key features that need to be addressed in order to build a nice Windows Phone 8 applications.
• Comparing two techniques in .NET Asynchronous Coordination Primitives (Scott Hanselman) - The logical following of the previous post ... in this one Scott is comparing different methods to do async.
• Announcing the ASP.NET and Web Tools 2012.2 Release Candidate (Scott Gu)- Details on what's in the new Entity Framework EF 6 beta 2.
• Do You Really Want To Be Agile? (Marc Clifton) - A long but very complete post/story/tutorial about building an application using agile.
• SQL Server Data-Tier Application Framework (November 2012) Available - More details about what new or fixed in the new release of DACFx.
• ASP.NET and Web Tools 2012.2 (Release Candidate) (Scott Hanselman) - Learn more about the new release of web tools that the asp.net team move to open source. And if you ever want to know why they’re doing that, this is the post to read.

Miscellaneous

• Big Data - Very interesting thoughts about what should be "smart application" today since the so much information is easily accessible thru Big Data.
• Try Meditation to Strengthen Your Resilience - If the resilience is good for our code, it should be good for ourselves too!? Nice post that tip-off how to improve our resilience.
• Windows Surface RT: Pros & Cons (John Brandon) - Interesting thoughts about popularity in the tablet device word.
• How to be a Consultant, Part 5: Verbal Communication Skills (David Pallmann) - Great add-on to the serie: How to be a Consultant. This post gives good tips to improve the communication skills. This is for everyone since nobody works alone in his basement without seeing someone once in a while.
• Painting the Walls, with IdeaPaint - What a nice idea! We always need more space on the dry board...

~Frank

Reading Notes #74

Cloud

• Windows Azure Mobile Services: A Robust Back End for Your Device Applications - Great article that explains how Windows Azure Mobile services work through a nice tutorial. You must read that.
• Provisioning a MySQL Database from the Windows Azure Store (SyntaxC4) - Learn how to get add-on like a MySql database with the Windows Azure Store (currently only available in US).
• iOS Support with Windows Azure Mobile Services – now with Push Notifications (Scott Gu)- Another great news for iOS developers who want to use Windows Azure.
• Doctrine supports SQL Database Federations for massive scalability on Windows Azure - Great news for PHP developers since Doctrine is now supporting Azure SQL Database Federation. Note that other than Doctrine PHP developers can also use Symfony to code with Azure.
• Windows Azure now supports federation with Windows Server Active Directory (Alex Simons) - Amazing post. First, it shares some great identity-related improvements made to Windows Azure that leverage the capabilities of Windows Azure AD. Then a tutorial that explains how to do it.
• Windows Azure SQL Database Backup and Restore - A must. If you have data in Azure, then you must read this post.
• Introducing the AWS SDK for Node.js (Developer Preview) - Good news for Node.js developers.

Integration

• BizTalk Mapper Patterns: How to Map Name Value Pair to a Hierarchical Schema - Very interesting post that explains how to do this type of mapping with functoids and by XSLT script.
• We are presenting BizTalk360 at – BizTalk Summit 2012 (Saravana Kumar) - Nice event that is coming soon. I would love to see the Biztalk360 presentation by myself, but I will need to relay on my coworkers’ story.

[…]The session is going to be 100% technical, without a single sales slide. The session structure is going to be 15 minutes slides (intro/background) and 45 minutes demos. […]

• Setting Up BizTalk Server 2013 Beta on a Windows Azure Virtual Machine (Stephen W. Thomas) - This post is a little older(1 month), but gives more details. Since new Windows Azure images are available in the gallery, I think it should work better now.
• New minor release of BizTalk Scheduled Task Adapter for BizTalk Server 2010 is now available - Announce a new release of BizTalk Scheduled Task Adapter that fixes some minor issues.

