Reading Notes #534

Good Monday, it's time to share new ReadingNotes. Here is a list of all the articles, podcasts, and blog posts, that catch my interest during the week.

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

Cloud

• Introducing a better way to integrate Azure AD with API Management (Adrian Hall) - Cool, new features for APIM.

• The Life of Sadukie (Sarah Dutkiewicz) - This is a nice tutorial part of a series to build a website. Very well done.

Programming

• 5 new MVC features in .NET 7 (Andrew Lock) - With .NET 7 a few nice features we introduced, and this post list seven of them.

• Entity Framework Core 7 JSON Columns | Mapping | Querying | Updating | Example (Bommidi Naveen) - This post shows a simple mapping done with EF 7. The perfect bite-sized tutorial.

• Get your developer news - Visual Studio Blog (Mads Kristensen) - So many happy developers! After being missing for a few years, the dev news is back and better than ever!

Podcasts

• How to Avoid the Quiet Firing Trend with Dr. Tim Elmore (The EntreLeadership Podcast) - An interesting episode about those rebranded trends and how to avoid them.
• Do I stay or do I go? - Tech career advice with Mekka Williams (Hanselminutes with Scott Hanselman) - There is I believe a generation behavior here, but who's right? Interesting discussion.
• Les exoplanètes à portée d’œil avec le futur télescope James Webb (Fascinant!) - The star is at million of light years, but they managed to say what gaz is present in the atmosphere. Incredebile!
• Hacking APIs with Dana Epp (.NET Rocks!) - While listening to this episode I felt like I needed to put on the hood of my hoodie, take my laptop and go to a dark corner. Very interesting episode.

Miscellaneous

• DasBlog support for WebFinger (Mark Downie) - Interested to integrate your domain to a mastodon server? This post is for you

• Microsoft is adding a quick launcher to PowerToys for easy access to the best Windows utilities (Sofia Wyciślik-Wilson) - Who doesn't like new toys?

~frank

Reading Notes #476

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

• Using App Roles with Azure Active Directory and Blazor WebAssembly Hosted Apps (Marinko Spasojevic) - A nice tutorial that explains step by step the configuration to use AAD with your App.

• Create and link a custom domain to an Azure App Service (pcmichaels) - A very complete post and video that guides us in our custom domain journey.

• Tutorial: Blob backup and restore using Azure Backup via Azure CLI (Srinath Vasireddy) - Cool post that helps to create a script that could automatically backup things on a regular basis for us...

Programming

• Markdown Monster 2.0 is here (Rick Strahl) - Very interesting behind the scene post. It's not because the changes are not really visible that they aren't important. Great work!

• Sure, you could write all those Blazor HTTP calls yourself... (Jon Hilton) - Perfect timing I was looking for something like this for my project.

Podcasts

• Episode 265 (rerun of 216): One-on-ones and inter-team power struggles (Soft Skills Engineering) - Very happy to see tha I'm totally normal! And that I have a good manager. One-on-ones are one of a kind, very interesting episode where both sides are mentionned.

• Azure APIs with Jeff Richter (.NET Rocks!) - A very. I mean VERY interesting episode. Have you ever wonder how updates in Azure are approuved? Then this episode is for you.

• Mental health, music and the wild with Joseph Mulherin (Wild Ideas Worth Living) - Very interesting talk about nature and how it can helps to manage emotions.

• Épisode 98 - La musique qui nous entraîne (Grand écart) - Very cool episode, in French, that could give you pretty interesting sugestions to add to your workout/ run playlist.

Miscellaneous

• 5 learnings as a Product Manager | Humble Bits (Kitty Bhasin) - I really liked this post, and honestly, I think it's useful at any moment of our career.

~Frank

Reading Notes #433

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

• Azure Active Directory login extensions and errors you can come across (Dominique St-Amand) - An excellent post that regroups a few problems you may encounter when using the AAD extension with your VMs.
• Dependency Injection on Azure Functions: 5 Ways Selecting Instance from Instances of Same Interface (justin Yoo) - A very complete tutorial with all the code you need.
• How to incrementally update KeyVault access policies with ARM templates (Stephane Lapointe) - A nice ARM template sample to save our time.
• Implementing Multi-region Deployment and Disaster Recovery in Azure (wely lau) - A nice series of video tutorial that covers multiple different scenarios for our disaster recovery.

