Reading Notes #612

In this week’s Reading Notes, we explore cloud debugging, .NET Aspire, and more. Join us for insights, workshops, and podcasts covering a range of exciting topics! 🚀

 
Sharing my Reading Notes 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.

 

Cloud

• GalaSoft Laurent Bugnion (Laurent Bugnion) - Nice post debugging investigating a bug, that cannot be reproduce locally only in the cloud.... But with the right tools it's much easier.

Programming

• Let's Learn .NET Aspire - Start your cloud-native journey live! - .NET Blog (James Montemagno) - The .NET Aspire workshop is been deliver in many languages and available online. To learn what it is, when should we use it and how it works, join a live session or watch it on demand.

• Exploring docker compose watch in Visual Studio Code (Julie Lerman) - That looks fantastic! And thanks to Julia we will avoid a few gotchas.

• Simplify Your .NET Aspire Caching With Metalama (Metalama Team) - 2 great tools in synergy make the result so much better. This nice post is good to get us started on caching.

• Join Us for .NET Aspire Developers Day – Elevate Your Cloud Native Skills! - .NET Blog (Mehul Harry) - July 23 - Check the date there will be a .NET Aspire event with more advanced stuff like building custom components and more.

• Why and How to Execute GraphQL Queries in .NET (Frank Boucher) - Shameless plug... Did you know GraphQL could improve the performance of your application by avoiding over fetching?

• Apprendre .NET Aspire en français (Frank Boucher) - Another shameless plug for French content this time. I did a 1h45 long video where I explain the basic of .NET Aspire by doing a workshop and providing details.

Podcasts

• Martin Hinshelwood: Migration Azure DevOps Server to the Cloud - Episode 302 (Azure DevOps Podcast) - Interesting episode about migrations and how to approach them. Because so many stories start by a migration.
• GitHub Evolving with Damian Brady (.NET Rocks!) - Great episode to learn all things GitHub... and these days that mean a lot.
• 416: Going Light + How Spatial Video Really Works (Merge Conflict) - Great episode. Is going with two phone is going light however? Hhmmmm...
• Episode 287: Why You As A Developer Must Care About Managing Your APIs (Web Rush) - The 1M questions episode! Answers are optional because the fun is about being curious... right?
• Mitch Denny: .NET Aspire Architecture - Episode 304 (Azure DevOps Podcast) - Learn more about .NET Aspire what it is, because yes it's hard to explain, and what's the road map.
• How to finally have that dreaded conversation (Modern Mentor) - Yes it's hard, but pause, and do those talks.

Miscellaneous

• What is platform engineering? (Julia Kulla-Mader, Chuck Lantz) - Platform engineering is gaining in popularity, but what ibis really. This article gives a good explanation to start our learning journey.

Reading Notes #327

Cloud

• Create Azure Functions using Visual Studio and deploy it to Azure (Abhijit Jana) - Nice little visual studio tutorial to create an Azure Function.
• Why you should use Durable Functions sub-orchestrations (Mark Heath) - Nice post.A lot of very useful pieces of information.
• Yes you can! develop on AWS using .NET (Dror Helper) - This post is a great invitation for .Net developers to try AWS.

Programming

• Announcing .NET Core 2.1 RC 1 Go Live AND .NET Core 3.0 Futures (Scott Hanselman) - The future with .Net Core looks very promising, learn why in this post.
• Using LazyCache for clean and simple .NET Core in-memory caching (Scott Hanselman) - New post in the series where Scott shares with us things he try while refactoring his website.I loved it.
• Web Performance Optimization is Simple 5535756836 - Can Your Developers Execute? 5535657166 (Chris Love) - Interesting post, learn from true stories. Simple thing can make a big difference.

Databases

• Azure SQL Database Table Partitioning Example (John Miner) - Wow, this post is a very completed tutorial that provides all steps and explanations.

Miscellaneous

• Ask Tim - Should I say "I Don't Know" to an Interviewer? (Tim Corey) - Great post. I apply this no bullshit rules to all my conversation.
• Five Things That Every Leader Could Use to be a Better Leader (Joan Pepin) - Interesting post about leadership and how we grow with our challenges.

Books

• The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck (Mark Manson) -Damn it's good!
  The title of the book let's me thought it will be very negative. Not giving a fu#*... But it's really not. Quite the opposite in fact. I really like the book and I'm planning to read/listen it another time in... One year. To see what changed.
  

