Reading Notes #379

Cloud

• 
  An experiment - The Azure Cloud Shell at the command line with AZ SHELL (Scott Hanselman) - Oooooh I love it! I will right now check what are my option and install/ configure one.
• 
  Auto blogging Jekyll with Logic Apps, ACI Containers and .NET Core (Shayne Boyer) - Great post that explains how we could use Docker in any flow with logic apps. This time it generates blog post.
• 
  Kubernetes vs Docker: How to Choose (Eric Boersma) - Interesting post that answers to a trending question.
• 
  Reading Azure Cosmos DB Data In Azure Functions (Jason Roberts) - Nice post that share code snippets for different situations.
• 
  The Urlist — An application study in Serverless and Azure (Burke Holland) - The tool looks awesome, and this post explains how it was build and gives the reasons why some choice has been made.

Programming

• 
  REST API Design Best Practices for Parameters and Query String Usage (Kay Plößer) - This is a nice post That explains some of the best practices... Now let's get back to the design table of our last API and see what is missing.
• 
  5 Reasons to Containerize Production Windows Apps on Docker Enterprise - Docker Blog (David Friedlander) - If you thought that modernizing your app is mostly impossible, this post is the light at the end of the tunnel, showing you one possibility.
• 
  Docker from the beginning — part III (Chris Noring) - Third of this docker series. I like how it is not only a happy path but the learning path with the fails and victories.
• 
  Introducing the Try .NET Global Tool - interactive in-browser documentation and workshop creator (Scott Hanselman) - That look like a very useful tool...

~

Reading Notes #373

Cloud

• Reduced Pricing for Azure Container Instances (Mark Heath) - Nice post that compares VMs pricing with the new reduced prices of container instance.
• Announcing Amazon Transcribe streaming transcription support in the AWS SDK for Ruby | Amazon Web Services (Jingyi Chen) - Nice new SDK for Ruby... Its been a while since I code with this language but somehow I think I would like to try it.
• Avoiding Azure Functions Cold Starts (Mark Heath) - Does cold starts are affecting your solutions? Maybe not, but if they are this post lists three scenarios to reduce them as must as possible.
• Web and Azure Tool Updates in Visual Studio 2019 (Angelos Petropoulos) - Great new functionalities from Visual Studio IDE

Programming

• A Beginner's Guide to Test Automation (Angela Riggs) - Very nice and interesting post about unit tests.
• Debugging an ASP.NET Core Docker Container in Windows AND Linux (Jason Robert) - Learn why the Visual Studio family IS an great tool on any platforms to work with containers.
• Debugging your .NET Core in Docker applications with VS Code | LINQ to Fail (Aaron Powell) - Great tutorial, who don't need to debug...
• Exploring the .NET Core MCR Docker files (updated): runtime vs aspnet vs sdk (Andrew Lock) - This post is packed with update and advice for our Docker projects in Azure.

Books

Building a StoryBrand, Clarify Your Message So Customers Will Listen 

Donald Miller

A really interesting book that helps to focus and keep in mind the most important. I didn't read it with a purpose of business really, but it did make me remember past experiences and it was easy to make the relationship between success and when the story was clear. Take the time to read it, do the exercises/ reflections required... it's worth it.

~

Reading Notes #348

Cloud

• Announcing the public preview of Azure Digital Twins (Daniel Escapa) - Learn more about this new product for our IoT projects.
• Move Managed Disks to another Subscription (Eric Leonard) - Cool post that explains the new easy way to do it.
• Tackling Costs in Azure (K. Scott Allen) - This post explains why the answer to: "How much will that cost?" Is always ...well it depends.
• Top 10 Azure Cognitive Services (Cristopher Burge) - Don't reinvent the wheel see all the incredible tool at your disposal.

Programming

• Where Should I Put My Logic? (Adam Storr) - Interesting post that provides a few answers.
• Performance tuning an Azure DevOps build configuration (Jeffrey Palermo) - Really interesting post packed with great tips to improve our builds performance.
• Using ASP.NET Core with MongoDB in containers for local dev, CosmosDB for production (Shayne Boyer) - This is an excellent tutorial to get started with asp.net core container and mongo or cosmoDB.
• What to focus on when learning ASP.NET Core? (Jon Hilton) - This is an excellent post to get inspired, remove the fear of a false start and help us to get started.
• elementary OS 5 Juno is Here – elementary – Medium (Cassidy James Blaede) - ELementary was already one of my favorite Linux distribution. With this new version named Juno it's just... Hmmmm so smooth and beautiful. Try it you will see.

