Reading Notes #69

Cloud

• This Site Now Powered By Windows Azure Websites! (Chris) - In this post Chris is sharing is experience when moving is web site to Windows Azure.
• Declarative Architectures in Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) - In this post Buck is sharing method and third party to design architecture where the cloud is part of the solution.
• Windows Azure Store Preview - Quick post to introduce some feature of the new Windows Azure Store.
• How to use MongoDB from PHP in Windows Azure Web Sites - Really nice tutorial that explain how to create the just announced MongoDB as a service and use it from a Windows Azure website.
• Announcing Second Generation Standard instances for Amazon EC2 and a price reduction for M1 instances - AWS announce a new generation of EC2 instance with nothing less than 50% more computational capability/core.
• SQL Data Sync now available in the East and West US Data Centers! - Announce of SQL Data Sync availability in two data center.
• Where in the world is SQL Data Sync? - Nice catch, learn how from the new Azure portal to access the Azure data sync page.
• Episode 92 - iOS SDK for Windows Azure Mobile Services (Nick Harris, Nathan Totten) - Great episode that show how easy it is now to use Windows Azure with iOS.
• Episode 93 - Real-World Windows Azure with Mural.ly (Nick Harris, Nathan Totten) - An amazing video take 45 minutes and watch this podcast. It's energizing to see someone with so much passion. And try Mural.ly.
• Single Sign On with Windows Azure Active Directory: a Deep Dive - Nice deep dive that stay clear even if very detailed.

Programming

• Your Visual Studio, Your Colors - Great it will now be easier than even to customize the color of VS2012 with is new add-on.
• TechDays 2012, une nouvelle ère débute - A lot of great opportunities are coming this fall for all Canadian.
• Développer un site web avec node.js et tous les outils - Wow. Perfect tutorial to get started with Node.js. It explains how to setup a nice working environment, sometime saving tips, etc. (en francais)
• Windows Identity Foundation Tools for Visual Studio 2012 RTM (Vittorio Bertocci) - I missed that one when it came out... Great tool!
• The Hanselminutes - Glimpse gets a benefactor - can open source and commercial software live together? - If you’re doing web development you should listen this and you must try Glimpse.
• The Hanselminutes - What is Typescript and why with Anders Hejlsberg - Loud and clear. The best description of what is Typescript and why I should start using it.
• Podcast Update with Guest Spots and a New Show - October 2012 (Scott Hanselman) - A list of interesting podcast in different domains suggested by Scoot Hanselman.

Integration

• BizTalk Mapper Patterns: How to Map Hierarchical Schema to a Name Value Pair - Nice post that describe the pros and cons of four method to accomplish a mapping from hierarchical schema to a name value pair.
• BizTalk Server 2010 ESB Training Kit (Saravana Kumar) - Free resources, this is a link to bookmark.
• Service Bus Messaging: Queues, SB-Messaging Adapter (Steef-Jan Wiggers) - Great tutorial using Windows Azure Service Bus with BizTalk.

Miscellaneous

• Windows 8 upgrade: your hardware and software options explained (Sean Hollister) - The perfect post to help everyone to takes the good decision regarding Windows 8.A link to share.

~Frank

Reading Notes #67

Cloud

• Cloudy Thoughts by SyntaxC4 - Nice post that demonstrate where are the environment variables base on different languages.
• Windows 8 and the Cloud: Better Together (David Pallmann) - Good post that told how and why it a good thing to use Windows Azure to leverage your Windows 8 applications.
• .NET Framework 4.5 Support in Windows Azure Web Sites (Channel 9) - Nice video podcast about new feature in Windows Azure and what you should do with your web/worker roles.
• Windows Azure Mobile Services: New support for iOS apps, Facebook/Twitter/Google identity, Emails, SMS, Blobs, Service Bus and more - Great news! This new features will gives a lot more of flexibility. And all these are already available for iOS!! That major. Good job.

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

• Windows Azure Training Kit – October 2012 - This post present what’s new in this update and gives the new GitHub link of the Windows Azure Training Kit.
• Blob Storage and Shared Access Signatures (Stephen Kaufman Stephen Kaufman Microsoft MSFT 6,797 Points 1 2 1 Recent Achievements Blogger III Blog Conversation Starter Blogger II View Profile) - Useful tutorial that explain how to setup a shared access signatures in c#.
• Modifying the contents of cscfg file while deploying a cloud service with PowerShell (18 2012 Ercenk October) - Great script! Must keep this in our tool box...
• Implementing Entity Services using NoSQL – Part 1: Outline - Nice post, first of a series that explains a Java project to build a Data Services using NoSql.
• Cloud Cover Show Episode 91 - Windows Azure Mobile Services Updates – Very nice good demo about some mobile new capabilities and a big tease for the next episode 92…

Integration

• What’s new in BizTalk360 version 5.0? Available for immediate download (Saravana Kumar) - Nice post that explain the 5 major new features in the last version of the great BizTalk360. Looking very promising.

