Reading Notes #114

Suggestion of the week

• Episode 117: Introducing the new Windows Azure Management Libraries (Channel 9) - Very good explanation from Brady in this Cloud Cover show episode.
  
• Using a Surface 2 (RT/ARM) to get actual work done + Remote Desktop + Visual Studio + Azure - Amazing post full of tips and golden information. A must-read article.

Cloud

• Windows Azure Storage Queues VS Windows Azure Service Bus Queues - Nice and useful post that compares azure storage queues and Azure Service Bus queues.
  
• Remote PowerShell in Azure IAAS Virtual Machines (Sri Harsha BS) - Troubleshooting and resolving of different issues using Remote PowerShell.
  
• Snip/Shot by Toddy Mladenov - Good clarification about the very popular buzzword: as a Service.
  
• SoundCloud Now Reaches 250 Million Listeners In Its Quest To Become The Audio Platform Of The Web - See how this company has grown in the past few months.
  
• Some tips and tricks for azure table storage (Purbasha Ghosh) - Very interesting post that shows why it is to think differently to really take advantage of the cloud capabilities.
  
• Windows Azure Guidance - Cloud Design Patterns Alpha drop... - This post announced a new drop of an incredible source of information about Cloud Desing Pattern.
  
• Exploring the AutoScale feature in Windows Azure Websites - Nice tutorial that shows some of the new feature in Azure autoscale.

Database

• Create Database Diagrams of Your Windows Azure SQL Databases - Really? I though it was possible to connect with sql manager and make a diagram. I must try the dbforge tool, looks pretty slick.
  
• SQL Express v LocalDB v SQL Compact Edition (jerry-nixon) - Excellent post to demystify the differences between these Microsoft's database.

Programming

• Adaptive Access Layers + Dependency Injection = Productivity - Nice article that told how a company implemented some pattern to improve their productivity.
  
• Programming CSS: Bundling and Minification - Excellent article to get started with the bundling and minifying concept to get better performance.
  
• Configuring DB Connection and Code-First Migration for Identity Accounts in ASP.NET MVC 5 and Visual Studio 2013 - Good tutorial that explains really clearly how to use the migration feature in EF with the new as.net and VS.
  
• MVC Patterns (Active and Passive Model) and its implementation using ASP.NET Web forms (Khademul Basher) - Interesting post about MVC pattern using pasove Model.
  
• Katana 2 is Available! (Brian Benz) - This post announced the release of Katana 2.0 and reference another post to get started with this project.
  
• Command Pattern - Simple and very clear introduction to Commands Patter.

UX

• You Definitely Want to Beta Your App - Nice post where the author shares is experience about the benefit of beta testing our application.

Miscellaneous

• Got a HOT Post on Your Blog? Here’s What to Do To Find and Optimise It (Darren Rowse) - Interesting tips.

~Frank

Reading Notes #113

 

Suggestion of the week

• Windows Azure: Backup Services Release, Hyper-V Recovery Manager, VM Enhancements, Enhanced Enterprise Management Support - Wonderful! This news makes my week... Backup and Active Directory for the Azure Portal in the same release. I'm sincerely impressed by the quantity of features this week, and really happy to see the new Script Center.

Cloud

• Developing Windows Azure Mobile Services server-side - Very complete tutorial with a lot of details that cover also tests.
  
• WCF Worker Role Just Recycles on Windows Azure (Angshuman Nayak) - I really like this kind of post where the author shares with us how he investigated and found the solution for a problem.
  
• Run various Linux distributions with applications on Azure Cloud (gpillai) - Quick post that will show how we could, very easily, do SuSE CentOS or Ubuntu in Azure.
  
• Windows Azure: Announcing release of Windows Azure SDK 2.2 (with lots of goodies) - Good news. Learn all about the news virtual machine available in Windows Azure, the price drop and more in this post...
  
• Migration to AWS: part 1 - Very interesting story that shows how reel life considerations are taking in change, when moving to the cloud.
  
• Transient Fault Handling Application Block & Enterprise Library 6 - Nice post that summarizes all changes in Transient Fault Handleing Application Block of the last Enterprise Library release.
  
• Windows Azure Storage Queues VS Windows Azure Service Bus Queues - Nice and useful post that compares Azure Storage Queues and Azure Service Bus Queues.

Programming

• patterns & practices: Prism for the Windows Runtime - Home - Interesting patterns to develop on Windows 8.
  
