Reading Notes #551

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

• Microsoft Cost Management updates—March 2023 (Michael Flanakin) - Because we all need it and or worry about it. Learn the new features that are available for you in the cost management.

• Azure Spring Clean: Compliance for Bicep with Checkov (Sam Cogan) - That's a pretty cool tool to add to our box. I need to get that onto my pipeline...like now!

• Logic Apps Aviators Newsletter - April 2023 (Kent Weare) - One of my friends shared this with me, and I loved it! It's packed with information about new features, and upcoming events...

• This Month in Azure Container Apps: March/April 2023 (Anthony Chu) - I caught the live stream by pure chance and they pass through all the news contained in the post. Very happy to see Azure Container App growing so quickly!

Programming

• Run dotnet core projects without opening visual studio (Karthik Chintala) - Yes, it is possible and even fun! I code in VSCode 80% of the time.

• How to Do an Inner Join in LINQ? (Code Maze) - Nice post to get started about relations between tables type of joints and of course how to do it with LINQ.

• Running .NET Console Apps in Azure Container Instances (Mark Heath) - A neat way to run an application in the cloud. Have a special look at how the secret config is managed to avoid pushing them into the code repository.

Podcast

• Let's Chat About AI (Ep 76) (Community Pulse) - Extremely interesting episode about AI. Should we be worried, what would be the impact? So many great questions asked.
• 54. Cloud native and the Container landscape on Azure - with Daniel Paulus (Betatalks the podcast) - A little bit about the container's history, its present, and potential future.
• Chris Sainty: Blazor in Action - Episode 238 (Azure DevOps Podcast) - I already like Blazor, but I think you will also after listening to this episode.
• Down A Rabbit Hole with Seth Godin (A Bit of Optimism) - Great episode is about many different little things to make life better. You can feel the complicity between Seth and Simon.
• Windows WSL and Containers in 2023 (DevOps and Docker Talk) - WSL what it is and why people say it's so useful. All that and more in this episode.

Miscellaneous

• Technical Writing 101: Working with SMEs - Big Nerd Ranch (Cole Henry) - effectively.

~frank

Reading Notes #432

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

• Simplifying declarative deployments in Azure (Mark Russinovich) - Great new features that will speed up and simplify our writing time.

Programming

• Parse Markdown Front Matter With C# (Khalid Abuhakmeh) - A nice post that shows the code to parse a Jekyll blob post file in c#
• Learning and relearning Docker commands (Mark Downie) - A nice short post that lists common commands.
• Run Azure Container Instances from the Docker CLI (Thomas Maurer) - Wow, that kind of crazy cool! Pulling and a container instant directly from the native CLI...I love it.
• Using the Blockly visual programming editor to call a .NET Core WebAPI (Scott Hanselman) - Really cool open source project on GitHub.

Podcasts

• 205: Monetization (Merge Conflict) - Nice discussion about the ads in an APP, why we want them why we don't...
• #44: Jen Looper - Women in Tech and Developer Evangelism (The Solo Coder Podcast) - Another great episode of Solo Coder. This time I new the guest, but nevertheless I learn something.
• How to Think Like a Boss with Kate Crocco (Influencer Entrepreneurs with Jenny Melrose) - Creating, building feeling good in a business while being a parent is hard.
• .NET Multi-Platform App UI with Scott Hunter (.NET Rocks!) - Great episode that summarize, tease, and share about everything dotnet.
• 081: Microsoft Certified DevOps Engineer (AZ-400) (CloudSkills.fm) - After the revamping of the exams, it was very interesting to ear about Az400. I like DevOps, so that an exam on that path.
• Inside Doist - The Bootstrapped Market Leader (Software Engineering Unlocked) - A very interesting discussion with a an great creator.

Books

Add caption

Title: Badass: Making Users Awesome 

Author: Kathy Sierra 

ISBN: 9781491919019

I took me about one year to read that book. Way longer then it should. It was a good book and it is really easy to read. Maybe it's the fact that it was a "real" book and not in my kindle? But I think it was the format. This book look like a comic book with a director cut. There those little story bubbles and there is the text. The content is amazing, but I felt like I was always losing the vibe while transitioning to the text, or the bubbles. 

However, the book is really great

Reading Notes #381

Suggestion of the week

• Running a Minecraft Server in Azure Container Instances (Mark Heath) - A cool real-life story where Azure Container Instance ACI is very useful.

Cloud

• Automating Azure Container Instances with PowerShell Azure Functions (Mark Heath) - Cool schedule Azure functions demo with PowerShell.
• 
  Deploy a scalable API and Backend with Serverless, Express, and Node.js (Bryan Killian) - A nice tutorial that explains how to build efficient APIs using lambda.

Programming

• Docker - from the beginning, Part IV (Chris Noring) - Part 4 of 5 this series is still a great read. This one shows the transition to docker compose.
• 
  Postman 7.1: Manage your APIs within Postman (Nikita) - So many great features are present in the new version. This post is the perfect quick overview.