Programming

• Resolving “certificate for the given thumbprint could not be loaded” error with Azure Tools for Visual Studio - Nice catch! With so many different account and development vm, I’m sure that this situation will append. Then I will know what to do.
• Web Essentials nightly builds - That tool looks awesome I'm looking forward to trying it.
• Tis the season (Tyler Doerksen) - Multiple web camp are coming soon and this week it was VS 2012.
• My collection of favourite TFS utilities - Great list of tools that can make our TFS better.
• Building Beautiful, Interactive, and Fast Web Sites (Jonathan Rozenblit) - Web developer this was a great web camps! In case you missed it, stay tuned for the video on-demand that should be publish sonly.
• AWS Tools for Windows PowerShell - AWS is finally let us use PowerShell to manage our environment. Over 550 cmdlets.

Miscellaneous

• 15 Super Useful Apps for Busy Entrepreneurs (Kevin Smith) - SwiftKey, Evernotes and a lot more of these applications that help us.
• When I’m most productive - Nice post that could help to find why we are more profitable sometimes and not that much on other.
• If You’re Afraid of Your To-Do List, It’s Not Working (JD Meier) - Nice quick tips to be productive.
• My next PC will be an Ultrabook (Scott Hanselman) - Didn't know that ultrabook could be that powerful. This type of PC starts to be really interesting then.
• Don’t let IT ground your company - Interesting article that explains the importance of planning and to have plan B... If you want to stay in business.
• Your Emails Are Too Long: Here's How to Fix Them - Interesting sharing.
• How to be a Consultant, Part 6: Effective Presentation Content (David Pallmann) - Nice post that explains what good presentations look like and what are the rules to create them.
• How Big Data and the Cloud are Changing Customer Service Solutions - Very interesting thoughts about what should be "smart application" today since the so much information is easily accessible through Big Data.
• Windows 8 Shortcuts (Lee Stott) - How to be quicker with a keyboard on Windows 8

 

~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 # 72

Cloud

• Practical Azure #2: What About Blob? - Great video on everything you should know on Azure Blob.
• A phone call from the cloud: Windows Azure, SignalR & Twilio (Maarten Balliauw) - Great tutorial very complete on account validation process.
• Cloudy Thoughts by SyntaxC4 - Good new continuous development with website Azure now supported private repository with github and bitbucket.
• Microsoft announces Big Compute capabilities for Windows Azure (Kenneth van Surksum) - Windows Azure now have a lot bigger instance type available.
• Scaling cloud apps with the .NET Framework 4.5 - Really great post, that introduce some new features of the .Net framework 4.5 (now available in Azure web site) and how to use them in a scaling perspective using async.
• How does Windows Azure PowerShell import publishsettings using Import-AzurePublishSettingsFile command? (Avkash Chauhan) - Quick useful tips when playing around with Azure and PowerShell.
• Windows Server 2012 Now Available on AWS - A new series called Windows Wednesdays just kicked off with this nice post about the new availability of Windows Server 2012 on AWS.
• More Great Improvements to the Windows Azure Management Portal - Explain the new features in Windows Azure Portal such like new SQL Database Metrics, website enhancement, media services new options, custom CNAME for Azure storage, etc.
• Complete walkthrough: Setting up a ADFS 2.0 Server on Windows Azure IaaS and Configuring it as an Identity Provider in Windows Azure ACS (Haishi) - Great tutorial to setup and test a Azure IaaS website using Identity Provider.

Integration

• AppFabric - Frequently Asked Development Questions (Ed Price - MSFT Ed Price - MSFT Microsoft MSFT 122,146 Points 25 20 17 Recent Achievements Proposed Answerer III Gallery Contributor II Wiki Ninja View Profile) - Good questions... with their answers.

Programming

• Changes in ADFS 2.1 from ADFS 2.0 - Important things to know when migrating in addition to remember where you saved the artifacts creation scripts.
• Use Big Data to gain insight about small business customers (David Gitonga) - Interesting post that explain how Big Data could be you in your business... even if you are in a small company.

