Reading Notes #608

It's reading notes time! 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. 

You also read something you liked? Share it!

Cloud

• Running a Playwright scheduled job with Azure Container Apps (Anthony Chu) - A very nice post about recording test session using azure container app. Good idea!

Programming

• The .NET MAUI Extension for Visual Studio Code is now Generally Available - .NET Blog (Maddy Montaquila) - Wow,already GA! Looking forward to try it on my Linux PC. This post shares all the features packed in this release, and there videos too.

• Introducing collection expressions in C#12: Behind the scenes of collection expressions - Part 1 (Andrew Lock) - First post of a series that goes deeper into c# comparing expressions, initialization, and what the compiler does.

• Making C# Simple with Fluent Techniques (Niraj Ranasinghe) - Nice post. I didn't realise that Fluent path was used in so many places. It makes it so cleaner when we can use it.

AI

• Visual Studio Code AI Toolkit: Run LLMs locally (Shreyan Fernandes) - It goes so fast! It used to be complicated to get AI and now we can get one locally directly from vs code... Quick post to get us started.

• Announcing the official OpenAI library for .NET - .NET Blog (.NET Team) - Yay! New version of the SDK.

Podcast

• 84. Comparing Terraform, Pulumi and Bicep: Infrastructure as code - with Sam Cogan (Betatalks the podcast) - Create episode with Sam. Really interesting to listen about those three IaC.

• Dan Garfield: GitOps with Kubernetes - Episode 298 (Azure DevOps Podcast) - Interesting episode about containers and deploying platforms, tools and so much more.

• Episode 1900 with Scott Hanselman! (.NET Rocks!) - Three of my favorite people in the word in a single episode! It was such a pleasure to listen pleasure to listen talk about all those little stories. Long live to .NET Rocks (and HanselMinutes)

Miscellaneous

• What's new in the Windows Subsystem for Linux in May 2024 (Craig Loewen) - Tons of experimental features are being move to regular ones, and more are coming up to manage our distro, improve security and more.

• 8 Learning Paths for Beginners on GitHub (Cynthia Zanoni) - Wow! so many very cool learning Path to get started with anything you can think about it. I may do one or two just to refresh my knowledge.

~ Frank

Reading Notes #604

It's reading notes time! 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. 

You also read something you liked? Share it!

 

Cloud

• Azure Communication Services May 2024 Feature Updates (Daysha Carter) - Wow many great new features in this update.

• Logic App Consumption: How to set an API connection to use Logic Apps Managed Identity inside Visual Studio 2019 – SANDRO PEREIRA BIZTALK BLOG (Sandro Pereira) - I love those true life story where the author shares how they solved a real-life problems.

Programming

• Blazor Basics: 9 Best Practices for Building Blazor Web Apps (Claudio Bernasconi) - This post shares best practices. They are simple to follow but very impactful.

• Performant, Secure, and Versatile Containers (Savannah Ostrowski,Sohan Maheshwar) - Cool! It's time to try it, only one switch to flip..

• An introduction to primary constructors in C#12 (Andrew Lock) - Wow! This post dig into what can and cannot do the new constructors in C#. Example by example trying more complex scenarios, fascinating!

DevOps

• Use Azure DevOps Pipelines as a Serverless Compute Engine (Chris Pietschmann) - Do you know or use Azure DevOps Pipeline? They can read your code from most source repository and will execute tasks for you. Like CI-CD as explains in this post.

Miscellaneous

• Introducing Plans on Microsoft Learn (Kaberi Bell) - Would it be to be a data engineer, AI specialist, app builder there's a plan for you and that's a very cool new feature on learn have a look this blog post explain all of it

• How Do You Measure Developer Experience? (Jennifer Riggins) - An interesting article about what and how measure performance. I didn't know so many system and details concepts were that detailed.

• Windows Terminal Preview 1.21 Release (Christopher Nguyen) - Tons of new features again and I love| seeing all those community contributions.

~Frank

Reading Notes #560

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!

The suggestion of the week

• GitHub Copilot Fundamentals Learning Path - Your New AI programming friend! (Bruno Capuano ) - A free series of lessons to get to know how to use Copilot ( an AI partner application).

Cloud

• Azure Communication Services June 2023 Feature Updates (Daysha Carter) - A series of pretty cool new features from Azure communication services.

Low Code

• Power Apps Dataverse Offline Mode For Canvas Apps (Matthew Devaney) - This is a nice step-by-step tutorial that guides us to make our Apps offline capable.