Data

• Spinning Up a PostgreSQL Database on Azure Using Bash (Rob Conery) - None only this post is a great tutorial, but it's also a nice story.

Miscellaneous

• Azure PowerShell – Cross-platform “Az” module replacing “AzureRM” (Mark Cowlishaw) - Nice update of the Azure PowerShell, a shorter name is always a good idea. However, how could we make the difference with Azure CLI now?
• Creating the perfect MVP Summit (Charles Sterling) - The MVP summit is a very special event. However, these suggestions are also applicable to other technical event.
• Why you aren’t drowning in recruiters, too - A geek with a hat (Swizec Teller) - Interesting post that brings a more realistic perspective to those moments.

~enjoy!

Reading Notes #320

Cloud

• The next generation of Azure Alerts has arrived (Kiran Madnani) - This is good news, alerts are an important piece of any serious system.
• Know your Azure Subscription Quota and Usage (Wriju Ghosh) - Because waiting until it breaks is probably not the option you are looking for... It's a good idea to know your quotas first.

Programming

• A Beginner’s Guide to Testing Blockchain Applications (Kayleigh Oliver) - You have a project that could use blockchain and you are asking yourself what's next? This post is for you.
• Building Container Images Securely on Kubernetes (Jessie Frazelle) - Excellent post that digs into some security process with containers.
• Entity Framework Core and NHibernate: Understand the Similarities and Differences (Ricardo Peres) - Interesting comparison between two well knows framework at this new age of .Net Core.
• MVC vs Razor Pages - A quick comparison (Jon Hilton) - Interesting post that compares two architecture. However, all the unit-test and mocking/ dependency injection were not included...Nevertheless it worth reading f you hare new in .Net Core development.
• Making an Azure static website EVEN MORE secure (Julian M Bucknall) - This post is like a pleasant journey in the security word. You will probably learn a lot, just like the author did (and myself obviously)

Data

• Azure Cosmos DB training webinars - Cosmo DB is gaining in popularity. It's time to boost your skill check this webinar/ on-demand training.
• Capturing Power BI queries using DAX Studio (Marco Russo) - Great post that gets us started on ways to find optimization for our Power Bi. Not enough people know about DaxStudio, have a look it's free!
• Coming soon to Power BI: Common Data Service for Analytics (Arun Ulag) - Looking forward to trying that as it definitely looks promising.

Book

Making Time (Bob Clagett) - I really enjoyed reading that book. I've been watching Bob's YouTube Channel for a while. ANd was happy to ear about his new book. In Making Time, a little bit like in his videos, Bob explains how he build stuff... but this time instead of a furniture or a room, it's a new career/ business. A short book (88 pages) but a lot of fun.  

Reading Notes #316

Suggestion of the week

• Why should I care about Kubernetes, Docker, and Container Orchestration? (Scott Hanselman) - I really like how this post brings why containers are great.

Cloud

• Azure ARM Template Deployment with Duo Authentication (Eric Leonard) - Nice quick tutorial using the best practices with Azure resources manager.
• Gain better control over your Microsoft Azure costs and governance using Overcast (Stephane Lapointe) - This new product definitely looks interesting.

Programming

• 3 key insights that make D3.js easy to learn - A geek with a hat (Swizec Teller) - I love Power Bi and since I start using it, I would like to try to do some custom visuals. If you think the same thing, then this post is a got pre-learning reading.

Miscellaneous

• How to Coach: A Programmers Cheat Sheet (Lou Bichard) - Very interesting post that shares really good advices, and even suggests a book to go deeper.
• The POC Problem (William Vorhies) - Very interning thoughts about a frequent scenario in our business.
• Why You Must Have an Online Presence as a Programmer NOW (Antonio Cucciniello) - An inspiring post about how to start/ continue/ improve our career as developers/ data scientist/ devops/ architect...