Miscellaneous

• How to set up CrashPlan Cloud Backup headless on a Synology NAS - Backup Strategies (Scott Hanselman) - Nice demonstration of how to setup a backup solution. It also give us alternative ideas.
• How to be a Consultant, Part 1: The Difference Between a Developer and a Consultant (David Pallmann) - First of a serie this post hi-light the difference between a developer and a consultant by explaining what more you need to be from a developer to be a consultant with a capital "c".
• How to be a Consultant, Part 2: Travel - One if By Land... (David Pallmann) - A lots of good advice and tips when traveling by land about schedule, rental cars, and equipment.
• How to be a Consultant, Part 3: How to Travel (Gonna Fly Now) (David Pallmann) - This post is all about sharing fly experience tips and giving advice of "rules" when traveling by air.
• Do More Faster: 10 Best Apps & Tools (Frank Addante) - Nice apps for different platform that make the day easier.

~Frank

Reading Notes #71

Cloud

• Bootstrapping a Virtual Machine with Windows Azure (Michael Washam) - Nice quick tutorial about going forward with startup task but with vm.
• WaIISHost.exe.config does not work with Windows Azure SDK 1.8 - Nice catch and nice workaround.
• How to upload an Image to Windows Azure Storage using Mobile Services (Nick Harris) - Nice tutorial to upload directly your images (gif, jpeg) into blob storage.
• Backup SQL Database Federation (Herve Roggero)- Introduction to a very useful tool call Enzo Cloud Backup that gives you the ability to backup and restore Azure Federation Database. These options are available through a graphic interface and API. You can even setup a schedule.
• Windows Azure Virtual Machine: A look at Windows Azure IaaS Offerings (Part 1) (admin) - Nice recap of the offer of Azure from PaaS to IaaS.
• Developing a Support Plan for Cloud Applications (Buck Woody) - Quick post about the importance of thinking about a good support plan of your cloud applications.
• Embrace the Cloud: Your Customers Are! (Clayton M) - 4 out of 10 of your customer are using the cloud. If you don't move, they will continue without you. This is the main premise of this post.
• Free online Windows AzureConf this Wednesday (Scott Gu) - Nice conference with some amazing presentations that you should really watch. When this post will be publish the video should be available on Channel9.
• Amazon S3 Now Supports Archiving Data to Amazon Glacier - AWS announce a very cheap archive solution for S3.
• Microsoft Acquires StorSimple (Michael_Park) - News from the acquisition of StorSimple, the great product to extend really easily your local storage.
• Upgrading to Azure SDK 1.8 (Tyler Doerksen) - Great post the pass through some migration issue that you can have when a VS2010 Azure project is open the first time in VS2012.
• Practical Azure #2: What About Blob? - Great video on everything you should know on Azure Blob.

Integration

• BizTalk Server 2013 BETA–Window 8 Configuration issues (Saravana Kumar) - This post expose some issue when installing BizTalk 2013 on a real computer and how to fix it.

Programming

• The Internet is not a black box. Look inside. (Scott Hanselman) - Nice demonstration of why we should use all our nice tools...
• Great Apps Are Inspired by Pure Imagination (Jonathan Rozenblit) - Good initiative to get a lot of ideas, tricks and contacts wild doing some nice code...

Miscellaneous

• LinkedIn Endorsements Changes Everything. Here's Why (Dave Kerpen) - A little change on Linkedin web site that could have a big effect on your profile.
• The Computer Backup Rule of Three (Scott Hanselman) - Nice post about the importance of doing backup. Be scare and do it!
• Tagging Comes to Readability (David Sleight) - Great add-on to a great tools. I'm a big fan of Readability and looking forward to upgrade my script using the API.
• 10 Leadership Practices to Stop Today (Paul Spiegelman) - What your score...? Is it time to change?
• 5 Ways to Use Images to Make Your Posts Irresistible (Darren Rowse) - Maybe it's my photographic background but I found that post to be absolutely true. The web is graphic so you must use image for all type of posts or articles.

~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 #68

Cloud

• Getting Database Connection Information in Windows Azure Web Sites - Great clarification about how to access connection string in Azure using PHP or Node.js
• Node.js specific diagnostics for Windows Azure - Great source of detailed information that will speed-up your next bug investigation.
• How To Create a Base Disk or Image in Windows Azure Virtual Machines and Share It Across Accounts (Stephen W. Thomas) - Great tutorial to prepare a master custom virtual image for Azure.