• SCREENCASTS: What's New in Visual Studio 2013 - learn over lunch! (Scott Hanselman) - Great post that group many videos about the new Visual Studio 2013 features.
  
• How Do You Learn a New Framework? - Good post that introduces simplewebdev: a website that regroups information, blogs, articles about MVC pattern.
  
• How to become a better GIT - Very interesting post that provides details informations to pick your site and client, and explains how to act as a good Git contributor.

Database

• EF6 Connection Resiliency for SQL Azure* – When does it actually do it’s thing? : Don't Be Iffy - Nice post. Transient Fault exceptions are to be expected when developing in the cloud. Thanks to this post, we will save time trying to build Unit-tests.
  
• SQL Injection - Good sample that shows how easy it is to do SQL injection, and gives the final argument to protect your database.

Architecture

• Microsoft .NET: Architecting Applications for the Enterprise - This book looks very interesting.

Miscellaneous

• Make a Windows 8.1 Pinned Live Tile for YOUR website in minutes - Super! I'm just starting using Win8 on my personal machine. Now, I have plenty of idea on how to customize it... Or at lest, where I will to start.
  
• Ditch the Laptop: How to Work From a Tablet (Aaron Aders) - Nice post that gives good advices and accessories suggestions.
  
• Is OneNote the best ever App for Tablets? (Stu4rt) - I started using OneNote last year, and I never stop. It is a great application that works really smoothly on all devises.
  
• Working With Programmers: 3 Tips - This post make me smile....Ya, I know, I'm kind of a web developer....

~Frank

Reading Notes #112

Suggestion of the week

• UNIT of Work Design Pattern (Shivprasad koirala) - Good post that explains an important design pattern.

Cloud

• **Easy Background Processing with WebAPI and Windows Azure (Erez Harari) - Great tutorial that gets you ready to make your apps.
  
• Big Data – Role of Cloud Computing in Big Data – Day 11 of 21 (Pinal Dave) - Interesting post about Big Data history.
  
• CSI: Re-enabling Remote Desktop with PowerShell after you've blocked it with your own firewall rule (Scott Hanselman) - Very useful tips.
  
• Winsmarts.com (Sahil Malik) - Short post about how to get setup and enjoy Azure PowerShell.
  
• Using web.config transforms with NLog configuration - | Gunnar Peipman - Programming Blog - Nice post that explains how to configure our config file so it will work with transform, NLog and Azure.
  
• Developing Windows Azure Mobile Services server-side - Very complete tutorial with a lot of details that cover also tests.
  
• Microsoft SQL Server Hybrid Cloud Blog Series (Madhan_Arumugam_Ramakrishnan) - A lot of good article references.

Programming

• **Time Saving Tips to Get Your Windows Phone App Started (Lori Lalonde) - Useful post that quickly summarizes all the options you have when starting a new phone project.
  
• IEnumerable VS IQueryable (More..) - Nice quick post that explains clearly with sample two often mismatch classes.
  
• Var VS IEnumerable (More..) - Nice post that shows some subtile differences that could have an unexpected impact.
  
• Difference betweeen ASP.NET WebForms and ASP.NET MVC (Imran Abdul Ghani) - Aaah! Loud and clear.
  
• Announcing the Release of Visual Studio 2013 and Great Improvements to ASP.NET and Entity Framework (asp.net) - You probably eared about the brand new Visual Studio 2013, but to know what new in it, this is the post to read.

Miscellaneous

• Enterprise Architecture: Reflections on My Journey of Becoming A Systems Thinking Enterprise Architect (Alan Hakimi) - I liked this post where the author share is experience on how he became an architect.

~Frank

Reading Notes #111

Cloud

• Dev and Test in the Cloud: Explained (Jonathan Rozenblit) - For dev and tests environment, windows Azure is a must.
  
• Quick Script: Copy All Blobs to New Storage Account Using PowerShell (Tyler Doerksen) - Nice and useful script.

Programming

• jQuery UI Demystified: Part 1 - Since jquery and jqueryUI are so often used use these days, avoid just doing copy-paste. Take few minutes and read this nice tutorials that explains how to use the jqueryUI widget.
  
• Tools: SlowCheetah - XML Transforms (Igor Zalmanovich ) - Definitively, a tool to have.
  
• Sorting with LINQ, Dynamically -- Visual Studio Magazine (Peter Vogel) - Nice quick tips to sort a grid by any columns dynamically.
  
