Episode 425

7/3
Today I am grateful for dinner with Mike last night in Cincinnati.

7/2
Today I am grateful for an amazing month and year.

7/1
Today I am grateful for the very kind handwritten note from Jeff Yates that was in my mailbox yesterday.

6/30
Today I am grateful that Sharon's CT Scan yesterday revealed no sign of cancer.

6/29
Today I am grateful for:
-2 good interviews yesterday
-a walk around Northerly Island on a pleasant evening

6/28
Today I am grateful that Adam and Zsófia came to visit me in Chicago for 2 days.

6/27
Today I am grateful for: -An architecture cruise down the Chicago River -An afternoon at Navy Pier -A weekend with Rowena and Sabrina

6/26
Today I am grateful for a chance yesterday to take visitors to Grant Park, Lake Michigan, Buckingham Fountain, Millennium Park, Maggie Daly Park, Cloud Gate, Chase Fountain, and the Navy Pier fireworks.

6/25
Today I am grateful for: -My first visit to Lincoln Park Zoo -Seeing the SpongeBob Musical last night.

6/24
Today I am grateful for an evening in Chicago with my sister-in-law and niece.

6/23
Today I am grateful for lunch yesterday with Lora and her son.

6/22
Today I am grateful for a drive to Wisconsin yesterday.

6/21
Today I am grateful for dinner with John last night in Old Town.

6/20
Today I am grateful for lunch with Ayda yesterday.

6/19
Today I am grateful to attend my first Kane County Cougars baseball game last night.

6/18
Today I am grateful that I meet so many people that are willing to volunteer their time to help others.

6/17
Today I am grateful for an excellent audience last night for my Angular 2 & TypeScript presentation.

6/16
Today I am grateful -to be the most recent guest on the "Hello World" podcast. -to spend the afternoon hanging out with Shawn and Resa -to watch the Navy Pier fireworks from the 31st floor last night

6/15
Today I am grateful for a walk around the South Loop on a warm spring night.

6/14
Today I am grateful for the love and support of Jesus Christ, who helps me through the difficult times.

6/13
Today I am grateful to attend LitFest in my neighborhood this weekend.

6/12
Today I am grateful for -my first visit to Northerly Island -my first visit to FirstMerit Bank Pavilion -my first time seeing Steely Dan in concert -my first time seeing Steve Winwood in concert

6/11
Today I am grateful for breakfast with Derek in Minnesota yesterday.

6/10
Today I am grateful for pierogis and vodka with Lisa and Kevin.

6/9
Today I am grateful for: -breakfast with Kevin and Kasey in Chicago yesterday morning; -dinner and ice cream with evangelists and local devs in Minneapolis last night

6/8
Today I am grateful to all those who said kind things to me when I was having a bad day.

6/7
Today I am grateful to be invited to speak again at the Chicago Coder Conference this year.

6/6
Today I am grateful to spend a couple days with J. Tower this weekend.

Episode 424

Episode 423

Our new Fiscal Year begins in a couple weeks, so I compiled a list of community developer events that I expect will take place in the next 12 months.

Please let me know if I am missing an important event in the region, if a date has been confirmed, or if you notice any errors in this list.

I was in high school the first time someone asked me to name my favourite band. and I had to think about it for a while before I decided it was Steely Dan. They set themselves apart from others making good music because I enjoyed all of their songs and because they played a variety of music and because their style of combining jazz arrangements over pop melodies was so different from what other artists of the last 1970s were doing. Walter Becker and Donald Fagen established themselves as one of the great songwriting pairs in pop music history and always surrounded themselves with top-notch studio musicians.

Decades later, Steely Dan remains one of my favourites; but, remarkably, I've never seen them perform live. That changed last night when I caught their performance at the FirstMerit Bank Pavilion in Chicago. They did not disappoint.

Steve Winwood warmed up - another artist I've always enjoyed, but never saw perform live. Winwood had a successful solo career in the 1980s and he performed the popular "Higher Love" from this era; but most of the performance was taken from his earlier bands, such as Traffic and Blind Faith. He closed with a rocking performance of "Gimme Some Lovin’", a song he wrote and recorded for the Spencer Davis Group in 1966 at the age of 18. 

Steely Dan hit the stage on a muggy night as the sun set and a breeze thankfully blew off nearby Lake Michigan. Steely Dan's core remains singer/keyboardist Donald Fagen and guitarist Walter Becker.

Fagen was the leader on stage, introducing most songs and singing lead. Becker is a great songwriter, but had little stage presence (although he did sing lead on "Daddy Don't Live In That New York City No More". But these limitations are easily ignored when one surrounds oneself with an excellent set of musicians.

And Becker and Fagen brought with them an excellent band which they referred to as "The Steely Dan Orchestra". The two highlights of this orchestra were drummer Keith Carlock and lead guitarist Jon Herington, both of whom have traveled with Becker and Fagen for over a decade.

The 3 female backing vocalist provided depth to most songs and sang lead on "Dirty Work", a song originally sung by David Palmer before Fagen took over all lead vocals.

I loved the live arrangements of their songs. Most did not stray far from the excellent studio arrangements that made Steely Dan famous in the first place, but they toyed with some songs, including a slow jam version of "Josie".

Seeing Steely Dan after all these decades of listening to their music was like meeting an old friend after a long absence - Familiar yet somehow new.

I fell in love with them at My Old School and now they had me reeling in my years.

Episode 422

Episode 421

6/5
Today I am grateful for
-the number of people who traveled far to attend Open Day yesterday.
-Chicago style pizza on the Gold Coast last night with friends and colleagues.

6/4
Today I am grateful for dinner last night in Downers Grove, IL with a bunch of MVPs.

6/3
Today I am grateful for Japanese BBQ with my team last night.

6/2
Today I am grateful for all the online references, articles, lessons, videos, and tutorials that make learning new technologies much more accessible.

6/1
Today I am grateful for dinner at a Swedish restaurant last night.

5/31
Today I am grateful for my camera, which helps me preserve and share memories.

5/30
Today I am grateful to all those who gave their lives in the service of our country.

5/29
Today I am grateful for an excellent week in Romania.

5/28
Today I am grateful for wine tasting with friends at a castle in Jidvei, Romania

5/27
Today I am grateful for another excellent #ITCAMP16.

5/25
Today I am grateful for my first visit to Bucharest.

5/23
Today I am grateful to arrive safely in Romania.

5/22
Today I am grateful for:
-seeing Nonnie's new house
-breakfast with Debora, David, Sue, and Gary this morning in Forest Park.

5/21
Today I am grateful for a walk around Andersonville last night.

5/20
Today I am grateful for:
-Lunch at Superdawg in Norwood Park
-An afternoon walk along Lake Michigan

5/19
Today I am grateful for a chance to play with a HoloLens yesterday.

5/18
Today I am grateful for pierogis with Christina last night.

5/17
Today I am grateful that my son began his internship yesterday.

5/16
Today I am grateful to see Gary Numan in concert last night.

5/15
Today I am grateful for a hot latte to start the morning.

5/14
Today I am grateful for a vibrant startup community in Chicago.