Programming

• Should We Use Records With EF Core as Model Classes? (Code Maze ) - Fantastic post that not only explains how Records could be used with EF but also explains why they aren't always the best choice.

• Best Practices for Building Secure Micro Frontends (Grgur Grisogono) - Nice short post about security best practices.Because it's important everywhere and its the job of everyone.

• How to Start an Open Source Project with VS Code (Bekah) - This is a nice and simple tutorial that overviews how to get started.

Miscellaneous

• Microsoft’s Satya Nadella Is Betting Everything on AI (Steven Levy) - A great interview with a focus on AI technology.

~Frank

Reading Notes #556

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

• Azure Developer CLI (azd) - May 2023 Release (Savannah Ostrowski) - The Azure Developers CLI just is evolving so fast! New Java early functionalities, improvement with Container Apps... Looking forward to watching Build sessions and seeing all of it!

Programming

• Announcing the new Azure Container Registry libraries (Mario Guerra) - Nice update! And there are more languages supported, which is fantastic.

• How I used GitHub Copilot to build a browser extension (Rizel Scarlett) - Another great story about how Copilot helps the productivity of a developer. And at the same time, great tutorial to build and Chrome extension.

• Choose Your Own Adventure in Open Source: Paths to Success (Bekah) - This is a nice post that provides many excellent reasons why you should start contributing to open source and how it is good for you

• Quick Progress in Software Development (Mike Krop) - Interesting... A Development Sim game?!

LowCode

• Exploring the Power Platform GPT Prompts: Unleashing the Potential of AI in the Power Platform (Lee Stott) - When new tools are coming up with such potential its great to have ideas of how to work with it. This post helps users get started or find new ways, and advance users an opportunity to share.

• Fueling Creativity: Introducing our Power Platform Prompt Samples Repository! | Power Platform Developer Blog (April Dunnam) - A great initiative to get us started when the spark is missing.

Podcasts

• Molly's Game with Molly Bloom (A Bit of Optimism) - What a story! An inspiring journey with so many challenges.
• 357: The Zune UI was the Best UI (Merge Conflict) - Ahhh! Now I understand why so many people are talking about the Zune! Great episode that go over some souvenirs and memories.

Miscellaneous

• Discover Ways to Make Open Source Contributions to Microsoft (Kiran Panjwani) - Great post shows how you, students, can make a huge difference.

• Why Put PostgreSQL in Azure - Grant Fritchey (Grant Fritchey) - Great post that explains why Azure is a great hosting platform. In this case, it's about the database and it is so true. But it's also true with many other services...

~Frank

Reading Notes #555

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!

 

The suggestion of the week

• How to Contribute to Open Source without Knowing How to Code: A guide with project suggestions (Bekah) - Yas! This is so true! Many of the contributions in my projects aren't code and each time that really helped. Correcting a single typo is useful!

Programming

• Docker Desktop 4.19: Compose v2, the Moby project, and more ( Sylvialynn Favello) - Compose v2 is here time to move up!

• Blazor Basics: What is Blazor? (Claudio Bernasconi ) - You would like to build a Single Page Application (spa) but are unfamiliar with Blazor? This post is an excellent place to get started before doing your first "hello world" app.

• Docker Init: Initialize Dockerfiles and Compose files with a single CLI command (Marc Sherwood, Nuno Coracao) - That's a very useful new command! And there is a demo video to see it in action.

Databases

• Database 101: How social media “likes” are stored in a database (Daniel Reis) - Great share! What ever using ScyllaDB or something else thinking about how your data will be queried is always good.

Podcasts

• 5 strategies for managing your manager (Modern Mentor) -
• Failing Intelligence () - An interesting discussion about AI and it's potential impact to our society.
• 192. Increase Productivity in the Workplace (Effortless Work Series) (The Greg McKeown Podcast) - Who's not thinking about productivity or being pushed to be more productive? I think all of us. In the episode, Greg revisits the core ideas of doing it but effortlessly.

Miscellaneous

• Getting started with Microsoft Learn (Johan Myburgh) - Lear has grown to such a complete and diversified source of information. It's definitely a must to learn new stuff!

• How do we get a tech team to make a big technical change? (Chelsea Troy) - A deep reflection on how to approach the changes and a very well-explained context on why it would or wouldn't work.Nice post.

