Reading Notes #622

Welcome to this week’s reading notes! In this post, you’ll find a curated selection of insightful articles and tutorials covering various topics in technology and programming. Whether you’re looking to enhance your testing skills with .NET Aspire, improve your code comprehension with GitHub Copilot, or explore the world of Docker for DevOps, there’s something here for everyone. Dive in and enjoy these valuable resources!

If you have interesting content, share it!

Suggestion of the week

• Getting started with testing and .NET Aspire (Aaron Powell) - This is a great tutorial, with a video version if you prefer, to get us started with test when .NET Aspire is part obor solution.

Cloud

• Enhancing Code Comprehension: GitHub Copilot’s Features in Visual Studio 2022 17.11 (Rhea Patel) - This post is a must for all developers. Copilot becomes so much more efficient with those little tips don't miss it.

• How to use Azure Policy to enforce resource naming conventions in your DevOps pipelines (Luise Freese) - Naming is for sure not the most exciting topic,but it is the key to an healthy cloud subscription. Don't miss this post that shares a good way to keep consistent names.

Programming

• Exploring Docker for DevOps: What It Is and How It Works (Todd R. Weiss) - This is a nice post to learn more about Docker and how /why it could be used to improve the DevOps processes.

• .NET Aspire for Data Chatting (Tommaso Stocchi) - Super cool project to query our database without knowing SQL.

LowCode

• How to rotate secrets with Azure Logic Apps, Key Vault and Managed Identity (Luise Freese) - Cool idea o automation to do a important but boring task. And it doesn't required code!

Miscellaneous

• Hosting a (DevOpsDays) Tech Conference (Dewan Ahmed) - I went to this even and you could feel it was prepared with patio and care. It very interesting to learn about the behind the scene and all the work put both before and after.DevOpsDay Halifax you won my heart.

~ Frank

Reading Notes #596

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!

Suggestion of the week

• Introducing .NET Smart Components - AI-powered UI controls - .NET Blog (Daniel Roth) - Wait whaaat! This it so cool and useful and it's available now. You must see this the smart-past button needs to be on all forms...

Cloud

• Smart To-Do Creator: Combining the ease of Azure Logic Apps and the power of Generative AI (Gaurav Mantri) - A cool little project explained in this post. It uses logic apps and AI.

Programming

• .Net Aspire - A Brief Introduction (Paul Michaels) - I also started playing with aspire this weekend I must say I love it, give it a try.

• Difference Between await and Task.Wait in C# (Georgios Panagopoulos) - This nice post goes in the details to explains the difference of the two methods.

AI

• Microsoft and NVIDIA announce major integrations to accelerate generative AI for enterprises everywhere (Microsoft) - If you use AI or are planning to do it, this post will be interesting.

• Demystifying LLMS From Zero to Raccoon-Hero, with Azure and DotNet, Episode 1: Creating a CLI (Maho Pacheco) - This is a nice step by step tutorial that show us how to build a console application that use AI

• An Introduction to Mistral AI (Manish Shivanandhan) - An interesting aLternative to GPT when text is involved.

Miscellaneous

• Homo sapiens 1.0 (Mark Downie) - Interesting reflection about how to determine what ready important when adding features in a product or services.

~Frank

Reading Notes #576

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!

Suggestion of the week

• Visual Studio Code: C# Dev Kit Now Generally Available (Almir Vuk) - As a .NET developer that spend a lot of time in Linux, I was already using a lot VSCode and started using DevKit curious to see if if would really helps. I felt empowered. Great work, and congrats on the GA that was fast!

Programming

• How to version your ASP.NET API (Dennis Frühauff)- Versioning will stay easy and hard at the same time...But me must give ot our best.... Right?

• Announcing .NET 8 RC2 - .NET Blog (Jon Douglas) - So much in this next release,the team is seeking feedback, if you have some they will be pleased to listen.

• Introducing Windows Terminal Canary (Christopher Nguyen) - That's a brilliant idea how many times I heard people asking to get the earliest bits faster...Well here it is!

• Blazor Basics: Creating a Todo App using Blazor WebAssembly (Claudio Bernasconi) - A tutorial like I like them: simple And where we do stuff! Great place to get started.

Podcasts

• What do we want from a web browser? (The Changelog: Software Development, Open Source) - I think it was my first episode of The Changelog. I liked it. Interesting discussion about what should be a "good" web browser...

~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 #539

Good Monday! 