5/13
Today I am grateful that the skies here have cleared up, giving us a brilliant sunny day.

5/12
Today I am grateful for a day spent writing code.

5/10
Today I am grateful for lunch yesterday with Nick and Tim.

5/9
Today I am grateful:
-to be able to spend most of yesterday with my mother
-to my brother Doug and sister-in-law Sherree housing me for the weekend
-for a rare chance to spend time my brother Dan, who lives in a different hemisphere.
-Mother's Day dinner with family

5/8
Today I am grateful to be back in Michigan with my brothers and other family members.

5/7
Today I am grateful for the ability to binge-watch an entire season of my favourite TV shows.

5/6
Today I am grateful for every person who ever came up to me after a presentation to tell me they enjoyed it and learned something.

5/5
Today I am grateful for Tacos and margaritas at the Taco Joint last night.

5/4
Today I am grateful for a fresh latte, without leaving my kitchen.

5/3
Today I am grateful for an excellent steak dinner with Kevin last night.

5/2
Today I am grateful for lunch yesterday with James.

On April 7 in Arlington Heights, IL, Michael Blumenthal and the PSC Group organized a day-long event, titled “Azure and the Modern Data Center”. The event featured a single track of speakers presenting on topics related to managing Azure from an IT Infrastructure perspective.

My colleague Brian Lewis delivered the keynote at this event and I gave a presentation on Virtualization Containers. Other topics included Compute & Storage Infrastructure, Networking Infrastructure, and Disaster Recovery.

The event was recorded and the videos are now available on Channel 9.

The complete agenda for the day is here:

Recently I interviewed Sally Buberman and Ignacio Lopez, who turned an Imagine Cup project into a successful startup. Wormhole uses gamification to make online learning more engaging. Watch the interview below or at: Startup Stories: An Interview with Sally Buberman and Ignacio Lopez from Wormhole

Episode 420

Mihai Tataran stood next before a group of technologist at the Jidvei winery and castle in Cetatea de Balta, Transylvania. IT Camp had ended the day before and the conference organizers took the speakers to the winery for a tour, a lunch, and a wine tasting. Mihai laughed and translated into English the tour guides jokes comparing wine with a beautiful woman. The group was tired from the activities surrounding the conference, but energized by the fresh air and the sunshine.

The speakers (including me) had come to Transylvania to speak at the 6th annual IT Camp in Cluj-Napoca. Cluj-Napoca is arguably the tech center of Transylvania - the region of northern Romania which has established itself in recent years as a growing technology hub.

IT Camp has grown from a small Microsoft-focused developer event into a 2-day, 6-track, multi-platform event with many presentations covering topics outside of software development, such as business skills and DevOps. This was my third visit to IT Camp in as many years.

The conference featured 3 keynote presentations - all on Day 1:

Cluj Mayor Emil Boc opened the conference by talking about the emergence of the tech industry and the advantage of the universities in his city.

Jayson Street described some things he has done wrong in his career as a security analyst and the lessons he learned from those incidents.

Laurent Ellerbach showed off his IoT-enabled garden that does everything from analyze the soil to automatically turn on sprinklers to take photos on demand.

IT Camp features an impressive list of speakers from at least 9 different countries - mostly from Europe.

I had a chance to see a few sessions presented by others, including Raffaele Rialdi's "Introduction to .NET Core", Mihai Coroș's "Building Your First SPA with Aurelia and ASP.NET MVC 6", and Radu Vunvulea's "Azure microservices in practice".

I delivered 2 sessions at IT Camp: "Open Source Technologies in Microsoft Azure" and "Adding Image and Voice Intelligence to your apps with Microsoft Cognitive Services".

The Open Source Azure session was well-received by the 30 or so attendees. This was a variation on a talk I've done in the past titled "Microsoft Azure Without Microsoft". In it, I highlight many of the open source technologies that are available in Microsoft Azure (e.g., Linux Virtual Machines and PHP web applications) and with which Microsoft Azure can work (e.g., REST services consumed by Java or Ruby).

I was much more happy with the Cognitive Services presentation. The audience filled a room with a capacity of over 100 persons and were impressed by this technology that exposes models built with machine learning to any application that can call a web service.  A line of attendees came to the stage afterward to ask questions.

I also had an opportunity to meet with the Technical Evangelists on the DX Romania team - both in Bucharest before the conference and during IT Camp.

Few conferences treat their speakers as well as IT Camp. Perks of speaking here, included:

• A room at the Beautiful Grand Hotel Italia, overlooking the city of Cluj-Napoca
• A buffet breakfast every morning and gourmet dinners every night
• Evenings spent talking and drinking with other speakers and the conference organizers
• A field trip the day after the conference. This year, a bus took us to the winery and castle in Jidvei.

I'm writing this recap from an airport lounge in Munich, waiting for a flight to take me home to Chicago. I'm exhausted from a lack of sleep this past week, but I'm happy I had the opportunity to take part in IT Camp and to reconnect with so many people that I only see once a year.

Walking through the Old City in Bucharest in a pouring rain looking for a restaurant among the winding streets, it was hard to remember that I came here for a vacation. But I did.

For the third year in a row, I was invited to speak at IT Camp in Cluj-Napoca, Romania. When speaking in Europe, I always make an effort to take a little extra time and see something new; so I  arrived  Monday evening, although the conference did not start until Thursday.After my ticket to Cluj was booked, I looked around for a place to visit for 2 days and I settled on Bucharest. This was my third trip to Romania, but the first time I set foot in its capital city or the region of Wallachia.

As with all overseas trips, this one began with a flight - or rather with 3 flights. I counted 23 hours between the time I left my apartment to the time I arrived - exhausted - at the Bucharest hotel. Despite the long travel time, it was not a bad trip.

It was late Monday night when I arrived in Bucharest, but the JW Marriott upgraded my room and gave me access to the members' lounge, so I relaxed a bit before bed and slept through my alarm the following morning. It was noon by the time, I ventured out on the streets.

I stopped for about an hour at the Microsoft office in Bucharest and met Radu Stefan - a local Technical Evangelist with whom I had been corresponding. He recommended the City Tour Bus, which takes one past many of the city's cultural and historic landmarks, providing recorded narration as it passes each landmark.

A recommendation from Twitter encouraged me to eat at Caru cu Bere in the Old Town section of Bucharest. The waiter recommended the "House Beer", which was so good I drank 2 (a rare thing for me). I didn't realize until after the waiter brought it, that I had ordered dinner "for 2". It was a good thing I skipped lunch.

Caru cu Bere is located in the Old City - a pedestrian area with cobblestone streets and many old building. I spent a lot of time walking through this section of town - in part because of a desire to explore and in part because it was difficult to find the restaurant. A steady rain fell on me while I walked, attempting unsuccessfully to dampen my spirits.

On Wednesday, I hired a tour guide and driver for the day, who took me around Bucharest. The city has a rich, multicultural history. In the early part of the 20th century, after Romania gained independence, Bucharest was known as the Paris of the East for its beautiful architecture and rich cultural attractions. But the Communists who gained control following World War II had little interest in the Bucharest of the past. Dictator Nicolae Ceaușescu destroyed hundreds of blocks of historic neighborhood to create the enormous and lavish Parliament Building.   Ceaușescu was deposed and executed before this building (the second largest administrative building in the world) was completed.

