Reading Notes #475

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!

The suggestion of the week

• What makes a good Git commit? (Al Tenhundfeld) - Great post. It's always good to read opinions from others about collaborating as it helps to better understand others, be in their shoes, and then become a better team player.

Cloud

• Azure Service Bus: Queues vs Topics (Davide Bellone) - Most people know about queues but topics is not as well known. This is a great post to understand why, how, and what you need.

• Azure Service Bus and C# - an introduction (Davide Bellone) - This is a nice and detailed post perfect to get started with the service Bus and queues.

• Building and auto-deploying an ASP.NET Core application - Part 7 - Improving your build and release processes ( Imar Spaanjaars) - This series is gold for anyone interested to learn more about best practices when deploying. It covers many different scenarios and got into the details.

• Creating Azure Functions, Custom Connectors and using them inside of Power apps (Charles Sterling) - Quick tutorial that connects two amazing tools.

• Leveling Up Static Web Apps With the CLI (Aaron Powell) - A pretty cool demo running locally. The explanation of the tasks fike is awesome.

Programming

• Best Practices for Microservices (dilshan ukwattage) - 7 best practices to help us building great microservices solutions.

• Conditional compilation for ignoring method calls with the ConditionalAttribute (Andrew Lock) - An interesting post about commands that we don't see that often, or at least that I don't see often.

• How to use GitHub actions and Contentful webhooks to show your latest blog posts on your GitHub profile README (Salma Alam-Naylor) - Wow, This is pretty cool! I didn't think we could do this kind of thing with our page...but I guess we can do all we want; love it.

• Extending HttpClient Testing With Templating (Adam Storr) - A nice quick post that shares unit test pattern

• Exploring .NET interactive notebooks with VS Code (Andrew Lock) - Nice practical utilization of that tech and I love the historic vibe into it.

• Git – What to do when things go wrong (pcmichaels) - Wonderful post...We all been there when we screwed up then not sure how to fix things. This post is packed with helpful commands and explanations on how to use them and the expected result

Miscellaneous

• Diagram as Code with Diagrams (Sam Cogan) - Interesting tool, I use drawio most of the time because it doesn't require any installation, but I am curious to see it.

• Speaking CTO (Gregor Hohpe) - Nive post with really good and simple best practices.

~Frank

Reading Notes #462

Every Monday, I share my "reading notes". This is a curated list of all the articles, blog posts, 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.

Cloud

• Azure Functions in C# quick FAQs and tips ( Dominique St-Amand) - Nice post that answers the frequent questions and shares best practices.

• Using Multiple Accounts with Azure (Sam Cogan) - Nice tips a must. So helpful.

Programming

• ASP.NET Core Dependency Injection: What is the IServiceCollection? (Steve Gordon) - A very clear and complete tutorial.Taking us from zero and teaching us what it is, how it works, how to use it, and some best practices.

• Announcing Dapr v1.0 (Dapr project maintainers) - A great new open-source tool just got to v1. This post will tell you all about it.

• Building an Android app with .NET 6 (Nick) - This is so cool. Looking Good.

• DotNet Boxed includes prescriptive templates for .NET Core (Scott Hanselman) - This is super cool. I really like and appreciate how the .Net CLI is builded.

• Visual Studio 2019 Docker Tooling (Mark Heath) - A nice post that shows how those two great tools work together.

• What is the difference between a DTO and a POCO (or POJO) (Steve (ardalis) Smith) - A very clear explanation. Straight to the point.

• Blazor on Desktop (Sam Basu ) - This post demonstrates by showing how to build those two flavors that it is possible to build a desktop app. Interesting.

Miscellaneous

• 7 Ways to Improve Your Developer Ads � DeveloperMedia - Marketing is hard. I'm not sure developers are that different than others. those tips felt good, they are probably good with all audiences.

~Frank

Reading Notes #399

Cloud

• Azure DevOps Roadmap update for 2019 Q4 (Gloridel Morales) - Since the multi-stage pipeline launch in May, the team as been listening to his community. In this post learn more about what they have been working on and what is their roadmap.

Programming

• Azure DevOps - Docker Release Pipeline (Jeffrey Chilberto ) - A nice and simple tutorial that shows the best practices. Fantastic!

• Code Comments (Donn Felker) - Very smart idea! I'm staring using that rule right away.
• Microservices Fundamentals (Mark Heath) - New course on Pluralsight about an indeed challenging topic. This post shares the plan of that Microservices course.
• Stop Waiting! Start using Async and Await! (Simon Hawe) - Learn the power of async in this excellent post. The example may be in Python the idea is the same however language we are using.

Miscellaneous

• How to Authorize Users in Blazor Declaratively -- Visual Studio Magazine (Peter Vogel) - Great article that explains how authentication could by manage with Blazor.
• What’s in my bag for Microsoft Ignite 2019 (Thomas Maurer) - As I'm packing my own bag, going to Ignite for the first time it's interesting to see what others bring... (Note to myself next time don't leave at home your network cable adapter)

Books

Superfans: The Easy Way to Stand Out, Grow Your Tribe, And Build a Successful Business

Author: Pat Flynn

I really like this book, and planning to read it again soon. I like the way things are simply explained. Like if you deconstructed a situation and then re-building it. It felt authentic and true. It's nothing transcending, but the way it is explained is great.




