Reading Notes #503

It's Monday, time to share my reading notes. Those are a curated list of all the articles, blog posts, podcast episodes, and books that catch my interest during the week and that I found interesting. It's a mix of the actuality and what I consumed.

If you think you may have interesting content, share it!

Cloud

• Quickstart: Container Apps using Bicep (Jason Haley) - Nice tutorial to get started with bicep and Azure Container Apps.

• Azure SDK Release (April 2022) - Always good to know what is updated. Did you know the team also maintains slides for you?

• Configure Azure Cosmos DB Continuous Backups (Rajendra Gupta) - Backup can be so powerful! You could return in time just before an error to understand what happens... Or so many other scenarios.

• Quickstart: Deploy an existing container image to Container Apps using Bicep (Jason Haley) - Great tutorial

• Unlock cloud savings on the fly with autoscale on Azure | Azure Blog and Updates | Microsoft Azure (Diana Gao) - This is the perfect post to get started with autoscaling. Witch services what can you expect and more.

Programming

• Announcing Docker SBOM: A step towards more visibility into Docker images (Justin Cormack) - Oh, that's pretty cool! Easy to try. Give it a shot!

• How To Run PowerShell Scripts (Brien Posey) - A script can be frightening at first, but this nice post will help you to understand them better. Perfect for less technical people.

• Introducing Qodana for Azure Pipelines (Anastasia Khramushina) - Qodana is can analyze your code in CICD on many platforms, and now also in the Azure DevOps.

• Uploading Files with HttpClient in .NET 6 (Calvin) - Nice tutorial to upload a file all the code is there.

~Frank

Reading Notes #434

Every Monday, I share my "reading notes". Those are a curated list of all the articles, blog posts, podcast episodes, and books that catch my interest during the week and that I found interesting. It's a mix of the actuality and what I consumed. 

You think you may have interesting content, share it!

Cloud

• One Ops Question: What are Azure Blueprints? (Pierre Roman) - For post and nice little video that gives you everything you need a clear explanation and steps to get started.
• Using External Inputs in Azure Durable functions (Damien Bod) - A very nice tutorial with all the code we need, just as we all like.

Programming

• Always Use the for…of loop to iterate in JavaScript (Dhananjay Kumar) - I thought I knew how to loop in JavaScript, apparently, I didn't.
• Exciting new updates to the Git experience in Visual Studio | Visual Studio Blog (Pratik) - Wow, that nice update. Good tools are important when moving and merging code... We don't want to make mistakes.
• Getting Started With Kubernetes: Application Basics (Sophia Parafina) - A nice second post in a series on kubernetes. Learning layer by layer.awesome.
• How to Create and Delete Branches in Visual Studio Code (Jason N. Gaylord) - Nice quick tips. I didn't know how to delete it.

Podcasts

• AsapSCIENCE - YouTubers on Building a Creative Team, USA vs Canada and the Crossover of Art & Science (That Creative Life) - Cool podcast talking about sooo many things... like sciences, politics, and hangover...
• DOs and DON'Ts of your First 100 YouTube Subscribers (Your Thriving Side Hustle) - A nice little episode about the rebranding of the podcast, and some good tips for YouTubers who, are starting their channel.
• #164 – Facing Down an Existential Threat to Your Business with Scott Keyes of Scotts Cheap Flights (The Indie Hackers Podcast) - Interesting story about how an enterprise was built and adapted to the current time in a very difficult period in its market.
• 082: Starting Your DevOps Career from Scratch (CloudSkills.fm) - Discussion questions about DevOps, answering auditor questions: how to prepare, what to expect... very interesting.
• SPI 430: Passive Income Success Story: How Jacques Hopkins Finally Made (Significant) Money Online (The Smart Passive Income Online Business and Blogging Podcast) - Amazing episode once again, about an electric engineer that became an online piano teacher and live from it happy and nicely.