Highlights of my guided tour were:
-A walk through part of the Parliament Building
-The Village Museum - an outdoor area consisting of old homes from many parts of Romania
-The Romanian Patriarchal Cathedral on Dealul Mitropoliei

Wednesday evening, I boarded a plane for Cluj-Napoca for the IT Camp. I only spent 2 days in Bucharest, but I saw a lot of the city and I learned a lot of its history. It was definitely a worthwhile excursion. No amount of rain could dampen that.

Here is an interview I conducted recently with Victor Cintron of DimDrop – a startup that uses location-based services to improve communication. They are deploying a number of open source technologies to Microsoft Azure.

Startup Stories: An Interview with Victor Cintron, CEO of DimDrop

Episode 419

Last month, I had the privilege of attending the AWS Summit in Chicago. It was a great experience for me because, although I do a lot of work with cloud computing, I have very little experience with the Amazon Web Services (AWS) platform.

The most interesting session I attended was about a service called "Aurora" (Amazon tends to give all their services catchy names). This is a relational database that looks and acts almost exactly like MySQL but runs much faster. The official product page brags that Aurora is a "MySQL-compatible relational database with 5X performance", however the session I attended claimed that they found cases in which Aurora was 63 times faster than MySQL. The presenters didn't share details of those cases, but even if results are only a fraction of that speed, it's still an impressive performance improvement.

Because Aurora is MySQL-compliant, you should be able to plug it into any application and use it just like MySQL. The SQL syntax is identical and the management tools will be familiar to anyone used to managing MySQL.

Of course, the fact that Aurora is hosted on a cloud platform like AWS gives it the advantage of high availability and flexible scaling that cloud computing offers.

Since most of my cloud computing experience is with Microsoft Azure, I tend to use Azure as a reference point for the services I saw at this summit. I was drawn to Aurora in part because I'm not aware of the same offering in Microsoft Azure.

MySQL as a service is available on Azure, but it's offered and supported by ClearDb - a third party.  If you want better performance or scalability on Azure than that offered by ClearDb, you will need to either switch to a different database or create a Virtual Machine and install MySQL on that, in which case you would be using Infrastructure as a Service, instead of Software as a Service.

In many cases, this is a non-issue. If you are building a new application, you have the flexibility to choose your preferred database technology. MySQL and SQL server have very similar languages; and, although I won't get into a debate here as to which is "better", it would be difficult to argue that SQL server is significantly less reliable or enterprise-ready than MySQL.

But there are times when you don't have a choice of database technologies. For example, if you have a large legacy application that you want to migrate to Azure, it may be a daunting task to migrate every stored procedure and SQL statement to use T-SQL.  Or if you are using a framework that is specifically built on top of MySQL, it makes sense to use that database, rather than re-writing the entire data access layer. Luckily, some frameworks have alternative data access layers. For example, Project Nami is a data access layer for WordPress that uses SQL Server as a data store, rather than MySQL.

Although the various cloud computing companies follow one another and are likely to build a service when they see traction on their competitor's platform, I find it interesting to see these gaps in offerings.

Here is a recent conversation I had with Sean Goltz and Addison Cameron-Huff of Global-Regulation, a company that assists researchers who are searching for international law documents. They are deploying a variety of open source technologies on Microsoft Azure.

Watch this interview below or follow this link to the interview.

The Newtonsoft.Json library contains a number of tools for working with JSON from within your .NET application.

New ASP.NET applications created in Visual Studio already contain a reference to the Newtonsoft.Json library. But if you want to add the library to a different project type or if you want to update the version installed by default with an ASP.NET application, you can right-click your project in the Visual Studio Solution Explorer and select "Manage NuGet Package..." and search for Newtonsoft.Json. Select the "Newtonsoft.Json" package (Fig 1) and click either "Install" or "Update".

Newtonsoft is very good at serializing .NET objects into JSON objects.

One feature that I find useful is its ability to rename attributes in my classes. For example, if I have a class named "SocialSecurityNumber" in my C# class and the client consuming my JSON object expects that same property to be named "ssn", I can make this transformation declaratively by adding the JsonProperty attribute to the class property, as shown in Listing 1.

[JsonProperty("ssn")]

public string SocialSecurityNumber { get; set; } 

By convention, C# developers tend to name public properties with mixed case (capitalize the first letter of each word); while JavaScript and JSON developers tend to name properties using Camel casing (capitalize the first letter of each word, except the first word). In the past, I used the JsonProperty attribute to accomplish this, renaming every variable that would be serialized to JSON, as in the following example:

[JsonProperty("firstName")]

public string FirstName { get; set; }

[JsonProperty("lastName")]

public string LastName { get; set; }

For projects with many objects and many properties, this can be a tedious task. Fortunately, I recently learned a shortcut.

ASP.NET contains a Formatters class that controls how items are formatted and Newtonsoft.Json can tap into this. The following code, when run at the start of your application, converts all properties to Camel-Case as you transform them to JSON.

var formatters = GlobalConfiguration.Configuration.Formatters;

var jsonFormatter = formatters.JsonFormatter;

var settings = jsonFormatter.SerializerSettings;

settings.ContractResolver = new CamelCasePropertyNamesContractResolver(); 

I added this code to the Register method of the WebApiConfig class in my ASP.NET MVC project, so that it is run when the application starts up, before any serialization is done.

Another useful setting is to add carriage returns and line feeds to the JSON that is created. This has the disadvantage of making your JSON slightly larger; but it makes it much easier for human beings to read, which can be very useful during debugging. This is accomplished with the following line:

settings.Formatting = Formatting.Indented; 

The full listing in the Register() method is shown below:

var formatters = GlobalConfiguration.Configuration.Formatters;

var jsonFormatter = formatters.JsonFormatter;

var settings = jsonFormatter.SerializerSettings;

settings.Formatting = Formatting.Indented;

settings.ContractResolver = new CamelCasePropertyNamesContractResolver(); 

Using the tools in the Newtonsoft.Json library, we can easily adhere to the conventional naming conventions of whatever platform in which our data is used.

Gary Numan was everything I did not expect.

He came to Chicago for 3 nights  at Metro night club in Wrigleyville. Each night he promised to perform a different album from early in his career -  "Replicas" on Sunday; "The Pleasure Principle" Monday and "Telekon" on Tuesday. I chose to attend Sunday because his 1979 album "Replicas" has always been my favourite of his. This was an album I embraced in high school a year before the rest of America learned of Gary Numan with the release of "The Pleasure Principle" and its wildly popular "Cars".

For me, Replicas was always the definitive Gary Numan album. Its layers of electronic melodies and its lyrics about a dystopian future spoke to the adolescent me and the album still holds up decades later.

Numan performed every song from the "Replicas" album and I was impressed by his enthusiasm for songs that he released 3 decades ago.

I don't recall ever attending a concert in which I knew in advance the songs the artist would play. But he surprised us - first by mixing the order of the original album and (more significantly) updating the arrangements.