Reading Notes #277

Cloud

• Azure Functions Tools Roadmap (Andrew B Hall) - Interesting post that explains why we should prefer the Azure function template over the VS2015 tooling.
• Monitoring errors in Azure WebJobs with the ErrorTrigger extension (Vivien Chevallier) - Nice tutorial, with the full solution available on Github, that explains how to catch the error in our Azure webjobs.
• Unmasking your swagger with proxies in Azure Functions (Shayne Boyer) - This post explains how to use Azure functions Proxy to improve the developers' experience.
• Use a container to show your function swagger (Shayne Boyer) - Nice quick tutorial to get a more professional structure easily.

Programming

• Dockerizing Nerd Dinner: Part 1, Running a Legacy ASP.NET App in a Windows Container (Elton Stoneman) - Interesting walkthrough where a legacy application is packaged in a Docker container.
• Dockerizing Nerd Dinner: Part 2, Connecting ASP.NET to SQL Server (Elton Stoneman) - Second step in a great tutorial that goes further than the usual hello word, showing how to migrate an application into a multi-container solution.
• Easy data generation with Faker.Data (Guy Barrette) - A quick introduction to a nice little gem that saves us a lot of time.
• Getting Started With Chart.js: Line and Bar Charts (Monty Shokeen) - I've use Chart.js in a project recently, and should I had this great tutorial would have saved me a lot of time.
• Using memory cache in ASP.NET Core (Gunnar Peipman) - Great quick tutorial to know how to setup cache and distributed cache (required in cloud solution).

Miscellaneous

• Bots are the new Apps – Part 2 (Alexandre Brisebois) - This post asks a lot of questions. .Bots are could be very powerful but are they easy to build? Iterate, test, fail, learn, and try again.

Reading Notes #253

Suggestion of the week

• Why Can’t I View My Power BI Content Pack?  - This post is a big slice of answers, spiced with experience and a touch of wisdom.

Cloud

• Azure Managed Cache and In-Role Cache Service shutdown reminder (Ye Gu) - In less than two weeks your solution could be in big trouble if you didn't change the cache type...
  
• Top 4 reasons for using Azure Security Center for partner security solutions (Yair Tor) - Seriously, it worth try it.

Programming

• Is jQuery Still Relevant? (TJ VanToll) - Very interesting and instructive conversation about THE JavaScript framework that everyone knows:JQuery .
  
• Localization & Routing in ASP.NET Core 1.0 - Hisham - Nice post ,right to the point.

Databases

• Temporal Tables are generally available in Azure SQL Database (Borko Novakovic) - Useful new feature to track changes across time.
  
• SQL Server 2016 on Windows Server 2016 (Luis Vargas) - Woohoo the server is now available.

Reading Notes #237

Cloud

• Azure Redis Cache May 2016 update (Pranav Rastogi) - Quick overview o this update.
  
• Release of Service Fabric SDK 2.1.150 and Runtime 5.1.150 - Have you played with Azure Fabric yet? Here is your chance with new SDK that provides more features and fixes some bugs.
  
• Application Insights is a Business Tool (Alexandre Brisebois) - Indeed, Application Insights is a business tool and a good one. Even more since it's available Azure services.
  
• Azure Media Services is now available in the new Azure portal (Mingfei Yan) - Fantastic another big piece that joined all the other services in the new portal.
  
• Power BI - Microsoft Azure Media Services and Power BI - Great tutorial that explains how to setup a cool dashboard and help you to get more about your media consumers.

Programming

• How to Debug and Run .NET CORE RC2 direct from within Visual Studio Code (Luís Henrique Demetrio) - Wow. I try on Windows, and it takes least than 5 minutes to get setup. Really cool.

Miscellaneous

• Microsoft to acquire LinkedIn - This is a really big move ... even more at the and of the fiscal year.

Reading Notes #213

Cloud

• Announcing the Azure SDK 2.8.1 for .NET (Brady Gaster) - Great new feature and improvement in this last SDK release..
  
• General availability of Premium tier (Pranav Rastogi) - Great announcement, plus details about the difference between the regular and the premium version.
  
• Azure Resource Manager Authentication In PowerShell (Scott) - Interesting sharing... It doesn't work always on the first try.
  