It's time to share new ReadingNotes. Here is a list of all the articles, podcasts, and blog posts, that catch my interest during the week. 

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

 

Programming

• Making an Asynchronous Breakfast in .NET (Assis Zang ) - This post explains so well using a task that we all did the difference between synchronous and asynchronous code. It's in .NET, but valid for all languages (that support async code of course).

• A first look behind the scenes of minimal API endpoints: Behind the scenes of minimal APIs - Part 1 (Andrew Lock) - First, of a series, this post digs into the code to understand why minimal APIs are so performant. There is a lot in there, looking forward to reading the next one.

• December Extensions Roundup: Improving Visibility for Your APIs and Images (Amy Bass) - I use more than I create docker images these days but I can see how this extension would be useful.Very cool!

• Exploring the model-binding logic of minimal APIs: Behind the scenes of minimal APIs - Part 3 (Andrew Lock) - The third post in a series where we dig into how Minimal APIs do their magic.

• Extracting metadata from a minimal API handler: Behind the scenes of minimal APIs - Part 2 (Andrew Lock) - Another deep technical post of the series where Andrew shows us are things works under the hood of minimal APIs.

• How To Use GitLens To Figure Out Who Introduced A Change In Your Code (Mohd S.) - Great post that shows how to use a tool with a real case. Nicely done!

• Reducing Blazor WASM size by providing custom ICU data - Gérald Barré (Gérald Barré) - This is a nice tutorial with all the code snippets to help us understand and get started.

Podcasts

• Best of DevOps 2022 (DevOps and Docker Talk) - Nice review of 2022, DevOps style, by 3 Docker captains.

• Source Open vs Open Source and IdentityServer with Dominick Baier and Brock Allen (.NET Rocks!) - I used in the past IdentityServer and didn't know the story. Very interesting post about Open source.

~Frank

Reading Notes #538

Good Monday, 

Already time to share new reading notes. Here is a list of all the articles, and blog posts that catch my interest during the week. 

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

Cloud

• Azure Developer CLI (azd) - January 2023 Release (Savannah Ostrowski) - Easier to install and more secure. A nice update.

• Develop Your Cloud App Locally with the LocalStack Extension (Ajeet Singh Raina, Harsh Mishra) - Interesting tools that can emulate your AWS environment locally, perfect to develop and not stress about the cloud cost busting your budget.

Programming

• 6 Command Line (PowerShell & CLI) Tips & Tricks for Microsoft Azure you should know about! (Thomas Maurer) - Great tips that really enable us to be more productive and efficient.

• Get Started with GitHub Actions (Mandy Hubbard) - This is a great post to get started with CICD. GitHub is free and accessible, give it a try and then automate some tests or a deployment.

• Introduction to DevSecOps on Azure (Daniel Krzyczkowski) - New Pluralsight course announcement.

• The Problem With Dependency Injection Frameworks (James Shore) - A very interesting post that continues to explain why DI frameworks are bad even though they help us.

• Public Preview: Azure Automation Visual Studio Code Extension - Nice I like Azure automation. An extension to manage those cloud cron jobs, I say yes.

• Release notes for Microsoft Q&A - Love that new look!

• Why tuples in C# are not always a code smell (Dennis Frühauff) - I didn't use Turple yet but it's not hard to see the potential and how it could become ugly. This post shows and explains a few simple rules to stay clear.

Miscellaneous

• Announcing Cosmos DB to Azure Data Explorer Synapse Link (public preview) (Vincent-Philippe Lauzon) - Two worlds touched. This new connection looks super cool.

• Lazy and once-only C# async initialization (Ian Griffiths) - An amazing post that explains so much and that has all the code snippets to be clear about it. I will have to copy-paste those into some test applications to really try them, but it is clear what I should expect.

~frank

Reading Notes #529

Good Monday (standard time for many :) ),

It's time to share new ReadingNotes. Here is a list of all the articles, podcasts, and blog posts, that catch my interest during the week. 

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

Cloud

• Azure Developer CLI (azd) – November 2022 Release (Savannah Ostrowski) - New beta version released with java and bicep updates...Great work.

• Azure SQL Database Overview (Daniel Calbimonte ) - This post is a great one to get started on Azure SQL Database. It answers many of the initial questions and provides the answers.

• Build a globally resilient architecture with Azure Load Balancer | Azure Blog and Updates | Microsoft Azure (Mahip Deora) - An azure load balancer is definitely a powerful tool when your customers aren't centralized. This post provides a nice overview.