• HTML5 Sparkline chart for data-intense, small-scale Data Visualization - Evangelism - Great tool, it looks easy to use and powerful enough for many different situations. Looking forward to trying it.
  
• How to Get Started with the Ignite UI Layout Manager - Interesting "UI organizer" and look simple to use.

Database

• ASP.NET MVC: Configuring ASP.NET MVC 4 Membership with a SQL CE Database - Nice tutorial that shows how to configure SqlCe to be used as a database for membership.
  
• Creating NONCLUSTERED INDEXES on Massive Tables in Windows Azure SQL Database - Nice post that demystify the indexes and explains why we should use them.
  
• SQL Server Compact 4 desktop app with simple Private Deployment and LINQ to SQL (ErikEJ) - Very complete tutorial that explains an easy deployment with SQLCE.

Miscellaneous

• Why You Should Be Able to Work from Home - Interesting thoughts about working from home and how it would be good for you, and your work.
  
• Stop asking people what they think! (and start watching what they do) - I agree. How many times did I ear don't give what the clients asks but what they needs.
  
• Have you seen Google Trekker? (Baffin Paddler) - Wow! Google always found a new way to impress me.
  

~Frank

Reading Notes #110

 

Suggestion of the week

• Writing About Code: Getting Started - Really interesting post that talks about how to structure our post how to improve our writing.

Cloud

• How to Deploy to SQL Azure with Deployment Manager - This post is a nice tutorial and explains how to configure and deploy with the deployment manager.
  
  
• Dev and Test in the Cloud: Explained (Jonathan Rozenblit) - For dev and tests environment, windows Azure is a must.
  
  

Programming

• Service Bus Explorer 2.1 adds support for Notification Hubs and Service Bus 1.1 (Paolo Salvatori) - A great tool to "play" with the service bus.

Miscellaneous

• 10 best new features in Excel 2013 (Susan Harkins) - Interesting, go you know your Excel?
  
  
• Writing About Code: Structure - Second part of a very interesting article about how to write. This
  one is all about get our writing in a good shape. Because well structured our post will be easier to read, understand and share.

~Frank

How Windows Azure Simplified my Development

(This post was originaly published on Matricis Blog)

Usually my posts are a lot more technical, but this time I decided to share an experience with Windows Azure that saved me a lot of headaches while saving my boss a bunch of money ;)

The Context

Here at Matricis, we often set up our development environments on virtual machines (VMs) witch we host on our internal infrastructure. We have several different development VM configurations, based on the technologies and versions needed. A big advantage to doing so is that if the required environment changes, we simply choose the corresponding VM template. For the project I'm about to talk about, we needed quite a powerful development system, especially since every developer required Visual Studio 2012, SharePoint Foundation 2013, SQL Server, ADFS, and a handful of other tools (fiddler, notepad++, different browsers, etc.)

The Problem

To be able to develop with SharePoint, it is strongly recommended to have at least 8 gigabytes of RAM (I first tried with just 6 gigs, but it was still a nightmare). My laptop only has 8 gigs of memory, so I couldn't run the VM locally. I asked our IT guys if it was possible to host the VM on a local on-premise server. They answered that they didn't have enough space for the environment. They were very sorry, but I was actually quite happy about it; I now had a perfect use-case to work in Windows Azure!

The Solution

I went to see my boss and explained the situation: instead of buying a brand new server for development and test environment purposes, we should simply use Windows Azure’s IaaS! We could start setting up the VM in less than 10 minutes. In an hour we would be ready to code! The development VM would only be up while it was in use, meaning that it wouldn’t cost a cent while nobody was working on it. On project completion… we would delete all the VMs we were using, and no more fees! My boss loved the idea!

The core team for this project involved four full-time developers, and here is a high level look at our development environment: The Active Directory is shared but every developer has their own SharePoint, Sql Server, and ADFS making them autonomous.

As you can see, it's a hybrid environment since the Team Foundation Server (TFS) is on one our local servers. In the morning, I start my VM and within a few minutes, I'm connected remotely and I’m ready to work on a great machine. With a little PowerShell script that I wrote, I don't even need to log in to the Azure Portal to start and stop my VM. Another great joy to this scenario is that I can now work from anywhere and on any kind of machine: from home on the family computer without VPN or from a Hotel on my laptop or my Surface Pro! Happiness often comes from simple things.