Miscellaneous

• 
  Presentation Tips for Technical Talks (Tanya Janca) - This post is filled with great and simple tips that will for sure improve the experience of your attendees and ours.
• 
  Using The Microsoft Face API to Create Mario Kart “Astrology” (Chloe Condon) - Funny project that leverages the Azure cognitive services and python. How cool is that!

Books

Barking Up the Wrong Tree: The Surprising Science Behind Why Everything You Know About Success Is (Mostly) Wrong 

Author: Eric Barker

Nice book. There is always a good story to make a correlation with his current point. Then it could go in a different direction with another story. All the stories are complementary and are adding layer by layer to the more complex message that is delivered to us. Easy to read, enjoyable from the beginning until the last word.

How to create an Azure Container Instance (ACI) with .Net Core

For a project I just started, I need to create Azure resources from code. In fact, I want to create an Azure Container Instance. I already know how to create a container from Logic Apps and Azure CLI/PowerShell, but I was looking to create it inside an Azure Function. After a quick research online, I found the Azure Management Libraries for .NET (aka Fluent API) a project available on Github that do just that (and so much more)!
In this post, I will share with you how this library work and the result of my test.

The Goal

For this demo, I will create a .Net Core console application that creates an Azure Containter Instance (ACI). After it should be easy to take this code and migrate to an Azure Function or anywhere else.

The Console Application

Let's create a simple console application with the following command: dotnet new console -o AzFluentDemo cd AzFluentDemo dotnet add package microsoft.azure.management.fluent The last command will use the nuget package available online an add it to our solution. Now we need a service principal so our application could access the Azure subscription. A since way to create one is the use Azure CLI az ad sp create-for-rbac --sdk-auth > my.azureauth This will create an Active Directory (AD) Service Principal (SP) and write the content into the file my.azureauth. Perfect, now open the solution, for this kind of project, I like to use Visual Studio Code so code . will do the work for me. Replace the content of the Program.cs file by the following code.

using System;
using Microsoft.Azure.Management.Fluent;
using Microsoft.Azure.Management.ResourceManager.Fluent;
using Microsoft.Azure.Management.ResourceManager.Fluent.Core;
namespace AzFluentDemo
{
    class Program
    {
        static void Main(string[] args)
        {
            string authFilePath = "/home/frank/Dev/AzFluentDemo/my.azureauth";
            string resourceGroupName  = "cloud5mins";
            string containerGroupName = "frank-containers";
            string containerImage  = "microsoft/aci-helloworld";
            // Set Context
            IAzure azure = Azure.Authenticate(authFilePath).WithDefaultSubscription();
            ISubscription sub;
            sub = azure.GetCurrentSubscription();
            Console.WriteLine($"Authenticated with subscription '{sub.DisplayName}' (ID: {sub.SubscriptionId})");
            // Create ResoureGroup
            azure.ResourceGroups.Define(resourceGroupName)
                .WithRegion(Region.USEast)
                .Create();
            // Create Container instance
            IResourceGroup resGroup = azure.ResourceGroups.GetByName(resourceGroupName);
            Region azureRegion = resGroup.Region;
            // Create the container group
            var containerGroup = azure.ContainerGroups.Define(containerGroupName)
                .WithRegion(azureRegion)
                .WithExistingResourceGroup(resourceGroupName)
                .WithLinux()
                .WithPublicImageRegistryOnly()
                .WithoutVolume()
                .DefineContainerInstance(containerGroupName + "-1")
                    .WithImage(containerImage)
                    .WithExternalTcpPort(80)
                    .WithCpuCoreCount(1.0)
                    .WithMemorySizeInGB(1)
                    .Attach()
                .WithDnsPrefix(containerGroupName)
                .Create();
            Console.WriteLine($"Soon Available at http://{containerGroup.Fqdn}");
        }
    }
}

In the first row, I declare a few constants. The path of the service principal created earlier, resource group name, the container group name, and the image I will use. For this demo aci-helloworld. Then we get access with the Azure.Authenticate. Once we got access, it's y easy and the intellisense is fantastic! I don't think I need to explain the rest of the code as it already self-explanatory.

Got an Error?

While running you main in contour an error message complaining about the namespace not being registered or something like that ( I'm sorry I did not note the error message). You only need to register it with the command:

az provider register --namespace Microsoft.ContainerInstance

It will take a few minutes. To see if it's done you can execute this command:

az provider show -n Microsoft.ContainerInstance --query "registrationState" 

Wrap it up

And voila! If you do a dotnet run after a minute or two, you will have a new web application running inside a container available from http://frank=containers.eastus.azurecontainer.io. It's now very easy to take that code and bring it to an Azure Function or in any .Net Core Application that runs anywhere (Linux, Windows, Mac Os, web, containers, etc.)!

In a video, please!

I also have a video of this post if you prefer.

