Reading Notes #545

It is time to share new reading notes. It is a habit I started a long time ago where I share a list of all the articles, blog posts, and books that catch my interest during the week. 

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

Cloud

• Azure portal January 2023 updates (Allison Cordle) - Noce quick update from the portal.A few new features related to VMs.

• Creating a Configuration Module for your Infrastructure as Code (Sam Cogan) - This is a great post to help us be more efficient in our DevOps practices when writing IaC.

• Fetching Credentials with the Azure CLI (Mark Heath) - Awesome post that shares very useful commands. Add this on your cheatsheet or bookmark that post.

• Host WordPress in Microsoft Azure with App Service (PaaS hosting) (Chris Pietschmann ) - When we are interested in WordPress, we are looking for a key in-hand experience. We don't want to manage code and connections and too much technical stuff. Having it hosted in PaaS Azure simplifies even more this.

Programming

• Docker Desktop 4.17: New development functionality (Alyssa Shames) - Learn more about how this new release helps us to be more secure and track the details of our containers in the post.

• Dapr 1.10 - More steps in the right direction (Mark Heath) - This is great! I'm happy to see the multi-app functionality as I was totally waiting for it. And the workflow is definitely something that interests me.

• What To Be Wary of With Iterators and Collections in C# (Nick Cosentino) - An interesting deep comparison between different ways to fetch and manipulate data in C#.

~ frank

Reading Notes #524

Good Monday, time to share my reading notes. Those are a curated list of all the articles, blog posts, podcast episodes, and books that caught 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

• How to run Bash scripts in WordPress on Azure App Service (Abhishek Reddy) - This post explains two ways to achieve that.

• Azure Virtual Machines vs App Services (Michael Shpilt) - The pros and cons of both are listed in this post with some advice. Everything you need to help you to make your choice.

• How to use Azurite for testing Azure Storage in dotnet? (Max Hamulyák) - This very helpful post shows how to use Azirite to test our application.

Programming

• 5 tips for prioritizing Dependabot alerts (Brittany O'Shea) - Nice tips to help us with all these alerts.

• Build skills that open doors—with Microsoft Learn (Erin Rifkin) - This post summarizes it very well. Learn.mocrosoft.com is a great destination.

• Dockerize your SQL Server and use it in ASP.NET Core with Entity Framework Core (Bryan Hogan) - A very complete tutorial that explains all the steps to build an API from nothing.

~frank

Reading Notes #474

Every Monday (or Tuesday when the previous was a holiday 😏), 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

• Achieving observability in async workflows (Colby Callahan, Megha Manohara, and Mike Azar.) - Interesting real-life story.

• The fastest way to get started with Microsoft Azure (Abhijit Jana) - That a piece of very good advice, I need to remember that next time someone asks me.

• Updating Azure App Service on Linux for Docker via Webhooks from C# - Dangl.Blog(); (Georg Dangl) - Yep it's so simple to update in PaaS.

Programming

• Exploring the Visual Studio Code REST Book extension for native Notebooks (Scott Hanselman) - Quick post about an interesting extension, and if you are interested you can collaborate.

Podcasts

• 118: How to Get Into Teaching & Public Speaking (Plus My Entire Gear List) (CloudSkills.fm) - If you are thinking about starting to Podcast or event streaming... This is a nice podcast to help you to get started.

• Automating all the Things with Home Assistant's Paulus Schoutsen (Hanselminutes) - I enjoy that episode... How did you start? And all those reflections about how to do it so everyone enjoys it even when not everybody is "pro-tech" at home.

• Having a Laugh with Michael McIntyre (A Bit of Optimism) - Definitely a fun episode to listen to.

• How to Show More Grit at Work (Modern Mentor) - New to remote work (aka pandemic forced to work remotely) you still need to make your work visible and this episode could help you to get started.

• The Art of Podcasting, the Future of Angel Investing, and Startup Ideas for Indie Hacker with Rob Walling of Tinyseed (Indie Hackers) - Interesting discussion about the podcast and the remote interaction with an audience.