In general, I would say that the experience was very positive, but on the road we did encounter some issues that we had to resolve. Since all IPs on Azure are dynamic, we discovered that the domain controller that is hosted in Azure, must be started before the other VMs. This way its IP will always be the first one, therefore the other VMs will find it without any issues. Furthermore, in our architecture, the source-control (TFS) is on-premise. When you check-out or check-in your code, you are passing through the firewall. However, since these actions are intensive, the firewall may interpret the activity as attacks.

Because the job of a firewall is to protect your network, you can imagine what happened... the connection was lost. Once we identified this and created Firewall exceptions for the Azure VMs, everything was good.

In Conclution

I hope this post will encourage you to try Windows Azure as a development and test environment, because it's a really effective and cost-beneficial way to execute on different projects. For more information about the Windows Azure Infrastructure as a Service go to the Windows Azure Web Site.

~Frank

Reading Notes #109

 

Suggestion of the week

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

Cloud

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

Programming

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

Database

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

Miscellaneous

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

~Frank

Reading Notes #108

Suggestion of the week

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

Cloud

• Don’t Budget for Cloud (Jason Bloomberg) - Nice post that helps to understand how to budget for the IT future of companies; It could be in the cloud, could be not, and it could be a mix...
  
• Connecting Clouds – Creating a site-to-site Network with Amazon Web Services and Windows Azure (mwasham) - Great post! A post to bookmark, that a nice tutorial to build a fail over solution cross cloud provider.
  
• Dell mantra: one cloud, not even Amazon’s, doesn’t fit all - This post explained how deferent Dell wants to be in his cloud services.
  
• Architecture, Agile and Cloud Challenges - Good post that explains how we should analyses changes in our project architecture when deploying in the cloud. (Here it's Azure but it could be all other providers).
  
• Inside Dropbox’s Quest to Bury the Hard Drive (Marcus Wohlsen) - Interesting post to know more about what's planning this big player.
  
• WordPress with SQL Azure on Windows Azure Websites (mksunitha) - What1? It's that easy? No more excuse.
  
• Delivering push notifications to millions of devices with Windows Azure Notification Hubs - Create post that explains push notification and notification hubs in Windows Azure.

Programming

• Internal tools – cheap and tasteless? - DevOps definitively worth more of our attention.
  
• Top 10 ASP.NET MVC Interview Questions (Imran Abdul Ghani) - If you eared about asp.net mvc, and want to know more about it, here's the post for you.
  
• Book Review: Building Interactive Queries With LINQPad (Latish Sehgal) - Interesting book that introduces the very useful linqPad and the omnipresent LinQ.
  
• New Online Course: TDD and BDD in Ruby - 5 days to be up to speed with testing, mocking in Ruby... or get your money (35$) back.
  
• 30 Days of TDD: Day Three – Your First Test (James Bender) - Third post of a very promising series to learn from nothing how to build our tests (unit tests, integration tests, etc.) in a .Net environment. The tools used in the series are nunit, justmock, justcode and nuget of course.

Miscellaneous

• 10 Web apps to help you plan and promote a great event (Brinda Ayer) - Nice tools to know.
  
• Scott Hanselman - Interesting post, it's nice to see explication of what I though was happening.
  
• It’s not Scrum if… (Mark Levison) - Nice post that helps us to get back on the good path.
  
• Keeping Your Life Synced Up - Nice recap of the most popular tools to help us.
  
  

~ Frank

Reading Notes #107

Suggestion of the week

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

Cloud

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

Programming

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

Miscellaneous

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

~Frank

Reading Notes #106

Suggestion of the week

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

Cloud

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

Databases

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

Programming

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

Integration

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

Miscellaneous

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

~Frank

Reading Notes #105

 

Suggestion of the week

• Create Single Use URIs to Protect Your Resources! - Great tutorial. I like the idea of "real" scenario.

Cloud

• Keep Your Privates Private! - Nice post that shows an elegant way to solve a security topic.
  
• A Cloud and Azure Glossary for the Confused (Scott Hanselman) - Nice post that explains very well all the cloud buzz words.
  
• Windows Azure: General Availability of SQL Server Always On Support and Notification Hubs, AutoScale Improvements + More (Scott Guthrie) - Even during summer (read vacation period) the Windows Azure Team delivery a lot of new amazing features. Read more about it in this very complete post.
  
• Push Notifications made easy: Using Windows Azure Notification Hubs with Windows Phone (andywigley) - Great post to get started with Azure Push Notification. The article contains a sample before using the hub and after.

Programming

• Am I really a developer or just a good googler? (Scott  Hanselman) - Good question... and nice answer.
  