Programming

• Create your .NET portfolio in the .NET Conf student zone (Katie Savage) - The .NET Conf conference is next Tuesday (Nov. 8) and students have a very special place. Have a look!

• How to Implement Decentralized Storage Using Docker Extensions - Docker (Marton Elek) - Second and last part of a series discussing about the storage with docker.

• Performance improvements in ASP.NET Core 7 (Brennan Conroy) - It's both impressive and inspiring to see so much improvement in performance in that next version.

• [Improving Your Desktop Applications—ToolTips in .NET MAUI](Leomaris Reyes ) (https://www.telerik.com/blogs/improving-desktop-applications-tooltips-dotnet-maui?utm_source=readingnotes) - Tooltips are now here!

• Personalize a static site based on a previous site referral (Salma Alam-Naylor) - This is a cool tutorial that explains how to leverage Netlify edge code to change a static website page base on where the visitor came from.

Miscellaneous

• Bicep for Real Site Launched (Sam Cogan) - Wonderful! The tutorial a was waiting for and it will be good because it's done by Sam.

~frank

Reading Notes #521

Good Monday, 

Already time to share new reading notes. Here is a list of all the articles, and blog posts that catch my interest during the week. 

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

Cloud

• No-code Automation for Azure Boards Using Azure Logic Apps, Power Automate, and Power Virtual Agents (Jason Hand) - You have so many options to watch this workshop. The bite-sized videos will teach you how to be more efficient with Azure DevOps without any code.

• Extending Docker’s Integration with containerd (Djordje Lukic) - Docker team shares the roadmap for their adoption of containers as basic components in image management. Learn more about it and how you can try it today in this post.

• How to Change an Azure Function Written in .NET from In-Process to Isolated Process (Nick) - Great post that from scratch create a regular Azure Function into Visual Studio publish it and then quickly migrate it to an Isolated one.

Programming

• .NET MAUI Cloud Skills Challenge - Learn .NET MAUI, Get Stickers! (Matt Soucoup) - This is a really interesting cloud challenge. With .NET MAUI I could build apps for mobile and desktop...

• 3 ways every company can get started with an open-source software strategy (Ashley Wolf) - Open source can be so much and it is normal to not understand all of it at the beginning. This nice post answer a few questions for enterprises who would like to start.

• Announcing built-in container support for the .NET SDK (Chet Husk) - After the .NET included in Ubuntu a few days ago, now simplistic containerization has so many great new tools and opportunities.

• Getting Started With TypeScript and React (Ifeoma Imoh) - This is a nice tutorial to get started.

• How I made an ai to watch my cats poop for me (Estefannie) - Great project using Raspberry Pi, node, C, and a lot of creativity. The video is a must, it provides a better overview of the journey, and the story is gold.

• Merging two GitHub repositories without losing commit history (Schalk Neethling) - Nice work documenting this flow. Keeping as much information as possible is often very important. A post to bookmark for later use.

• No more Dockerfiles with the help of .NET CLI (Christian Nagel) - Interesting stuff coming up in .NET 7 that we can experiment today.

Podcasts

• 588: How to Help Your Manager Shine, with David Gergen (Coaching for Leaders) - Interesting discussion about how to help your manager with a very special guest. David Gergen is the author of Hearts Touched With Fire, and talks about the importance of the relationship between a manager and a direct report.

Miscellaneous

• How to Colorize Pictures With OpenVINO™ on Ubuntu Containers (Valentin Viennot) - This very complete post shares the realization of a kubernetes and docker project with all the required details so we could give it a try.

~frank

Reading Notes #520

Good Monday, Already time to share new reading notes. Here is a list of all the articles, and blog posts that catch my interest during the week. 

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

 

Suggestion of the week

• How Cloudflare Broke My Build and How I Fixed It (Giorgi Dalakishvili) - Wow! That was a hard one. Like searching for a needle in a haystack. Those stories are incredibly useful as they teach how to investigate issues. Thank you so much for sharing it.

Cloud

• Create an App Service for Containers with Bicep (Sam Cogan) - This is a nice tutorial that shares the minimum requirements and the commands to create your next app.

• Securely connect to your Azure Linux Virtual Machine with Tailscale SSH (Paul Yu) - A very complete post that follows one of the many tutorials available in the Microsoft opensource repo. Very well detailed and explained.

Programming

• 18 Useful GitHub Repositories Every Developer Should Bookmark (Madza) - Nice list of great repositories indeed.