• #93: Cristian Florea - Coach For Aspiring Developers (The Solo Coder Podcast) - Nice episode perfect for the new developers to help them to find that first job. I really like the live question part of it.

• SPI 486: One of the Most Important Things You Can Do for Entrepreneurial (and Life) Success (SPI podcast) - That was a nice episode talking about helping each other and doing so to grow. Tons of ideas.

• 0255 - Tidjani Belmansour - Azure Communication Services (Visual Studio Talk Show) - It's in French. Once more great episode, interesting talk about one of the "recent" addition to the Azure services and what you can do with it.

Miscellaneous

• How to achieve a pixellated secrets scene in OBS for Windows (LUCE CARTER) - So simple and very efficient.I will give it a try.

~frank

Reading Notes #292

Suggestion of the week

• I Almost Left Tech Today, Here’s Why (Clémentine Pirlot) - What a shame we are in 2017 and those behaviors not only still exist, but are tolerated.

Cloud

• Migrating a Web App from ClearDB to Azure Database for MySQL (Jason Anderson) - Great tutorial that explains step by step how to migrate your database. For all the people that use the Wordpress in Azure ns have complained about this very limited ( but free) ClearDB setup, this post is for you.
• The gap is filled: How Azure Container Instances completes the PaaS hosting spectrum at last – Opsgility (John Adams) - Learn a bit of PaaS history in this nice post.

Programming

• A proper terminal for Visual Studio (Scott Hanselman) - Hmmm. I like that idea...
• VS Code Quick Tip: Install Curl to Speed Up REST API Testing -- Visual Studio Magazine (David Ramel) - Great way to speed up API testing indeed, and very simple too.

Databases

• Introducing the #Azure #CosmosDB Change Feed Processor Library (Judy Hanwen Shen) - Cool post that lists a few scenarios where CosmoDB could really help you.

Miscellaneous

• Build apps faster with Azure Serverless (Raman Sharma) - Full automatic and all on demand, today's cloud offer a lot.

Reading Notes #291

Cloud

• App Service Environment v2 release announcement (Christina Compy) - That a really good news let's go full PaaS.
• Fast and Easy Containers: Azure Container Instances (Corey Sanders) - A very promising new service in Azure.
• Import Power BI Desktop files into Azure Analysis Services (Josh Caplan) - A quick post that shows how convenient is the new AAS.

Programming

• .NET Application Architecture Guidance (Cesar de la Torre) - This post is like an amazing trailer about all the great things that will be created in this blog... Stay tuned for more.
• Docker Basics, Part Zero: Why Should I Care about Containers (and Microservices) Anyway? (Michelle Gienow) - Great post with the best description of what are containers I have ever read.

Miscellaneous

• Announcing Ghost 1.0 (John O'Nolan) - Wow! So happy and proud to be part of the early adopter of this platform. It never stopped to get better, and it stayed free. Now I just need to upgrade.
• Follow-up: The Windows Insider Program has lost its way (studio384) - Interesting thoughts about different Microsoft programs.
• Passwords Evolved: Authentication Guidance for the Modern Era (Troy Hunt) - Amazing post again from Troy, things are evolving we must also change.

Reading Notes #290

Cloud

• Artificial Intelligence tunes Azure SQL Databases (Veljko Vasic) - Very interesting article that shares a real-life situation where a Microsft Partner used SQL Auto tuning capability of SQL Database in Azure to optimize all his databases.
• Azure For Developers – Part 2: Your First App Service (Jesse Liberty) - Great new series that just started. It's a good point for beginners whom would like to have an overview.
• How Azure Security Center helps protect your servers with Web Application Firewall (Hayden Hainsworth) - Tools exist guys... They aren't perfect, but they will cover your ... for a good part. Take two minutes and have a look.