The electronic music that made him famous is still impressive. "Down in the Park" and "I Nearly Married a Human" featured impressive keyboards and unusual sounds. But, he transformed "Me! I Disconnect From You" from a hypnotic synth-pop tune into a rock song that any post-punk garage band would be proud of. The guitar bass drums came to the fore on a number of his songs, making them more rocking and less ethereal.

I expected a stiff, robotic, stoic Gary Numan - similar to the mannequin pose on the Replicas album cover. Instead, the audience was treated to an energetic performer dancing to his songs and bringing a renewed passion to his old music.

The only downside was the venue. The fact that Metro only accepts cash was a disappointing surprise, but its General Admission format made it difficult for most attendees to see the stage. There are a limited number of tables one can reserve at more than double the GA price and I'm debating doing this when Echo & the Bunnymen play there in the Fall.

But I found a bit of floor space to enjoy the show and enjoy it I did - from the music to the strobe lights. Thanks to Numan's energy this concert exceeded my expectations.

Episode 418

In an earlier article, I described how to call the Cognitive Services API from JavaScript. The key parts of the code (using the jQuery library) is shown below:

var subscriptionKey = "cd529ca0a97f48b8a1f3bc36ecd73600";

var imageUrl = $("#imageUrlTextbox").val();

var webSvcUrl = "https://api.projectoxford.ai/face/v1.0/detect?returnFaceId=true&returnFaceLandmarks=true&returnFaceAttributes=age,gender,smile,facialHair,headPose,glasses";

$.ajax({

    type: "POST",

    url: webSvcUrl,

    headers: { "Ocp-Apim-Subscription-Key": subscriptionKey },

    contentType: "application/json",

    data: '{ "Url": "' + imageUrl + '" }'

}).done(function (data) {

        // ... 

        // Code to run when web service returns data...

        // ...

        }); 

Do you spot the problem with this code?

Although it works very well from a functional point of view, it has a security flaw” As with all Cognitive Services APIs, the Face API requires you to pass a key in the header of your HTTP request. Because there is no easy way to hide this key, it is easy for a hacker to steal your key. Using your key, they can make calls and charge them to your account - either using up your quota of free calls or (worse) charging your credit card for their calls.

One way to hide the key is to make the call to Cognitive Services from a custom web service. This web service can be a simple pass-through, but it allows you to hide the key on the server, where it is much more difficult for a hacker to find it.

We can use Web API to create this custom web service. With Web API, is a simple matter to store the Subscription Key in a secure configuration file and retrieve it at run time. The relevant code goes in an ApiController class as shown below.

// POST: api/Face

public IEnumerable Post([FromBody]string imageUrl)

{

    return GetFaceData(imageUrl);

} 

public static IEnumerable GetFaceData(string imageUrl)

{

    var webSvcUrl = "https://api.projectoxford.ai/face/v1.0/detect?returnFaceId=true&returnFaceLandmarks=true&returnFaceAttributes=age,gender,smile,facialHair,headPose,glasses";

    string subscriptionKey = ConfigurationManager.AppSettings["SubscriptionKey"];

    if (subscriptionKey == null)

    {

        throw new ConfigurationErrorsException("Web Service is missing Subscription Key");

    }

    WebRequest Request = WebRequest.Create(webSvcUrl);

    Request.Method = "POST";

    Request.ContentType = "application / json";

    Request.Headers.Add("Ocp-Apim-Subscription-Key", subscriptionKey);

    using (var streamWriter = new StreamWriter(Request.GetRequestStream()))

    {

        string json = "{"

        + "\"url\": \"" + imageUrl + "\""

        + "}"; 

        streamWriter.Write(json);

        streamWriter.Flush();

        streamWriter.Close(); 

        var httpResponse = (HttpWebResponse)Request.GetResponse(); 

        string result = "";

        using (var streamReader = new StreamReader(httpResponse.GetResponseStream()))

        {

            result = streamReader.ReadToEnd();

        }

        httpResponse.Close(); 

        List faces = JsonConvert.DeserializeObject>(result);

        return faces;

    }

} 

Of course, we could also use the .NET library to abstract the call to the Face API, but I wanted to keep this code as close to the original JavaScript code as possible.  This method returns a List of Face objects. The Face object maps to the JSON data returned by the Face API. You can see this class below.

public class Face

{

    public string FaceId { get; set; }

    public FaceRectangle FaceRectangle { get; set; }

    public FaceLandmarks FaceLandmarks { get; set; }

    public FaceAttributes FaceAttributes { get; set; }

}

Now, we can modify our JavaScript code to call our custom API, instead of calling Face API directly, and we can eliminate the need to pass the key from the client-side JavaScript, as shown below:

var imageUrl = $("#imageUrlTextbox").val();

webSvcUrl = "api/face";

$.ajax({

    type: "POST",

    url: webSvcUrl,

    data: JSON.stringify(imageUrl),

    contentType: "application/json;charset=utf-8"

}).done(function (data) { 

// ... 

// Code to run when web service returns data...

// ...

}); 

In this listing, we have removed the Subscription-Key from the Header and we have changed the Web Service URL. This is JavaScript is calling a web service in its own domain, so it is trusted. The default Cross-Site scripting settings of most web servers will keep JavaScript outside this domain from accessing our custom web service.

This pattern works with any of the Cognitive Services APIs. In fact, it works with any API that requires the client to pass a secure key. We can abstract away the direct call to that API and hide the key on the server, making our code more secure.

Code

• You can find the full code of the sample described above here.
• You can find the code for the “unprotected” sample here.

Microsoft Cognitive Services (MCS) allows you to tap into the power of Machine Learning and perform sophisticated analysis of photographs, simply by calling a web service.

The Face API in MCS returns an array of all the faces found in a photo, along with information about each face, such as the location of the eyes, nose, and mouth; the age and gender of the person, and information about eyeglasses and facial hair.

You can sign up to use MCS for free at https://www.microsoft.com/cognitive-services/. Information specific to the Face API can be found at https://www.microsoft.com/cognitive-services/en-us/face-api. (fig 1)

 
Fig. 1

To use the Face API, click the [Get Started for Free] button. You will see a list of subscription keys. Scroll down to "Face" section and click "Copy" next to one of the Face Subscription keys to save it to your clipboard or click "Show" to reveal the key.

 
Fig. 2

To call the Face API, send an HTTP POST request to https://api.projectoxford.ai/face/v1.0/detect

You may add optional querystring parameters to the above URL:

returnFaceID: If set to "true", the web service will return a GUID representing the face, so that you can make repeated inquiries about this face.

returnFaceLandmarks: If set to "true", the web service will return a "faceLandmarks" object containing a list of points identifying where location of the edges of the eyes, eyebrows, nose, and mouth.

returnFaceAttributes: A comma-delimited list of face attributes the web service should return. Allowable attributes are
age: an age number in years.
gender, smile, facialHair, headPose, and glasses.

The service will always return a rectangle identifying the outline of the face. Adding more properties to return will, of course, slow down both the computation and the download of the data.