Miscellaneous

• Backing up an Azure database : Algorithms for the masses - julian m bucknall (Julian M Bucknall) - Just a reference to the Azure tips and tricks, but it still very worth it. Do your backups
• Best Markdown Editor (Jimmy McBride) - Nice cool project. As a markdown user, I will definitely have a look.
• How we launched docs.github.com (Sarah Schneider) - Wow, a very interesting story, and all that in one year.Impressive.

~☁️

Reading Notes #321

Suggestion of the week

• Creating an ASP.NET Core Markdown TagHelper and Parser (Rick Strahl) - Amazing post that shares a cool taghelper for our projects, and explains all steps to build it.

Cloud

• Beyond The Obvious With API Vision On Cognitive Services (Víctor Moreno ) - This post is a nice and details overview of the cognitive services.
• Deployment Pipelines For Versioned Azure Resource Manager Template Deployments ( Peter Groenewegen) - Great post that explains all the best practices to manage healthy ARM template.
• Differences between Azure Functions v1 and v2 in C# (Damien Guard) - Nice overview showing the differences in the code.
• Secure your backups, not just your data! (Aruna Somendra) - I do most of that already...but yeah not all of it. What's YOUR backup plan?

Programming

• Azure vs GCP part 15: Microservices (Kenichiro Nakamura) - Interesting post that compares two microservice platforms... A must.
• Converting a Ghost blog to a Progressive Web App (Dean Hume) - Very interesting post that explains every step in its conversion journey.
• How to deploy Angular application to GitHub (Dhananjay Kumar) - Nice post to get started with Angular and Angular CLI.
• Demystifying Serverless with Cecil Phillip (Scott Hanselman) - Very interesting discussion about serverless or less server programming...

Databases

• The world of Automatic Tuning – SQL Server 2017 | All About SQL on WordPress.com (blobeater) - I was also surprised, but yes it's true the auto tunning really works.

Miscellaneous

• From Windows to the Cloud (Tim Sneath) - Wow! Well... Speechless, just read it.

Books

When: The Scientific Secrets of Perfect Timing (Daniel H. Pink)

A really amazing book packed of very interesting advice. Things that you kind of already knew, or at least had a feeling you maybe knew are clearly explained to you.

After reading (or listening) this book, you will know why, and you can decide to fight it or change the when... improve your performance and use your time and energy on something else.

ISBN: 0525589333

Reading Notes #306

Suggestion of the week

• Simple APIs With Microsoft Flow And Azure Functions | LINQ to Fail (Aaron Powell ) - Geniusly simple! I didn't think to use those like that, but now that will be my go-to scenario for so many things.... With Flow, Logic App and so may others.

Cloud

• Announcing the general availability of Azure App Service diagnostics (Jennifer Lee) - A fantastic tool that I hope all web App users will use.
• Lift and Shift, Migrating Nerd Dinner to the cloud using Docker (Shayne Boyer) - Interesting post that shows step by step how to do a real lift and shift to Azure.
• Logic Apps Management solution updated – search runs by tracked properties, bulk re-submit and more… (Sumit Kumar) - Nice little add-ons that will help us manage our LogicApps.
• Microsoft Cognitive Services updates for Microsoft Connect(); (Microsoft Azure) - Nice tutorial on how to build and train your custom image classifier.
• Transforming your VMware environment with Microsoft Azure (Corey Sanders) - Pretty cool tools that remove a lot of pain when we start thinking about migrating one or more VMs.

Programming

• Introducing Microsoft Coco Framework for Blockchain (Chris Pietschmann) - Coco framework will helps to manage a few important points in a business solution using BlockChain, more to come in 2018.
• Lightweight bundling, minifying, and compression, for CSS and JavaScript with ASP.NET Core and Smidge (Scott Hanselman) - Another (or rediscovery of a) great minifier for .Net core.
• Trying out new .NET Core Alpine Docker Images (Scott Hanselman) - Very interesting post, it'nice to see how one great tech complement another that well.