• Azure Container Service preview (Ross Gardler) - Get ready to play with Linux container... And soon Windows one.
  
• Continuous Delivery of Azure WebJobs via Git (Jan Hentschel) - Great tutorial that gets us started with Webjobs and continuous deployment.
  
• Partner Incentives – the move to Active Usage - Very interesting post that explains why Microsoft has changes their way to look at their Azure metrics.
  
• Announcing Azure Portal general availability (Leon Welicki) - The portal finally gets to the quality level that was targeted by Microsoft... well, long time ago. The portal will still continue to evolve, but it's now a full fledge product.
  
• Things to remember when you work with Azure and the new Team Build (Matteo Emili) - Nice post that gives us a little more depth about get ready to use build in the cloud.

Programming

• Application contracts with Swagger powered APIs for .NET or Why SwaggerProvider - This post explains how swagger can simplify our Api coding time.
  
• Glimpse at Application Insights Telemetry (Beckylin Orooji) - Awesome news, the great tools that or now integrated together. I'm really looking forward to trying that.
  
• PowerShell Tests released on GitHub (Karol Kaczmarek, Steve Lee, David Wilson) - Nice announcement from the powershell team that shared on github their tests' strategy... Expect some Pester!

Databases

• Transactional Replication to Azure SQL DB now in public preview (Jean-Yves Devant) - Since most of the time the first project is a migration, this new tool, will be very useful.

Reading Notes #209

Cloud

• Microsoft and Red Hat partner to deliver more flexibility and choice (Scott Guthrie) - Great news.
  
• Using Redis as a Service in Azure to speed up ASP.NET applications - Nice post that shares some good reasons why we should use Redis cache (Azure SaaS).
  
• Azure Runbook – A complete (simple) example (Vincent-Philippe Lauzon) - This post is a great introduction to Azure automation (aka runbook).
  
• Azure Logic Apps Automation - Nice quick post to tease us about what we can do with Azure Logic App.
  
• Application Insights Content Pack for Power BI (Dale Koetke) - Really cool content pack that was announced.

Databases

• DocumentDB: The move towards NOSQL – Part 1 (Adarsha Datta) - Nice little post of a series to get us started about documentDB.

Programming

• Visual Studio Update 1 RC - It's already the time of an new release...
  
• Trace your Application Insights events inside Visual Studio Diagnostic tools (Abhijit Jana) - Wow! Application Insights alone is awesome, with the new VS2015 it's just turn it to eleven.

Reading Notes #205

Cloud

• Introduction to Azure Search (Gunnar Peipman) - This post clarifies things about what Azure Search is and what is not.
  
• New capabilities for Logic Apps in Azure portal - Great new features that will facilitate the edition.
  
• Why the Azure Cloud? (Nicole Herskowitz) - Wonderful post that explains all the news announced in AzureCon, but with very simple words.
  
• Penny Pinching in the Cloud: Your web app doesn't need 64-bit (Scott Hanselman) - The devil is in the details, well this post explains one of them.
  
• Azure Redis Cache: Public preview of premium tier (Pranav Rastogi) - This is really a good summary about Redis cache; road map, documentation, etc.
  
• Getting started with Azure Data Factory and Azure Machine Learning (Wee Hyong Tok) - It really the post to get started with Azure Data factory.
  
• Automating Azure Resource Group deployment using a Service Principal in Visual Studio Online: Build/Release Management (Roopesh Nair) - Great tutorial that step by step explains how to setup a continous deployment in Azure.

Programming

• Case Study: Adding Application Insights to a website (Beckylin Orooji) - Really interesting post that explains all the steps done by Glimpse's team to optimize their website.

Miscellaneous

• Savoir-faire Linux and Microsoft Canada announce a close partnership in the open source field - That an impressive news, a Linux open source shop partner with Microsoft... I like it.
  
• Presentation Tips – It’s all about timing (marc) - Interesting post that gives essential tips to prepare our next presentation.

~Frank

Reading Notes #152

Suggestion of the week

• Azure: New DocumentDB NoSQL Service, New Search Service, New SQL AlwaysOn VM Template, and more (Scott Guthrie) - Here is the detailed description of all the new features in the Azure August release.