• Today's ideal developer - In this nice post, Jeff is giving his opinion to answer a post published earlier this week about developers vs. Googlers.
  
• AutoMapper 3.0 released (Jimmy Bogard) - Definitely a great tool, now that it's a PCL it will be even easier to use.
  
• The Magic of using Asynchronous Methods in ASP.NET 4.5 plus an important gotcha (Scott Hanselman) - Nice explication about where async could and should be use in web development.

Miscellaneous

• The Impact Of A New Developer - Often overlooked, these easy rules could lower the bad impact of a new member arriving in your dev team.
  
• Write the Story for Your Project (JD Meier) - Nice little "game" to get all team members in the spirit.
  
• Do Interruptions and Productivity Rhyme With Compatibility? (Alexandre Brisebois) - Ah ah! It's or it will append to each of us... It an important discovery to do and most important is the way we react...
  
• The 5 Must-Have Qualities Of The Modern Employee (Jacob Morgan) - I totally agree. Many times I read post about how a manager should change, but it's not only them who needs to adapt.
  
• **Saving and Retrieving Browser (and other) Passwords - It so easy and convenient that we sometimes forget how "dangerous" it could be...

~Frank

[Image from sxc.hu]

Reading Notes Special Books Edition

For the last months I read few technical books.  I thought it could be interesting to add it.  This is not a complete review and it only reflect my personal opinion.


Programming Entity Framework: Code First 
By Julia Lerman, Rowan Miller
Publisher: O'Reilly Media
Released: November 2011
ISBN 10:1-4493-1294-2

Note: By the time I write this post the version of Entity framework is 5.0.
Even if this book was about the previous version of Entity framework, it’s a golden mine of information. I found very useful the example that helps me to understand how to define the relation and more importantly what was the deference between the attribute way and the fluent way. It was easy to read, because well explains not because it was doing only the “beginner” stuff. Since EF is really useful when starting a new project or even for a POC, I think this book should be in all developer’s bookshelf.

 
Windows PowerShell 2.0 Best Practices
By Ed Wilson
Publisher: Microsoft
Released: December 14, 2010
ISBN-10: 0735626464

If you are a .Net developer and you still don’t know PowerShell or don’t know why you should consider PowerShell than this book is not for you… You should read some Introduction books or post THEN read this book.
This book is all about best practices. It will help you to structures your code or your library of scripts. That way, you will be able to understand and found and reuse all of it. Whether to do something in a build or to deploy something in Windows Azure or even just to quickly do a repetitive task this book will help to do it.  A book to keep nearby. 


Claims-based Identity Second Edition device
By Dominick Baier, Vittorio Bertocci, Keith Brown and Matias Woloski
Publisher: Microsoft
Releaed: April 21, 2010
ISBN-10: 0735640599

This is definitely THE book to get started with claims. It starts right at the beginning explaining what’s a claim, why we should use it.  Many different scenarios are presented. Each of them is presented with and without claims and most of the time how to migrate from one to the other.  The complete solution is available on codeplex.com and if a PDF is good enough for you; it's also available on codeplex for free. 


Building N-Layered Applications with ASP.NET 4.5
By Imar Spaanjaars
Publisher: Imar.Spaanjaars.Com
Released: July 2013

This document is, in fact, a series of post about the best practices related to Asp. Net 4.5. While writing this notes, only two or three posts were available online. To get the full document with the source code you must pay. Eventually, all parts of the rich document will be available for free, but it's only 20$ and its own is value.
The solution explained in this document is simple enough so it’s easy to understand the architecture but detailed enough to cover most of the case.  The solution will include a lot of technologies like: Entity Framework, Asp. Net MVC, WCF Services and many patterns: Dependency Injection, Repository, Unit Test, Mocking, etc.
It’s a really well done document, and I think it’s a must to any web developer or architect.

Microsoft SharePoint 2013 App Development

By Scot Hillier, Ted Pattison
Publisher: Microsoft Press
Released: November 2012
ISBN 10:0-7356-7498-1

I read this book to know more about the new “Apps” thing.  While I was ready, I understand that my project was not a good match for SharePoint App, so I didn’t finish it… yet. However, I found the book explications really clear, and it gives me all the tooling and options I needed to get started.
Since Apps are now very present in SharePoint, I decided to include it in my notes.