• The 15-Minute Meeting: Change Your Workday, Change Your Life (Donn Felker) - I like the idea of shorter meetings, it's true that some could be shorter.

~frank

Reading Notes #535

Good Monday,
it's the last ReadingNotes of 2022! So many great articles, podcasts, and blog posts. More than 350 of those catch my interest this year...

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

Cloud

• Azure App Configuration, Key Vault and Managed Identity Implementation (Kevin Logan) - Security is essential and yes it adds complexity at first, but not that much. Have a look.

• Microsoft Azure CLX: A personalized program to learn Azure | Azure Blog and Updates | Microsoft Azure (Priyanka Rawat) - More options to learn, and this one has a practice test in it, something that so many are looking for.

Programming

• 11 Ways of Making Your C# Harder to Use (Brendan Enrick) - A refreshing topmost post that shows the best practices. Well done!

• Containerized Blazor: Microsoft Ponders New Client-Side Hosting (David Ramel) - Looking forward to this feature being out.

• How Wolverine allows for easier testing (Jeremy Miller) - This looks like a great tool for testing.

• Introducing Wolverine for Effective Server Side .NET Development (Jeremy Miller) - The first time I read about that tool looks very interesting.

• WebAssembly vs. Kubernetes (Cameron Gain) - Very interesting thoughts. Only time will show if it's true.

Miscellaneous

• Can the Kindle Scribe replace the yellow notepad? Notes on taking notes with Amazon’s new device (Todd Bishop) - Didn't Know Remarcable 2 had a competitor. I like the idea of reducing paper usage but right now the solutions seem too expensive, at least for my usage. I will continue to use a digital keyboard or tablet pen notes app.

~Frank

Reading Notes #524

Good Monday, time to share my reading notes. Those are a curated list of all the articles, blog posts, podcast episodes, and books that caught 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

• How to run Bash scripts in WordPress on Azure App Service (Abhishek Reddy) - This post explains two ways to achieve that.

• Azure Virtual Machines vs App Services (Michael Shpilt) - The pros and cons of both are listed in this post with some advice. Everything you need to help you to make your choice.

• How to use Azurite for testing Azure Storage in dotnet? (Max Hamulyák) - This very helpful post shows how to use Azirite to test our application.

Programming

• 5 tips for prioritizing Dependabot alerts (Brittany O'Shea) - Nice tips to help us with all these alerts.

• Build skills that open doors—with Microsoft Learn (Erin Rifkin) - This post summarizes it very well. Learn.mocrosoft.com is a great destination.

• Dockerize your SQL Server and use it in ASP.NET Core with Entity Framework Core (Bryan Hogan) - A very complete tutorial that explains all the steps to build an API from nothing.

~frank

Reading Notes #469

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

• Deploying an Azure Function App with Bicep (Mark Heath) - A nice example of a bicep script with a few resources. Not too many so it is complicated but enough to cover some particularities.

Programming

• ASP.NET Core User Secrets and Secret Manager Tool (Steve Gordon) - Its hard to explain secret or invisible things, but this post does a really good job.

• Blazor Power BI Paginated Reports (Michael Washington) - Ooooh It's been a moment since I play with my friend PowerBi... This is very interesting. I just needed a project with data... That shouldn't be that hard to find, right?

• Microsoft Graph Fundamentals learning path – Module 1 (Luise Freese) - Wonderful! Does this learning path as been created just for me? Perfect timing.

• Windows Containers on Windows 10 without Docker (using Containerd) · James Sturtevant (James Sturtevant) - Interesting container project.

Books

Think Again: The Power of Knowing What You Don't Know 

Author: Adam M. Grant

- I really like this book. It validates that it's okay to rethink decisions, to change your mind. The goal is to have (and keep) an open mindset. It seems easier than it is, of course. I heard amazing comments about this author, so it's probably not the last one I will read from him.

Miscellaneous

• GraphQL Editor - new release v. 4.5 (Tomek Poniatowicz) - I didn't know that tool, but now I really need to look at it; it seems awesome.

~ Frank

Reading Notes #449

Cloud

• Deploying Minecraft on Azure (Sophia Parafina) - Interesting post that leverages Pulumi.

Programming

• Using the ASP.NET Core Environment Feature to manage Development vs. Production for any config file type (Scott Hanselman) - A nice tutorial that explains how to benefits of our environment in C#

• Building applications with C# and a Challenge! (Shayne Boyer) - Very happy to finally see C# to learn. I should have a look at all those modules...interactive he said...it looks awesome.