Databases

• Azure SQL Databases Disaster Recovery 101 (Xiaochen Wu) - One of the best posts a read on the topic. I'm not sure if I can sale the alien part to a client, but other than that very clear. lol

Reading Notes #300

Cloud

• An introduction to Azure Web Apps on Linux (Christos Matskas) - Web App for all! Seriously, it's a really good news and it's already GA.
• Azure Logic Apps Monthly Update – September 2017 (Sriram Hariharan) - Get a good summary of all the new features in only one post. But of course, it's only an overview.
• Manage your Azure VM backups with Azure CLI 2.0 - Preview (Kartik P V R) - Azure CLI is so convenient, I know some will prefer graphical interfaces. However, CLIs are the only way for automation.
• Microsoft Integration (Azure and much more) Stencils Pack v2.6.1 for Visio (Sandro Pereira) - It's time (already..) to update our stencil to include the lastest and greatest. Thanks!

Programming

• Generating Google Slides from images using Apps Script (Wesley Chun) - Pretty neat features. Definitely worth the time to write a script when you need to edit tons of slides, or build a deck multiple times.
• 7 Hidden Gems in Visual Studio 2017 (Visual Studio Team) - This post shares not the usual tips. Seriously, how many you already knew before reading the article?
• Adding circuit breakers to your .NET applications | Richard Seroter's Architecture Musings on WordPress.com (Richard Seroter) - This post is a great introduction to Steeltoe and the circuit-breaker pattern. The code used in this sample is .net core but it also works with .Net framework. Perfect for all our micro-services.

Data

• Power BI Desktop October Feature Summary | Microsoft Power BI Blog | Microsoft Power BI (Amanda Cofsky) - Once again, this month release is packed with tons of great new features. I can't summarize thus the post, but the bookmarking capabilities alone worth your time reading this post or watching the video.

Miscellaneous

• #223: Mike Erwin—The Power of Solitude (Entreleadership - Mike Erwin) - Interesting reading suggests on leadership and the importance of solitude time.
• Microsoft announces next Azure OpenDev: October 25, 2017 (Ashley McNamara) - Awesome community event coming ... Save the date.
• Social Presentations with Mark Rendle (Carl and Richard) - That look like a very promising tool... except for the name that I continually forget... (but that's probably just me). I will definitely have a to the Github repo.
• The Simple Reason to Learn to Lead Yourself First (Joshua Spodek ) - Interesting thoughts about becoming a leader.
• What is a Cloud Developer Advocate? (Jeremy Likness) - Great article. A few of my friends joined that team, and even though I already had this talk with them, now I have a better picture.

Reading Notes #293

Cloud

• Announcing the Coco Framework for enterprise blockchain networks (Mark Russinovich) - You probably eared the buzz word blockchain before, but still not sure what it is exactly… Here is a good post to get started and in the meantime, you will know also an open-source framework to work with.
• Announcing the new and improved Azure Log Analytics (Ketan Ghelani) - Only one click and all those news features are yours.
• Introducing Azure Event Grid – an event service for modern applications (Corey Sanders) - Pretty awesome new feature. I’m looking forward to trying it.
• Managing your resources with Azure Cloud Shell (Corey Sanders) - My first thought about Cloud Shell was: cute. And then I was in a situation where … well, it really helped me. So yeah, definitely something to look at, and this post is the perfect starting point.
• On-premises data gateway support for Azure Analysis Services (Bret Grinslade) - A new connector in this very useful connection tool.
• Plan Backup and Disaster Recovery for Azure IaaS Disks (Sirius Kuttiyan) - This nice post briefly explains the different options with different pros & cons but untimely for the same results our safety.
• Rapidly Deploy Serverless Azure Functions Using PowerShell (Doug Finke) - Azure functions are so accessible it’s unbelievable. This post explains why and shows how to get our code/script deployed in the cloud in a snap.

Programming

• 5 Common Myths Around Moving to Docker (Megan Rees Ahigian ) - Nice post that answers some very frequent assumptions related to container and more particularly, Docker containers.

