Visual Countdown Days Until [a date]

During the holidays, I embarked on a fun project to create a visual countdown for important dates. Inspired by howmanysleeps and hometime from veebch, I wanted to build a countdown that didn't rely on Google Calendar. Instead, I used a Raspberry Pi Pico and some custom code to achieve this.

💾 You can find the full code on GitHub

What It Is

This project consists of two main parts:

• Python code for the Raspberry Pi Pico
• A .NET website to update the configuration, allowing you to set:
  • The important date
  • Two custom colors or random ones
  • The RGB values for the custom colors

What You Need

• Raspberry Pi Pico
• Azure subscription
• BTF-LIGHTING XGB1338(WS2812B) LED Strip DC5V with Individual Addressable LED
• Azure Developer CLI (azd)

How to Deploy the Configuration Website

After cloning the repo, navigate to the src/NextEvent/ folder and use the Azure Developer CLI to initialize the project:

azd init

Enter a meaningful name for your resource group in Azure. To deploy, use the deployment command:

azd up

Specify the Azure subscription and location when prompted. After a few minutes, everything should be deployed. You can access the URL from the output in the terminal or retrieve it from the Azure Portal.

How to Set Up the Raspberry Pi Pico

Edit the config.py file to add your Wi-Fi information and update the number of lights on your light strip.

You can use Thonny to copy the Python code to the device. Copy both main.py and config.py to the Raspberry Pi Pico.

How It Works

• The website creates a JSON file and saves it in a publicly accessible Azure storage.
• When the Pi is powered on, it will:
  • Turn green one by one all the lights of the strip
  • Change the color of the entire light strip a few times, then turn it off
  • Try to connect to the Wi-Fi
  • Retrieve the timezone, current date, and settings from the JSON file
  • If the important date is within 24 days, the countdown will be displayed using random colors or the specified colors.
  • If the date has passed, the light strip will display a breathing effect with a random color of the day.

The Code on the Raspberry Pi Pico

The main code for the Raspberry Pi Pico is written in Python. Here's a brief overview of what it does:

1. Connect to Wi-Fi: The connect_to_wifi function connects the Raspberry Pi Pico to the specified Wi-Fi network.
2. Get Timezone and Local Time: The get_timezone and get_local_time functions fetch the current timezone and local time using online APIs.
3. Fetch Light Settings: The get_light_settings function retrieves the important date and RGB colors from the JSON file stored in Azure.
4. Calculate Sleeps Until Special Day: The sleeps_until_special_day function calculates the number of days until the important date.
5. Control the LED Strip: The progress function controls the LED strip, displaying the countdown or a breathing effect based on the current date and settings.

The Configuration Website

The configuration website is built in C#. It's a Blazor server webapp, and I used .NET Aspire to make it easy to run it locally. The UI uses FluentUI-Blazor so it looks pretty, without effort. 

The website allows you to update the settings for the Raspberry Pi Pico. You can set the important date, choose custom colors, and save these settings to a JSON file in Azure storage.

Little Extra

The website is deployed in Azure Container App with a minimum scaling to zero to save on costs. This may cause a slight delay when loading the site for the first time, but it will work just fine and return to "dormant" mode after a while.

I hope you enjoyed reading about my holiday project! It was a fun and educational experience, and I look forward to working on more projects like this in the future.

What's Next?

Currently the project does a 24 days countdown (inspired from the advent calendar). I would like to add a feature to allow the user to set the number of days for the countdown. I would also like to add the possibility to set the color for the breathing effect (or keep it random) when the important date has passed. And lastly, I would like to add the time of the day when the light strip should turn on and off, because we all have different schedule 😉 .

Last thoughts

I really enjoyed doing this project. It was a fun way to learn more about the Raspberry Pi Pico, micro-Python (I didn't even know it was a thing), and FluentUI Blazor. I hope you enjoyed reading about it and that it inspired you to create your own fun projects. If you have any questions or suggestions, feel free to reach out, I'm fboucheros on most socials.

~Frank

Reading Notes #623

Ready for another round of intriguing reads and insightful listens? This week's edition of Reading Notes dives into the seamless blending of Python and .NET, fresh monetisation strategies in open source, AI innovations, and thought-provoking podcast discussions. 

Get comfy and let's dive in!