• Internationalization And Localization For Static Sites — Smashing Magazine (Sam Richard) - This is an amazing post that not only shows how they did it but explains why they did. Really interesting.

• Managing multiple SSH keys for authentication to GitHub on Windows 10 (Dominique St-Amand) - Nice tips to work securely with 2 ssh key.

• Node.js REST API Tutorial: Express.js and TypeScript (Marcos Henrique da Silva) - As I'm learning TypeScript/ Node.js for a project and was looking for how to structure and organized my project this post provide so much.

• Should Your Enterprise Pick Angular, React or Blazor? (Jon Hilton) - Of course, it depends, but I like how this post lets you think about many different aspects before making your decision.

• Best practice when naming Durable Functions in C# (Laurent Bugnion) - Nice update. So many developers will thank you later...

Miscellaneous

• How to waste your career, one comfortable year at a time (Apoorva Govind) - In the end, what is most important is that you are happy. I like to continuously learn new things, but I also learn that for some people, this is not healthy. And it is totally fine.

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 #406

Every week, I publish my reading notes. Those are the articles, blog posts, podcast episodes, and books that catch my interest and that I found interesting. It's a mix of the actuality and what I was looking for.

My Numbers for 2019

• This marks the 46 Reading Notes blog post.
• 20 blog posts in French or English. 
• 69 live stream on Twitch
• 33 Cloud 5 Minutes episode in French or English.
• Many talks in different communities
• 881 contributions in open-source projects

Looking forward to seeing you all in two days to start 2020 together!

Cloud

• How to Learn Microsoft Azure in 2020 (Thomas Maurer) - Another great list of learning starting points.

Programming

• How to Build a Test Automation Strategy? (Hiren Dhaduk) - Nice post that lists all types of tests and explains their purpose.
• How to Implement Sorting in ASP.NET Core Web API (Vladimir Pecanac) - If you are building an API this post is definitely a must to give the best experience to your users.

DevOps

• Top 10 DevOps Training Courses for Programmers and Software Developers (javinpaul) - A question that I've been asked often is where to start. My favorite answer is a
  lot of time at Learn.microsoft.com. However, here some different sources that all look delicious.

Podcasts

• SPI 403: 2 Time Management Strategies to Practice in 2020 (Pat Flynn) - Great quick episode. I'm always interested to optimized my time and to track it to help me to improve painlessly.
• SPI 402: Everyone Needs to Have a Podcast (Pat Flynn) - Very interesting episode that explains why... with numbers and examples... Guess what just popped on my project list...
• 19 Lessons for Streamers About Growth and Business in 2019 (Ashnichrist) - Nice episode different from the usual. It's also very different from the classic year review.

Miscellaneous

• Visualizing Your Work Schedule (Valentin Sawadski) - Interesting project.I'm always looking forward to the best way to track my time and see where I put my effort (aka time).

~

Reading Notes #345

Suggestion of the week

• How to securely connect to Azure from C# and run REST APIs (Benjamin Perkins) - Great post! This last piece put all the puzzle pieces together. And I love when author shared their mistakes... we learn even more.

Cloud

• How to audit an Azure subscription Role Based Access Control (RBAC) assignments (Stephane Lapointe) - Great new PowerShell script to help us keeping the control over our subscriptions.
• Introducing Azure DevOps (null) - VSTS just got a major update... It's now on called azure DevOps and is packed with tons of great features. Awesome!

Programming

• A complete containerized .NET Core Application microservice that is as small as possible (Scott Hanselman) - A great new part in the optimization journey of Scott and his Apps.
• Introducing Microsoft Learn (Microsoft Developer) - Nice short video that explains why the new Learn portal will be so great.
• NLog vs log4net vs Serilog: Compare .NET Logging Frameworks (Simon Timms) - Useful post that reviews three popular logging framework.
• Scripts to remove old .NET Core SDKs (Scott Hanselman) - Neet script! Thanks, Scott.

Miscellaneous

• Attitude Matters (When It Comes To Winning Users Over)! (Gaurav) - Interesting post that once again shows that communication is A great in both ways.
• When and Why Chatbots - The Wit and Ramblings of David Giard (David Giard) - Yes chatbot, are great... But not to all situation, learn more in the post why.
• Windows Virtual Desktop (null) - This week Microsoft announced what looks like a very simple way to get powerful environments without all the trouble to maintain them. More to come.

~