Reading Notes #281

Cloud

• 5 simple steps to create and test your first Azure Function App (Abhijit Jana) - It couldn't be simpler.
  
• Azure CLI 1.0 vs 2.0 Compared, Installation and Usage (Chris Pietschmann) - This is such a nice post. It compares side by side both versions.
  
• Upgrade classic Backup and Site Recovery vaults to ARM Recovery Services vaults (Aruna Somendra) - Nice post that shares a good overview of all the news related to vault.

Programming

• BUILD 2017 Conference Rollup for .NET Developers - Scott Hanselman (Scott Hanselman) - I'm sure we'll continue to see more of those MsBuild summaries, but this one is from Scott directly and focuses on .Net.

Databases

• Dear DocumentDB customers, welcome to Azure Cosmos DB! (Rimma Nehme) - This post explains where CosmoDB is coming from.
  
• Introducing Per Minute (RU/m) provisioning to lower your cost, increase your performance (Arnaud Comet) - Great post that explains the relation between RU/m and RU/s two very important notion in CosmoBD.
  
• Migrating to Azure Data Sync 2.0 (Joshua Gnanayutham) - I always found that tool useful, and I'm happy to see it continues to evolve.

Miscellaneous

• Don't tell people to turn off Windows Update, just don't (Troy Hunt) - A very interesting post about a painful situation, and user's obligations.
  
• Is There a Correct Way to Comment Your Code? - NDepend (Erik Dietrich) - Interesting post that tries to find the answer of the eternal question comment or not comment.
  
• Note-taking made easier for everyone—redesigning OneNote (OneNote Team) - Nice new features. To unload your Onenote, simply click on file (or th left arrow), then account, and finally the update button.
  
• Suggestions and Tips for attending your first tech conference - Scott Hanselman (Scott Hanselman) - I think I will do a copy of that one, and I will share-it with people who come with me on an event. Really nice.

Reading Notes #274

Suggestion of the week

• Web Scraping In Power BI And Excel Power Query (Gil Raviv) - Just recently I've learned about Power BI web scrapping capability, then this! I didn't think it could be that great! Great post.

Cloud

• Azure Backup’s cloud-first approach and why it matters (Shreesh Dubey) - Nice post that explains the complete backup service in Azure.
• Azure functions - Just the CLI, hold the GUI, add some git (Shayne Boyer) - Nice tutorial that explains how to deploy an ARM template using Azure CLI simple commands.
• Interesting facts about Azure BizTalk Hybrid Connections! (Alexander Laysha) - Nice post that explains how works the hybrid connections.
• Trying ASP.NET Core on the Google Cloud Platform "App Engine Flexible Environment" (hanselman.com) - Interesting share that inspires to try .Net Core... outside of the happy path. Awesome.

Programming

• Model Binding in ASP.NET Core - Simple Talk (Dino Esposito) - Great tutorial that introduces the auto bindings and shows how to implement it.
• What’s New in Visual Basic 2017 (The Visual Basic Team) - It's been a while since I coded in VB but reading this post brought back all those souvenirs... Great work.
• 6 Reasons Why JavaScript’s Async/Await Blows Promises Away (Mostafa Gaafar) - Nice update. For a .Net developer, this is perfect!

Reading Notes #272

Cloud

• Cloud Messaging – Amazon or Azure? (Steve Smith) - Great post that suggests an answer to the eternal question.
  
• Connect Tableau to an Azure Analysis Services server (Josh Caplan) - Nice integration.
  
• Visual Studio Talk Show - Les données et Azure (Guy Barrette) - It was really pleasant to record that podcast. I hope it is also to listen.
  
• Leverage the Azure CLI with these examples (Brian Benz) - If you would like to help Azure CLI to get better, this post explains how you could help.
  
• Using templates to customize restored VMs from Azure Backup (Trinadh Kotturu) - This post shares nice tips to get the maximum of our VMs backup.

Programming

• ASP.NET Core Error Management with elmah.io (Damien Bod) - Elmah is a fantastic tool. This tutorial explains how to use it with .NetCore.
  