Programming

• Embedding Python into your .NET project with CSnakes (Anthony Shaw) - Get 2 best of both languages without losing performance... Intrigued? Learn more about it in this post and open your horizons.

• SponsorLink v2: A New Hope (Daniel Cazzulino) - Interesting post about ideas and experiment related to monetisation of open source code.

AI

• Introducing Microsoft.Extensions.AI Preview – Unified AI Building Blocks for .NET (Luis Quintanilla) - Really interesting new library that open the door to many scenarios. Bruno did a great demo of that on the community stand-up have a look.

• Using an AI Assistant to Script Tools (Docker Labs) - First post of a series that looks how different code written uses AI to write code ,script, and other things.

Podcast

• How Simple is as Simple as Possible with Mark Rendle (.NET Rocks!) - How complex your application should be? Is it possible to make great application with a more simple and straightforward approaches? Nice episode that discuss today's status.

• Does Donovan Brown hate retirement? (You're So Quiet) - One year already for Donovan! Well this couple looks good. Learn more about the first adjustment and the current "state of mind".

Sharing my Reading Notes 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 have interesting content, share it!

~ Frank

Reading Notes #501

Another Monday, another Reading Notes. 😀

It's been five hundred weeks, this is more than nine years! Who knew I will keep doing that for so long... 

If you are new around here, welcome, The Reading Notes 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.

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

Cloud

• Bicep Access policies and Managed Identity (Gregor Suttie) - This is a nice post that connects docs pages and different blog posts and information so we have the big picture.

• Cloud-Native Application Security (Samir Behara) - This post is listing so many best practices, patterns, and anti-patterns, it is a must for any "cloud-native people".

Programming

• Get started faster with the new 5-minute Quickstarts (Hannah Hunter & Nick Greenfield) - A short post that shares a few quickstart tips and examples.

• Compare Arrays in C# (Code Maze) - Great post that explains some subtleties in the comparison operators.

• Connecting a .NET Application with MongoDB Atlas (Assis Zang) - Great tutorial to setup a .NET 6 web app to connect to an existing MongoDB database.

• Microsoft Won't Do Drag-and-Drop for Blazor (David Ramel) - A very interesting post about the reasons that leaned Blazor developers team to let go of that feature.

• Run Custom Scripts In Docker With Arguments - ENTRYPOINT Vs CMD (devopscube) - A nice post. Did you know the difference? I didn't.

• Visual Studio Code March 2022 (VS Code team) - New commands, new features, new experiences everything is explained in this one post.

Miscellaneous

• Missing Insights from the Virtual Water Cooler (Modern Mentor) - There are smarts way to get the human interaction that we crave these days.
• Greg on The Genius of Routine (What's Essential) - Habits are very powerful tools in our toolbox for so many things... It's worth learning more about it.
• Short-Season Podcast: Is It Worth Your Time And Effort? (Feed Your Brand) - Seasons are everywhere, but does it applies to everything? This episode discusses the pros and cons.

Miscellaneous

• "New Boards Hub" Public Preview - Azure DevOps Blog (Dan Hellem) - Boards are so useful to visualize information quickly. Flip that preview switches on to give it a try.

~Frank

Reading Notes #465

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

• Announcing Az Predictor preview 2 (Damien Caro) - Already preview 2 it looks so great.

• Ask About Azure: Why do resource groups need a location? | Dave Brock (Dave Brock) - Brilliant! This question is asked so many times, and the answer is perfect.

• Azure Communications Voice Calling QuickStart (Dan Wahlin) - Wonderful solution and I know some dev who is now very happy that they now have this tool.

• Azure REST API through Logic App (Brad Watts) - I love Logic Apps I think it's a tool that is overviewed by too many. Great post.

• Penny Pinching in the Cloud: Azure Static Web Apps are saving me money (Scott Hanselman) - Azure static web app for the win! Seriously they are amazing I use them a lot. It's still in preview. But all good.

Programming

• Easily nuke secrets from your Git history | Dominique St-Amand (Dominique St-Amand) - Interesting post going deep into Git spelunking artifact from our history.

• Installing Docker Desktop for Windows and WSL 2 (Andrew Lock) - This post guides ys in the installations of WLS2 with Docker on Windows. It is now kind of simple... But a lot of us are still afraid. We shouldn't, give it a try!