You must pass the subscription key (described above) in the header of your HTTP request as in the following example:

Ocp-Apim-Subscription-Key:52b24a988a179f13a25aac4713aec800 

The photo itself will be in the body of the POST request. In the content-type header parameter, you can specify how you plan to send the photo to the server. If you plan to send a link to the URL of a photo, set the content-type to "application/json"; if you plan to send the photo as binary data, set the content-type to "application/octet-stream".

The body of the request contains the image. If you selected "application/json" as the content type, send the URL in the following JSON format:

{ "Url": "/themes/Giard/images/logo.png"}

If successful, the web service will return (formatted as JSON) an array of "face" objects - one for each face detected in the photo. Each object will contain the top, left, height, and width values to define a rectangle outlining that face. If you declared that you want more data (e.g., FaceID, Face Landmanrks, and Face Attributes), that data will also be returned in each face object.

Below is an example of JavaScript / jQuery code to call this API.

var subscriptionKey = "Copy your Subscription key here"; 

var imageUrl = "/themes/Giard/images/logo.png";

var webSvcUrl = "https://api.projectoxford.ai/face/v1.0/detect?returnFaceId=true&returnFaceLandmarks=true&returnFaceAttributes=age,gender,smile,facialHair,headPose,glasses";

var outputDiv = $("#OutputDiv");

outputDiv.text("Thinking..."); 

$.ajax({

    type: "POST",

    url: webSvcUrl,

    headers: { "Ocp-Apim-Subscription-Key": subscriptionKey },

    contentType: "application/json",

    data: '{ "Url": "' + imageUrl + '" }'

}).done(function (data) { 

    if (data.length > 0) {

        var firstFace = data[0];

        var faceId = firstFace.faceId;

        var faceRectange = firstFace.faceRectangle;

        var faceWidth = faceRectange.width;

        var faceHeight = faceRectange.height;

        var faceLeft = faceRectange.left;

        var faceTop = faceRectange.top; 

        var faceLandmarks = firstFace.faceLandmarks;

        var faceAttributes = firstFace.faceAttributes; 

        var leftPupil = faceLandmarks.pupilLeft;

        var rightPupil = faceLandmarks.pupilRight;

        var mouth = faceLandmarks.mouthLeft;

        var nose = faceLandmarks.noseLeftAlarOutTip;

        var mouthTop = faceLandmarks.upperLipTop;

        var mouthBottom = faceLandmarks.underLipBottom;

        leftEyeWidth = faceLandmarks.eyebrowLeftInner.x - faceLandmarks.eyebrowLeftOuter.x;

        rightEyeWidth = faceLandmarks.eyebrowRightOuter.x - faceLandmarks.eyebrowRightInner.x;

        mouthWidth = faceLandmarks.mouthRight.x - faceLandmarks.mouthLeft.x; 

        var mouthLeft = faceLandmarks.mouthLeft;

        var mouthRight = faceLandmarks.mouthRight;

        var mouthTop = faceLandmarks.upperLipTop;

        var mouthBottom = faceLandmarks.underLipBottom; 

        var outputText = "";

        outputText += "Face ID: " + faceId + "
";

        outputText += "Top: " + faceTop + "
";

        outputText += "Left: " + faceLeft + "
";

        outputText += "Width: " + faceWidth + "
";

        outputText += "Height: " + faceHeight + "
";

        outputText += "Right Pupil: " + rightPupil.x + ", " + rightPupil.y + "
";

        outputText += "Left Pupil: " + leftPupil.x + ", " + leftPupil.y + "
";

        outputText += "Mouth: 
";

        outputText += " -Left: " + mouthLeft.x + ", " + mouthLeft.y + "
";

        outputText += " -Right: " + mouthRight.x + ", " + mouthRight.y + "
";

        outputText += " -Top: " + mouthTop.x + ", " + mouthTop.y + "
";

        outputText += " -Bottom: " + mouthBottom.x + ", " + mouthBottom.y + "
";

        outputText += "Attributes:" + "
";

        outputText += "age: " + faceAttributes.age + "
";

        outputText += "gender: " + faceAttributes.gender + "
";

        outputText += "smile: " + (faceAttributes.smile || "n/a") + "
";

        outputText += "glasses: " + faceAttributes.glasses + "
";

        outputDiv.html(outputText); 

    }

    else {

        outputDiv.text("No faces detected."); 

    } 

}).fail(function (err) {

    $("#OutputDiv").text("ERROR!" + err.responseText);

}); 

service call is performed by the following line: 

$.ajax({

    type: "POST",

    url: webSvcUrl,

    headers: { "Ocp-Apim-Subscription-Key": subscriptionKey },

    contentType: "application/json",

    data: '{ "Url": "' + imageUrl + '" }' 

}).done(function (data) { 

}).fail(function (err) {

          $("#OutputDiv").text("ERROR!" + err.responseText);

  }); 

#Rectangle

{

    opacity: 0.3;

    z-index: 10;

    position: absolute;

    display: none;

  }

.FaceLabel{

    position: absolute;

    z-index: 20;

    display: none;

    font-size: 8px;

    padding: 0px;

    margin: 0px;

    background-color: white;

    color: black;

    padding: 1px;

  }

<div id="PhotoDiv">

    <img id="ImageToAnalyze" src="images/CartoonFace.png">

    <div class="FaceLabel" id="LeftEyeDiv">LEFTdiv>

    <div class="FaceLabel" id="RightEyeDiv">RIGHTdiv>

    <div class="FaceLabel" id="NoseDiv">NOSEdiv>

    <div class="FaceLabel" id="MouthDiv">MOUTHdiv>

    <img src="images/Rectangle.png" id="Rectangle">

div>

$("#Rectangle").css("top", faceTop);

$("#Rectangle").css("left", faceLeft);

$("#Rectangle").css("height", faceHeight);

$("#Rectangle").css("width", faceHeight);

$("#Rectangle").css("display", "block");

$("#LeftEyeDiv").css("top", leftPupil.y);

$("#LeftEyeDiv").css("left", leftPupil.x);

$("#LeftEyeDiv").css("display", "block");

$("#RightEyeDiv").css("top", rightPupil.y);

$("#RightEyeDiv").css("left", rightPupil.x);

$("#RightEyeDiv").css("display", "block");

$("#NoseDiv").css("top", nose.y);

$("#NoseDiv").css("left", noseHorizontalCenter);

$("#NoseDiv").css("display", "block");

$("#MouthDiv").css("top", mouthVerticalCenter);

$("#MouthDiv").css("left", mouthTop.x);

$("#MouthDiv").css("display", "block");

You can find this code in my GitHub repository.

Microsoft Cognitive Services is a set of APIs built on Machine Learning and exposed as REST Web Services. The Speech API offers a way to listen to speech and convert it into text.

GCast 16: Cognitive Services - Speech to Text

Episode 417

Yesterday, I posted a code sample of the simplest web server I could create using node.js. After reading my post, Tugberk Ugurlut pointed me to http-server and his blog post on http-server.

Install http-server globally

Installing http-server is simple with the following command:

install http-server -g

The “-g” switch installs this library locally. I tried it without that switch, but it did not work. However, the advantage of installing it globally is that it will work in any new folder you create on your computer.

