Reading Notes #70

Cloud

• Let's see : Attach an Azure blob drive in windows 7. (Nicolas Dorier) - A lot of information in this post where Nicolas Dorier explain how he pass through all the problems.
• New Powershell command line goodies for Windows Azure at #bldwin (Glenn Block) - This post explains some of the new features in the last release of Azure Powershell cmdlets.
• A tool to simplify and automate your SQL Azure database backup - Make backup is so important that it shouldn’t be human related. Here are some tools to help you reaching this goal.
• Disaster and the Cloud - An actual story about how the cloud helps in a disaster recover situation.
• Why should a startup use Windows Azure? (Shaymaa A) - If you are in a start-up bookmark this short post, because it's the perfect page to get started with BizSpark.
• Windows Azure: Automated UI testing using the power of cloud (Anuj Chaudhary) - Nice deep dive in a test case scenario using Windows Azure around the globe.
• Here's What's New with Windows Azure (Bill Hilf) - Recap of the Windows Azure related news at the //Build event.
• The Developer Movement & Windows Azure (Marc Gagné) - Goodies alert! How to get 3000 points and some great goodies...
• Manu Cohen-Yashar's Blog - I did search where the old portal link was... here is the answer.
• Microsoft Access 2013: A Cool New Rapid Development Tool for the Cloud (Gregory Leake) - Great news about Office 2014 and really nice way to use Azure...
• Top 5 Cool New Things with Windows Azure Web Sites (Nir Mashkowski) - Nice walkthrough the last new features of Windows Azure Website.
• Continuous Deployment with Windows Azure Websites and Bitbucket - Nice since I also use Bitbucket for some of my personal projects... I looking forward to try this!
• Announcing: New System Views for Windows Azure SQL Database (Gregory Leake) - Good news about the Azure SQL database, it's now possible to query the even log and views.
• Un voyage vers le cloud sur Windows Azure présenté par Matricis Informatique - Présentation en français sur Windows Azure a Montréal.

Programming

• The Hanselminutes Podcast - Loud and clear. The best description of what is TypeScript and why I should start using it.
• What's New? (amazon.com) - Nice update for DynamoDB.
• SSDT Team at PASS Summit - List of the presentation about SSDT at the PASS Summit.
• Reactive Extensions (Rx) is now Open Source (Scott Hanselman) - Learn more about Rx and is new open source status.
• TypeScript - Tutorial (typescriptlang.org) - Directly from the official TypeScript website, this tutorial get you up and ready in a few. Well explain. And a really nice repl page.

Integration

• BizTalk Server 2013 BETA (Saravana Kumar) - A lot of people was seeing it dead, but BizTalk 2013 is stronger than ever with a lot of the great improvement and new features... be ready!

Miscellaneous

• Infographics Are Hot, Your Boring Data Is Not (Janine Popick) - It's a fact that it's a lot easier to understand data with a visual support, this post points out 5 tools to help.
• Your Employee Is an Online Celebrity. Now What Do You Do? (Alexandra Samuel) - Witch question should be questions should be asked to validate if the co-existence between co-branded employee and the company.
• A retrospective of an unproductive day - Nice tips to feel better in those days when you feel like you did nothing...

Reading Notes #65

Cloud

• Cloning Windows Azure Virtual Machines - Nice post. Very well explain through the Azure portal.
• Microsoft Cloud Analysis Tool and Infrastructure Optimization Tool (JD Meier) – Nice presentation of the tool all in image.
• Use strategy pattern to support cloud storage (Henry He) - Interesting pattern to support both on-premise and cloud storage. A demo is available.
• Using Azure Web Sites to market your Windows App - Good sample of how Windows Azure Website can be used. Quick, easy and free!
• Why Hyper-V? (New Whitepaper) - Short introduction about hyper-v and reference on good link.
• AWS Free Usage Tier Now Includes Amazon RDS - Nice news, a relational database for free!
• 5 things healthcare organizations must know before moving to the cloud - Nice checklist before left-off
• Startups, BizSpark & Windows Azure – Better Together! (Marc Gagné) - Details about who can be in BizSpark and how.
• Windows Azure In-Role Caching - Great article that that dive dipper than usual post about Azure Cache.
• What’s the benefit of the cloud? - Quick opinion post about what the "real" benefit of the cloud and I agree.... but I still think that you can save money, gain speed and stability.

Programming

• You Can Tell a Lot About Developers From Their Scratchpads (Erik Dietrich) - Interesting post about what your dummy application can tell about you.
• Enabling code coverage on TFS 2012—it’s easy (David Scruggs) - Nice quick tip.

• Five Things to Know When Designing a Windows 8 App - Interesting post that review some of the change brought by windows 8 and is wind of change for developer mainly for UI.
• Difference Between IEnumerable and IQueryable (Nischal Bhatt) - A very nice tutorial that explain simplify the difference between those two important interfaces.
• A Few New OData Things of Interest (Glenn Gailey) - New features of oData and reference link to get started.
• The Art of Unit Testing Reviewed - This book is in to read stack and just get bring back to the top. Good review.
• Amazon Simple Email Service Announces Mailbox Simulator - Could be very useful.
• New SSDT Power Tools! Now for both Visual Studio 2010 and Visual Studio 2012 - Wow a must for all developers. This update is really nice and it will save a lot of trouble.
• Web Page Redirects on Amazon S3 Hosted Websites - Good idea.

Integration

• Opinions about BizTalk360 from the experts (Saravana Kumar) - Great way to learn more about how nice is Biztalk360.

Miscellaneous

• Rise to the Modern App Challenge - So much event across all the Canada in English AND French!
• Good Blogs Take Time (Darren Rowse) - Oooh I known. But it's also fun!
• The new Microsoft (Eric Brec) - A very enthusiastic opinion from the inside about the new Microsoft.
• 3 Signs That You Are Stressed Out (And How To Fix It) (Tom Searcy) - I lithe quote.

[…]"When my sock drawer is perfectly folded, sorted and lined up, I know that I am out of control in my life." […]

• Picture This (Simon) - Great application available on all mobile device and desktop.
• Brain Droppings - A lot of funny thoughts that make my morning...
• 9 Things You Wish Job Candidates Knew (Jeff Haden) - Great tips to be prepare at you’re next interview. This post gives useful information to be reading winning a job, a contract, a fun project, etc.
• Dropbox Now Helps Team Admins Get Everyone To Turn On Two-Step Verification (Drew Olanoff) - Great news from Dropbox. And a new Rss feed to add to my list.
• The Story of the New Microsoft.com - Good ready it's nice to follow how those great projects become what they are.

~Frank