• Your Open Source Project Needs a devcontainer - Here's Why | LINQ to Fail (Aaron Powell) - The dev container tools are pure madness. BUT on the positive side. It is incredibly useful and easy to use. Pair with Codespace its magic. I'm looking forward to seeing the public release.

Miscellaneous

• How to: Deploy GitHub Pages on a Schedule to Publish Future Posts (Sean Killeen) - Omg! So simple. A wonderful post. Thank you so much for this.

~Frank

Reading Notes #461

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.

The suggestions of the week

• Visual Studio Code comes to Raspberry Pi - Raspberry Pi (Jim Bennett) - Great post from Jim. You can feel his excitement about this news... It's really motivating.

• Master These Three Skills to Improve Time Management 🚀 (Anastasia) - Wow. This post contains tons of information, references, and good advice. To read.

Cloud

• What Is Azure Functions (Mahesh Chand) - The great simple post that explains what is an Azure Function and how to create/ debug/ deploy one

Programming

• Creating a Running Game in VueJS - Part 3 - Component Files and Installing Vue - The Long Walk (Paul Michaels) - Interesting step by spet tutorial part 3 of a series.

• How to Install Windows Software Remotely Using PowerShell and Chocolatey - Petri (Russell Smith) - A very cool and simple way to solve a common difficulty why all those new people not working in the office.

• Open-source HTTP API packages and tools (Brady Gaster) - Excellent tutorial, second post of a series. It's definitely a great place to get started.

• Save the Date for .NET Conf: Focus on Windows, February 25, 2021 (Katie Akrop DeSantis) - Looking forward to this event. Thursday the 25th.

• Creating Discoverable HTTP APIs with ASP.NET Core 5 Web API | ASP.NET Blog (Brady Gaster) - An extremely complete tutorial to learn more about API.

Podcast

• Épisode 11 - La famine en Ukraine (Les Pires Moments de l'Histoire) - OMG! I have nothing else to say. I knew that part of the history was dark and complex... but I knew nothing. Great episode.

• SPI 457: The Secret to Taking Risks & How to Make It Work - Behind the Scenes with Katie Kimbal (The Smart Passive Income Online Business) - Very motivating episode. When we start a journey we don't know most of the time where our decisions will bring us. Therefore it's always frightening to take risks, but with time and effort... grandiose thing can appends

• Containers on Azure with Tom Kerkhove (.NET Rocks!) - What a great episode! And it's so true there is so many ways "to do your containers" ( like in a recipe )

• Épisode 87 - La sécurité des coureuses (Grand écart) - Sometimes I feel so ashamed to be a man... I know I'm doing it right, but I need to do more... for the others that forgot that we are all equal.

• 633 - How to Use Rejection to Your Advantage (Modern Mentor) - In our lives, we will encounter many nos or rejection. This episode talks about how you could use those detours to learn more, and transform them in opportunities.

• 101: Windows Virtual Desktop with Travis Roberts (CloudSkills.fm) - I remember when "infra" people couldn't see anything positive about the cloud... Times as changed a lot. There are so many opportunities.

• The myth of turning your hobby into a job with writer Aley Arion (Hanselminutes with Scott Hanselman) - Is it a myth or a reality? I totally think it's possible. But yeah in all the amazing love (or adventure) movies there are always some challenges. But happy 95% of the time.. I take that!

Miscellaneous

• Fun times with batch files : Algorithms for the masses - julian m bucknall (Julian M Bucknall) - Nice journey in the bach world.

• Scheduling Integration with the Azure Health Bot (Gregory Lisiak) - Nice way to use technology, today, to help to educate people.

You think you may have interesting content, share it!

~Frank

Summary of Week 34

Every beginning weekend, I will share a recap of the week and at the same time a summary of my streams. Those videos are at least two hours longs, so I thought a short summary to know if the topic interest you could be useful. Watch only the summary or relax and enjoy the longer version that up to you!

   

• Aysegul Yonet - What kind of reality is that? - https://c5m.ca/aaa-ep27

• Em Lazer-Walker - Using AI to avoid touching your face - https://c5m.ca/aaa-ep28

• Stream 121 - Working on deployment doc for Tiny Blazor Admin - https://c5m.ca/stream-ep121

• ARM Series #6: Template Output - https://c5m.ca/learn-arm-ep6

• Stream 122 - Learning Node.js CloudBot - https://c5m.ca/stream-ep122

• All Around Azure blog - https://c5m.ca/aaa 

~

Recap/ Summary week #33

 Every beginning of weekend, I will share a recap of the week and at the same time a summary of my streams. Those videos are at least two hour longs, so I thought a short summary to know if topic interest you could be useful. Watch only the summary or relax and enjoy the longer version that up to you!