Programming

• Add Storage Queue Message (Paul Michaels) - Simple but efficient storage queue wrapper class.
• Do you know the differences between var, let and const in JavaScript? (Casimir) - A great little post that explains very clearly that feature.
• How To Setup Your Local Node.js Development Environment Using Docker (Peter MCKee) - The first part of a series to create a dev environment using Docker.

Podcast

• How Design Makes The World with Scott Berkun (Hanselminutes with Scott Hanselman) - An interesting discussion about design books and how this are thought then built.
• Elise Swopes - iPhone ONLY Artist w/ an UNBELIEVABLE Portfolio (Adobe, Nike, Google AND MORE) (That Creative Life) - So much talent, inspiring podcast... WHen you remove the barriers, we can do so much.
• Digital Security for Humans with Jessy Irwin (Screaming in the Cloud) - Security is so important and this podcast will present this topic in a different and interesting way.
• 476: How to Pivot Quickly, with Steve Blank (Coaching for Leaders) - With 2020, comes a new erra of businesses... True or dare?!
• All Things Azure with Dwayne Monroe (Screaming in the Cloud) - People asked me those questions very often: Why Azure? How did you start? Dwayne's answer is excellent... Great podcast honest and true.

Miscellaneous

• You're tired because your lizard brain knows that Zoom meetings aren't natural (Scott Hanselman) - Yes its a thing, and not just because Scott said so.
• 15 Statistics You Should Know About A Career In UX Design (Ben Aston) - Interesting post that does the tour of the UX job. I wished I had that kind of information on all types of jobs back in the day. If you are considering UX its a must.
• 3 Ways to Customize Your Windows Terminal - Windows Developer Blog (Windows Developer Team) - What!? You are not using the new terminal already... simple, clean, efficient, and easy.
• Windows Terminal Preview 1.1 Release | Windows Command Line (Kayla) - Nice few updates coming our way.

☁

Reading Notes #429

Suggestion of the week

• Git Tag Based Released Process Using GitHub Actions (Calvin A. Allen) - An awesome tutorial to deploy automatically IF certain conditions are met. Plus we got the yaml file.

Cloud

• Building an Azure Static Web App With GraphQL | LINQ to Fail (Aaron Powell) - Oh! Interesting... Reading this you probably, like me, missed the live version. But there is always the video on demand.

Programming

• Download a whole YouTube Playlist at one go - DEV Community 👩‍💻👨‍💻 (Trideep Barik) - Nice little python tutorial to automate tasks.

• GitKraken Git GUI How-To: Add & Remove Files (Calvin A. Allen) - Nice post that describes some very useful operation on git using the graphic interface provided by Git Kraken.

• Login and use an ASP.NET Core API with Azure AD Auth and user access tokens (Damien Bowden) - Nice tutorial to use Azure AD between an Asp.Net App and an API.

• OAuth 2.0 with GitHub in ASP.NET Core - Simple Talk (Diogo Souza) - A nice tutorial that guides us in a complex world.

• Remote Debugging .NET Containers (Karol Deland) - A nice tutorial that explains clearly first the difference between remote and local debugging and then explains how to do it.

• Using MongoDB With ASP.NET Core Web API (Munib Butt) - A great tutorial from .Net Core to Mongo in a snap

Podcast

• Social Friendships and Internet Creativity with Cassidy Williams (Hanselminutes with Scott Hanselman) - A refreshing episode, simple and true. Isn't it the base of a real friendship?!

• 472: How to Run an Online Meeting, with Bonni Stachowiak (Coaching for Leaders) - I'm always surprised and a bit disappointed when I realize that this topic or those best practices are not well known. An episode to share :)

Miscellaneous

• Screen Sharing with an Ultrawide Monitor (Kenny Lowe) - Really interesting post.As I think about getting a new screen and heard bad experiences sharing ultrawide screens this look like a nice solution.