[…]Shan McArthur has a great blog post on the difference between an Image and a Disk. […]

• Trying Out the New Windows Azure Portal Support for Relay Services - Nice walk around of the new Windows Azure features focusing on the service bus capabilities.
• Jolicloud Pivots Again, Now As A Start Page For Cloud Services — Have they Cracked It This Time? (Mike Butcher) - I really like the idea being Jolicloud. I'm not sure I will use it that often, but it's a good idea.
• Readability Comes to Jolicloud (David Sleight) - Nice! Jolicloud is useful when on the road. Now I can keep track of me reading too.
• Announcing Public Availability of Service Bus for Windows Server (Service Bus 1.0) (Himanshu_Singh) - Great news. We will now be able to develop with the Service Bus for Windows server than switch, if we want, to Windows Azure Service Bus on prod, transparently!

[…]APIs exposed for developing applications are consistent with those of the public cloud service, making it easy to develop applications for either and switch between the two. […]

• Exporting and Importing VM settings with the Azure Command-Line Tools - Great idea! Very useful! I can easily see one or two script staying on my desktop waiting to be double click...
• .NET 4.5 now supported with Windows Azure Web Sites (Scott Gu) - Perfect timing, ready to upgrade and be able to use the last version of EF.
• Using Trace in Windows Azure Cloud Applications (Himanshu Singh) - Useful tips to get easily a nice trace from Windows Azure project.
• Windows 8 and Windows Azure: Convergence in the Cloud - Nice article from MSDN Mag. This tutorial explain how to build a windows 8 application that pull data from Windows Azure.

Integration

• BizTalk 2010 R2 CTP: Azure Service Bus Integration–Part 5 Sending messages to Service Bus Queues using Sessions (Kent Weare) - Nice demo using session, I like this alternative.

Programming

• What is SSDT? - Since I try this tool I can’t live without.
• Analyse : Différentes façons d'intégrer un script Javascript - Nice analyse I will bookmark it to use it as reference.
• CoffeeScript 1.4.0 Released, No Sign of Source Maps - Good news for Node.js user.
• Welcome to Windows 8! (Paul Laberge) - Know your options as developer.

Miscellaneous

• Bounce Rates High? Why? (Darren Rowse) - Nice post that explain how to understand your blog bounce rate.
• 3 Characteristics of Amazing Presentations (Margaret Heffernan) - Quick tips to improve easily your presentation.
• The Undercover Interview Technique (Jeff Haden) - Interesting point of view but I prefer the coffee meeting, where you meet few co-worker in a relax context.
• 5 Goals Every Blogger Should Set Up in Google Analytics - Nice post that explain clearly how to setup goals and their utility.
• Book review: Think Like a Programmer - <sigh> So let ready only the chapter one than...

~Frank

Reading Notes #67

Cloud

• Cloudy Thoughts by SyntaxC4 - Nice post that demonstrate where are the environment variables base on different languages.
• Windows 8 and the Cloud: Better Together (David Pallmann) - Good post that told how and why it a good thing to use Windows Azure to leverage your Windows 8 applications.
• .NET Framework 4.5 Support in Windows Azure Web Sites (Channel 9) - Nice video podcast about new feature in Windows Azure and what you should do with your web/worker roles.
• Windows Azure Mobile Services: New support for iOS apps, Facebook/Twitter/Google identity, Emails, SMS, Blobs, Service Bus and more - Great news! This new features will gives a lot more of flexibility. And all these are already available for iOS!! That major. Good job.