   

• Coding Python: Deploy Django and Postgres Apps to Azure with VS Code - c5m.ca/aaa-ep25
• Stream 119 - How easy can we make the deployment of TinyBlazorAdmin -  c5m.ca/stream-ep119
• Stream120 - Celebrating 500 followers and working on the Chat bot -  c5m.ca/stream-ep120

~

Reading Notes #429

Suggestion of the week

• Git Tag Based Released Process Using GitHub Actions (Calvin A. Allen) - An awesome tutorial to deploy automatically IF certain conditions are met. Plus we got the yaml file.

Cloud

• Building an Azure Static Web App With GraphQL | LINQ to Fail (Aaron Powell) - Oh! Interesting... Reading this you probably, like me, missed the live version. But there is always the video on demand.

Programming

• Download a whole YouTube Playlist at one go - DEV Community 👩‍💻👨‍💻 (Trideep Barik) - Nice little python tutorial to automate tasks.

• GitKraken Git GUI How-To: Add & Remove Files (Calvin A. Allen) - Nice post that describes some very useful operation on git using the graphic interface provided by Git Kraken.

• Login and use an ASP.NET Core API with Azure AD Auth and user access tokens (Damien Bowden) - Nice tutorial to use Azure AD between an Asp.Net App and an API.

• OAuth 2.0 with GitHub in ASP.NET Core - Simple Talk (Diogo Souza) - A nice tutorial that guides us in a complex world.

• Remote Debugging .NET Containers (Karol Deland) - A nice tutorial that explains clearly first the difference between remote and local debugging and then explains how to do it.

• Using MongoDB With ASP.NET Core Web API (Munib Butt) - A great tutorial from .Net Core to Mongo in a snap

Podcast

• Social Friendships and Internet Creativity with Cassidy Williams (Hanselminutes with Scott Hanselman) - A refreshing episode, simple and true. Isn't it the base of a real friendship?!

• 472: How to Run an Online Meeting, with Bonni Stachowiak (Coaching for Leaders) - I'm always surprised and a bit disappointed when I realize that this topic or those best practices are not well known. An episode to share :)

Miscellaneous

• Screen Sharing with an Ultrawide Monitor (Kenny Lowe) - Really interesting post.As I think about getting a new screen and heard bad experiences sharing ultrawide screens this look like a nice solution.

Book

Vlog Like a Boss - How to Kill It Online with Video Blogging

Author: Amy Schmittauer Landino

An interesting book that shares the best practices about making videos today. How to plan, record, edit... What to do and not do. A quick, direct to the point and complete tutorial to get started. This book was done like today's videos.

~enjoy.

Reading Notes #420

Every Monday, I share my "reading notes". Those are 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. This week I was less in a reading mode...

Programming

• Using WSL to Build a Python Development Environment on Windows (Chris Moffitt) - Definitely a post to ready, so much information! Did you know you can install serverX in WSL? I didn't

Miscellaneous

• The top 10 reasons to switch to the new Microsoft Edge (Liat Ben-Zur) - I didn't need 10 reasons to start using edge, but its great to see al those features and those coming soon too.
• If you want your OSS project to be successful… (Jeremy dmiller) - Interesting post, good idea, and comments.

Reading Notes #415

Every Monday, I share my "reading notes". Those are 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.

Cloud

• Creating a RESTful Serverless API with Azure Functions and MongoDB (Will Velida) - This is a great tutorial that uses Azure function mongo and c# to build a project from scratch. It is simple enough to make sense and be easy to understand.

• Running Containers in Azure with Rancher (Tom Callway) - This post introduces Rancher, a tool thatt looks really interesting.

• Step-by-Step: Finding and Analyzing Microsoft Azure Cloud Usage Costs (Sonia Cuff ) - Great post that provides a few tips to better see or highlight some cost sending in Azure.

Programming

• Build your own Azure CLI Extensions (Michael Crump) - A very cool tutorial that explains how to do our own extension.

