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 #598

It's reading notes time! It is a habit I started a long time ago, close to 600 weeks ago in fact, 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

• What is cloud native and how can it generate business value? (George Fitzmaurice) - Interesting thoughts about cloud native, how to see it, how to se it's value.

• Using Kudu in Azure to Debug an Azure Function (Paul Michaels) - Kudu is a fantastic tools that not enough people know about.

Programming

• Is Your Container Image Really Distroless? (Laurent Goderre) - Nice post that explains a new way to improve security and more while building our container by going distroless.

• Blazor Basics: Improved Performance with Component Virtualization (Claudio Bernasconi) - When applicable the lazy loading makes a huge difference. This simple tutorial explains how things works and has all the code to back it up.

• Azure PowerShell Tips and Tricks (Paul Harrison) - PowerShell is a very interesting and useful script language.All those tips are pure wisdom!

DevOps

• Beautiful .NET Test Reports Using GitHub Actions (Sean Killeen) - It's true that the unit test result in Azure DevOps looks amazing. Pretty nice adaptation in GitHub Action, could/ should it be native?

Open Source

• Linus Torvalds announces Linux 6.8 (Brian Fagioli) - Nice post.I feel we see more often distro new release making "the e news".

• Debian’s Dedication to Security: A Robust Foundation for Docker Developers (David Dooling) - Happy to see such a fundamental distribution take seriously security as core idea.

AI

• Building a Video Analysis and Transcription Chatbot with the GenAI Stack (David Cardozo) - This post explains a very cool project with generative AI and docker in different technology, very inspiring!

~Frank

Reading Notes #578

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

• Wolverine and Serverless (Jeremy d Miller) - The secrets is in the details! Wolverine is good with persistent environment, learn how to fine-tune it so its also good in short live (aka serverless) environment.

• What Is Open Source's Role in Platform Engineering? (Pete Lilley) - This post why should we spend time learning platform engineering.

Programming

• Introduction to Git, GitHub, and Version Control​ workshop-o-matic Library () - Git is a powerful tool.This post share a bit of what it is how it works and talk about other source control.

• Creating Animated Login UI in .NET MAUI with Lottie (John Aziz) - Nice post that shows how to make good looking login screen with animation. Because with does it need to be plain?!

• Docker Desktop 4.25: Enhancements to Docker Desktop on Windows, Rosetta for Linux GA, and New Docker Scout Image Analysis Settings (Mihaela Stoica) - Woot woot! Nice performance improvement... Congrats to the team.

• How to Determine URL a Local Git Repository was Originally Cloned From (Chris Pietschmann) - Neat tips and its simple.

Podcasts

• Defining a Database with Tony Baer (Screaming in the Cloud) - I was smiling all along that episode. It's such a great question! There a so many variation of databases these days and different data sources!
• 66. Developing critical thinking skills and choosing different technologies - with Laïla Bougriâ (Betatalks the podcast) - Whatever it's a new project, the middle of it, or the refactoring of an old one, communication ans sharing the information is so important. And listening too! Nice episode.
• Failing Well with Dr. Amy Edmondson (A Bit of Optimism) - It's all about how we can change our relationship with failures and start “failing well”. I like that! She's the author of Right Kind of Wrong, a new addition to my to-read stack.
• J. Tower: Modernization Strangler Fig Pattern - Episode 263 (Azure DevOps Podcast) - Modernization could seams simple... right? But it's not! There are many traps. There many challenges that are waiting for you and you need to to the things for the right reasons. Nice episode.

Miscellaneous

• Discover What's New in PowerToys v0.75.0: Environment Variables, Peek Updates, and More (Kunal Chowdhury) - Oh wow! A lot of pretty cool updates, I need to try the environment variables editor...

~ Frank Boucher

Reading Notes #569

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

• Stream videos from Azure Blob storage with ASP.NET Core (Mark Heath) - A great end-to-end tutorial leveraging cost-efficient Azure resources.

• Using ETags and Patching Rows in Azure Table Storage (Mark Heath) - Nice post that shows us simply and quickly how to manage conflicts when using Azure Table Storage.