Programming

• A Comparison of Docker GUIs (Chris Ward) - This post surprises me by his very long list of graphical interfaces for Docker. I only knew the default one, but I'm now very tented to try other ones.
• Setting up Raspian and .NET Core 2.0 on a Raspberry Pi (Dave) - This post is packed with tons of little advice and tips that will save us time and energy.

Databases

• Building MEAN Apps with Cosmos DB - Part 1 (John Papa) - Pretty awesome series of little videos that explain step by step how to build the Mongo Express Angular Node (MEAN) application.
• First release candidate of SQL Server 2017 now available (SQL Server Team) - SQL server 2016 was such a big release, that it's nice to see that the 2017 version will also be packed.
• Tableau and Azure SQL DB, a match made in the cloud (Joseph Sack) - Interesting post that lists few best practices.

Miscellaneous

• 13 hours debugging a segmentation fault in .NET Core on Raspberry Pi and the solution was... (Scott Hanselman) - Aaaah, damn it. We all have those moments where nothing seems to make sense... Thanks for sharing Scott.
• Installing Visual Studio 2017 Made Easy (Mayur Tendulkar) - Pretty awesome tricks to install tons of Visual Studio without killing your Internet bandwidth.
• Monospaced Programming Fonts with Ligatures (Scott Hanselman) - Pretty cool hack. I mean I knew those characters existed, but I didn't know they had a name, and that we had display options.

Reading Notes #287

Cloud

• .NET: Manage Azure Container Service, Cosmos DB, Active Directory Graph and more (Asir Selvasingh) - I'm a bit scared about this .Net new feature, but at the same time curious to see where it will go.
• Azure Redis Cache Geo-Replication in Public Preview (Ye Gu) - Nice tutorial that will help to have a better disaster recovery plan.
• Deploying Applications to Azure Container Service (atulm) - Great tutorial to start orchestrating containers on Azure.
• Designing Globally Resilient Apps with Azure App Service – Opsgility (Chris Pietschmann) - Great post that lists a lot of tools available in Azure to get a better architecture for your solution.
• Enhanced app usage monitoring and investigative features in Azure Application Insights (Rahul Bagaria) - Wow, so many new features, exactly what I needed!
• Microsoft’s Logic Apps Aims to Bring Serverless Functionality to Non-Coders (Mark Boyd) - Nice post that gives a glimpse at the Logic Apps future.
• Receive emails from Azure WebJobs when errors are detected (Vivien Chevallier) - Nice tutorial that explains how to manage error in a webjob and implement the best practices.

Programming

• Docker for .NET Developers (Part 4) - Steve Gordon's Blog (Steve Gordon) - This post of the series explains the Docker file and few useful commands. I really like this series.
• Porting a 15 year old .NET 1.1 Virtual CPU Tiny Operating System school project to .NET Core 2.0 (Scott Hanselman) - We all have those prehistoric pieces of code, and it required lots of courage to share them with the public. However, what all of us learn from it, is priceless. Thank you, Scott.
• Speed of dotnet run vs the speed of dotnet for published apps (plus self-contained .NET Core apps) (Scott Hanselman) - Great post that explains a few differences between the published and just builds performance.

Miscellaneous

• How to Get into the Habit of Time Tracking - Toggl Blog (Liza Plotnikova) - I don't count the times where Toogl "saved my life" when it was time to do my timesheet. A tool to try.

Reading Notes #280

Cloud

• Announcing AzCopy on Linux Preview (Sercan Guler) - Fantastic news! One tool for everywhere.
  
• At Build, Microsoft expands its Cognitive Services collection of intelligent APIs (Microsoft Azure) - The Microsoft Build is always full of announcements, and this year wasn't an exception. Many novelties in the world of AI from new services to a new MVP category.
  
• Build a Serverless MBaaS with Azure Functions (shellmonger) - Nice tutorial that shows how to leverage Azure function with DocumentDB and node.js.
  
• What’s new for Serverless at Microsoft Build 2017 (Raman Sharma) - Another post that shares the novelties announced at Build, this time with serverless in mind.