• Blazor Binding, Events and Parameters (Michael Washington) - A very complete tutorial that explains it all. The complexity of the example is incremental, meaning that if it's your first contact with Blazor the bites will be just the right size all along.

• Fluent UI Insights EP2: Styling (Paul Gildea) - Really interesting second episode of Fluent UI Insights. A series of video that explains the design decisions.

• Visual Studio Code's New Editor Sticky Scroll Feature - Never Get Lost In The Code Again! (Dotnetsafer) - At first, I thought this feature was like feeze pane and didn't understand the hype about it. But it is not! It is some kind of smart pane auto-scrolling. The frozen section display when the current scope is opened. It looks very useful

• Windows Package Manager 1.3 (Demitrius Nelon) - Very happy to see Winget getting more apps and new features.

Podcasts

• 316: Hosting Websites & Web Apps for Free (Merge Conflict) - Who doesn't like getting a free website? Learn more about the option available for you in this episode. And also, why you shouldn't operate your drone on water.
• Why the buddy system works... at work (Modern Mentor) - Love the idea of a buddy system. Simple and effective.
• Épisode 19 - Les Olympiques d'Hitler (Les Pires Moments de l'Histoire) - (In French) I love this podcast you learn stuff and for sure you will at least smile if not laugh.
• Daniel Roth: Blazor Futures - Episode 204 (Azure DevOps Podcast) - Perfect episode to learn what is currently in trial, plan to be and what will stay for sure in the next release.

Miscellaneous

• You will not do it later (most likely) - I'm a procrastinator, I know (Keff) - So true! The do-it-now approach seems too simplistic to be true but is a real change to accomplish on a regular basis. Any tips?

~frank

Reading Notes #515

Good Monday, it's time to share new ReadingNotes. Here is a list of all the articles, and blog posts, that catch my interest during the week. 

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

Cloud

• Azure App Containers (Kevin Logan) - An interesting post that shares the first contact and spets with Azure container Apps. Where to learn, how to build what is included.

• Introducing the Azure Developer CLI: A faster way to build apps for the cloud (Savannah Ostrowski) - Exciting new preview looking forward to try and see the future of this tool.

Programming

• Making production diagnostics easier with Source Link (Mark Downie) - This post shares a pretty neat trick to make investigation (debugging) easier.

• How to build & publish NuGet packages with Azure Pipelines (James Croft) - All the steps are clearly explained in this tutorial for us to be ready.

• Using the Microsoft Docker Extension for Visual Studio Code (David Giard) - This post is a quick tour of the Docker extension. A very simple and powerful one.

~Frank

Reading Notes #500

It's Monday,

time to 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

• Automate your work day with workflows in Teams (Harysh Menon) - I’m a big fan (and user) of automation with Power Automate or Logic Apps there is so much we can do! This short post will give you a few ideas for sure.

• How to rollback a Container App revision using the Azure CLI (Jason Haley) - A very nice and detailed tutorial that continues to explain how to use Azure container App using real-life scenarios.

• How to set environment variables in a Container App using the Azure CLI (Jason Haley) - What a great post! I love that it came from a question during a talk, it shows that when we say" let me get back to you", we really want to. Good work.

Programming

• Conditional Blazor Styles (without the if statements) (Jason Hilton) - Nice little tips for Blazor developers.

• How to Deserialize a Complex JSON Object in C# .NET (Code Maze) - New way, old way this post covers them c both compares them and provides a lot of information to get good and consistent results.

• How to Remove the Start Text from PowerShell (Md. Fahim Bin Amin) - So simple! Of course, there are arguments, but didn’t I think about it?!

• How to delete all merged git branches with one terminal command (Salma Alam-Naylor) - Love that little script so simple.

• Improving your GitHub feed (Bruce Williams) - Great! A nice new feature on our GitHub page.

• Start working on GitHub Issues faster (Daniel Adams) - Oh, I love it! Looking forward to trying it.

• Why you should ship your silly side projects (Salma Alam-Naylor) - Refreshing post…And go see that website if Geocities means something to you. Totally agree with the shipping project; it is an excellent source of joy and you always learn new stuff.

Miscellaneous

• New data: What makes developers happy at work (David Gibson) - Interesting post. So many details…are developers are that different compared to other workers? I feel most people want the same…

~frank

Reading Notes #496

Good Monday, 

time to 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

• Is Serverless Just a Stopover for Event-Driven Architecture? (Mark Hinkle) - An interesting post. I'm still using many serverless services as one year ago... Am I marginal? Is there a trend that I did see (that more like it)?