Programming

• Why Mocking Matters - Nice explanation of what the differences are between fakes, stubs and mocks.

[…]This is easy to do with Telerik JustMock. I wrote about using JustMock to get you started in From Legacy to Dependency Injection. […]

• Expressing Ruby Code in Natural Language - Wow, that look like a lot of fun. That what I call a good "pet project".

[…]This is called rubber duck debugging, because you could have solved the problem by explaining it to a rubber duck on your desk. […]

• First try with TypeScript - A developer share is first thoughts of TypeScript and explains it with code sample.
• SSDT & DACFx (October 2012) Compatibility Notes - Details about a update that will fix some compatibility issue.
• 10 Tips to avoid the typical Windows 8 design traps - Essential for any developer. If you want to distinguish yourself from the other in the apps store, this is where it's start.
• Stored procedures DO NOT increase performance (Shivprasad koirala) - Interesting post that hi-light the difference between inline code and store procedure. I agree with the conclusion. Sprocs are better to facilitate the maintainability.
• Visual Studio 2012 Update 1 CTP - Wow an update already with new features that great. Reference to download pages.
• Supporting agile teams
• Continuously enabling quality
• SharePoint development
• Windows development
• How do you estimate with Story Points and determine Velocity when you’ve not done it before? (johnv petersen) - Nice post that with help you to start doing estimation.
• Get In on the Action: Learn Windows 8 with Hands-on Labs « Jonathan Rozenblit - Get started to the Windows8 development with these 17 labs references.

Miscellaneous

• If You’re Too Busy to Meditate, Read This (Peter) - This post explain how a little meditation is possible and how it can help.
• 7 Tips For Building a 'Power Network' on LinkedIn - Quick tips to improve your LinkedIn network.
• Instapaper delivered to your Kindle changes how you consume web content - Plus IFTTT, blogs and more (Scott Hanselman) - Of course you can do this... I prefer Readability but the idea is the same...

Reading Notes #65

Cloud

• Cloning Windows Azure Virtual Machines - Nice post. Very well explain through the Azure portal.
• Microsoft Cloud Analysis Tool and Infrastructure Optimization Tool (JD Meier) – Nice presentation of the tool all in image.
• Use strategy pattern to support cloud storage (Henry He) - Interesting pattern to support both on-premise and cloud storage. A demo is available.
• Using Azure Web Sites to market your Windows App - Good sample of how Windows Azure Website can be used. Quick, easy and free!
• Why Hyper-V? (New Whitepaper) - Short introduction about hyper-v and reference on good link.
• AWS Free Usage Tier Now Includes Amazon RDS - Nice news, a relational database for free!
• 5 things healthcare organizations must know before moving to the cloud - Nice checklist before left-off
• Startups, BizSpark & Windows Azure – Better Together! (Marc Gagné) - Details about who can be in BizSpark and how.
• Windows Azure In-Role Caching - Great article that that dive dipper than usual post about Azure Cache.
• What’s the benefit of the cloud? - Quick opinion post about what the "real" benefit of the cloud and I agree.... but I still think that you can save money, gain speed and stability.

Programming

• You Can Tell a Lot About Developers From Their Scratchpads (Erik Dietrich) - Interesting post about what your dummy application can tell about you.
• Enabling code coverage on TFS 2012—it’s easy (David Scruggs) - Nice quick tip.

• Five Things to Know When Designing a Windows 8 App - Interesting post that review some of the change brought by windows 8 and is wind of change for developer mainly for UI.
• Difference Between IEnumerable and IQueryable (Nischal Bhatt) - A very nice tutorial that explain simplify the difference between those two important interfaces.
• A Few New OData Things of Interest (Glenn Gailey) - New features of oData and reference link to get started.
• The Art of Unit Testing Reviewed - This book is in to read stack and just get bring back to the top. Good review.
• Amazon Simple Email Service Announces Mailbox Simulator - Could be very useful.
• New SSDT Power Tools! Now for both Visual Studio 2010 and Visual Studio 2012 - Wow a must for all developers. This update is really nice and it will save a lot of trouble.
• Web Page Redirects on Amazon S3 Hosted Websites - Good idea.