• Options for CSS and JS Bundling and Minification with ASP.NET Core (Scott Hanselman) - Nice tutorial that shows the how to find our sweet spot with the minification in VS2017.
  
• ZEIT now deployments of open source ASP.NET Core web apps with Docker - Scott Hanselman (hanselman.com) - Interesting new tools. I'm looking forward to trying it myself.

Databases

• Planet scale aggregates with Azure DocumentDB (Aravind Ramachandran Program Manager) - Fantastic news that was requested a lot by all the users. Get all the details in this post about all these new capabilities.

Reading Notes #264

Cloud

• Azure Logic App Updates January 2017 (Chris Pietschmann) - You through the number of new features would be less because of holidays Guess again, once again this team delivers tons of new stuff.
  
• Collaboration and federation: Azure Service Bus Messaging on-premises futures (Clemens Vasters) - Important announcement about Service Bus and his sibling's future.
  
• DevOps with Azure Functions - a holistic approach (Christos Matskas ) - Excellent post that explains why so many people love and use Azure Functions (or any serverless options).
  
• Easily Manage Azure Web App Connection Strings using PowerShell | Opsgility (Chris Pietschmann) - Great tutorial in PowerShell that provides guidance on editing AppSetting in Azure.
  
• How to enable the public preview of IaaS backups with Recovery Services in Canada using PowerShell (Stéphane Lapointe) - You want backup capabilities today, and you live in Canada? This is the post for you.

Programming

• Introducing Docker 1.13 (Docker Core Engineering) - This post summarizes all the great features added in the new release and shows again why Docker is such a fantastic tool in the containers' world.

Databases

• Automated Partition Management with Azure Analysis Services (Christian Wade) - Interesting ideas ready to be reviewed... more to come.

Miscellaneous

• Atom on Windows (Damien Guard) - Nice update.

Reading Notes #200

Suggestion of the week

• Débuter avec Azure Resource Manager (Channel 9) (Julien Stroheker) - Really one of the best videos a saw. If you understand French, this is a must.

Cloud

• Using Travis to Deploy Apps to Azure - This post explains how to build a CI for Azure.
  
• New GS-Series VM (Daniel Wu) - Nice post that not only announces the new type of VM, but also how to convert your actual VM to this type.
  
• Using continuous integration with Azure & GitHub - Perfect post to get started with CI and Azure.
  
• Updates in Azure WebJobs SDK (1.1.0-alpha2) (Pranav Rastogi) - Learn more about the new singleton, redis trigger, logging, and all the other new features in this post.
  
• Seamlessly Migrate Your Application from AWS to Azure in Four Simple Steps (Rajesh Goli) - Wow only four steps to convert… nothing else to say.
  
• Introducing Azure Service Bus Premium Messaging (Clemens Vasters) - This post gives a short intro about the services bus.

Databases

• Azure DocumentDB’s LINQ provider just got better (Aravind Ramachandran) - This quick post lists the feature in the SDK.

Books

• Microsoft Azure Essentials_ Fundamentals of Azure (Michael S. Collier & Robin E. Shahan) - This week a felt like returning to the sources, and read the essentials. Difficult to summarize a summary, but all principal family of features are approached and the “must have” tools are over… Even some scenarios. A really good book, evenmore it’s for all.

Reading Notes #157

Suggestion of the week

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

Cloud

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

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

Programming

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Database

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

Miscellaneous

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

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

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

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

~Frank

Let's play with Azure SQL Database backup and the Point in Time Restore

Did you know that you can have: a full database backup once a week, a differential database backups once a day, and a transaction log backups every 5 minutes of your Azure SQL Database? Did you know that all this is done automatically when you are using the new Azure SQL Basic, Standard or Premier service tiers? Even more, you will have access to the Point in Time Restore self-service. In this post, I will show how to "configure" the database to get the automatic backups, and how to do a restore.