Programming

• Speed up Visual Studio load times with Microsoft Dev Box (Greg Denton) - Woooo! Speed... From our Visual Studio that runs locally or remote via DevBox, awesome.

• Adding a “share to mastodon” link to any web site – and here (Christian Heilmann) - I didn't think about it but it's true that there are many different URLs with Mastodon... This post shares the code for one of the solutions to solve this issue.

Miscellaneous

• Unleash Your Inner Entrepreneur with MS FounderHub: AI-Based Startups with Azure OpenAI Services (Lee Stott) - Motivating post to do something. So many have great ideas and just sit on it... With today's technology, many blockers can be removed...

~ Frank

Reading Notes #566

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

• What is the difference between the Azure Command Line Interface and Azure Developer Command Line Interface? (Liam Conroy Hampton) - I keep telling myself I should give it a try. That new AZD CLI seems pretty sick. No more excuses for my next project.

• Azure OpenAI Landing Zone reference architecture (Freddy Ayala) - Using Open AI or planning to do it this post shares a great list of Azure services that will help you do it effectively and securely.

Low Code

• Power Automate Apply To Each Loops 20X Faster (Matthew Devaney) - Smart way to gain performance, but make sure to do your homework and validate the connector limits and adjust the variables.

Data

• Learn about Microsoft Fabric for Data Analytics (Koen Verbeeck) - Learn more about this new one-stop service that was announced during Microsoft Build.

Miscellaneous

• GitHub Repository Rules are now generally available - The GitHub Blog (Patrick Knight) - Wow! very interesting... Great update!

~Frank

Reading Notes #564

Monday! It is time to share my reading notes. It is a habit I started a long time ago where I share a list of all blog posts that catch my interest during the week. 

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

 

Cloud

• How To: Remote Debug a Deployed Azure Function using Visual Studio 2022 (Jamie Maguire) - Because sometimes the only solution is to debug live from the cloud. It's great that it's possible.

• Enabling Azure Application Insights for an App Service (David Giard) - It's one of those tools it's right there and you didn't know you couldn't live without until you try it and you get all that information.

DevOps

• Modifying Docker images during Kubernetes deployments (Matthew Casperson) - This is a very detailed tutorial that helps and explains clearly each step of that deployment pipeline.

Programming

• Tech Notes: Quick hacks on GitHub Pages (Evan Martin) - Nice git tricks.

• Debugging distributed systems is hard! (Dennis Frühauff) - This is a very nice post that explains clearly a situation. How many of us have been in this situation before where you try to debug a system and it's just so hard?

• Healthcare and Life Sciences Blog (Kyle Raymond) - This is a cool tutorial/ example that explains what is and how to use semantic Kernel.

Data

• Speeding up Queries with Materialized Views (Derek Comartin) - Great post that will inspire us on how to get the best performance for our databases.

~Frank

Reading Notes #473

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!

Suggestion of the week

• Transform C# objects to a flat string dictionary (Josef Ottoson) - I love so much those developer's coding journey. We learn so much more than if only the "happy path " was shared. Great post thank you for sharing.

Cloud

• Develop production-scale modern web apps quickly with Azure Static Web Apps (Daria Grigoriu) - Nice summary of what is an Azure Static web app and what and all the included features since it reached Global Availability this week.
• The New Azure Logo - Microsoft Azure Icon (Abhijit Jana) - This is my favorite so far.
• Using Auth0 with Static Web Apps (Aaron Powell) - Ah wonderful! I noticed this new feature in Azure static web App this week. This post details how it works and gives a great example.

Programming

• VS Code shortcuts that you must know! (Mac and Windows) (Raynaldo Sutisna) - Learning new shortcuts is always nice.
• 4 Tips on How to Refactor Code in Visual Studio Code (Alex Omeyer) - Nice! I didn't know about that cool extension.
• 5 Ways to Improve the Performance of C# Code for Free (Sasha Mathews) - Interesting deep dive in the performance of our code and the why it goes fast or could go faster.
• Add a README to Your NuGet Package (Christopher Gill) - Now I understand! I noticed that, earlier this week, and thought: Wow, this is wonderful, why they are not all doing that! Now it all makes sense.
• How To Customize Azure DevOps Projects Process Templates? (Abhijit Jana) - Azure DevOps is a very very powerful tool. This post and video will show you how to start customizing it.
• What Do You Mean By Automated Tests And Continuous Integration? (Charles L Flatt) - Great answer.