References

• Azure Management Libraries for .NET

~

Reading Notes #330

Cloud

• Integrating ACI with other Azure services (Mark Heath) - Great post and source of tons of also good references.
• Securing an Azure App Service Website under SSL in minutes with Let's Encrypt (Scott Hanselman) - Really cool tutorial AND info about Free certification that you can automatically install... on Azure. Well it possible elsewhere, it's just not explained in this post.;)

Programming

• .NET Core 2.1 and AWS | Amazon Web Services (Norm Johanson) - AWS, containers, .Net Core all together to make your code sits where ever you like. Pretty useful.
• Effective bundling with ASP.NET MVC (Gunnar Peipman) - Nice post about the bundling process in our asp.net MVC application.
• New Updates for Azure Development in Visual Studio (Visual Studio Team) - Great update to the tooling that makes our life easier... Or at least that reduce (a lot) the pain when starting and deploying a project.
• Some tricks I learned recording & publishing an educational video every day for 30 days - A geek with a hat (Swizec Teller) - I really liked that series and I learned tons of stuff while watching it about React of course but also about how to present technical tutorial and make them interesting to watch. Great work buddy!

Data

• Apply a Filter to a Slicer (Mike Carlo) - Sooooo useful. If you don't know how to do it (yet), just watch the video, you'll thanks me later.

Miscellaneous

• How to Become a Successful Technical Speaker (Daniela Petruzalek) - Interesting and motivating post about how to get prepared and how to learn.
• Pwned Passwords in Practice: Real World Examples of Blocking the Worst Passwords (Troy Hunt) - Incredibly Useful tool that helps us all to stay secure and also check if we are compromised.

Reading Notes #318 - MVP Summit 2018

Last week, it was the 25 edition of the MVP Summit. An event, where Microsoft invites all his MVP to get to Seattle and spend some time with the products teams and learn on the latest news and best practices.

This year was particularly inspiriting by the Microsoft roadmap, of course,  but even more by all the amazing people a got the chance to meet and discuss with. I'm all pump-up, and I have tons of ideas and projects… more to come.

I already miss you…

Cloud

• Deploy Docker containers fast to Microsoft Azure (Michelangelo van Dam) - This is an excellent tutorial to get started with Docker and also to see what's possible with Azure Container Instance service (ACI).
• Testing Precompiled Azure Functions Locally with Storage Emulator -- Visual Studio Magazine (Jason Roberts) - Nice post that explains how to use the emulator.

Programming

• ASP.NET Identity for your custom user and roles models (Dominique St-Amand) - A nice detailed tutorial that explains clearly how to setup the identity with .Net Core.
• Upgrading a 10 year old site to ASP.NET Core's Razor Pages using the URL Rewriting Middleware (Scott Hanselman) - True upgrade story, I loved it.
• Upgrading my podcast site to ASP.NET Core 2.1 in Azure plus some Best Practices (Scott Hanselman) - Nice second post about a migration passing through today's best practices.

Reading Notes #298

Cloud

• Yo Team, meet Azure Container Instances (Donovan Brown) - Yep now Yo Team support ACL. This post also shares how quickly get your container IP address.
• #LogicApps – Introduction and main differences with Microsoft Flow #MSFlow | El Bruno on WordPress.com (El Bruno) - Great post that gives a very clear view of the differences... Now I have a post to refer to when people are asking me that.
• .NET Rocks! Azure Event Grid with Dan Rosanova (Carl Franklin, Richard Campbell) - I really liked that episode with Dan. It was nice listening to him talking an making reference to Biztalk and Logic App.
• Azure Functions and Lazy Initialization with Couchbase Server (Matthew Groves) - Nice hack, that could potentially save a lot of initialization if the function is called often.
• Azure Tips and Tricks Part 20 - Working with Files in Azure App Service (Michael Crump) - I'm always impressed by how many people don't know Kudu. Well, if it's your case, this post is for you... at least to get started.
• How to import a Postman collection into your Azure API Management – SANDRO PEREIRA BIZTALK BLOG (Sandro Pereira) - Pretty useful tips that import process.

Programming

• OpenAPI is not what I thought (Darrel Miller ) - I hear you my friend, loud and clear. Let's use OpenAPI the way it should be. Very interesting post for an inside man sharing his thoughts about the purpose of the tool.
• Serverless and Auth0 Webtasks, hop on the bullet train (Glenn Block) - Cool tool in the Node.js world.
• What is a Default Parameter in a JavaScript function? | Dhananjay Kumar on WordPress.com (Dhananjay Kumar) - Aaaah Javascript so powerful but at the same time so demanding.
• What would a cross-platform .NET UI Framework look like? Exploring Avalonia (Scott Hanselman) - I didn't know where WPF came from, and it's interesting to see the open-source project inspired other projects and to see that they continue to evolve.

Miscellaneous

• #222: Patrick Lencioni—Getting Hiring Right (EntreLeadership Team) - It was my first episode of this podcast, but definitely not the last one. Very interesting speakers... nice books referenced... loved it.
• Why Your Boss Makes You Punch a Time Clock (Suzanne Lucas Suzanne Lucas is a freelance writer who spent 10 years in corporate human resources, where she hired, fired, managed the numbers, and double-checked with t) - Most of us have to do timesheets... I'm sure that at one point, you asked yourself the reason about it. It's time read an answer, in this post.

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.