Programming

• A Full-Stack Web App Using Blazor WebAssembly and GraphQL: Part 2 (Ankit Sharma) - This second post is in a series where there build a real-life type of application. Really interesting to see all pieces go together (have you ever noticed are package names are funny?). Nice work.

• Blazor Custom Components (John Peters) - Nice series to learn how to write reusable code.

• Testing ASP.NET Core 6 Apps (Khalid Abuhakmeh) - A nice quick tutorial on how to do unit tests. Wonderful.

• Upgrading an ASP.NET Core Web API Project to .NET 6 (Christian Nagel) - This post is not about changing the version of the package, but how to use all those features to make you more productive with fewer lines of code.

Podcasts

• Modern Code Generation with Jordan Adler (Hanselminutes with Scott Hanselman) - Very interesting discussion about code generation, the different pattern, difficulties, and so much more.

• SPI 551: Why Lying to Yourself Helps You Become More Successful with Marisa Peer (The Smart Passive Income Online Business and Blogging Podcast) - Without falling into the magic thinking, this shows how strong our mind can be. Great episode.

• Make money with open source software (Software Engineering Unlocked) - Open source software is another world: Unknow, different, scary. This week guest shares his experience and story, while transitioning into Open-Source.

• Happiness with Arthur Brooks (A Bit of Optimism) - It's important to love what we do, as in has an huge impact on our level of happiness.

• Greg and Anna McKeown on The Power Of Small Wins (What's Essential) - Lovely episode where Greg's wife Anna joins him to share examples of small wins impact.

~Frank

Reading Notes #486

It's Monday (the cyber one), time to 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

• A Simpler Way to Azure (Rob Conery) - A very cool and interesting project. Even though I have never tried Heroku I think it's always good to push forward and make the user experience easier.

• Azure CLI migration from ADAL to MSAL ( Chase Wilson) - That a good news and now with Graph... So manny will be happy about that.

• What’s New in the New Version of Az.Tools.Installer (Lei Jin) - Interesting tool. I love how so many changes are implemented based on the users' feedback... And it's on GitHub.

Programming

• Let's upgrade my main site and podcast to .NET 6 LTS (Scott Hanselman) - Nice! I need to do the same for so many projects...Any one like that too?

• ASP.NET Core Integration Tests With TestServer - How Did I Not Know About This? (Scott Hannen) - The perfect introduction post to get started with tests in .Net.

• How to parse JSON Lines (JSONL) with C# (Davide Bellone) - Interesting post about how to parse uncommon JSON files.

• Theme an ASP.NET MVC website with custom views (Steve Fenton) - Pretty cool solution to manage themes. Definitely inspiring.

• The newest Docker VS Code extension feature you’re not using (null) - That a very exciting new for dedv like me who are occasional visitors! I don't code every day so an intelisens is a must to help me.

• Upgrading a 20 year old University Project to .NET 6 with dotnet-upgrade-assistant (Uche Nkadi) - Great story of an upgrade.

~Frank

Reading Notes #474

Every Monday (or Tuesday when the previous was a holiday 😏), 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

• Achieving observability in async workflows (Colby Callahan, Megha Manohara, and Mike Azar.) - Interesting real-life story.

• The fastest way to get started with Microsoft Azure (Abhijit Jana) - That a piece of very good advice, I need to remember that next time someone asks me.

• Updating Azure App Service on Linux for Docker via Webhooks from C# - Dangl.Blog(); (Georg Dangl) - Yep it's so simple to update in PaaS.

Programming

• Exploring the Visual Studio Code REST Book extension for native Notebooks (Scott Hanselman) - Quick post about an interesting extension, and if you are interested you can collaborate.

Podcasts

• 118: How to Get Into Teaching & Public Speaking (Plus My Entire Gear List) (CloudSkills.fm) - If you are thinking about starting to Podcast or event streaming... This is a nice podcast to help you to get started.

• Automating all the Things with Home Assistant's Paulus Schoutsen (Hanselminutes) - I enjoy that episode... How did you start? And all those reflections about how to do it so everyone enjoys it even when not everybody is "pro-tech" at home.

• Having a Laugh with Michael McIntyre (A Bit of Optimism) - Definitely a fun episode to listen to.