Miscellaneous

• Login and Authentication for your ASP.NET Core Web API – The Big Picture (Jon Hilton) - Nice quick post about the different options regarding authentication and authorization for our API with also an explanation of the difference between them.
  
• Microsoft Flow + Azure Storage + WebJobs + MailChimp + Outlook (Troy Hunt) - Great post about a real life integration story.

From a Docker container to MySQL as a Service in Azure in 5 minutes

Hello MySQL! It's been a while eh? You were at version 3 something, I was just getting stated with my professional career. We had fun for years... Then you know things changed, and I did something else. I was really happy when Microsoft announced, at the MSBuild,  the availability of MySQL as a Servive in Azure.
 


Creating a MySQL database with the portal is extremely simple. As usual, you enter the server name, database name and the Admin's password. At the time I'm writing this post, it was not possible to use any CLI, but I'm sure it will be available shortly. For the ones who are not used at Database as Service in Azure, one thing you will need to do to get access to your database from your computer is white listed your IP. It's very easy to do from the Azure Portal, just select the Connection Security tab on the left menu and add your address. Oh! And don't forger to click the save button. ;)



During my tests, I've tried different applications (WordPress, Azure WebApp, custom on-premise app.) that use MySQL as backend database, I didn't notice any problem, and performance were great. It was just... simpler; no server to configure, no VM to configure, no update. The only "issue" I got was trying to connect Power BI Desktop to a MySQL, but I think it more related to the drivers since the service was still in early preview. I notified Microsoft, and I'm sure it will be available shortly.

Since it's been a while since I did some reel work with MySQL I didn't have any client install on my laptop. In fact, I had no idea which one I should take.

I knew we can run some CLI inside a Docker container with an interactive interface. So I decided to give it a try. A quick docker search mysql shows me that an image existed. Here are the steps to get setup.

First, let's download the image, and create an instance named mySQLTools of MySQL 8.0:

docker run --name mySQLTools --env "MYSQL_ROOT_PASSWORD=Passw0rd" -d mysql:8

Then using the -it let's bring the bash prompt to our terminal.

docker exec -it mySQLTools bash -l 

Finally we connect to our client using the usual settings (note that you must have no space between -p and your password):

mysql -h _ServerName.database.windows.net_  -u _UserName@ServerName_ -p_MyPassword_ _DatabaseName_

Voila! That's all what it takes to get started. And by the way, it will also work great with a Azure SQL Database.

docker pull shellmaster/sql-cli 

docker run -it --rm --name=sqlTools shellmaster/sql-cli mssql -s ServerName.database.windows.net  -u UserName@ServerName  -p YourPassword -d DatabaseName -e

Reading Notes #279

Cloud

• 5 Tips for Successful Azure App Development (Alex Bennett) - Nice simple tips to get started on th good foot and get the best of cloud architecture.
  
• Deployment made easy with Zeit (Scott Hanselman) - Interesting podcast. I will definitely try both hyper console and that new deployment tool.
  
• Enabling Azure CDN from Azure web app and storage account portal extension (Manling Zhang) - Configuring a CDN as never been that easy. Awsome.
  
• In-order delivery of correlated messages in Logic Apps by using Service Bus sessions (Aprana Seth) - This post explains all the details on how to respect the message's publishing order when using LogicApp in your integration solution.
  
• Tactical Integration with Logic Apps (Michael Stephenson) - Interesting post about the advantages of doing integration using PaaS on Azure.

Programming

• Contributing to .NET for Dummies (Rion Williams) - Another post where the author shares his experience (I love those. That's the real life); this one about participating in an open-source project.

Databases

• Introduction to Azure PowerShell Modules for the SQL Server DBA Part 4 (Edwin Sarmiento) - Of course, things could be created outside of the Azure portal. This last post of the series puts all the pieces together... and even gives us the full script.
  
• Mashup: SQL Server on Linux in Docker on a Mac with Visual Studio Code (Julie Lerman) - Cool post where Julia shares with us the results of her "database in a container" experience.