~Frank

Reading Notes #104

 

Suggestion of the week

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

Cloud

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

 

Programming

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

 

Databases

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

Miscellaneous

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

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

~Frank

Reading Notes #103

Suggestion of the week

• Architecture Patterns for Data Upload to Windows Azure (K. Dotchkoff) - Nice description of many patterns with their pros and cons. A post to read.

Cloud

• SQL Azure: Automated Database Export (Tara Shankar Jana) - Nice post that details all you need to know about the new Sql Azure Automated export: options, cost, etc.
  
• Cloud Service Fundamentals – Introduction into Fault-Tolerant Data Access Layer (AzureCAT) - Good post about the best practices.
  
• **Service Bus Error: The maximum entity size has been reached or exceeded for Topic (Ravi Verma) - Quick fix for a common error message. Be aware of the Default life time value.
  
• Meter and Autoscale Multi-Tenant Applications in Windows Azure (Bruno Terkaly, Ricardo Villalobos) - Great articles that explains how to setup diagnostics to be able to autoscale in a multi-tenant context. The article also refers different resources for more details and tools.
  
• Announcing the release of the Windows Azure SDK 2.1 for .NET (Scott Guthrie) - Learn more about all the enhancements and great new featured inside this last release.

Programming

• Just released: MvcSiteMapProvider 4.0 (Maarten Balliauw) - Sitemaps is a great tool, learn more about it and how easy it is to add why in your project.
  
• Don't fear the shell... - "Getting Started with PowerShell 3.0" jumpstart series - Mostly everything can be done with PowerShell, here a great list of tutorials to get started...
  
• Get started with some basic TFBuild Scripts - Great post that will gives you a new image about build scripts.
  
• Securing a Web API with Windows Azure AD and Katana (vibro) - Very complete post and tutorial that explains what is OWIN and project Katana (both in preview), and how to use it.
  
• July 2013 Release of the Ajax Control Toolkit - This post details all the great new features in the last release of Ajax Control Toolkit. So many useful tools...

Databases

• Fragmentation in SQL Azure! (Dilkush-MSFT) - Wow, a really interesting post that goes deeper than usual and explains database fragmentation in Azure.
  
• Take Control - Windows Azure SQL Database Application Life Cycle Management Made Easy! (Alexandre Brisebois) - The SQL Server Data Tools (SSDT) is definitely a must for all projects with a database.

Miscellaneous

• When You Have Nothing Unique to Say… (Darren Rowse) - A little blogger's pep talk.
  
• 5 Tips for Launching a Product On Your Blog Without Annoying Your Readers (Darren Rowse) - Great post where the author share is experience about a product launch and how do it «the right way».
  
  

~Frank

Reading Notes #102

Suggestion of the week

• 3 Rarely Discussed, But Valuable, Uses for Cloud Object Storage - Very interesting post that gives good ideas of how to use the to storage at our benefits.
• Windows Azure Virtual Machines – Stopped doesn’t equal Stopped Deallocated (Stephen W. Thomas) - Very well explain. Now it's clear what need to be done to save money.

Cloud

• Turbo Charging Your Windows Azure Cloud Services - Interesting post where we can read about a real cost and performance optimization.
• Windows Azure July Updates: SQL Database, Traffic Manager, AutoScale, Virtual Machines - Great news. I'm looking forward to try these new features.
• Windows Azure Traffic Manager – High Performance, Availability & Resiliency - Nice tutorial to use the new Azure Traffic Manager.
• Windows Azure Traffic Manager Explained (Maarten Balliauw) - Nice post about the Traffic Manager that explains what it is and why we should care.
• SQL Azure: Automated Database Export (Tara Shankar Jana) - Nice post that details all you need to know about the new Sql Azure Automated export: options, cost, etc.
• Handling Azure Storage Queue poison messages (Pascal Laurin) - Interesting second post of a series this one explains why we shouldn't delete our error message.

Databases

• Database Versioning and Source Control (m kramar) - Interesting solution to a common situation.

Programming

• If you're not using Glimpse with ASP.NET for debugging and profiling, you're missing out - This post remembers me that I still didn't use this great tool, and I just have the perfect project to try it.
• 12 Lessons I learned using unit tests/TDD - Interesting post that promotes all the benefits of writing unit tests.
• Performance Tip: A few words on ASP.NET session state (Frédéric Rivain) - Interesting post to remember what we should have in mind to get the best performance.

UX

• Why People Don't Understand How to Use Your Software - Interesting thought about how to keep our clear vision.
• Making Readability More Responsive (Tyler Gaw) - Nice improvement on the user experience from this great tool. This post explains the reasons behind these change.