• How to Show More Grit at Work (Modern Mentor) - New to remote work (aka pandemic forced to work remotely) you still need to make your work visible and this episode could help you to get started.

• The Art of Podcasting, the Future of Angel Investing, and Startup Ideas for Indie Hacker with Rob Walling of Tinyseed (Indie Hackers) - Interesting discussion about the podcast and the remote interaction with an audience.

• #93: Cristian Florea - Coach For Aspiring Developers (The Solo Coder Podcast) - Nice episode perfect for the new developers to help them to find that first job. I really like the live question part of it.

• SPI 486: One of the Most Important Things You Can Do for Entrepreneurial (and Life) Success (SPI podcast) - That was a nice episode talking about helping each other and doing so to grow. Tons of ideas.

• 0255 - Tidjani Belmansour - Azure Communication Services (Visual Studio Talk Show) - It's in French. Once more great episode, interesting talk about one of the "recent" addition to the Azure services and what you can do with it.

Miscellaneous

• How to achieve a pixellated secrets scene in OBS for Windows (LUCE CARTER) - So simple and very efficient.I will give it a try.

~frank

Reading Notes #446

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

• Introducing the new Azure SDK for C++ Beta (Jeffrey Richter) - Oh wow! Now I just want to take from my dusty memory shelf my c++ knowledge and mixt it with Azure...
• Migrating this blog to Azure. It's done. Now the work begins. (Scott Hanselman) - A very exciting and promising series of posts related to migration. So many of us have websites that are old and clunky. I'm looking forward to reading more.
• Update Azure CLI from the command-line (az upgrade) (Dan Patrick) - Tools are great! And If you never try Chocolatey... What are you waiting for, it's awesome.
• Zone Redundancy for Azure Cache for Redis now in preview | Azure blog and updates | Microsoft Azure (Kyle Teegarden) - Great news for the Redis Cache users.

Programming

• Moq vs NSubstitute vs FakeItEasy - Which one to choose? ( Thomas Ardal) - A very interesting post that compares three mocking solutions. No bad choices here it depends on your taste.
• Async Await JavaScript Tutorial – How to Wait for a Function to Finish in JS (Fredrik Strand Oseberg) - Really interesting post. I learn better by trying... And now I have all the snippets I need.
• Creating a .NET Core Global Tool (John Smith) - Cool project. It gave me ideas of little things I would like to have available...
• How to Docker with .NET: Getting Started (Dave Brock) - A truly beginner tutorial. If you know about Docker but never did really play with it, here is your chance. First post of a trilogy that definitely worth our time.
• Keeping your WSL Linux instances up to date automatically within Windows 10 (Scott Hanselman) - This is sooo simple! Wonderful.
• Let's use NUKE to Quickly Deploy an App to Azure via Zip Deployment - Dangl.Blog(); (Georg Dangl) - Interesting build/ automation framework. Definitely worth giving it a try.

Suggestion of the week

• Learn Node.js with this series of short videos for beginners (Microsoft) - An amazing series of tiny videos. I started myself and already learned so much! Perfect bite-size to watch in a break, or to find THE topic/ answer you are looking for.

Books

Take Control of Your Life

Author: Mel Robbins

Great book. I wasn't sure first but someone recommended it and since, I like her first book and thought why not! I was not disappointed. I like this journey through interviews. Each person (yes real person, not characters), is great; full of emotions, victory, fails... like us, well me at least. 

~

Reading Notes #440

Cloud

• Azure portal August 2020 update (Angie Doyle) - Wonderful Updates better search, better productivity.Very nice.

• Path based routing in Azure Application Gateway with Azure WebApps (Dominique St-Amand) - Great post that explains how to get the most of our domain name and workaround a little limitation of the portal.

Programming

• How to Develop an ASP.NET Core Application Using Visual Studio Code (Mathankumar Rajendran) - The perfect post to get started without impacting too much (installing heavy software) your computer.

• Configuring Codespaces for .NET Core Development (Justin Yoo ) - This post goes deeper than the usual hello word type of post about Codespace. It really shows an example of configuration.

• Have you built your GitHub Profile README yet? (Mayank Choudhary) - What?! This is super cool, and I didn't know about it.

• How to Work With Client-Side Blazor (Jon Hilton ) - This is a great simple post to get started with Blazor web assembly. Simple enough so all can understand what it is and what's nice about it.

• Introducing Blazor Automatic Kingdom (null) - Interesting of the popular blocky UI/UX with Blazor.