[…]Read this getting started tutorial to walkthrough how you can build (in less than 5 minutes) a simple Windows 8 “To-do List” app that is cloud enabled using Windows Azure Mobile Services. Or watch this video of me showing how to do it step by step.[…]

• Windows Azure Training Kit – October 2012 - This post present what’s new in this update and gives the new GitHub link of the Windows Azure Training Kit.
• Blob Storage and Shared Access Signatures (Stephen Kaufman Stephen Kaufman Microsoft MSFT 6,797 Points 1 2 1 Recent Achievements Blogger III Blog Conversation Starter Blogger II View Profile) - Useful tutorial that explain how to setup a shared access signatures in c#.
• Modifying the contents of cscfg file while deploying a cloud service with PowerShell (18 2012 Ercenk October) - Great script! Must keep this in our tool box...
• Implementing Entity Services using NoSQL – Part 1: Outline - Nice post, first of a series that explains a Java project to build a Data Services using NoSql.
• Cloud Cover Show Episode 91 - Windows Azure Mobile Services Updates – Very nice good demo about some mobile new capabilities and a big tease for the next episode 92…

Integration

• What’s new in BizTalk360 version 5.0? Available for immediate download (Saravana Kumar) - Nice post that explain the 5 major new features in the last version of the great BizTalk360. Looking very promising.

Programming

• Why Mocking Matters - Nice explanation of what the differences are between fakes, stubs and mocks.

[…]This is easy to do with Telerik JustMock. I wrote about using JustMock to get you started in From Legacy to Dependency Injection. […]

• Expressing Ruby Code in Natural Language - Wow, that look like a lot of fun. That what I call a good "pet project".

[…]This is called rubber duck debugging, because you could have solved the problem by explaining it to a rubber duck on your desk. […]

• First try with TypeScript - A developer share is first thoughts of TypeScript and explains it with code sample.
• SSDT & DACFx (October 2012) Compatibility Notes - Details about a update that will fix some compatibility issue.
• 10 Tips to avoid the typical Windows 8 design traps - Essential for any developer. If you want to distinguish yourself from the other in the apps store, this is where it's start.
• Stored procedures DO NOT increase performance (Shivprasad koirala) - Interesting post that hi-light the difference between inline code and store procedure. I agree with the conclusion. Sprocs are better to facilitate the maintainability.
• Visual Studio 2012 Update 1 CTP - Wow an update already with new features that great. Reference to download pages.
• Supporting agile teams
• Continuously enabling quality
• SharePoint development
• Windows development
• How do you estimate with Story Points and determine Velocity when you’ve not done it before? (johnv petersen) - Nice post that with help you to start doing estimation.
• Get In on the Action: Learn Windows 8 with Hands-on Labs « Jonathan Rozenblit - Get started to the Windows8 development with these 17 labs references.

Miscellaneous

• If You’re Too Busy to Meditate, Read This (Peter) - This post explain how a little meditation is possible and how it can help.
• 7 Tips For Building a 'Power Network' on LinkedIn - Quick tips to improve your LinkedIn network.
• Instapaper delivered to your Kindle changes how you consume web content - Plus IFTTT, blogs and more (Scott Hanselman) - Of course you can do this... I prefer Readability but the idea is the same...

Three New Advanced Windows Azure Virtual Workshops

You did the boot camp and the regular workshops but you still looking for more?
Be ready, starting October 15, a new advanced Windows Azure virtual workshop serie is starting. I will be there to answer all you questions in the chat with the Windows Azure Canadian Community Experts!

October 15 – Cloud Variation

Explore Windows Azure’s infrastructure options – Cloud Services, Virtual Machines, and Websites. Through comparing and contrasting the options, you will walk away from the workshop better equipped to choose the right option for different solutions.

Register today: aka.ms/cloudvariations
 

October 22 - Building Connected Apps with Windows Azure

Discover how the various Windows Azure services can be integrated into apps to extend their functionality. You will learn how to address common needs such as computing capabilities, storage, authentication, and more. To demonstrate concepts, this workshop focuses on Windows 8 and Windows Phone, though concepts can be applied to any platform including Android and iOS.

Register today: aka.ms/connectedappswithazure
 

October 29 - Migrating Apps to Windows Azure

Explore approaches to migrating applications, walk through concerns and considerations to take into account while planning a migration, and learn how to implement a migration plan to move applications from on-premises (or traditional hosting) to Windows Azure.

Register today: aka.ms/migratingtoazure

 
Go deeper and learn more! For more Info you can go on the Windows Azure Virtual Workshops.