Create Web Files to Render

You can change to a folder on your local machine and create some web pages, JavaScript files, and CSS files, such as the 2 sample pages below:

index.html

<html>

<body>

    <h1>Indexh1>

    <div>

        Welcome to my site!

    div>

body>

html>

about.html

<html>

<body>

    <h1>Abouth1>

    <div>

        This is a site!

    div>

body>

html>

Start Web Server

http-server

Test it Out

Now you can open a browser and navigate to a page, as shown below:

Notice that you don’t need to type the “.html” or “.htm” extension. The server is smart enough to know the page you are looking for.

It is also smart enough to assume a page with a name like “index.html”, “home.htm”, or “default.htm” is a a default page and render this page when none is specified, as shown below:

This is a very simple way to quickly install, configure, and start a lightweight web server on your local PC for testing or creating static pages.

Often I want to set up a simple web server to render pages that consist only of client-side code, such as HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. In the past, I've created such pages using Visual Studio, but VS contains more functionality than I need in this case and that functionality can slow me down.

I found a lightweight web server solution in node.js, which is quick to install, quick to start up, and (relatively) simple to use. As a bonus, it will run on multiple operating systems.

Here are the steps I use to create a web server.

1. Install node
2. Create and open a folder for your pages
3. npm Init to create the package.json file that node requires
4. Create a "views" folder for your pages and add any pages to it
5. Install express and ejs
6. Create a main script
7. Create HTML pages
8. Start the web server
9. Try it out

1. Install node

You can download node from https://nodejs.org/en/download/. Select your operating system and run the installer. It is a small download and a quick install.

2. Create and open a folder for your pages.

In Windows, I use the command prompt for this. I create my projects in either the c:\development folder (if I plan to keep them) or the c:\test folder (if they are scratch projects for learning)

So, for a scratch project, I would use the following commands to create a folder named "nodetest1":
cd c:\test

md nodetest1

cd nodetest1 

3. npm Init to create the package.json file that node requires

Node requires a file named package.json with important information about the project. A quick way to create this is with the command "npm Init". It will prompt you for information required by package.json, even providing default values for some of these settings. Press ENTER at a prompt to accept the default in parentheses or override the default by typing in a new setting. Below is an example of me walking through this command, accepting mostly defaults

npm init

This utility will walk you through creating a package.json file.
It only covers the most common items, and tries to guess sensible defaults.

See `npm help json` for definitive documentation on these fields
and exactly what they do.

Use `npm install --save` afterwards to install a package and
save it as a dependency in the package.json file.  See the session below for reference.

Press ^C at any time to quit.

name: (nodetest1)

version: (1.0.0)

description: best app evar

entry point: (index.js)

test command:

git repository:

keywords:

author: David

license: (ISC)

About to write to C:\test\nodetesting\nodetest1\package.json:

{

  "name": "nodetest1",

  "version": "1.0.0",

  "description": "best app evar",

  "main": "index.js",

  "scripts": {

    "test": "echo \"Error: no test specified\" && exit 1"

  },

  "author": "David",

  "license": "ISC"

}

Is this ok? (yes) 

As you can see the file you create is echoed to the screen before you confirm its creation.

4. Create a "views" folder for your pages and add any pages to it

The "md" command works for this in the command prompt

md views 

5. Install express and ejs

Express and ejs are packages required for a simple web server. You can use the npm install command to install them. Add the "--save" switch to this command to update the dependencies in your package.json file. The following 2 commands install express and ejs packages, respectively.

npm install --save express

npm install --save ejs 

Check out the package.json and verify that these packages now appear in the dependencies section, as shown in the example below:

"dependencies": {

  "ejs": "^2.4.1",

  "express": "^4.13.4"

} 

6. Create a main script.

Below is the simplest script I could create that serves up any page in the "views" folder and sets a default page. In the example above, I named it "index.js". You can name it whatever you want, but you should set the "main" attribute in package.json to the name of your file. I have commented each line to explain what it does.

// This script uses the express library

var express = require('express');

var app = express(); 

// Tell node where to find the view pages

app.set('views', __dirname + '/views'); 

// Tell node to use the ejs library to handle the view

app.set('view engine', 'ejs');

app.use(express.static('views'));

app.engine('html', require('ejs').renderFile); 

// Set a default page (Optional, but goood to have)

app.get('/', function (req, res) {

    res.render('index.html')

}); 

// Start the web server

var server = app.listen(3000, function () {

    console.log("Express is running on port 3000");

}); 

In package.json, you specified a main JavaScript file. (In the example above, I used the default "index.js". Open package.json to see what you set.) This is the script that will run when you run node.

7. Create HTML pages

In the view folder, create some HTML pages. The script above specified "index.html", so we will need to create this one. Create any other page you like and name them with the ".htm" or ".html" extension. Here are 2 simple examples:

Index.html

<html>

    <body>

        <h1>Welcome!h1>

        <div>

            This is the INDEX page

        div>

    body>

html> 

about.html

<html>

    <body>

        <h1>About Ush1>

        <div>

            We think therefore we are!

        div>

    body>

html> 

8. Start the web server

To start your web server, simply type "node" followed by the name of your main script.  This will launch node and tell you the server is running on port 3000.

9. Try it out

Open a browser and type "http://localhost:3000/" in the address bar. You should see the default page (index.html) displayed. Here is the sample page rendered:

Type "http://localhost:3000/about.html" to see the "about" sample page described above. If you used my example, you will see the following:

At the command prompt, press CTRL+C at any time to stop the server, making these pages unavailable.

You can view this sample code at https://github.com/DavidGiard/simplenodewebserver.

Microsoft Cognitive Services is a set of APIs based on Machine Learning and exposed as REST web services. The Emotion API analyzes pictures of faces and determines the emotion shown in each face.

GCast 15: Cognitive Services - Emotion API

Episode 416

5/1
Today I am grateful for a chance to be part of the Chicago Code Camp keynote yesterday.

4/30
Today I am grateful for:
-My first experience at a FIRST Robotics competition.
-An upgraded flight home last night.

4/29
Today I am grateful for an upgraded hotel room and my first taste of Peruvian food.

4/28
Today I am grateful:
-for dinner last night with Nick, Kathy, and Rick.
-that I arrived safely in St. Louis, despite a rocky start to my trip.
-to Nick for driving me to and from the airport last night.

4/27
Today I am grateful for a hot sauna at the end of a long day.

4/26
Today I am grateful for post-meetup drinks last night with a bunch of JavaScript developers I just met.

4/25
Today I am grateful for breakfast on my balcony in my pajamas.

4/24
Today I am grateful to spend time with Nick and Adriana in Chicago this weekend.

4/23
Today I am grateful for:
-Lunch in the South Loop with Scott yesterday
-Dinner in ChinaTown with Nick and Adriana last night

4/22
Today I am grateful for the variety of people I meet every day.

4/21
Today I am grateful for this view.

4/20
Today I am grateful to attend the AWS Summit yesterday with Brian and Kevin.

4/19
Today I am grateful that I got my car back with a repaired fender.