Cloud

• Microsoft NoSQL database and full-text search service previews available on Azure (Mary Jo Foley) - Quick introduction of the two last Azure services.
  
• Azure DocumentDB (Ayende Rahien) - A pretty hard review of the new Azure DocumentDB. Compare to RavenDB to make us understand the issues.
  
• Use Distributed Cache in Microsoft Azure - Great post that describes all the options we have to store our session state, and explains how to do it.
  
• Microsoft Azure Media Services - This article explains how works Azure Media Services by following a real case step by step.

Programming

• Getting Started with Git and GitHub (Dhananjay Kumar) - Very clear and simple tutorial that explains the basic command of Git Prompt and Git in VisualStudio.

Databases

• Documents, Databases and Eventual Consistency - A very interesting article about different types of database and their utilities.

UX

• 5 Strategies for Building Mobile Apps with Telerik (Cody Lindley) - Interesting post that explains different ways to build mobile app using Kendo UI.

Miscellaneous

• The Plague of Methods and Frameworks (Jurgen Appelo) - Interesting point of view.
  
• 10 Vital WordPress Security Tips (Guest Blogger) - This post provides the perfect quick review of our security knowledge when blogging.

~Frank

Reading Notes #146

Suggestion of the week

• Day 2: Examining the Solution Structure (James Chambers) - Mandatory post to any new (or less new) web developers, learn what's in an MVC project.

Cloud

• Trying Redis Caching as a Service on Windows Azure (Scott Hanselman) - This post explains how easy it is to use Redis cache everywhere.
  
• ASP.NET Scalability: the Good, the Bad and the Hype (Dino Esposito) - Excellent post that explains everything we should know about the famous buzz word scaling.

Programming

• Day 0: Bootstrapping Mvc for the Next 30 Days (James Chambers) - Very promising series. Day 1, Day 3 , Day 4 , Day 5, Day 6
  
• Adventures in Custom Testing Infrastructure - This is an interesting post about building a unit test tool.
  
• Glimpse 1.8.6 released (Anthony van der Hoorn) - Nice update for glimpse.
  
• How to Automate IIS 7 Configuration with .NET -- Visual Studio Magazine (Patrick Steele) - This post is a incredibly well done tutorial that explains how to create a tool to automate configurations, exploiting the capabilities of the library Microsoft.Web.Administration.

Architecture

• The Onion & The Open Group Open Platform 3.0™ (The Open Group Blog) - This post expains the analogy between an onion and a business process and is limits.

Miscellaneous

• 5 Tough Questions You Should Ask Your Team Today BY Paul B. Brown  @FromPaulBBrown (Paul B. Brown) - Really interesting thoughs about how to make your company evolve.
  
• Sometimes Clothes Make the Presentation BY Steve Cody  @RepManCody (Steve Cody) - Interesting point of view about cloths...

~Frank

Reading Notes #118

Suggestion of the week

• Windows Azure: General Availability Release of BizTalk Services, Traffic Manager, Azure AD App Access + Xamarin support for Mobile Services - New Windows Azure features walkthrough by Scott Gu.

Cloud

• How much data can you put on VSOnline? (Brian Harry MS) - Interesting numbers and calculus about estimating the quantity of code we can put before having issues.
  
• Windows Azure Cache: Feature Comparison Matrix (Ashish Goyal) - Ashish did a great job here by bringing all the features of the Azure Cache side by side so we can compare them easily.
  
• Windows Azure IaaS Host OS Update Demystified (Pradeep M G) - Important notice. If you are an Azure user, you should have received an e-mail about it... There is a Windows Azure maintenance that is coming...
  
• SaaS, PaaS, IaaS… que choisir? (1/2) (Pour consulter tous les articles de Nadia Bourha →) - Very interesting article about where the cloud comes from. (in french / en fancais)
  
• SaaS, PaaS, IaaS… que choisir? (2/2) (Pour consulter tous les articles de Nadia Bourha →) - Second part of a serie that explain, in French, what are the advantages to use the cloud for a business.
  
• Free ebook: Microsoft System Center: Cloud Management with App Controller (KimSpilker, Devon Musgrave karsz) - Free e-book in different format: pdf, epub and mobi.
  
• Understanding NoSQL Technologies on Windows Azure (David Chappell) - White paper on nosql with azure. The paper focuses on what these technologies are and why you'd use them, rather than how to use them.