Podcasts

• Bonus: Understanding Digital Body Language (Modern Mentor) - That we wanted or not, we need to get better with those new tools: the webcam, the microphone. We need to understand how to use them correctly and how to understand what the person on the other hand is really sharing. Great episode.
• Social Robots with De'Aira Bryant (Hanselminutes with Scott Hanselman) - Okay I crack at... If only they knew! A very interesting episode about... yes robots!
• Write Great APIs (Coding Blocks) - What's an API, what's a good API, why it's good, or why it's bad... Great episode that may me think... I really need to get back to my code and update a few things.

~frank

Reading Notes #287

Cloud

• .NET: Manage Azure Container Service, Cosmos DB, Active Directory Graph and more (Asir Selvasingh) - I'm a bit scared about this .Net new feature, but at the same time curious to see where it will go.
• Azure Redis Cache Geo-Replication in Public Preview (Ye Gu) - Nice tutorial that will help to have a better disaster recovery plan.
• Deploying Applications to Azure Container Service (atulm) - Great tutorial to start orchestrating containers on Azure.
• Designing Globally Resilient Apps with Azure App Service – Opsgility (Chris Pietschmann) - Great post that lists a lot of tools available in Azure to get a better architecture for your solution.
• Enhanced app usage monitoring and investigative features in Azure Application Insights (Rahul Bagaria) - Wow, so many new features, exactly what I needed!
• Microsoft’s Logic Apps Aims to Bring Serverless Functionality to Non-Coders (Mark Boyd) - Nice post that gives a glimpse at the Logic Apps future.
• Receive emails from Azure WebJobs when errors are detected (Vivien Chevallier) - Nice tutorial that explains how to manage error in a webjob and implement the best practices.

Programming

• Docker for .NET Developers (Part 4) - Steve Gordon's Blog (Steve Gordon) - This post of the series explains the Docker file and few useful commands. I really like this series.
• Porting a 15 year old .NET 1.1 Virtual CPU Tiny Operating System school project to .NET Core 2.0 (Scott Hanselman) - We all have those prehistoric pieces of code, and it required lots of courage to share them with the public. However, what all of us learn from it, is priceless. Thank you, Scott.
• Speed of dotnet run vs the speed of dotnet for published apps (plus self-contained .NET Core apps) (Scott Hanselman) - Great post that explains a few differences between the published and just builds performance.

Miscellaneous

• How to Get into the Habit of Time Tracking - Toggl Blog (Liza Plotnikova) - I don't count the times where Toogl "saved my life" when it was time to do my timesheet. A tool to try.

Reading Notes #263

Cloud

• Announcing: New Auto-Scaling Standard Streaming Endpoint and Enhanced Azure CDN Integration (Cenk Dingiloglu) - Great, now integrated.
  
• Azure Storage Queues New Feature: Pop-Receipt on Add Message (Sercan Guler) - This post shows how to use the new queue feature in a great demo.
  
• SoftNAS Cloud® on Azure - Cloud NAS Storage made easy (Lutful Khandker) - Interesting product that clearly fill-up a need in the online storage. Let's talk about it after the 30-day trial.

Programming

• Two-Factor authentication in ASP.NET Identity 3 using TOTP authenticator (Dominique St-Armand) - Excellent post, perfect to get started on 2 factor authentication.
  
• What .NET Developers ought to know to start in 2017 (Scott Hanselman) - Nice work from John and Scott... Sweet checklist for beginners and all the other too.

Databases

• Azure SQL Database is increasing read and write performance (Jan Engelsberg) - Perfect timing! Better performance for the same price.

Reading Notes #220

Suggestion of the week

• Microsoft Azure IoT Reference Architecture - Great post that explains part in IoT and micro-services with their respective roles.

Cloud

• Azure Search .NET SDK roadmap (Bruce Johnston) - All in one post, the list of new features and the ones coming next.
  