4/18
Today I am grateful to sit out on my balcony last night sipping a cocktail and enjoying a warm breeze.

4/17
Today I am grateful for a drink and some beer cheese soup last night with Katie, Justin, and Shira.

4/16
Today I am grateful for:
-Lunch at Wildberry with a bunch of folks from the dev community
-Dinner at a Columbian steakhouse in Lakeview.

4/15
Today I am grateful to see Johnny Clegg in concert last night, after 30+ years as a fan.

4/14
Today I am grateful for lunch with Nonnie yesterday.

4/13
Today I am grateful to get together with my team yesterday, which doesn't happen often enough.

4/12
Today I am grateful that all these family photos are now hanging on the walls of my new apartment.

4/11
Today I am grateful that my taxes are filed.

4/10
Today I am grateful for:
-The opportunity to deliver the keynote presentation at the Tech In 2016 conference yesterday.
-A front-row ticket to see Marshall Crenshaw last night.

4/9
Today I am grateful I was able to track down all my missing tax forms yesterday.

4/8
Today I am grateful for my new cuff links - the first I've received in years!

4/7
Today I am grateful for the power of ibuprofen.

4/6
Today I am grateful for dinner last night with Shelly and her family.

4/5
Today I am grateful to Brian for helping me prepare my upcoming presentation on Virtualization Containers.

4/4
Today I am grateful that I've been able to make it to the gym almost every day for the past 3 months.

Microsoft Cognitive Services uses Machine Learning to recognize text within pictures and exposes this functionality via a RESTful Web Service.

GCast 14: Cognitive Services - Thumbnail Generation

Episode 415

The Bloody Crown of Conan is the second volume in Del Rey's 3-volume set of the complete Conan stories by Robert Howard. While volume 1: The Coming of Conan the Cimmerian included mostly short stories, this book contains 3 longer works: The People of the Black Circle; The Hour of the Dragon; A Witch Shall Be Born.

The Hour of the Dragon is a full novel that takes Conan across many countries of the Hyborian world. It is set in a time when Conan has risen to be king of Aquilonia. Conan's enemies resurrect a dead spirit to enchant the king and steal his throne. Conan's quest to regain the crown leads him across much of the known world, where he fights numerous bottles and raises an army to retake Aquilonia. The action and the epic sweep of this story make it one of Howard's best and enhances this collection.

The other 2 novellas, while not as long or involved as The Hour of the Dragon are more complex than most of Howard's short stories.  By this point in his career, Howard seems to have hit his stride. The action flows freely, if violently, and we can enjoy the adventures of Conan who uses his nearly superhuman strength and skills to overcome nearly impossible odds.

The collection ends with a few uninteresting first drafts of Howard's unpublished Conan stories, followed by a fascinating essay analyzing the themes of the Conan series and the evolution of the character.

For escapism and adventure, it is difficult to beat these stories.

MadHacks is an annual weekend hackathon hosted at the University of Wisconsin in Madison, WI. The organizers decided to move the hackathon from the spring to the fall, which left a gap of nearly 18 months between events. To maintain interest, they decided to host a smaller, 1-day hackathon on April 16. The event was billed as MadHacks Spring Fever.

85 students formed teams and submitted 18 projects.

MadHacks organizers

I served as a mentor and a judge at this hackathon.

I also delivered a 1-hour presentation on Microsoft Cognitive Services.

Presentation on Microsoft Cognitive Services

4 judges evaluated all the submitted projects and chose the top 3. The quality of the projects made this difficult and we had to ask several of the teams to show their project again in order to make a selection.

The judges

Many of the projects were Microsoft branded, such as Xbox games, Azure books, and Microsoft sleeping bags.

The winning projects were:

1. UniTravel: A mobile application that mapped a route to a destination and calculated not only the time and distance, but also the estimated cost using various transportation options.
2. Chemical Reactor: A web app that visualized atomic motion and formed new molecules if atoms collided with a force that exceeded the enthalpy required to bond.
3. Cellular Automata Plant: A web app that visualizes the growth of plant cells over time in a given environment.

The UniTravel team

The Chemical Reactor team

The event was organized by University of Wisconsin Microsoft Student Partner Katie Anderson.

The projects created were particularly impressive, given that they were all created in 12 hours or less.

A much larger hackathon is planned at UW-Madison in the fall semester.

Microsoft Cognitive Services uses Machine Learning to recognize text within pictures and exposes this functionality via a RESTful Web Service.

Cognitive Services - Optical Character Recognition

The idea for the Global Azure Boot Camp began in 2013. Community developers from all over the world would hold a workshop in different cities on the same day. In fact, I organized and delivered a Boot Camp in the Detroit area that year, before I joined Microsoft.

On Saturday April 18, the 4^th annual Global Azure Boot Camp took place in 161 cities around the world. While some cities focused on presentations and others on hands-on labs, all events provided education on Microsoft’s cloud computing platform.

Microsoft Regional Director Eric Boyd and Responsive X organized an event in Addison, IL – just outside of Chicago. Based on feedback, he received from attendees last year, Eric decided to reduce the length of the event to a half day, instead of a full day. The event was free to the public.

Eric kicked off the morning with an overview of Azure.

Next, a representative from Baracuda Networks gave a presentation on Azure security.

I delivered a session on App Services, covering Web Apps, Mobile Apps, Logic Apps, and API Apps.

The only downside to the Saturday event was the number of people who registered and did not attend – over 50%. This was almost certainly due to the fact that the Chicago weather that morning was the nicest it had been in a long time. Still, over 60 people showed up to learn about Azure and cloud computing.

Response from the audience was overwhelmingly positive. Many people stayed after to ask questions about Azure and about BizSpark.

Episode 414

Learn how to use the Microsoft Cognitive Services Face API to recognize faces and the properties of faces within image. This API is based on Machine Learning.

Cognitive Services - Face API

Episode 413

I have a lot going on the next few months. Here is what is confirmed:

On April 9 (today), I will deliver the opening keynote at EnvisionDo: Tech in 2016 at the University of Chicago.

On April 15, I will talk about Azure App Services at the Global Azure Boot Camp in Addison, IL.

Later that same day, I will mentor student hackers at the Spring MadHacks hackathon in Madison, WI.

On Tuesday, April 26, I will present "Adding Image and Voice Intelligence to your apps with Microsoft Cognitive Services" at Geekfest in Chicago.

From April 27-29, I will mentor high school students at the FIRST Robotics competition in St. Louis, MO

On Saturday, April 30, Brian Lewis and I will deliver the opening keynote at the Chicago Code Camp in Chicago.

On May 26 and 27, I will deliver 2 presentations: “Open Source Technologies in Microsoft Azure” and “Adding Image and Voice Intelligence to your apps with Microsoft Cognitive Services” at IT Camp in Cluj-Napoca, Romania.

On June 4, I will be one of the hosts of MVP Open Days in Downers Grove, IL.

On June 9, I will present “Building Powerful Enterprise Apps with Angular 2 and Typescript" at Open Source North in Minneapolis, MN.

On June 15, Shawn Wildermuth will interview me for his “Hello World” podcast in Chicago, IL.