• How to set up Docker within Windows System for Linux (WSL2) on Windows 10 (Scott Hanselman) - Nice update; tons of info about wsl, docker, ssh and more.

• Pulling your DEV.TO Stats into a Google Sheet (Jeremy Morgan) - That's a cool little project, and I'm pretty sure it can be used by a lot of authors...on devto.

• Using Cognitive Services: Custom Vision Service with Azure IoT Edge - Cloud | Mobile | Edge (Jared Rhodes) - A nice tutorial that shows how to use Python and vscode to create an awesome app.

• What's New in Visual Studio Online | Visual Studio Blog (Allison Buchholtz-Au) - Wow, a turbo mode! But this time(remember the turbo on our old 486 beige pc), it makes totally sens...

Miscellaneous

• What are Azure CLI Extensions? (Michael Crump) - An interesting first article of a series. This one introduces us to the extension... Hmmm. I think I have an idea.

~

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 #381

Suggestion of the week

• Running a Minecraft Server in Azure Container Instances (Mark Heath) - A cool real-life story where Azure Container Instance ACI is very useful.

Cloud

• Automating Azure Container Instances with PowerShell Azure Functions (Mark Heath) - Cool schedule Azure functions demo with PowerShell.
• 
  Deploy a scalable API and Backend with Serverless, Express, and Node.js (Bryan Killian) - A nice tutorial that explains how to build efficient APIs using lambda.

Programming

• Docker - from the beginning, Part IV (Chris Noring) - Part 4 of 5 this series is still a great read. This one shows the transition to docker compose.
• 
  Postman 7.1: Manage your APIs within Postman (Nikita) - So many great features are present in the new version. This post is the perfect quick overview.

Miscellaneous

• 
  Presentation Tips for Technical Talks (Tanya Janca) - This post is filled with great and simple tips that will for sure improve the experience of your attendees and ours.
• 
  Using The Microsoft Face API to Create Mario Kart “Astrology” (Chloe Condon) - Funny project that leverages the Azure cognitive services and python. How cool is that!

Books

Barking Up the Wrong Tree: The Surprising Science Behind Why Everything You Know About Success Is (Mostly) Wrong 

Author: Eric Barker

Nice book. There is always a good story to make a correlation with his current point. Then it could go in a different direction with another story. All the stories are complementary and are adding layer by layer to the more complex message that is delivered to us. Easy to read, enjoyable from the beginning until the last word.

Reading Notes #370

Cloud

• 
  Deploying Blazor Apps Using Azure Pipelines (Chris Sainty) - Nice introduction tutorial to deploy easily in Azure blob storage.
• 
  Run your code and leave build to us | Blog | Microsoft Azure (Josh Gavant) - Great news! It's now super simple to deploy a webapp in more different languages.

Programming

• 
  ARMing a Hybrid Docker Swarm: Part 1 - Hardware and OS (Elton Stoneman) - Interesting post of a promising series. This one gives us more details on the setup.
• 
  Get Started With Node: An Introduction To APIs, HTTP And ES6+ JavaScript — Smashing Magazine (Jamie Corknill) - A very complete introduction to Node.js and a few of is ES versions.
• 
  How to parse string dates with a two digit year and split on the right century in C# (Scott Hanselman) - Oh damn... I really don't like when I see a system like that. Unfortunately, It still happens in 2019...

Databases

• 
  Invoke-Sqlcmd is Now Available Supporting Cross-Platform (Steve Lee) - Great post that really explains the power of Invoke-Sqlcmd command.
• 
  Who logged into my #Azure SQL Database? (Bill Wilder) - A perfect little tutorial; straight to the point.

Miscellaneous

• The Best Digital Transformers Choose When to Choose (Richard Seroter) - So true. This post explains what the paradox is and how to avoid it.

Reading Notes #359

Cloud

• GitLab 11.6 Supports Serverless Function Deployment (Sergio De Simone) - Interesting post that introduces a CI/CD tool that works really well with the serverless offering from all providers.
• How to migrate from AzureRM to Az in Azure PowerShell (Madeleine Clayton) - A mandatory read to migrate without hiccups.
• Great News, Azure Developers! Microsoft is Simplifying Your Path to Certification! (Liberty Munson ) - That's excellent news!