Integration

• Opinions about BizTalk360 from the experts (Saravana Kumar) - Great way to learn more about how nice is Biztalk360.

Miscellaneous

• Rise to the Modern App Challenge - So much event across all the Canada in English AND French!
• Good Blogs Take Time (Darren Rowse) - Oooh I known. But it's also fun!
• The new Microsoft (Eric Brec) - A very enthusiastic opinion from the inside about the new Microsoft.
• 3 Signs That You Are Stressed Out (And How To Fix It) (Tom Searcy) - I lithe quote.

[…]"When my sock drawer is perfectly folded, sorted and lined up, I know that I am out of control in my life." […]

• Picture This (Simon) - Great application available on all mobile device and desktop.
• Brain Droppings - A lot of funny thoughts that make my morning...
• 9 Things You Wish Job Candidates Knew (Jeff Haden) - Great tips to be prepare at you’re next interview. This post gives useful information to be reading winning a job, a contract, a fun project, etc.
• Dropbox Now Helps Team Admins Get Everyone To Turn On Two-Step Verification (Drew Olanoff) - Great news from Dropbox. And a new Rss feed to add to my list.
• The Story of the New Microsoft.com - Good ready it's nice to follow how those great projects become what they are.

~Frank

Reading Notes #64

Cloud

• Drunk on Cloud Kool-Aid? Time To Sober Up (Justin Moore) - It's never all white or all black. This post put some gray in the picture of what will be the cloud in five years.
• Book Review: Cloudonomics–The Business Value of Cloud Computing - If after reading this review you don't download the sample or read at least the table of content, it mean you are the author.
• Windows Azure Interactive Feature Map - An amazing interactive picture or the ultimate Windows Azure features Map!
• BizTalk Virtual Machine in Windows Azure using Quick Create (Steef-Jan Wiggers) - Simple and efficient tutorial that show all steps to create a VM in Windows Azure with BizTalk.
• Comparison: SkyDrive vs Apple vs Google vs Dropbox - Nice one shot overview.
• How to Remove an Orphaned Windows Azure Virtual Machine Disk and Remove a Lease Conflict on a VHD Blob (Stephen W. Thomas) - Again PowerShell is showing us who’s the king. I'm looking forward to see this tool. Since Azure is supposed to be really user friendly (not like scripts) then this tool should be great.
• Announcing Updates to Windows Azure SQL Database (Gregory Leake) - Great new. It's a long time since we saw a Sql Azure database update.
• Cloudy Thoughts by SyntaxC4 - Nice recap of many (if it is not all) possible database that you can use when using Windows Azure.
• #CloudFail: Six pitfalls to avoid with enterprise cloud deployment (Bart Copeland) - Excellent post! Even if the cloud is not for everyone, it have good chance that it could for you...
• Hybrid cloud model: update on Microsoft IT application migration (Tony Scott) - Overview of the Microsoft IT application migration, and Show case.

[…]Microsoft IT Showcase recently published an article with details of our experience [download Using Windows Azure to Create a Multi-Platform Application][…]

• Keeping your options open in a cloud solution (Buck Woody) - One thing that is great about Windows Azure is that you can use anything with it. Not only Microsoft language or application, not event only Azure services.
• Moving a website to Azure while adding Continuous Deployment from Git (Scott Hanselman) - Nice walkthrough of moving a website to Azure using new features.
• Guest Post: What’s the Big Deal with AppDynamics Windows Azure Monitoring? (Himanshu Singh) – Nice post that introduced AppDynamics and explained what it can do for our Azure application.
• Why Can't I Always Change the Region when Creating a Windows Azure Virtual Machine? (Stephen W. Thomas) - Nice catch! Be aware of this little difference between the different create VM methods.
• Azure Store XRay - Amazing tool to monitor easily your Windows Azure storage.
• Cloning Windows Azure Virtual Machines - Nice post. Very well explain through the Azure portal.
• Cloud Cover Show Episode 90 - Windows Azure Web Sites Update - Great show about the new feature in Windows Azure SQL Database: Link db.[video]

Programming

• Agile path ways into the Azure Universe – Access Control Service [ACS] - Great tutorial that explain step by step how to test ACS in a Behaviour Driven Development (bdd) way using QStory and Selinum.
• Avoid shooting yourself in the foot with Tasks and Async - Nice post that explain some "particularities" of some new feature in the .Net framework 4.5 related to asynchronous tasks.
• Migrating a Database to SQL Azure using SSDT - Great tutorial of an amazing tool. The SSDT is a must!
• 5 mistakes that make you look like a Rails n00b - Nice tips that will make your code better, and not only in Ruby, for all language.
• A First Look at SQL Server Data Tools - Include in the new visual studio 2012, and downloadable for 2008 and 2010, this amazing tool is a must for all developer. And it's free! .[video]
• Visual Studio 2012 Takes “Ease” Up a Notch (Jonathan Rozenblit) - Oh what a great a time saver.