Programming

• Visual Studio 2013 Launch Highlights (Jonathan Rozenblit) - This post highlights some moments of Visual Studio presentation.
  
• Introducing node.js Tools for Visual Studio (Scott Hanselman) - It's pretty incredible how Microsoft technologies is evolving these days, and here is another example of that.
  
• Microsoft Launches Node.js Tools For Visual Studio (Frederic Lardinois) - Another post that lists some of the best features included in the brand new Visual Studio tool.
  
• Test Cases with NUnit - I love that! I didn't know... Get how I will write my next tests?

Miscellaneous

• Software Architecture (Paulo Zemek) - Interesting post about "home-made" framework.

~Frank

Reading Notes #106

Suggestion of the week

• Easily Copy Files from One Cloud Service to Another (Amit Agarwal) - Really useful tool and it looks so easy to use.
  
• Windows Azure: New Distributed, Dedicated, High Performance Cache Service + More Cool Improvements (Scott Guthrie)- A lot of brand-new features as just been release again. Learn more about the super easy to use cache services and all the new possibilities to scale and log and more in this post.

Cloud

• Opinari - Interesting point of view, where SLA match more with price than quality.
  
• Have You Met The Canadian Windows Azure Community Experts? - You may recognize some of them...
  
• Why is The New Windows Azure Cache Service Important? - This post explains why we should care about the new Azure cache services, and the difference between the old and the new version.
  
• Backup WordPress Site to Windows Azure Storage using “BackupToAzure” Plugin (Gaurav) - This post introduces a great free and open source to backup your WordPree.
  
• Public vs. Private Cloud: No Comparison - Interesting point of view about private cloud.

Databases

• Friends Don’t Let Friends use Lazy Loading on Windows Azure! - Very nice post that describes how to avoid big database issue on the cloud, but also in other situations.

Programming

• Are you missing an assembly reference? Why, yes I am. So kind of you to ask. (Bill Wilder) - Discover how NuGet could be so good that it will solve this problem for you.
  
• Jon Galloway - Interesting post that explains asp.net MVC routing. Most of the time MVC Routeing is just magic and easy, but it could be also a bit tricky.
  
• Claims-Based Authentication and Authorization (David Rogers Dev) - Really interesting tutorial on how to build a claims-based authentication and authorization for a website. All the code is available online.
  
• Coding for Domain-Driven Design: Tips for Data-Focused Devs - After reading this post, if you didn't know about Domain-Driven Design (DDD), good chance are that you want to know more...

Integration

• Collection of Visio 2013 Stencil for BizTalk Server updated with new stencils - Great, let's refresh our Visio's shapes.

Miscellaneous

• Scott Hanselman - It so easy and convenient that we sometimes forget how "dangerous" it could be...
  
• The Power of Habits (JD) - About the strength of habits versus knowledge.
  
• Four Areas Where Senior Leaders Should Focus Their Attention - Interesting post to help us on improving a meeting efficiency.

~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 #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

Reading Notes #55

Cloud

• Monitoring your Windows Azure Web Site (Brian H. Prince) - Nice post that explain how to see the statistics of your servers with the new Azure graphic interface.
  
• Overview of the Windows Azure Platform (Neil Mackenzie) - Great overview in this post about all the features of Windows Azure, specifying the advantages of each one.
  
• Azure for Developers: Introduction to the Tutorial - Wow great job! This series of 8 post will explains all the basics (and more) about Windows Azure by constructing, step by step a real application. A perfect get started for all developer.
  
• Windows Azure IaaS Overload (Michael Washam) - All regroup in one posts a lot of videos about crash course on Windows Azure IaaS.
  
• Windows Azure Caching (Preview) and Ruby Cloud Services - Nice job from Larry Franks to the brand new Azure Cache with Ruby.
  
• Migrated to Azure Web Sites - Nice post, all the steps needed to move an existing Wordpress blog to Windows Azure.
  
• Switching to Windows Azure - Interesting post, from someone who changes is mind, and went to Windows Azure.
  
• Announcing the Developer Preview of Windows Azure Active Directory - Great news, even if it's in a very early age this is very interesting... now let's play with it!
  
• Comparing Windows Azure Blob Storage and Google Cloud Storage (Gaurav) - Always very interesting those posts where two or more products are compared...