Book

Vlog Like a Boss - How to Kill It Online with Video Blogging

Author: Amy Schmittauer Landino

An interesting book that shares the best practices about making videos today. How to plan, record, edit... What to do and not do. A quick, direct to the point and complete tutorial to get started. This book was done like today's videos.

~enjoy.

Reading Notes #428

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

• Azure AD Secured Serverless Cosmos DB from Blazor WebAssembly ( Jeremy Likness) - Great post that really explains how those pieces can work very well together.
• Creating an Azure Function from the Command Line (Jason N. Gaylord) - A nice tutorial that helps us to get started.

Programming

• Multiple Environments in ASP.NET Core (Code Maze) - Nice Asp.Net MVC tutorial.
• ASP.NET Core Series: Blazor (Jeremy Likness, Dan Roth) - Nice video to get started with Blazor.
• Developing on Docker with the new and improved Visual Studio Container Tools (and WSL2) (Scott Hanselman) - A great example that shows how easier it is now to start working with containers on Windows.
• Unit Testing in ASP .NET Core 3.1 (Shahed C) - A nice post that shows how to get started with xUnit the voted most popular test framework.

Miscellaneous

• APIs in the 2020s Panel (.NET Rocks!) - A virtual panel of awesome speakers that talked about API, REST, GraphQL, oData and so more. Lovely episode.
• 471: How to Say No Without Saying No, with Lois Frankel (Coaching for Leaders) - Saying No... being open. Really interesting topic. I put Lois Frankel: Nice Girls Don’t Speak Up or Stand Out in my to read list, that book maybe written for women in mind, but I think it is really interesting.
• Leveraging Our Emotional Goals (Developer Tea) - An interesting episode that talk about goals and what we need to do (or not) to achieved them.
• 203: Updating Open Source Projects (https://castbox.fm/episode/203%3A-Updating-Open-Source-Projects-id2117504-id267802246) - As I just create my first version in one of my open-source project I found the topic more than interesting... Thank you, great show.

Miscellaneous

• 20 productivity tools for the Linux terminal (Alan Smithee) - Cool app to try for our terminal.
• How to Stop Windows 10 Updates (5 Methods) (Mohammed Siddiqui) - I think you should only prevent auto-update when you really know what you are doing. Updates are easy to forget and therefore your PC could be at risk. That said, sometime it could really be a must.5misc.windows.update]
• Mirroring your Presence Status from the Microsoft Graph in Teams to LIFX or Hue bias lighting (Scott Hanselman) - Did this post just created new needs?! And you should check the keynote video linked to this post it was really a good one.

Books

  The Impossible First: From Fire to Ice—Crossing Antarctica Alone

  Author: Colin O'Brady

  An incredible adventure yes around the globe, but more important over the personal limits. I found this book very inspiring. I felt following him across the Antarctica... In the blizzard or in those deep moment. Great memoir, great adventure.

~enjoy!

 

Reading Notes #424

Suggestion of the week

• Microsoft Build 2020 registration is not only open, it's FREE, it's LIVE, it's VIRTUAL, and it is all FOR YOU (Scott Hanselman) - Amazing news right?! Who doesn't needs some good news... I will see you there!

Cloud

• Microsoft’s Making Azure AD SSO “Free” (Brad Sams ) - That's an excellent news Azure Active Directory for everyone!

Programming

• Blazor WebAssembly 3.2.0 Release Candidate now available (Daniel Ruth) - We are getting closer now... I didn't have the time to try the last preview!
• Announcing Entity Framework Core 5.0 Preview 3 | .NET Blog (Jeremy Likness) - Awesome I'm looking forward to trying the final version. But in the meantime... why not try it.
• Blazor - Changing the title without JavaScript (Jimmy Engström) - A nice tutorial that shows how to go over certain boundaries in Blazor.
• Clean Coding in C# - Part I (Calvin A. Allen) - A great little post packed with 200% of wisdom.
• How to Integrate Unit Testing with ASP.NET Core 3.1 (Vijayaraj Angappan) - A very clear tutorial that explains how to use Moq and NUnit 2 great tools.
• Markdown .NET Core Library (Jason N. Gaylord) - That looks nice! And it's in .Net!
• Tips, tricks, hacks, and secrets from Alyson La (Alyson La) - A nice little list of pro tips...perfect to get started, or push forward if you are already a git user.