~

Reading Notes #244

Cloud

• Azure DevTest Labs: Set expiration date for a virtual machine - How could we have lived without that all that time... awesome
  
• Creating “Codeless” Swagger Connectors for Logic Apps (Jeff Hollan [MSFT]) - This post is a great tutorial about how to create an API App ready to be used by Azure Logic App (or anything else of course).
  
• Deploying an Angular 2 App to Azure with Github - Nice tutorial that leverage many frequently used tools, a popular framework and my favorite cloud platform.
  
• Logic Apps Reaches General Availability - This post is a great summary of the changes introduced by the last release aka GA.
  
• Microservices Cookbook: Design Principles and Solution Recipes for Microservices (Neil McEvoy) - Because something is done using a specific new tech that doen't automatically makes that thing better... Learn more about best practice and useful pattern.

Programming

• A .NET IDE for the iPad? - Exploring Continuous with Frank Krueger - Wow! That look just fantastic. I cannot try it since I'm not a "jThing" owner, but I really like the idea of such a powerful and useful tool on a tablet. Looking forward to see how that will go.

Miscellaneous

• GitKraken Pro git client teaming up with NightScout to support Open Source Diabetes software - Have you tried this awesome tool? I've been using it since the first private preview, and I love it. I really think it' s a must as git user interface
  
• Windows Insider Program.next() (Dona Sarkar) - The Windows 10 anniversary edition is out since August 2nd. This post is about the community who made that possible, and explains how you could join.

Reading Notes #223

Cloud

• Background tasks for your web site using Azure WebJobs (Jon Hilton) - Interesting post that introduces storage queues and webjob to manage background process.
  
• Azure Logic Apps Connectors (Jeff Hollan) - This post is a nice introduction to trigger. These ca be use in Azure Logic Apps but also in Power Apps.
  
• Download Azure Resource Manager Tools for VS Code - Another nice extension for Visual Studio Code (vscode).
  
• Get Last Sync Time for Read-Access Geo-Redundant Azure Storage - This post contains a lot of detail and information about disaster recovery and how to create a nice PowerShell module as a tool to help us.
  
• Accessing v1 APIs and BizTalk APIs from Logic Apps (Jeff Hollan) - Nice post that shares interesting tips about Azure API Apps.
  
• Getting to Know #Azure Mobile App - Nice tutorial that leverage the recently GA Azure Mobile App to build AskAlex: an universal application that looks promising...;)
  
• Exception Handling with Logic Apps (Jeff Hollan) - Great tutorial that shows how to solve a extremely frequent problem... the exception handling.
  
• Using Logic Apps Webhook Triggers (Jeff Hollan) - Fantastic tutorial that shows how to create an HTTP trigger in today's interface/ designer.
  
• Deploying in the Logic Apps Preview Refresh (Jeff Hollan) - Very interesting post for the initiated that explains few pro tips when deploying our Azure Logic App.
  
• Using the Azure Resource Manager: Part 1 Virtual Machines (Rachel Hagerman) - First post in a very promising series. This on sets the table and shows how to use VS to deploy a VM.
  
• Using the Azure Resource Manager: Part 2 Networking Templates (Rachel Hagerman) - This second post in this series gives more details about a very common piece in our deployments the network.

Databases

• Making Entity Framework 7 and Azure Data Sync work together (Gunnar Peipman) - Nice tweak to solve a problem in small database context.

Programming

• Automated Testing with Visual Studio (Lachezar Arabadzhiev) - An episode to watch... Everyone should do tests.

Miscellaneous

• Microservices as an Evolutionary Architecture - Interesting post about an architecture pattern that becomes more popular.

Reading Notes #194

Suggestion of the week

• How to use Azure Search with D3.js to Build Interactive Data Visualizations (Liam Cavanagh) - An awesome idea to display the result of Azure Search, and it look really cool.

Cloud

• My First Azure DocumentDB Account (Eitan Blumin) - Nice tutorial that explains how to create a documentDB from scratch.
  
• Azure Preview Portal Improvements (June Update) (Leon Welicki) - Wow! See how little things can have a great impact on the user experience.
  
• Hey Azure, how's my Web App doing? - Great post about web apps metrics.
  
• New DocumentDB ORDER BY Features in the Azure Preview Portal (Stephen Baron) - Nice new feature.
  
• Cloud Cruiser and Microsoft Azure Billing API Integration - Interesting post that shows how we can use the new Azure billing API as data to there services.
  
• Gain insights into your Microsoft Azure resource consumption (BryanLa) - Interesting post to know more about our consumption.
  
• Azure Redis Cache Updates for June 2015 (Pranav Rastogi) - Nice quick post about the new Redis Cache features.
  