Programming

• Is recursion really bad? - Interesting demo about efficiency of recursive code compare to loop and stack. I would have liked to see the code that was used to test.
  
• Azure CDN Cache busting CSS image references and minification (Iain Hunter) - Interesting tricks to take advantage of the Azure CDN with minified css using pre-build event.
  
• Rhino Mocks Isn’t Complicated (Jim Cooper) - This post by doing code sample comparison between convinces me to try it again. It's true that a Rhino mocks has change since last time I worked with it. The "new" syntax is really clearer.
  
• Why LINQ Matters: Cloud Composability Guaranteed - Nice post very detailed that show how powerful is LINQ.
  
• Create Reminders in Windows 7 Without Outlook (groovypost.com) - Nice reminder ;) about the one of the great tools available on windows platform the task scheduler.
  
• Integrating Balsamiq Mockups with Google Drive (googleappsdeveloper.blogspot.ca) - Great news! I'm a big fan of Balsamiq and this "move" really makes sense.

Miscellaneous

• Microsoft Announces New Cloud Opportunities for Partners - Interesting post about the WPC that append on the week on July 10th.
  
• 10 crazy IT security tricks that actually work (Roger A. Grimes) - Good tips about security, even if some of them are for servers the other are simple to apply and should be very efficient.
  
• The Best Strategy for Reducing Stress (Peter) - Great post, in today's word being able to manage is stress could be life saver.
  
• Motivate Employees: 4 Techniques to Try (John Baldoni) - Interesting thoughts about some technics you use to motivate people you work with.

~Frank

Reading Notes #53

This post is an important milestone for this blog. It completes the first year of Reading Notes, since a year as 52 weeks and it’s also the 100th post!

Thanks for being there and continue reading, a lot of good stuff is coming…

~Frank

Cloud

• Cloud Strategy Begins with Value and Balances Risk (Microsoft Enterprise Team) - Nice post that help to identify risks. The information is display in tables that helps.
• Windows Azure Performance: Best Practices (Rick Saling) - Good reference to more detail video on the topic.

[…]great video of a presentation on Federations by Cihan Biyikoglu at the 2012 US Tech Ed conference in Orlando. […]

• Windows Azure PowerShell and Ruby Cloud Services - Great post where updating is RubyRole project the author make interesting discovery. Learn more about some new functionality available in the Azure SDK 1.7.
• Deploying Windows Azure Website using Visual Studio Web Publish wizard - Nice quick tip to use Visual Studio with the new Azure website.
• Data Series: SQL Server in Windows Azure Virtual Machine vs. SQL Database - Great big post that cover every difference between those two Sql database. Perfect reading to stop being confuse.
• Windows Azure Websites, Virtual Machines, and More « Jonathan Rozenblit - Great! If you missed the conference at Toronto on June 20th this is your chance to catch-up. The full conference is available to watch by steaming or offline by downloading.
• 10 Questions to ask when Outsourcing to Azure (Surf4Fun) - Good questions.
• Data Synchronization using SQL Azure Data Sync (Félix Martínez Retama) - Nice post first of a serie. This one is illustrating few possible scenarios of synchronisation with Azure Data Sync.
• Data Series: Exploring Windows Azure Drives, Disks, and Images (BradCalder) - Amazing article that pass throut all details about Azure drive, disk, image and cache. A must to all cloud developer.
• New Article: Windows Azure Queues and Windows Azure Service Bus Queues (Valery Mizonov) - Very good article that perfectly summarises the content of the longer MSDN article about the difference between Azure queues and Azure Service Bus Queues. Simple easy to read and accurate.

[…]Following is the high-level technology selection considerations section from the full article on MSDN. […]

• Windows Azure - When do I use What? (Andrew Coates [MSFT]) - Nice quick post that demystify when it's the time to use a Azure website, webrole or a VM.

Programming

• JQuery 1.8 beta 1: See What’s Coming - Wow, a lot of things are coming with the next version of JQuery. This a good post to catch the big picture.

[…]new build system based on Ben Alman’s awesome grunt tool. […]

Miscellaneous

• Reminder, basic quick fixes for troubled gear - Nice check list for no-technical people of what they can do by them self before calling you to rescue when they computer/gadget stop working. ;)
• ScrumMaster Tales – Learning How to Estimate (Mark Levison) - Interesting post that relates the experience of an Agile team. Also refers some other post of that still.