Miscellaneous

• Reckon you've seen some stupid security things? Here, hold my beer... (Troy Hunt) - Ouf..... I'm not sure if I'm more scared or shocked.

Reading Notes #278

Cloud

• Penny Pinching in the Cloud: Lift and Shift vs App Services - When a VM in the Cloud isn't what you want (Scott Hanselman) - This post is about how to transform a lift and shift to a real cloud application. And for what I know it represents 90% of our starts in the cloud.
  
• Serverless like a Superhero with Azure Functions (Shayne Boyer) - Cool tutorial about leveraging Azure function to build an API.
  
• Turn your Postman Collection into a Microsoft integration (Asavari Tayal) - I just love it. How could I've not thought about it myself?

Programming

• Everything You Need to Build A Chatbot (Sage Franch) - Great post to read before starting to code your first bot.
  
• Ruby on Rails on Azure App Service (Web Sites) with Linux (and Ubuntu on Windows 10) (Scott Hanselman) - Interesting post on how to get Ruby to work using today's tooling... on Windows.

Miscellaneous

• Designing a Conversation (Alexandre Brisebois) - Interesting post that digs into the paradox where "us", humans have been communicated since our beginnings but still have trouble doing it, now we want to plan ahead and architect communication with machines.
  
• Introduction to Microsoft To-Do (Gunnar Peipman) - Interesting app Microsoft finally did his ToDo service.

Reading Notes #243

Suggestion of the week

• IaaS isn’t your only path to outsized gains (James Staten) - Excellent post full of true and interesting facts that, at a very high level, explains the real power of the cloud.

Cloud

• Azure Advanced Data Center Bootcamp class now available (mwasham) - Great opportunity to pass at the advanced level.
  
• Azure PowerShell support for Enterprise Integration pack features now available (Jon Fancey) - Quick tutorial that uses PowerShell to create LogicApp.
  
• Getting to Know Actors in Service Fabric - This is the post is about all we need to know about microservices with actors. Even few patterns are described.
  
• Why Does My SQL Server Availability Group Need a Load Balancer in Azure? (Paul Burpo) - This post is the answer of a very common question and also explains how to do it correctly.
  
• Introducing Microsoft Stream: the secure destination to manage and share videos for businesses of all sizes (James Phillips) - Really exiting news, get started in less than 5 seconds and share video only for the viewer(s) you wish, on any devices, and securely.

Programming

• Exploring a minimal WebAPI with ASP.NET Core - Interesting new series that explores the possibilities with dotnet and different component.

Miscellaneous

• Azure Logic Apps Reaches General Availability (Jeff Hollan) - Exiting news, the availability of so many great features and tool like the LogicApp editor inside VS.
  
• Stop the madness! Ridiculous security scare tactics revealed - Like always, by being informed half the problem is already solved.

Reading Notes #226

Microsoft Build 2016

• Keynote Presentation - Day 1 - The grand opening! All about us: developers.
• Keynote Presentation - Day 2 - The second day opening, with all the details about Azure and Xamarin!
• Build 2016 - So many great presentations, make your own schedule or download them all using the Alex's Script.
• Download All Sessions in SD Quality (Alexandre Brisebois) - With most of the big event comes the Alex's script... very useful!

Cloud

• Using PowerShell to manage API Connections (Kevin Lam _ Microsoft) - Quick tip to do some clean-up in our connections.
  
• Effective ways to delete resources in a resource group on Azure - I love it! Very clever trick to delete all resources in a group but not deleting the group. And so simple.
  
• Brand new Docker Machine for Azure (Ahmet Alp Balkan) - Important notice in this update since it is no backward compatible.
  
• Gartner names Microsoft Azure a leader in aPaaS (Nicole Herskowitz) - Good news, Azure PaaS identified as a leader by Gartner for the third year.

Programming

• Getting to Know #Azure Mobile App Part 2 - Nice post that explains how to setup VSTS and HockeyApp to deploy an Universal application.