• Introduction to SVELTE (Sohaib Nehal) - As I rediscover JavaScript, it's fascinating to see how much this language as evolve and now have so many great frameworks.

• WSL 2 Support is coming to Windows 10 Versions 1903 and 1909 | Windows Command Line (Tyler) - Yeah! One of my computers is not in the insider program and was still with WSL1... But not anymore.

Podcasts

• 087: Learning Azure with Gwyneth Pena (CloudSkills.fm) - In this episode, you will discover a freshly awarded MVP, a brilliant content creator, and super energetic women. Wonderful.

• Why you should double down on intergration testing with Kent C. Dodds (Software Engineering Unlocked) - Tests are important we all know that (well we should), but there is a shift about the type of tests that are the best one recently... Interesting.

• Working in Public: Open Source Software with Nadia Eghbal (Hanselminutes with Scott Hanselman) - A very interesting conversation about the open-source work today. She is the author of the book Working in Public, which looks fascinating.

• #169 – Thinking One Step Ahead to Grow Your Business through PR with Dmitry Dragilev of JustReachOut.io (The Indie Hackers Podcast) - I think this quote used summarize perfectly: Just because you built it doesn't mean people will come. Great discussion.

• The Shorts -- Twindom (The Dirtbag Diaries) - A really touching story of two sisters and a hiking trip that changed her lives.

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Reading Notes #436

The suggestion of the week

• Learn Durable Functions with .NET Core and C#, stateful Serverless (Chris Noring) - A fascinating tutorial that teaches us how to get started with Azure Durable Functions and also explains how they work.

Cloud

• Azure Functions and App Service Authentication with Auth0 and other OpenID Connect providers (Anthony Chu) - A nice post that explains how to configure our function with the CLI.

• Using Key Vault and Managed Identities with Azure Functions (Damien Bod) - A very resourceful and tutorial post. The perfect place to get started.

Programming

• Bootstrap 5 alpha1 is here..! What is NEW? (Charuka herath) - Nice update.

• Securing Blazor WebAssembly Apps (Andrea Chiarelli) - A nice post with all the code.

• Windows Terminal Preview 1.2 Release (Kayla) - Very nice update of an open-source project...It's nice to see that.

Podcasts

• Stop Pushing Down Your Emotions (Developer Tea) - I think a lot of people are doing that, me included. Very interesting podcast about a real situation.

• How the OBS Project changed video forever with lead Hugh Bailey (Hanselminutes with Scott Hanselman) - I was trilled to listen to this podcast. I'm a regular user of OBS and it was wonderful to learn more about this project. I will definitely be lurking on the GitHub side...

• 480: Get Noticed Without Selling Out, with Laura Huang (Coaching for Leaders) - Interesting discussion. I never realize how “Be yourself” wasn't really useful...

• Episode 219: Remote crickets and Manager Careering (Soft Skills Engineering) - A really nice episode. Great topics answering diverse questions. One that kept my attention was about the magic manager and the time management...

• How to Improve Time Management with Angela Proffitt (Influencer Entrepreneurs with Jenny Melrose) - A few great tips to improve our efficiency at managing time. It's always good to have new ideas and ear how others are doing.

• #49: Erin Doyle - Beautiful Code and Accessibility (The Solo Coder Podcast) - A beautiful, very inspiring episode about how to make the world a better place for all.

Miscellaneous

• Azure DevOps Roadmap update for 2020 Q3 | Azure DevOps Blog (Sidi) - That looks pretty neat

• How to make separate Work and Personal Profiles with the New Microsoft Edge on Beyonce's Internet (Scott Hanselman) - The profiles are really awesome and very useful. I'd say it's a must.

• Microsoft is working on an Azure-powered Cloud PC service ( Mary Jo Foley) - Interesting..

• Sort Data With ASP.NET Core and Query Strings (Khalid Abuhakmeh) - A very cool tutorial with all thee e required code. Pretty cool.

• Top 7 OBS Studio Tricks for 2020 – and you won’t believe #4 (Jeff Fritz) - A wonderful list of accessible tips to improve our stream.