~Frank

Reading Notes #52

Cloud

• Ridiculously Fast and Easy Migration to the Cloud with Windows Azure (David Pallmann) - Nice post that re-groups 7 scenarios that are perfect match for a cloud (Azure) migration.
• Azure Storage Explorer 5 Preview 1 Now Available with Logging & Monitoring Support (David Pallmann) - Amazing job on Azure Storage Explorer that is at is fifth version already. This post is introducing one of the new features: logs. Guys update your version and if you did have this tool, this is your «cue».
• Overview of Windows Azure Caching (Preview) - This new Azure Cache look very promising. Here is some information about how it works.
• Amazon Web Services – Each Service in plain English - Nice idea, a one line description of most Amazon Web Services AWS... in plain English.
• Windows Azure – Write, Run or Use Software - Nice post that explain the three types of Azure service and the services in each one.
• What is the new Windows Azure? - Nice graphics that contain a lot of information. Spend some time reading the graphic you will not be disappointed.
• Three cloud ops lessons you should learn before your next outage - This post is about how you learn from unpredicted event. You know that it will come, but you can control anything... except you.
• Windows Azure Website: Uploading/Downloading files over FTP and collecting Diagnostics logs (Avkash Chauhan) - Quick tip about using ftp with the new Azure web site.
• Chris Koenig (Chris Koenig) - Nice overview of what's new in the Windows Azure Training kit.
• REST Interface for Managing Service Bus EAI/EDI Labs (Nitin Mehrotra) - Regroup interesting links about the REST API of the Azure Service Bus.
• We Need a Good Developer Cloud (Andrew Binstock) - Interesting thoughts, a bit dark, of what really the cloud situation today and what it should be. Even if I don't agree with everything in this post, I should say that I agree with the fact that user shouldn’t have to care about redundancy. It make sense that it could be done be the provider.
• The AWS outage reveals bigger issue - Short post that says that if you planned and architected correctly you application, even big outage should affect you.
• How to point your own Custom Domain Name in Windows Azure – #Meet Azure Edition - Really useful tutorial that explain with nice screenshots how to configure your domain name. Nice job.
• Using EAI Bridges to Send Flat File Messages from FTP Server to On-Premise SQL Server - Good tutorial that provides more details about one Azure EAI Labs.
• Managing the Cloud from the Command Line (Hanselman) - Great post about available script option to "play" with Windows Azure for a Windows or Linux pc.

Programming

• Create and deploy a Node.js application to a Windows Azure Web Site - With these new websites combine with the new Git for Windows, I really need to find some spare time and give it a shot. This nice tutorial could be the perfect get started.
• Considerations when Sharding - When having hard time to find how to shard your data, this alternative could give you ideas.
• The Caching Application Block - This post is the starting point for any developer that wants to do caching. Great references.

[...]When Should I Use the Caching Application Block? This topic will help you to decide if the block is suitable for your requirements. It explains the benefits of using the block, and any alternative techniques you may consider. It also provides details of any limitations of the block that may affect your decision to use it.[...]

• PowerShell - grabbing values out of the registry and running them (Rob Farley) - Nice use of PowerShell.
• Adding Ninject to Web API (Peter Provost) - Nice tutorial about Ninject (great dependency injection framework). Ninject is also available thru NuGet.
• Why Your Links Should Never Say “Click Here” (Anthony) - Good tips that for sure will improve your UI and the user experience.
• Getting Started with Lucene.net (Ricci Gian Maria) - Nice tutorial that explain with a simple case how to get started with the great library Lucene.net.
• Rethinking Web Service Development (Matt Aimonetti) - Nice post that explains how we should build and document our API.

Miscellaneous

• How to Stop Sucking and Be Awesome Instead (Jeff Atwood) - Seriously not serious. Download the slides...Awesome.
• New Series for Beginner Game Masters. (The Chatty DM) - A fantastic idea! That exactly what I was looking for. And just before the big vacations it's perfect!
• Positive Thinking: 7 Easy Ways to Improve a Bad Day (Geoffrey James) - Positive thinking is important, 7 easy tips to improve your day... and it’s not magic thinking.
• The Emotional Adventure of Leadership (Peter) - Interesting post that explains why being a leader you need to manage strong emotions.