Reading Notes #189

Suggestion of the week

• Search enable your applications with Azure Search (Andrei Dzimchuk) - Very interesting introduction, the perfect post to get started with Azure Search.

Cloud

• Moving to Azure DNS (Alexandre Brisebois) - Another awesome post that shows the power of Azure Resource manager and powershell.
  
• Azure : Event Hub A First Look (Sacha Barber) - This post a good introduction to Event Hub. It adds context to the MSDN documentation.
  
• Demystifying Azure Cloud Services – Part 1 (Adarsha Datta) - This post explains very clearly what is an Azure Cloud Services and demystify the common confusion about it.
  
• Auto-update your Azure Site Extension (Zain Rizvi) - Nice tips to simplify the upgrade.

Programming

• How to Compare files in Visual Studio Code ? - Nice tips.
  
• Evolving ASP.NET Apps–Javascript (Simon Timms) - Interesting post that explains how to structure our Javascript code in our solutions.

~Frank

Reading Notes #185

Suggestion of the week

• Building a Monster Virtual Machine on #Azure - Monster exists! Lear how to create an insane Azure VM with PowerShell in this nice tutorial.

Cloud

• Building a Monster Virtual Machine on #Azure - Monster exists! Lear how to create an insane Azure VM with PowerShell in this nice tutorial.
  
• Full-Text Search is now available for preview in Azure SQL Database (Mihaela Blendea) - Fantastic! This feature was missing for a long time.
  
• New DocumentDB Import Options (Stephen Baron) - If you didn't have tried DocumentDB yet, now will be a great time. With the import to that simplify the task... we have now more ways to bring our data in.
  
• BizTalk in Azure Platform as a Service - Fourth post of a series on Biztalk this one explains the fantastic tools we have in this PaaS world.
  
• A Custom DSC Module to Stripe Data Disks on (Alexandre Brisebois) - This post explains how to create Azure VMs with PowerShell using DSC, a new and powerful feature of Azure.

Programming

• Node.js Tools 1.0 on GitHub and VMs Available (Visual Studio Blog) - Very nice tool, if you are doing Nodejs it's a must. Even more since it's now included in the Azure community VMs...

~Frank

Reading Notes #159

Suggestion of the week

• Azure: Redis Cache, Disaster Recovery to Azure, Tagging Support, Elastic Scale for SQLDB, DocDB (asp.net) - Great news features. One of my favorites is not to optimize the production but the ability to attribute tags to resources.

 

Cloud

• Ghost, Node.js, and Azure Websites: Not a Pretty Picture (Shawn Wildermuth) - Interesting... I though it was because I mess something that I got issue last time I update my blog.

• Cloud usage flavors for Development and Test teams - Quick post that enum how a team could use the cloud.

• Comparing Clouds: IaaS Provisioning Experience (Richard Seroter) - Great review of different cloud eco-systems.

• Azure BizTalk Services Introduction for BizTalk Devs (Matt Milner) - Great article that explains how BizTalk works in Zure as PaaS or IaaS.

• What is Azure DocumentDB (Dhananjay Kumar) - This post presents Windows Azure DocumentDB with a lot of screenshots.

 

Programming

• Exciting Things About ASP.NET vNext Series: MVC View Components - This post explores Asp.Net vNext and his View components.

• Raygun.io and ignoring specific Web API exception types (Troy Hunt) - Since web APIs are very common, this post explains how to fix what could be a very common problem.

• Running ASP.NET MVC 6 on Linux - It not as simple as double-click, then next..next...next but it looks like not that hard.

 

Database

• DocumentDB Studio first (beta) release (Vincent-Philippe Lauzon) - Wonderful idea! I can't wait to see the next version with querying capability.

 

Miscellaneous

• Using a Surface Pro 3 full time for two months (Scott Hanselman) - Great post that gives us the pros and cons of the surface pro 3.