Programming

• 11 Of the Best Scrum Tools to Increase Your Team’s Productivity (Ben Aston) - Nice list of great tools. I would add Azure DevOps to it.
• Background jobs in ASP.NET Core made easy with Hangfire (Matthew D. Groves) - This post helps us to be quickly set up with hangfire.
• How to Use a jQuery Progress Bar in Your Web App (Alberta Williams) - This post shows many different ways to use some progress bar as long as you have Kendo UI.
• Introduction to Bash Scripting: Iterative Statements Using Loops (Daniel Farina) - Great introduction tutorial to the fundamental loops. This time it's in bash... Yeah, if you didn't know, you probably need it.
• Quick Introduction to C# Span. (Doug Mair) - A nice new feature in C# that is absolutely not related to the span in Html that we know....aaah!
• Using Visual Studio Code to program Circuit Python with an AdaFruit NeoTrellis M4 (Scott Hanselman) - Very cool son-dad project post and how to use the tool we like.
• When You SHOULD Comment Your Code (Peter Kellner) - Commenting or not commenting... Should it be THE question?

Databases

• MongoDB on Windows in Minutes with Docker (Jeremy Likness) - This post is a fantastic setup tutorial, perfect to get started in a snap! Using docker so easy...

Miscellaneous

• Enjoy some DOS Games this Christmas with DOSBox (Scott Hanselman) - With DOSBox and Retropie... We should be good for the holidays... If you don't have a Raspberry Pie this post is perfect for you since it focuses on DOSBox.

Books

How to Be a Bawse A Guide to Conquering Life
Lilly Singh
Not only the message is strong, but the way she delivers it is awesome. Many times I laugh and nod of the head... Definitely a great book to read at the end of the year when resolution time is not far...









~

Reading Notes #54

Cloud

• Windows Azure - When do I use What? (Andrew Coates) - Nice quick post that demystify when it's the time to use a Azure website, a webrole or a VM.
• Update on the Windows Azure Accelerators (Nathan Totten) - Important notice that explain why the Windows Azure Accelerators project is has become depreciated to be replaced by Azure Website.
• Run your blog on Windows Azure (Brian H. Prince) - Quick tutorial to create a Wordpress blog with the new Azure Website services.
• Windows Azure Web Sites vs. Cloud Apps (Brian H. Prince) - This post explain the differences (pros and cons) about Azure website, cloud apps and VM.
• Windows Azure is a 3-Lane Highway: How to Drive It (David Pallmann) - Great post that clarifies how each parts of Azure service are working. Amazing works and the reference to the highway make it even clearer. Put it into your to read list.
• Hadoop on Windows Azure - Wow, a fantastic post/tutorial that explain how Hadoop is working and how do some task with it.
• Mixing Node.js into Your Windows Azure Solution - Real nice article that show how to manage files with Node.js using shared access signature.
• Monitoring your Windows Azure Web Site (Brian H. Prince) - Nice post that explain how to see the statistics of your servers with the new Azure graphic interface.

Programming

• Creating Inheritance Relationships in Entity Framework - Nice tutorial about improving your entities generated by EF.
• 5 ways to roll out a product faster - Nice article that gives 5 tips to focus and delivery a prototype as quick as possible.
• Create and Consume JSON-Formatted OData - Great article that introduce a tool / framework call datajs. With datajs you can manage easily your oData directly in JavaScript.
• Python on Windows Azure – a Match Made in the Clouds! (Shahrokh Mortazavi) - Nice post about tools needed to get started using Python with Azure. A lot of options available.
• Windows 8: Top 10 Reasons why I choose XAML over HTML5 - Nice post that put the emphasis on the top 10 strength of XAML.
• Windows 8: 15 More Reasons why I choose XAML over HTML5 - Great post that add some key features support by XAML to the previous top10.
• DNC Magazine for .NET Developers - Launch Edition – Nice free magazine with a lot of content.

Miscellaneous

• Defend Your Sweet Spot (Peter) - Interesting post by Peter Bregman, the author of 18 minutes, that explains why finding and keeping your sweet spot is important.

[…] time management isn’t primarily about using minutes well, it’s about using yourself well.[…]

• 7 Things You're Doing Wrong on LinkedIn (Tom Searcy) - Nice tips that will help you (or confirm you) how to use LinkedIn in the best way.

~Frank