~ Frank

Reading Notes #51

The Cloud Storage

Cloud

• Setting up a webfarm using Windows Azure Virtual Machines (Maarten Balliauw) - Nice post that explains how to build a web farm with a free load balancer using the brand new Windows Azure. This post pass-through all steps putting the emphasis on important notion to have a nice web farm up and running.

[…]Sysprep ensures the machine can be cloned into a new machine, getting its own settings like a hostname and IP address. A non-sysprepped machine can thus never be cloned.[…]

• GitHub for Windows Azure Websites (Maarten Balliauw) - This tutorial is very easy to follow and will help to to setup a Windows Azure Website that will use Git as sources instead of regular package.
• Windows Azure Service Management API Cheat Sheet with PowerShell (Michael Washam) - Nice PowerShell script sample that show how easy it is to manage the new Azure capabilities thru the API.
• Reintroducing Windows Azure, Part 1: The New Management Portal (David Pallmann) - Nice first post of a series of four this one introduce the new Azure portal with also a quick recap of the "stuff".
• Reintroducing Windows Azure, Part 2: Windows Azure Web Sites (David Pallmann) - This second post of the nice series presents all the new features around the Windows Azure Websites. Enjoy!
• Microsoft Gives Windows Azure Amazonian Facelift (Cade Metz) - After June 7, Windows Azure is definitely a cloud platform or cloud infrastructure or cloud... something that must be considerate if you planning to go in the cloud.
• Episode 83 - Windows Azure June 2012 Release - This is the longest episode of the Cloud Cover Show, but a great one! It talks about so many things... Find the time, it's a must.
• Updates to Windows Azure Storage – Reduced Transaction Pricing and Geo Replication (Gaurav) - Everything you need to know on Azure Storage and is geo replication feature (this post as been updated).
• 10x Price Reduction for Windows Azure Storage Transactions - Nice recap of all the novelties about Azure Storage.
• Thoughts on AWS (Arthur) - Nice post. A real AWS environment is break down to expose every part and the author gives is opinion about it.
• Can you use BizTalk in Azure Virtual machine for production use? (saravana) - Nice post that explain the details that you must know before using the cloud for your production environment. This is following this one.
• The cloud will cost you, but you’ll be happy to pay (Service Mesh Dave Roberts) - Very interesting post that explain the Jevons paradox and is application the cloud computing.
• Loading data to SQL Azure the fast way - Incredibly complete post. The perfect post to before you get started with massive data import into SqlAzure.
• Windows Azure Virtual Machines (Michael Washam) - Amazing post that wrap-up everything about the brand new Azure virtual machine and virtual network. All the features are deeply explains. A must for all it peoples.
• Reintroducing Windows Azure, Part 3: Virtual Machines (David Pallmann) - Third post in the series this one focus on windows VM. How to create, configure, connect and use them.
• Reintroducing Windows Azure, Part 4: Linux Virtual Machines (David Pallmann) - Same thing as the previous one except this one is about Linux VM.
• Windows Azure SQL Reporting is now available - That great news a good reporting tool is always important. More to come.

Programming

• Marked As Pertinent - The perfect post to read when looking for a NoSql (or a key/value store), because this post compare a lot of them.
• Nuno Filipe Godinho - Very nice feature. You don’t need any more to uninstall Azure SDK to install a new one! Even more you have a new dropdownlist that will act as a filter in visual studio when creating your new project.
• DFW Ajax Users Group - Nice post that presents the characteristics of the two main architecture of site (with sample) and explains why most actual sites are in fact hybrid.
• Using the Windows Azure Cache Preview with SDK 1.7 - Nice demo of Azure Cache preview and a quick fix on a potential problem you could have trying it with the emulator.

Miscellaneous

• 4 Things Great Leaders Do Better Than You (Les McKeown) - Inspiring post.
• What The Most Successful People Do Before Breakfast (Laura Vanderkam) - Nice post. I'm a morning guy since I was a teenager and I kept this morning habit. It’s incredible how many things we can do!

[…]Come up with a plan and assemble what you need, but whatever you do, don’t label this vision as impossible[…]

• How to Stop Sucking and Be Awesome Instead (Jeff Atwood) - Seriously not serious. download the slides...Awesome.

~Frank