Setup the automatic backup

If you are like me, your Azure SQL Databases are set to Web or Business edition.  The first thing to do will be to change that. You will need to do it anyway since the Web and Business service tiers will be retired in September 2015[1].  That the only required since backup service are built-in the Basic, Standard and Premium tiers.

For the demo purpose, I will use the Basic tier. To change the tier of the database, go on the Azure Portal. In the left panel click on the SQL Databases et select the database that you want to update (ie: FrankDemo). Once the right section is updated, select the Scale tab and change the Service Tiers for: Basic.



Now, if you return in the Dashboard tab, a new option will be available.



Your database now has built-in backups to support self-service Point in Time Restore and Geo-Restore. Azure SQL Database automatically creates backups using the following schedule:

• Full database backup once a week
• differential database backups once a day
• transaction log backups every 5 minutes.

The full and differential backups are replicated across regions.

The retention period will vary between 7 and 35 days base on the selected tiers.[2]

Restore an Azure SQL Database

Restoring a database is really easy. Remember that new button at the bottom of the screen, it's now time to click on it.

This will bring the settings options. It's now time to type the name of your restored database. Note that you must use a different name than the original.  It's always a good practice to double-check that you are pointing on the good database on the correct server. Pick a restore point using the slider or by filling the date and time fields. When you are done click the button. The portal will let you know that the restore is successfully completed by a notification.




I hope that this post shows you how easy it is to use the backup/restore with Azure SQL Database. Thank you for ready, Any comments, suggestions and/or questions are welcome.



[1]: Web and Business service tiers will be retired in September 2015, more
details on the Windows Azure site.
[2]: Detail about the retention period on Azure SQL Database Backup and Restore



~ Frank Boucher

Reading Notes #144

 

Programming

• Automate Backups using PowerShell  - Great post that explains how to do backups, but also shows how powerful is PS scripts.
  
• How To Simplify Asynchronous Programming with Await and Async – Visual Studio Magazine (Peter Vogel) - Good tutorial that explains clearly how to use Async in a Windows Form context.
  
• How to connect your Windows Phone 8 & 8.1 app to Yammer - Nice short tutorial to learn how connect Windows Phone (wp) apps to Yammer.

Miscellaneous

• Guide to Freeing up Disk Space under Windows 8.1 (Scott Hanselman) - Useful post to refresh our memory. I mean the memory in our head… and gain disk space in your PC.
  
• Introducing OneNote Clipper for Chrome and Springpad to OneNote migration tool (blogs.office.com) - Since a year now, I’m a big user of OneNote. Why only one year? Because, I never try it before. Since I started, I just use it more and more… I’m really happy about the new chrome extension.

Reading Notes #138

Suggestion of the week

• Logging with the .NET backend for Azure Mobile Services (Carlos Figueira) - Great post that optimizes a logger by adding layers over layers of customization at every paragraph.

Cloud

• Azure: 99.95% SQL Database SLA, 500 GB DB Size, Improved Performance Self-Service Restore, and Business Continuity - A database for 5$ / Month! That's nice. This post explained all the new features around databases.

Programming

• Getting Started on the Roslyn Journey (Erik Dietrich) - This post announced an interesting series where we should get started with Roslyn.
  
• "It's just a software issue"- Edge.js brings Node and .NET together on three platforms (Scott Hanselman) - Great project that could be very useful in many different situations.

Mobile

• The Full Story of Featured and Spotlighted Apps on Windows Phone (Sébastien Lachance) - Interesting post to prepare the launch of our next mobile application.
  
• Build Some Ears on Your App and then Listen! (Mark B Schramm) - This post that listed the best practices about how we should take care of our apps once they are live.

~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 #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 #90

Suggestion of the week

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

Cloud

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

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

Integration

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

Programming

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

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

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

Miscellaneous

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

~Frank

Reading Notes #89

Suggestion of the week

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

Cloud

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

 

Programming

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

 

Integration

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

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

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

System Management

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

Miscellaneous

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

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

~Frank

Reading Notes #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