Podcasts

• 465: How to Lead a Virtual Team, with Susan Gerke (Coaching for Leaders) - Nice show. It doesn't matter if you are a manager or just that you work in a remote team, there nice tips.

Miscellaneous

• Visual Studio Codespaces (Nik Molnar) - I really like the new name I think it says more about what it is. And seriously how can I not like the new price! Less than 2$/day for a machine!

Reading Notes #364

Cloud

• Azure Automation of A-to-Z, Part I (dbakevlar)
  - This is a great post very instructive, that explains how and why we should structure our scripts.
• Azure Policies (Gregor Suttie) - One of the best tools to he
  lp us with the governance in Azure is the policies. This post is a nice introduction to how it could help.
• Setting Up Azure Key Vault w
  ith an Azure Website (Web API) (Luis Valencia) - This is the second post of a very instructive series, and this time it focuses on Keyvault.

Programming

• Debug your live apps running in Azure Virtual Machines and Azure Kubernetes (Visual Studio Blog) - Nice addition to the rem
  ote debugger experience
• How to set up Gatsby and Auth0 for easy authentication on your next project -
  A geek with a hat (Swizec Teller ) - Cool post that shows how to implement an auth authentification within a static website.
• Top 5 Open Source Features i
  n Azure Pipelines (Edward Thomson) - Learn why the Azure DevOps Pipelines are so great in this post about the evolution of an opensource
  project.

Miscellaneous

• A Few Coding Patterns with the MongoDB C# API (Julie Lerman
  ) - An instructive post about how to use MongoDB.
• If You Think “Digital Transformation” is About Kubernet
  es, You’re Wrong (Richard Seroter,) - Interesting thoughts, looking forward to read what's next.
• Why Containers are a Game Changer for Software Development (Mike Hadlow) - Very interesting
  post about containers and the raise of gitOps.

~

Reading Notes #173

Suggestion of the week

• Building Your Resume Like a Boss with CI (Steven Edouard) - I had so much fun playing with this…

Cloud

• Azure Data Factory Updates: Diagram View Enhancements (Gaurav Malhotra) - Really good work from Azure Data Factory team here, those changes are amazing.
  
• Enabling WP CLI in Azure Websites - Nice post that introduces some Azure WebSite Extension, and plays with Kudu.
  
• How to enable a Site Extension in Azure Websites - Nice post that explains the power of the Azure website extension.
  
• Get Started with the Enterprise Mobility Suite in Minutes (Simon May) - Nice post that gives a lot of very useful informations.
  
• Connecting on-premises Active Directory to Azure AD can give your org these 5 great advantages (Simon May) - Perfect pst to understand how azure active directory could be the perfect extension you are missing…
  
• Saving #Azure Resource Manager Templates to JSON files on disk (Alexandre Brisebois) - Useful post, learn how to manage your Azure resources…

Books

C# Tips
By Jason Roberts
Publisher: Leanpub
Released: December 2014

This book it undoubtedly for people who already know C#. If you want to learn C# by doing the best practices, I would strongly suggest to start with something else. However, if you already know how to code, and you want to improve your, or got this little plus; this book is a must.

It’s not a very big book, but all the zones are covered. It’s split into three parts. The first one will provides many good this to improve the performance of your code, customizes your debug experience, and more. The second part will focus on the very useful design patterns that we should all have in our back pocket. Finally, the third and last section introduces tools and frameworks (NUnits, Moq, etc.) to facilitate your work.

I would definitely recommend this book to any developer. The book is available in all the digital format for free, but if you like it consider giving a donation. :)

Miscellaneous

• Finding an Invisible NAS on a Network (Alexandre Brisebois) - I like those stories where people, like us, learn something the “hard way” , and share their fresh experience.

~Frank Boucher