~Frank Boucher

Reading Notes #154

 

Suggestion of the week

• New handy Visual Studio extensions - Three great extensions that add this little thing that simplify our life...

Cloud

• Azure Automation: Reliable, Fault-Tolerant Runbook Execution Using Checkpoints (Chris Sanders) - Really interesting and complete post about automation in Azure and how to follow the best practices.
  
• Mostly Cloudy – Sept 5th, 2014 - Really interesting post that resumes the last release of Azure. It also gives a reference for every feature to get more detail.
  
• How do You Like Your Pizzas Delivered? - #Azure #PaaS - A short and simple explanation of what is in the cloud.
  
• Cloud Cover 152: Azure Search with Liam Cavanagh (Channel 9) (Chris Haishi Bai) - A really excellent web episode and a great demo of the new Azure Search.
  
• Making Azure Blob Storage Searchable Using Azure Search Service (Gaurav) - Great tutorial about the new Azure Search with a lot of details. The code is available online.
  
• Writing a Site Extension for Azure Websites (Elliott Hamai) - Great tutorial that explains how to build and test our Site Extention. It also explains how to publish it privately or publicly.
  
• Azure DocumentDB: first use cases (Vincent-Philippe Lauzon) - Interesting post that places the new DocumentDb compares to the other solution in Azure.
  
• Azure DocumentDB: Working with Microsoft's NoSQL Database in the Cloud (Gastón Hillar) - This post is a great tutorial to get started with Azure DocumentDB in C#.
  
• IaaS vs PaaS vs SaaS ? - Nice images to see the differences between each of them.

Programming

• #PowerShell Invoke-RestMethod - the underlying connection was closed - Useful tips to save some headache while developing.
  
• A chatroom for all! Part 1 - Introduction to Node.js - This post is the first tutorial of a series about developing a real application in Node.js and putting it to Azure. In this one, learns how to setup your Windows environment.
  
• Public Data Sources – finding them and using them - Useful post that lists different data sources.
  
• Introduction to Machine Learning Studio - Great article that introduces Machine Learning ML and shows us how to do a simple application in ML Studio...
  
• Two free video courses: Intro to ASP.NET MVC and Responsive UI with Bootstrap - Nice two courses (part of the Microsoft Virtual Academy) about an unavoidable tool these days: Bootsrap.
  
• Integrating OneDrive into Your Windows Store Apps - Excellent post that gets us started with the Live SDK, so we can add One Drive capabilities to all our applications.

Miscellaneous

• Can you hear me now? Unmute your microphone (Scott Hanselman) - This post published a useful tool that we should include in all our meeting description: HowToUnmute.com.
  
• Don't Check Your Email in the Morning (Scott Hanselman) - Who will raise this challenge?
  
• I can't hear you over the sound of how small your fonts are (Aaron Bertrand, JK Wood, lkh, Dandy Weyn BuckWoody) - Quick tips and indispensable tools for all speakers.

~Frank

Reading Notes #127

Suggestion of the week

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

Cloud

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

Programming

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

Databases

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

Integration

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

Miscellaneous

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

Reading Notes #126

Suggestion of the week

• Announcing Reduced Pricing on Storage - How can we be not happy to pay less for a nice service?!
  
• Stupid Azure Trick #2 – How do I create a new Organizational Account on Windows Azure Active Directory without any existing accounts or EA? (Bill Wilder) - Very useful post that could have saved me a lot of time few years back...

Books

• Cloud Architecture Patterns (Bill Wilder) - Very instructive books that explains many different patterns with clear and practical examples. All the patterns presented are also implemented in an application Page of Photos (or PoP for short). A great book that I strongly recommend.

 

Cloud

• Indexes are Crucial on Windows Azure SQL Database! - This post explains very clearly how we can (and should) plan our Azure database to get better performance.
  
• Enough PaaS vs. IaaS: The cloud is really about Services as a Platform (James Urquhart) - Interesting post that expresses opinions on the different cloud s0ervic0es and providers.
  
