Reading Notes #615

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.

Back from a two weeks time off it was nice to get back into tech read.

You also read something you liked? Share it!

Cloud

• Azure Developer CLI (azd) – August 2024 (Grace Kulin) - Wow so many new features (many security related) and tons of new templates.

Programming

• Adding .NET Aspire to your existing .NET apps (Jon Galloway) - This great post explains step by step how to add .NET Aspire to your existing app, saying what you gain and how it's helping you to be faster at buildinba better application.

• Bring your AI Copilots to the edge with Phi-3 and Semantic Kernel (Arafat Tehsin) - First post of a very interesting and promising series to build our own local only AI app.

• Combining multiple docker images into a multi-arch image (Andrew Lock) - Another great article from Andrew that explains very clearly a Docker feature: generate multiple image under the same ta to target different OS and infrastructure (ex: x64,arm32)

• Logging in Banana Cake Pop (Pascal Senn) - What a amazing new feature! This will greatly improve development and debugging productivity!

• An Absolute Beginner's Guide to LangGraph.js (Anchit) - A great tutorial that requires not API key and provides detailed steps to learn using Node how to use AI.

• The ultimate guide to developer happiness (Jeimy Ruiz) - Many great tools and solution within GitHub "circle". This post provides best practices to improve developers productivity and announces when the next GitHub Universe is coming up.

• Different Containerising Options for .NET Developers (Justin Yoo) - So many options! The classic one with all the Docker command or the some more embedded... Your choice!

~frank

Reading Notes #245

Cloud

• Application Insights: Track an Analytics query in a dashboard (Dan Hadari) - Nice quick intro to Azure analytics.
• Logging and Error Handling in Logic Apps - Interesting post that shares a solution for real-life problem, by using document DB.
• Visualizing your Azure enterprise costs with Power BI - PowerBI is fantastic to visualize data consumption, this post explains how EA subscription owner can now use it easily.

Miscellaneous

• 5 Reasons Your Daily Scrum is Boring - So simple and so hard to achieve. This post explains how to avoid common mistakes.
• How Do I Write Good Code? (Erik Dietrich) - Simple tips that will make our code rocks.

Reading Notes #201

Cloud

• Tracing and logging with Application Insights (Andrei Dzimchuk) - You know the 101 about App Insights and you are looking for something more specific? This post if a must it shows how to transform an ordinary logger in a great source of information.

Programming

• Usage of into and let keyword in Query Expression C# – Humble bits (Ashish Kumar) - This post gives a very clear explanation of the key work let.
  
• Node v4.0.0 - This post explains the major features included in the last release of Node.js.
  
• Elastic database client library now open sourced (Silvia Doomra) - Nice post that explains the reason why a Microsoft library would like to be open source, gives a quick definition of the elastic database, of course. course.

Databases

• Moving Your SQL Databases to Azure – Things to Know - Fantastic post that explains, well, everything we must know to get started with Azure SQL Database.

Miscellaneous

• How to turn one tiny thought into a blog post worth reading - I like this post, it gives a lot of tips on how turn your brain dump (ideas) in something more productive.
  
• A Remote Worker's Guide To Staying Healthy - This is definitely not a technical post. However, since are all working sitting in front of a computer, it's time for a little reminder.
  
• Creating a Portable Windows 10 Environment with Windows To Go - Interesting... I knew this was possible with some Linux distribution, but I didn't know it was possible with Windows.
  
• Not in my job description (Marc) - I just love it. Nice post.

Reading Notes #145

Suggestion of the week

• Thinking About Strings, Quotes, Tokens, And Tildes In Less CSS - Less CSS seams really interesting. Next web projects, I seriously think use it.

Cloud

• Lessons Learned – On #Azure, Log Everything!s (Alexandre Briseboi) - Great post about how we should use the Event Trace Windows (ETW) to do our logs.
• Using Time-based Partition Keys in #Azure Table Storage (Alexandre Briseboi) - Nice tips about how saving our logs in Azure.
• How to get notifications from a Windows Azure website - Wow, this is truly amazing and really easy to do.