Integration

• Using SendGrid with BizTalk360 for Easy Emails on IaaS - It always good to see application that "works together" (that are so easily compatible) for our benefit.

Miscellaneous

• Touch: Where Microsoft Went Wrong (Frederic Lardinois) - Interesting thought about Microsoft and its moves to "touch". In my case, I really enjoy Windows surface. It's not perfect, but I like it.
• Write Less, Say More - Nice post that proof that once again the proverb quality not quantity rules.
• Pluralsight Summer Watch List - Nice suggestions to refresh our knowledge, or learn new things.
• The impact of a compliment (Scott Hanselman)- Interesting thought about compliment.format(ComplimentType.Professional).
• Choosing the right Portable Power Phone/Tablet/Gadget Battery Charger (Scott Hanselman) - Nice review so many options "just" for charging device's batteries.

~Frank

Reading Notes #101

Suggestion of the week

• Windows Azure Storage Best Practices - Great post that reviews the today's best practices to get the best of Azure Storage.

Cloud

• Scaling Up and Scaling Out in Windows Azure Web Sites (Craig Kitterman) - Nice post that clarified that scaling options from the Azure Website point of view.
  
• Windows Azure Storage Queue with error queues (Pascal Laurin) - Nice tutorial about using Azure Storage Queues in an asynchronous pattern. You just need to attach an alert from the new Azure Mobile Services to the Error queue, and you are in business! Until you get notified, then we will need the next post.
  
• Windows Azure SQL Database Automated Backups are Finally Here! - That really a good news! I cannot see any reason why anybody wouldn't use it.
  
• Linking a resource to your Cloud Service? What does that mean (Ashish Goyal) - Good clarification about what is exactly a link resource and what it's not.
  
• How to get a sticky load balancer in Windows Azure - Interesting post that comments the usage of sticky load balancer (to use session in a multi server context) and explains how to do it in Azure if you really need it.
  
• An Introduction to Windows Azure BLOB Storage (Mike Wood) - This incredibly complete post contains everything about Azure Blob storage. that the ultimate resource on that topics!
  
• Windows Azure SQL Database Automated Backup Frequency is in UTC (Coordinated Universal Time) - Nice catch! so UTC it is...
  
• Dev/Test in the Cloud - Every developer should now what is available for them in Azure. It is so quick and simple! And if you stop your VMs when you are not developing, you stop paying for it!
  
• Windows Azure Web Sites: How Application Strings and Connection Strings Work(Craig_Kitterman) - Great post that explains how to get a more secure website by using application string.
  
• Turbo Charging Your Windows Azure Cloud Services - Interesting post where we can read about a real cost and performance optimization.

 

Integration

• Windows Azure BizTalk Services & BizTalk 2013 - comparing the mapper (Glenn Colpaert)- Very complete comparison of the two mappers that really shows the pros and cons of each of them.

Programming

• Deployment tool (Fredrik Normén) - Interesting "pet project": building is own deployment tool...
  
• Four Ways to Implement Lazy Loading in C# (Francesco Cariaggi) - Interesting post that gives alternative to the really handy lazy loading pattern.
  
• TypeScript 0.9 Preview Release (S.Somasegar) - Learn more about the new features (generics) that bring the last version of TypeScript released not long ago.
  
• Some of the Anti Patterns - Interesting post that identified some anti patterns that reflects bad practices. Knowing them helps to improve our code, so it's good to refresh our memory.
  
• Use PowerShell to Sort CSV Files in Order - Who don't need to sort stuff? Next time indeed of opening Excell I will type one command line; thanks to this post!
  
• The Great New Features in JustDecompile (James Bender) - Nice post that walkthru the new features included in the new release of this useful tool.
  
• Building static websites with Middleman - Very interesting code. I didn't know Middleman before I'll definitly look at it.

 

Database

• SQL – Difference Between INNER JOIN and JOIN (Pinal Dave) - Don't cheat and answer this frequently asked question before reading the post. And, did you got it?
  
• How to choose a No SQL Database - No Sql database with theirs pros and cons.

 

Miscellaneous

• Is Agile Really Cheaper? (Scott Sehlhorst) - I like this post because it puts words on though that I had. A good post to be more prepare next time a client asks you the question.

~Frank

Reading Notes #100

I’m back! The blog is not dead. I was just super busy. First, I went to the Microsoft Build and it was very nice. Then I moved! I have now a gigantic stack of books and articles to read… so more to come.