• What is Azure Stack? - Usually, we refer to the stack as a group of products from the same provider. Azure stack is a little of that, but with a little twist... it's on-premises! This post explains it all.
  
• Azure welcomes Parse developers (Glenn Gailey) - Interesting server who is now well supported in Azure.
  
• Azure Logic Apps Monthly Update – January 2016 (Sriram Hariharan) - Nice summary of the Logic App team's January video updates.

Programming

• Application Insights announces availability of Release Annotations (Mike Gresley) - A useful feature that is explained in this post.
  
• Why I No Longer Use MVC Frameworks - Very complete and moreover, very interesting article about strengths and weaknesses of different patterns and frameworks.
  
• Introducing Insiders Builds (Chris Dias [MSFT]) - The Insider's previews are back in a more convivial structure.

Data

• General availability: Azure SQL Database Query Performance Insight - What an awesome tool that gives us the ability to get the biggest resources consumer over a long period... and that, without redeploying.
  
• Queries To Debug SQL Server Replication Issues (Tim Smith) - If you are using database synchronization in your system, you should definitely bookmark this post that provides nice tools to us to diagnose problems.

Book

• Software Development Book Giveaway! - Cool! A great opportunity, 3 free books are given: Building Microservices, Working Effectively with Legacy Code, and Javascript: The Good Parts.

Miscellaneous

• GitHub Pages now faster and simpler with Jekyll 3.0 - Important changes announced for github and Jerkel users. And alternatively an important note to al Markdown users.

Reading Notes #149

Cloud

• Using the Internal Load-Balancer with Azure Virtual Machines - Fantastic post that explains how we can use the internal load balancer in Azure. Even the PowerShell scripts are included.
  
• Using Reserved IP Addresses with Microsoft Azure Virtual Machines - Nice PowerShell scripts and comments to help us with our Azure fixed IP.

Programming

• Free eBook on Model View View Model design pattern (Surf4Fun) - MVVM is a very useful pattern, so a free e-book on he topic is a good news!
  
• Unusual Ways of Boosting Up App Performance. Boxing and Collections - Interesting post that explains how to find and fix different memory issue in our application.

Miscellaneous

• How To Come up with Great Ideas for Blog Posts, Every Single Time - Good advice to fight the white page situation.

Reading Notes #142

Suggestion of the week

• How To Refactor for Dependency Injection -- Visual Studio Magazine (Ondrej Balas) - I really liked this post. Seriously, I'll be referring to it each time someone will be asking why we should use IoC.

Programming

• Web Performance Optimization is Simple - Can Your Developers Execute? (love2dev.com) - Nice post that explained why knowing more than a hello word is important.
  
• Announcing Update to Productivity Power Tools 2013 - Ah. Great.
  
• The Magic of using Asynchronous Methods in ASP.NET 4.5 plus an important gotcha (Scott Hanselman) - This post explains very clearly how we should do our async call in a web app.
  
• Using Asynchronous Methods in ASP.NET MVC 4 - Great tutorial that covers everything we need to know about async in a web application context.
  
• Test Plan and Test Suite Customization with TFS2013 Update3 (Manoj Bableshwar) - Visual studio is already to update 3! This post shows one of the new feature that was the most requested by users.
  
• Becoming SOLID in C# - Really interesting article that encoureage us to know more about SOLID principles in C#.
  
• Change Risk Anti-Patterns & Code Complexity - This post explains an interesting method to calculate the risk of your code when facing changes.

Mobile

• Xamarin.Forms - Write Once, Run Everywhere, AND Be Native? (Scott Hanselman) - Very interesting post that proved how amazing Xamarin is becoming.

Miscellaneous

• 5 Ways Your Business Can Benefit from Agile Engineering Practices Today - A really interesting article that explains an concept in a simple way.
  
• Waterfall to Agile (Andy Watson, B. Clay Shannon JD Meier) - I likethis post because it shows strong images to explains the difference between waterfall and agile.
  
• Self-Improvement In Agile Teams - Interesting post about how we should think when we feel to do something more, in an agile team.