Programming

• How to connect your Windows Phone 8 & 8.1 app to Yammer - Nice short tutorial to learn how connect Windows Phone (wp) apps to Yammer.
• PowerShell Tools - v0.8.0 - Now with REPL! - Time to get or update this great add-ons in our Visual Studio.
• Thinktecture.IdentityManager as a replacement for the ASP.NET WebSite Administration tool (Scott Hanselman) - This post introduces a great project to manage our memberships in our Asp.Net projects through a nice interface.

Mobile

• Windows First: A New Strategy for Mobile Development and Beyond - Programming multi platform application is becoming much easier. This post explains some of your options.

Architecture

• The Open Group Open Platform 3.0™ Starts to Take Shape (The Open Group Blog) - This post talks about an interesting white paper. What’s good in it and why we should read it. This new 3.0 platform look very promising.

Miscellaneous

• How to use an Xbox One controller on your Windows PC (Scott Hanselman) - Really.?! That simple? That’s great!
• Windows Live Writer going Open Source? - This post explains why our help is needed in order to give a future to Windows Live Writer.

Reading Notes #63

This week a little bit less of notes since I went to the Windows Azure Global Summit at Seattle, where I met many interesting persons. A lot of amazing things are coming for Windows Azure... but this is for another post!  

Cloud

• Great Free Courses on Building HTML5 apps using ASP.NET Web API, Knockout.js and jQuery (Scott Gu) - Great post with a lot of amazing news for all developers.

[…] Read this getting started tutorial to walkthrough how you can build (in less than 5 minutes) a simple Windows 8 “To-do List” app that is cloud enabled using Windows Azure Mobile Services. Or watch this video of me showing how to do it step by step.[…]

• BizTalk 2010 R2 CTP: Azure Service Bus Integration–Part 1 (Kent Weare) - Great tutorial, easy to follow that show new features included in the BizTalk 2010 R2.
• BizTalk 2010 R2 CTP: Azure Service Bus Integration–Part 2 Brokered Message Properties (Kent Weare) - Nice tutorial, good way to bind those two great tools such as Biztalk and Azure. More two come in this serie about service bus and topics.
• Deploying Azure Websites with Git (Tyler) - Nice tutorial that how easy it is to manage our website with the new Github integration into the Windows Azure portal.
• What is the Difference Between Apprenda and Windows Azure? (Toddy Mladenov) - Interesting comparison between Windows Azure and Apprenda. I didn't know that last one, but it looks nice. It needs more investigation.
• Windows Azure Mobile Services Preview Walkthrough–Part 4: Customizing the Windows Store App’s UI (Roger Jennings) - Nice tutorial. This is the fourth of a serie but it could be read easily alone if you only interested of deploying an app in the Windows store.
• Logging Using Azure Table Storage (Michael R Duffy) - I'm use to see more logging solution using the Windows Azure storage with blob than with table. But it makes sense since now storage is so cheap. Great post.
• Connecting to Windows Azure Service Bus from BizTalk Server 2010 R2 CTP - Great post that explain how to leverage BizTalk using the Windows Azure Service Bus with topics.
• Innovation Across Multiple Screens and How Your App Idea Fits In (Paul Laberge) - Quick post about a more and more popular idea: 3 screens and a cloud.

Programming

• Generate Kindle (MOBI) ebooks with your ASP.NET Web API - Nice demo that show the pipeline of how those "send to Kindle" services.
• Why I’m done with Scrum (Jimmy Bogard) - Interesting thoughts about Agile method. Pros and cons.

Miscellaneous

• Turns out I’ll be writing a book - Nice idea. I hope this book will be published. I will love read this book.
• Everything's broken and nobody's upset (Scott Hanselman) - It is good to know you’re not alone. Scott told all the issue he as in... One week!?
• Everything’s Amazing and Nobody’s Happy (Richard Seroter)- Nice reply to the post of Scott Hanselman. I'm must say I going on Seroter side. ;)
• The Art of Writing Functional Specs (Part 1) – What is a Functional Specification? (Saveen Reddy) - Interesting thoughts about how should be written functional specs.
• What to Do When You Have to Work with Someone You Don’t Like (Peter) - Nice post, which forces us to think about our self.