Reading Notes #284

Cloud

• Azure TLS Certificates changes (Rashmi Jha) - Because security is always a big concern, I thought it would be nice sharing this post.
• Deploying Visual Studio 2017 Function Projects with VSTS (Donna Malayeri) - This tutorial explains in simple steps how to configure our build in vsts, a reel time saver.
• Docker for AWS and Azure: Secure By Default Container Platform - Docker Blog (Riyaz Faizullabhoy) - Like they say build it ship it run it.
• Kicking The Tires On This Serverless Thing (Rob Conery) - Very interesting post that introduces many different flavors of serverless.
• New sample model for Azure Analysis Services (Josh Caplan) - Nice little post that gives everything we need to get started.
• What is Azure PowerShell? How It Works, Installation, Best Practices, and More (Angela Stringfellow) - The perfect post to get started. It a really good source of references.

Programming

• .NET and Docker (Scott Hanselman) - Very interesting post that clarifies the purpose of all those dotnet container.
• Connecting Power BI to your Visual Studio Team Services Account (Charles Sterling) - It't always cool (and potentially useful to get better) to visualize our data like that.

Miscellaneous

• How to buy and read e-books in Windows 10 Mobile Creators Update (Cale Hunt) - Nice tips. However, I do read from tine to time books on my Surface, but I simply use the App from my e-book reader.
• Pomodoro Technique – the Good, the Bad and the Tomato | Rubik's Code on WordPress.com (Nikola Zivkovic) - Interesting method. Simple and yet efficient.
• The humble checkbox (OneNote Team) - Nice to see how a simple checkbox could change your work.

Reading Notes #266

Suggestion of the week

• 22 tips to lower Azure pricing and optimize hosting costs (Matt Watson) - Fantastic list that overviews a lot of opportunities to lower the total of our Azure receipt.

Cloud

• Announcing the new Azure Marketplace experience (Shankar Sivadasan) - Another proof that Microsoft is really listening to his customers and partners, nice improvement.
  
• Azure Application Insights – An essential part of Microsoft DevOps Strategy (Subodh Sohoni) - Excellent post that explains why Application Insights is a must for all DevOps.
  
• Calling a Logic App from an HTML form (Jeff Hollan) - Nice usage of the HTTP trigger.
  
• Now available: Azure invoices emailed direct to your inbox (Adam Pickersgill) - Sweet! Now we talk.
  
• Understanding the Azure App Service Editor (Ken Cenerelli) - My first reaction was: No way, this is awesome! And it is. E was in place to implement this cool tool. However, remember that this is only to do some quick fix, because, at the next deployment, these changes will be lost.

Programming

• If You Automate Your Tests, Automate Your Code Review (Erik Dietrich) - Interesting post that explains the idea about automating our code reviews. It gives a book as suggestions to learn more about it.

Databases

• SQL Database Query Editor available in Azure Portal (Ninar Nuemah) - I was looking for this since the old query tool was removed. I will probably continue to use SQL studio management or VsCode, put what a time saving, and you are investigating a problem... Open a blade right from the Azure portal and voila!

Miscellaneous

• MVP API Intro (Daron Yöndem) - I love it! I already have few ideas in mind, and I'm curious to see what you will do guys.

Reading Notes #265

Suggestion of the week

• Dockerizing a real world asp.net core application (Thien Nguyen) - Fantastic post. I really like it when authors are sharing with us their trials and errors because it the best way to really learn something.

Cloud

• How Azure Functions Pricing Works (Chris Pietschmann) - This post cannot explain more clearly and simply the pricing formulas. At least for this service...
  
• How to download a file from Blob Storage using Azure API Management? (Alexander Laysha) - Great post that explains how we can optimize or performance without lowering our security.
  
• Job Handlers and Dependency Injection in Azure WebJobs (Vivien Chevallier) - A very useful tutorial that closes a series on Azure Web jobs.
  
• Manage App Service, SQL Database, and more - Azure Management Libraries for .NET (Asir Selvasingh) - It's time to try the new fluent interface. A good way to build an easy to read a script, that will build our solution.
  
• Single Instance VMs Now With 99.9% SLA - Good news, double with good SLAs.

Programming

• Calling Windows 10 APIs From a Desktop Application (Michael Crump) - Great! Windows IoT for all!
  
• Docker for Devs Part 1: Containerizing Your Application - Lock Me Down (Thien Nguyen) - Amazing post, first of series that explains how to use containers and Docker tools.

Databases

• Loading data into Azure SQL Data Warehouse just got easier (Casey Karst) - Interesting tips that can save us so much time...

Miscellaneous

• VIDEO: How to get started with technical public speaking! (Scott Hanselman) - This one-hour video is a great way to relief yourself a lot of pressure if you are, or want to start giving talks... It's definitely a good investment of your time.