Reading Notes #422

Cloud

• Azure Functions: Extend Execution Timeout Past 5 Minutes (Chris Pietschmann) - Very cool post that explains how to take advantages of this new feature.
• Create, Build, Deploy and Configure an Azure Function with Azure DevOps and Azure CLI (Damien Bowden) - The perfect tutorial to get started with Azure DevOps.It contains all the code we need and a ton of references
• Introducing the Azure Key Vault Credentials Provider for Jenkins (Tim Jacomb) - Great news for all the Jenkins users and nice extension for Keyvault.
• Making an Interactive Cognitive Portrait Exhibit using some Creativity, .NET, Azure Functions and Cognitive Services Magic (Dmitry Soshnikov) - Very cool project mixing art and techno.

Programming

• GitHub is now free for teams (Nat Friedman) - That was definitely a piece of good news this week.
• Bring your own machine to Visual Studio Online | Visual Studio Blog (Allison) - Fantastic news! Before it was possible to access a powerful developer environment from our poor local devices. Now we can also access our own powerful machine from elsewhere! That's very very nice!
• Tips, tricks, hacks, and secrets from Jason Etcovitch ( Jason Etcovich) - An incredible post there is so many awesome tools and references in it.

Podcasts

• 195: The Hanselman Machine Learning Model (Merge Conflict) - Great episode where Frank and James discuss how James could build a sentiment analysis of Hanselman tweets, is it possible or not and what would be the cost (effort, and money).
• GitHub Actions with Enrico Campidoglio (.NET Rocks!) - I think it's my first .Net Show since the Pandemie. Well with was a create show that dig deeper in the GitHub Action. Loved it.
• 068: How to Build Your Personal Brand (CloudSkills.fm) - I really liked this episode as I did "created" my personal brand (without really realizing it ) a few years ago.
• 455: How to Create Great Relationships, with Colleen Bordeaux (Coaching for Leaders) - Interesting discussion with the author of the book: Am I Doing This Right?: A Philosophical Guide to Life in the Age of Overwhelm, that is now in my to read list/

Miscellaneous

• Backing up SQL Server databases to Blob Storage using Impersonation (Dominique St-Amand) - Nice post that not only shows us and to do backups, but how to do it in a very secured and structure way.Excellent!
• Free SSL vs. Paid SSL Certificates: Why Pay for SSL? (Chip Securis) - Before reading this post I assumed what could be the differences. NOW I know.
• How viewers can be actors in streams on Twitch (null) - Interesting post about streaming and how to leverage the channel points
• Microsoft Learning Blog (Alex Payne) - This is nice.

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Reading Notes #414

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

• Comparing Serverless and Containers: Which is Best? (Aditya Joshi) - Oh, lots of interesting thoughts on a very trending question...

• Migrating your applications to Azure using Virtual Machine Scale Sets, Packer and Virtual Machine extensions – Part 3 (Dominique St-Amand) - This is the third post in a series and very details tutorial that explains why and how to do your scaleset settings.

Programming

• Blazor by Example - A dismissable banner (Jon Hilton) - A really interesting post that explains how to build a webpage by showing it by iterations. If you know me, you know those are my favorite.

• Command line tricks for managing your messy open source repository (Victoria Drake) - Nice post that shares a few tips of all kind, in a loose style... Which ones did you not know, or think about?

• Dungeons & Dragons Max Hit Points Calculator (Rachel Soderberg) - A nice and different little project to learn some c# in a Windows form environment.

Podcasts

• 0240 - Anthony Giretti - Le protocole gRPC (Visual Studio Talk Show) - Nice episode where they talk about gRPC and gRPC web, where it comes from, why it's different than the previous version, and how it's possible to use it with .Net. All that in French!

Miscellaneous

• Habits Of Top Programmers (NgNinja) - A little spark of motivation just for you.

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Reading Notes #405

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. This one is the last of 2019!

Cloud

• Implementing GitHub Actions for an Azure Static Website (Aaron Powell) - An excellent tutorial that explains how to deploy a static website, build with Hugo, using the GitHub Actions.

Programming

• User Secrets in Docker-based .NET Core Worker Applications (Jimmy Bogard) - Nice gotcha.

• Awesome List of Top ASP.NET Core-Based Open-Source Application Projects (Bharat Dwarkani) - A nice list of projects to get inspired, or learn a few things.

• Upgrading the Blazor HTML Table with FlexGrid ( Alvaro Rivoir) - This is a great tutorial that explains very clearly step by step how to replace the grid in the default Asp.Net Core project.

Miscellaneous

• Advice to my 20 year old self (Scott Hanselman) - An Interesting post. But to be honest, the more I think about it the less I would spoil things. So as good or bad as it sounds, my advice would probably just be something like thrust yourself, you'll be fine.

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