• Goodbye SkyDrive, Hello OneDrive (David Musgrave) - Time to re-brand for Microsoft... and I think I prefer that new name...
  
• New Poster: Windows Server 2012 R2 Private Cloud Storage and Virtualization (Benjamin Armstrong) - Another of those huge posters.
  
• Google Cloud Platform: Storing Data in Google Cloud Datastore (Ted Neward) - This 6th post of the series describing the Google is focusing on datastore everything is really well explained. All parts were very nice.
  
• New Financial Services Category in the AWS Marketplace - Interesting new product as a service, I know a few people that would be truly interested ;).

Programming

• Code Kata - I love it. I didn't know those kind of websides exists! I will make my visit.

Miscellaneous

• How to speak tech to non-tech people - Interesting tips to improve our talks.
  
• Internet of Things or Thing on the Internet? - Interesting thoughts about today's and tomorrow's the Internet.

~Frank

Reading Notes #83

Suggestion of the week

• Windows Azure IaaS Cmdlets Source Code is Now Available (Michael Washam) - Great! Really good code sample that implements a lot of functionality.
• Windows Azure Virtual Machine and Virtual Hard Disk Management Tool – Can save you Money! (Stephen W. Thomas) - Wow, that a great tool! This post tells you were to find this application, its features and how to use it. Good job.

Cloud

• Creating a Game for the Windows Store (Tyler Doerksen) - Great tutorial that explains how to write your first Windows store application.
• Publishing ASP.NET Web Sites to “Windows Azure Web Sites” Service - Quick overview of the new publish Web Site feature in Visual Studio.
• Global Windows Azure Bootcamp - april 27th (Maarten Balliauw)- Yeah! Are you free on April 27th?
• Want Better Personal Video? Think Underwater Tech And Free Cloud Storage (Michael Chang) - Interesting thoughts about today’s cloud business reality and the future of cloud platform applications.
• Announcing New AWS CloudFormation Deployment Enhancements – Major announcement from Amazon who is directly competing with Windows Azure PaaS.
• Microsoft DevRadio: (Part 11) Practical Azure with Jim O’Neil – Worker Roles (Jim O’Neil) - Nice short video that explains what is a worker role and his purpose.
• Amazon releases beta of application management solution called OpsWorks (Kenneth van Surksum) - Another post about the new AWS service OpsWork.
• Learn Windows Azure Cloud Services from Beginning: a Mini Online Course (Haishi) - Nice series of videos to get started with windows Azure.
• Improving Windows Azure Table Storage query performance (Ki Yi) - Quick post about best practices regarding querying Azure table storage.
• What's New? - Another release of AWS services this week; this one is about CloudFormation: a tool to enhance automatic task on EC2 instance to reduce the downtime when those tasks are to be execute.

Programming

• Why I Write Tests (Jason Whaley) - If you don't understand the benefice of working in TDD, or if you don't know what's the utility of those unit Tests, is post is for you.
• Getting Busy at Script Junkie (Michael Desmond) - Quick review of what have been done since the site has been moved "under" MSDN.
• Windows Store Apps: A Guide for WPF and Silverlight Developers, Part 1 - Nice post that explains the technical particularities and new concept of the "new" Windows RT platform.
• Using Markdown in Sublime Text 2 on Windows - It's nice to see that other people are playing around with these tools.
• You're just another carriage return line feed in the wall (Scott Hanselman) - This post talks about the issue with carriage return and line feed in merge tool... like github.
• Get Rolling With The Readability API (Richard Ziade) - Nice update for the developer's community.

Database

• Has the term "big data" completely lost meaning yet? - Thoughts about the buzz word Big Data.
• SQL SERVER - Shortcut to SELECT only 1 Row from Table - Good idea, I never think of that! So simple.

Miscellaneous

• Teach your kids to be fans (Scott Hanselman) - Good lesson. Today it's simple to send/ publish hard critics about anything... It is also that easy to congratulations... so do it.

~Frank