This week marks an important milestone, the 100th Reading Notes! I want to thank you all my readers / followers to have been supporting me all along. Let’s go for under more!

Happy reading!

 Suggestion of the week

Don’t Write Code You Don’t Need (Erik Dietrich) - Very interesting post that gives some best practices to write better code.

Cloud

Failure is not an option for Netflix's service oriented architecture (Joe McKendrick) - Good proof that working with failure is not a synonym of fail.

Is there more to using SQL in Azure than redirecting your connection string? - Nice post that explains why we need to think differently when doing cloud.

Quick Recap of cloud announcements at BUILD and WPC 2013 - (Luis Panzano) - Nice! A two-week summary in one post!

Autoscaling Windows Azure Cloud Services (and web sites) (Maarten Balliauw) - One of the announcements that impressed me the most at build conference. Don't miss the chance to learn more about the new autoscaling feature of Azure.

Programming

Stop Doing Internet Wrong (Scott Hanselman) - Interesting list of some simple things to do to get a better experience online.

Cross-Platform Portable Class Libraries with .NET are Happening (Scott Hanselman) - Great post to get started about Portable Class Librairy (PCL) how are very useful to write app that run on many platforms.

Try Visual Studio 2013 Preview – There’s an Azure gallery image for that!(Tyler Doerksen) - Resistance is futile. It is so easy to try that you won't be able to resist. And if you don't know what's new in VS2013 check Scott Hanselman Build conference.

What is claims-based authentication? (Gunnar Peipman) - Nice post that gives a nice introduction to claims. It looks like the first of a series about this topic.

ASP.NET N-Layered Applications - Introduction (Part 1) - Very promising series where the author describes all steps of is application. For the architecture to the unit tests.

Miscellaneous

Why So Many Leadership Programs Ultimately Fail (Peter Bregman)- Interesting story, that proof once again that the best wait to learn something is to hump in and do it.

Is Agile Really Cheaper? (Scott Sehlhorst) - I like this post because it puts words on though that I had. A good post to be more prepared next time a client asks you the question.

 
~Frank

Reading Notes #99

 Suggestion of the week

• Windows Azure: Major Updates for Mobile Backend Development (Scott Gu) - Another big release for Windows Azure that boost the Mobile Services offers.

Cloud

• Azure VM Access Control with PowerShell (Tyler Doerksen) - Great with this post we now know all the new features that came up last week: PowerShell command.
• 10 Dos and Don'ts for Running Proof-of-Concept Projects in the Cloud - Nice post that highlights the pros and cons.
• Conflicts: Windows Azure Mobile Service to SQLite Data Sync for Windows Phone and WinRT with Portable Class Libraries - Nice post about possible sync conflicts.
• BASE Jumping in the Cloud (Jason Bloomberg) - Interesting post that explains why a re-architecture is more than often needed when moving our application in the cloud.

Programming

• Using Duck Typing to Avoid Conditionals in JavaScript - Good explication of Duck Typing method by refractory code step by step.
• Introduction to Unit Testing (Don’t Worry, Your Secret is Safe with Me) (Erik Dietrich) - Interesting post about unit testing. What is it, and what it isn't.
• Claim based Authentication and WIF : Part 1 - First of a series, this post describes what is a claim base process and who are the players involve in it.
• Stop Doing Internet Wrong (Scott Hanselman)- Interesting list of some simple things to do to get a better experience online.
• Using Azure Mobile Services in SharpDevelop - Nice alternative to Visual Studio. Check out the video here to see it developing with Azure.

Databases

• Amazon RDS Lowers On-Demand and Reserved Instance Prices Globally - And the battle for the lowest price continues (that's good for us) this time the databases are targeted.

User eXperience (UX)

• Bundling and Minification in ASP.NET MVC (Suprotim Agarwal) - Minification is a important process to have a nice UX. It's now easier than ever.

Miscellaneous

• Marketing 101 for developers (Phil Cross, saraallison Natasha Joseph) - Why a developer should care about marketing? Because we need it? This post answers the question.
• The Importance of Closed Captioning - How To and Why Subtitle (Scott Hanselman) - Really interesting post. Doing subtile look like a lot of effort, but it's worth it. This post contains sample, tutorial and tools references.
• 8+ Practical Tips for Avoiding Pickpockets - Simple tips that can save you a lot of problems when you are traveling.

~Frank