Miscellaneous

• Windows 8 Shortcut Keys (John Evdemon) - Since I'm just starting to use Windows 8 this post is clearly useful.
• 3 Easy Exercises to Boost Your Creativity (2012| Comment Nadia Goodman| September 26) - I will not go that far, but the main goal is there. If you want be create the next Instagram, you must train your creativity.
• This Is The Biggest Reason Talented Young Employees Quit Their Jobs (The Brilliant Blog Annie Murphy Paul) - I wish my old bosses had the chance to read this nice post.

Reading Notes #62

Cloud

• David Pallmann Demonstrates azureQuery (Channel 9) (Brady Gaster Cory Fowler) - Nice video where the project azureQuery is introduced. A project to follow.
• Max Pool Size Setting and Federations in Windows Azure SQL Database - Nice quick tips with Azure Sql connection.
• Best Ways to Optimize Diagnostics Using Windows Azure – Part 1 - 5 tips from experimented user.
• Windows Azure Mobile Services Preview Walkthrough–Part 2: Authenticating Windows 8 App Users (C#) (Roger Jennings) - Nice demo in 2 parts with code and a lot of screenshots.
• Getting Started with SendGrid on Windows Azure - Well done tutorial. Building an application that send mail never locked that easy.
• Running a Windows Azure Virtual Machine Locally with Hyper-V or VMware 8 / VMware 9 (Stephen W. Thomas) - Nice... Exactly what I was looking for.
• Importing Azure Marketplace Data into Excel 2013 with Web Queries - Great tutorial that build a dynamic url to fetch data in Azure Marketplace.
• Cloud - Interesting post about the security of the data in the cloud.
• The Windows Azure Software Development Kit (SDK) and the Windows Azure Training Kit (WATK) (Buck Woody) - It's true that some people were mix matching those two. Re-share...

Programming

• EAI Bridge Message Sender and Queue Message Receive tool - Nice tool.
• Introducing ASP.NET FriendlyUrls - cleaner URLs, easier Routing, and Mobile Views for ASP.NET Web Forms (Scott Hanselman) - Gorgeous! Wow you can now so easily in web form do the routing like in Asp.net MVC only with one NuGet call!
• 5 points developers should know about WinRT / Windows 8 - Now that Windows 8 is there developers are starting to do more code using WinRT. So here some quick things about it.
• How to migrate your TFS Repository to GitHub - Nice, simple and quick tutorial to start using git and in the meantime try Chocolately. (a kind of NuGet but for Windows instead of Visual Studio)
• Your Colorful Visual Studio 2012 with the Color Theme Editor (VS2010 colors, too) (Scott Hanselman) - Great add in to Visual Studio that gives... Nothing except happiness.
• FREE: Visual Studio Express 2012 for Windows Desktop (Scott Hanselman) - Ye! Visual Studio gets free for all kind of project! It makes more sense to do this when supporting open source community.
• ScottGu's Blog - Good promo, no obligation, no credit card, good product... until the September 18.

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

• Stop Validating Email Addresses With Your Complex Regex - I agree 100% I don't remember how many site told that my e-mail was invalid because tagged: frank+tag@sample.com.
• When Is a Set Better Than an Array in Ruby? - Great post, the Set are very useful and powerful but are also under know.

Miscellaneous

• Escaping from Desktop: Online Document Editing Tools for Bloggers (Guest Blogger) - Interesting review of different online text editor that compare the pros and cons of each of them. Check TeamLab.
• 10 free tools for admins on a tight budget (Jack Wallen) - Even if you may now some, you can also find a new precious tool.
• Automatically Backup your Gmail account on a schedule with GMVault and Windows Task Scheduler (Scott Hanselman) - Nice advice. The power of task scheduler, ignore you should not.
• Goodbye Fax, Hello Personal Cloud | Cloudline - A real nightmare, but do you think it will be ending soon? I hope so.
• 10 Tips for Giving a Kick Ass Keynote (Mitch Ditkoff) - 10 good tips that I will practice in my next presentation.
• Your resume vs. your LinkedIn profile (Thomas Wolff) - Nice advice about how we should use LinkedIn with our resume. They should complement each other not be the same.
• Turns out I’ll be writing a book - Nice idea. I hope this book will be published. I will love read this book.