• Move VMware, AWS, Hyper-V and Physical Servers to Azure (Abhishek A. Hemrajani) - An amazing tool, and a great opportunity to try it for free!

Customers can replicate on-premises workloads to Azure with Azure Site Recovery for 31 days at no charge

• Integrate your on-premises infrastructure with Azure (Jim Dial) - A great tool to visualize the infrastructure to help in a hybrid situation.
  
• Announcing Cortana Analytics Suite and New Partner Investments at WPC 2015 (Takeshi Numoto) - I'm looking forward to trying it out.

Programming

• Microservices Guide - This is the perfect post to get started with micro services. a nice overview what it is, and when to use it.
  
• Are You Making These 10 DDD Mistakes? (Daniel) - Nice infographic about the most frequent mistakes.
  
• Transitioning from ASP.NET Web API 2 to ASP.NET MVC 6 - Great post that will walk you through all the things to watch before doing a transition to Asp.net 5 and Mvc6.
  
• A Step-by-Step Guide to Working with the ASP.NET Web API and AngularJS (Dhananjay Kumar) - Nice tutorial that presents a complete but simple scenario easy to follow.
  
• Node.js: Understanding NPM - This is the perfect post to get started on the Node NPM. A tool that every developer should know.

Documentation

• Role-based access control in the Microsoft Azure portal (Justin Hall) - Very complete doc.

Miscellaneous

• Cortana for Android Leaks Early, Available for Download (Kellex) - Nice, we can try Coryana today!
  
• Microsoft’s Global Partner Conference in Toronto July 2016 - Not far from home, this is really good.

~ Frank

Reading Notes #182

Suggestion of the week

• Orchestrating massive parallelisation of Azure WebJobs for fun and profit (Troy Hunt) - An awesome post. I really like those post where we learn step by step what has been tried and failed, and how to move from point A to Z.

Cloud

• Azure Mobile Services and APIs – RESTful and Custom (Adarsha Datta) - Nice tutorial about how to use Azure service Api and customizes it.
• How Azure Web Apps Hosts an ASP.NET 5 Application (tugberkugurlu.com) - Interesting post th0at shows how aspnet works with Azure under the hood.
  
• NoSQL database service Azure DocumentDB now Generally Available (John Macintyre) - Know everything you need to get started on DocumetDB, now in GA. Nice free import tool was also released.

released the DocumentDB Data Migration tool, an open source solution that imports data from a variety of sources, including JSON files, CSV files, SQL Server, MongoDB and existing DocumentDB collections.

• Mostly Cloudy - April 14th - This post is a nice overview of the Azure actuality for April.
  
• Think #Microservices - Very interesting post that explains why microservices could be so promising.

Programming

• How to Update a Forked Repository (blog.falafel.com) - Nice little how to for Github and sourcetree.
  
• Understanding Internationalization in ASP.NET MVC (About the Author) - Nice tutorial that explains the difference between: Internationalization, localisation, globalisation and how to use them to build a nice app.net website.
  
• New book: Node.js for .NET Developers (KimSpilker Kim Spilker) - Today nodejs is an unavoidable language, this book explains how it works from a c# point of view.

Miscellaneous

• Free ebook: Managing Agile Open-Source Software Projects with Microsoft Visual Studio Online (KimSpilker Kim Spilker) - A free book, that's always welcome.
  
• Avoiding Common Executive DevOps Mistakes (Ericka Chickowski) - Interesting post about common mistakes when people are trying to do agile methodology.
  
• Microsoft BUILD Announces #BuildTour (MVP Award Program) - Great news!
  
• Dropbox can now open documents straight into Microsoft Office Online (Dave Yin) - Now that what I call a reel int0egration, and a great feature!

~Frank B.

Reading Notes #175

Cloud

• Running the Ruby Middleman Static Site Generator on Microsoft Azure (Scott Hanselman) - Really nice post. It looks very fun. It's amazing what we can do with git and Azure!

• Lift and Shift of a Windows Service to Microsoft #Azure (Alexandre Brisebois) - Nice tutorial with a lot of clear explications for every step.

• Another reason to like azure web sites - free analytics - Nice quick post that summarizes a great Azure Friday episode about statistics.

• Using Stream Analytics with Event Hubs (Kirk Evans) - Great post that plays with both Azure event hub and azure stream analytics.

Programming

• Proper benchmarking to diagnose and solve a .NET serialization bottleneck (Scott Hanselman) - Another great post that will help to ask ourselves some better question when it's time to investigate so performance issue.

• Atom-Shell for cross platform desktop apps with Paul Betts (Scott Hanselman, Paul Betts) - Nice episode that clarifies things around Atom-Shell.

• Bad Practices Building Microservices (Jan Stenberg) - Interesting post that talks about what why shouldn't be doing.

Miscellaneous

• Becoming Great Remote Developer - Interesting thoughts and tips about remote work.

• Microsoft or Google? - This post shares some thoughts about a very common question that a lot of people are asking.

~Frank