On August 11, I will present "Building a TV show with Angular, Bootstrap, and Web Services" at MidwestJS in Minneapolis, MN.

I am waiting to confirm a few others. Watch this space.

Last year, Security expert Wolfgang Goerlich began recording short videos from the front seat of his car. Each video lasted on only a few minutes and each covered a different topic of IT Security and/or infrastructure.

Now, you can watch many of these videos on Channel 9. This provides not only a different audience for Mr. Goerlich, but gives viewers the ability to subscribe to a video feed and to download different resolutions of the each video and even an audio-only track.

You can find these videos at https://channel9.msdn.com/blogs/stuck-in-traffic.

Microsoft Cognitive Services (formerly Project Oxford) provides a set of APIs for analyzing images, video, speech, and language. Learn how to get started and start developing against these APIs..

Windows Server 2016 will contain support for Containers.

Containers are a method of software virtualization, similar Virtual Machines (VMs). As with Virtual Machines, you can create multiple containers on a single physical machine; and this allows you more flexibility, portability, and efficient use of hardware.

Unlike Virtual Machines, each container does not have to run an entire operating system. Instead, each shares a common kernel operating system.

Because of this, Containers tend to be is much lighter than VMs. One can create folders and files and install applications in a container and those applications will be isolated from other containers - even those on the same machine.

Here are some differences between Containers and Virtual Machines

• At its lowest level, a Virtual Machine interacts with a virtualized hardware layer, while a Container interacts with an Operating System kernel.
• A container tends to be much smaller than a Virtual Machine (mostly because it does not require an Operating System in the container itself).
• The operating system of a container must be the same as the operating system of the computer on which it is hosted (although the host computer can be a VM). The operating system of a VM can be different from that of the machine on which it is hosted.
• It usually takes less effort to create and configure a container than a VM (again, no operating system to install on a container)
• Containers start up and shut down much faster than VMs. This makes them ideal for either scaling out new instances. Reboots  are also much faster, of course.

As you can see, most of the differences between Containers and VMs are advantages of Containers. Now that Windows will support both, I expect the popularity of Containers to increase dramatically.
Windows Server 2016 will contain support for Containers.

Containers are a method of software virtualization, similar Virtual Machines (VMs). As with Virtual Machines, you can create multiple containers on a single physical machine; and this allows you more flexibility, portability, and efficient use of hardware.

• Unlike Virtual Machines, each container does not have to run an entire operating system. Instead, each shares a common kernel operating system.
• Because of this, Containers tend to be is much lighter than VMs. One can create folders and files and install applications in a container and those applications will be isolated from other containers - even those on the same machine.
• Here are some differences between Containers and Virtual Machines
• At its lowest level, a Virtual Machine interacts with a virtualized hardware layer, while a Container interacts with an Operating System kernel.
• A container tends to be much smaller than a Virtual Machine (mostly because it does not require an Operating System).
• The operating system of a container must be the same as the operating system of the computer on which it is hosted (although the host computer can be a VM). The operating system of a VM can be different from that of the machine on which it is hosted.
• It takes much less effort to create and configure a container than a VM (again, no operating system to install)
• Containers start up and shut down much faster than VMs. This makes them ideal for either scaling out new instances.

As you can see, most of the differences between Containers and VMs are advantages of Containers. Now that Windows will support both, I expect the popularity of Containers to increase dramatically.

Growing up, I was always aware of Conan the Barbarian. I knew of the comics but it was not a title I read regularly; I saw the Robert Howard books in the bookstore, but I passed over them for the stories by Edgar Rice Burroughs; I watched the Schwarznegger movie but did not watch it twice.

Recently, I decided to read the Conan source material. Del Ray has gathered together all of Howard's Conan stories into a 3-volume set: The Coming of Conan the Cimmerian; The Bloody Crown of Conan; and The Conquering Sword of Conan.

Robert Howard wrote dozens of stories of the iconic barbarian. These were originally published in pulp magazines of the 1940s, such as "Weird Tales".

The stories are presented in the order they were written, which matches neither their publication order nor the chronological order of Conan's "life". There is very little continuity to the stories. Conan wanders the world, moving from adventure to adventure. If we order them chronologically, we see Conan as first a lone thief, then a mercenary and a pirate, a warlord, and finally king of the empire he conquers.

Unlike many fantasy characters, Conan exists on our world, but lived during the fictional Hyborian Age, which took place after the destruction of Atlantis, but before most of recorded history. Many of the places to which Conan travels are places that still exist today with different names (Iranistan for Iran, Afghulistan for Afghanistan, Kambulja for Cambodia, and Vendhya for India,Pakistan & Bangladesh). Magicians, gods, demons, and giant deadly creatures were common in these lands during the Hyborian Age.

It is a world marked by wars and brutality, in which wars are common. There are civilizations, but a common theme of these stories contrasts the low morals of "civilized" aristocrats with Conan's own moral code.

Conan is a brutal killer; but he has a strong moral code. In one story, he agrees to kill the master of a beautiful enslaved woman in return for her promise of sex. After fulfilling his end of the bargain, the woman flees to avoid Conan. He finds her (and rescues her from a new threat) but does not hold her to the bargain.

Although Conan uses his violence to further agenda, he has his own code of honor and looks down on those who condone slavery or torture for pleasure.

When reading these stories, one has to deal with stereotypes and imagery that strike many of us as insensitive today. Women serve mostly as props in Howard's stories - scantily-clad spoils of battle who exist to be rescued by Conan - or as hyper sexualized amazons. The black men in these stories are often savage and superstitious; and we hear descriptions of cunning hooked-nose men in turbans. If you can accept these stories are a product of an earlier century, you can enjoy them more.

This volume concludes with some incomplete stories. It's fine to skip these but I read them for completeness.

I enjoyed my journey into the stories of Conan. The action is abundant (if often violent); and Howard provides drama within the confines of stories that typically have a  short and simple plot.

Episode 412

4/3
Today I am grateful that I now have cable TV in my apartment for the first time since moving to Chicago.

4/2
Today I am grateful for breakfast with Tim yesterday.

4/1
Today I am grateful to co-present with my son Tim at Indiana University last night.

3/31
Today I am grateful to attend The McDonald's High School All-American basketball games for the first time.

3/30
Today I am grateful for my first visit to the historic Harold Washington Library.

3/29
Today I am grateful that my son was offered a summer internship yesterday.

3/28
Today I am grateful for Easter dinner with family.

3/27
Today I am grateful for:
-An evening seeing Trevor Noah at the Chicago Theatre
-New clothes and Christina for helping me choose them.

3/26
Today I am grateful for: -Dinner with Dave and Bobbi. -Drinks with Gary and Patty

3/25
Today I am grateful for my new (to me) espresso machine and for the 2 cappuccinos I've had so far this morning.

3/24
Today I am grateful that my TSA Pre-Check status was approved.

3/23
Today I am grateful I was finally able to restore my personal email account yesterday.

3/20
Today I am grateful to see "Love and Information" at the Patinkin Theatre yesterday - my first time seeing live theater in years.

3/19
Today I am grateful for a day in St. Louis, with Nick, Darlene, Kevin, and Henry.

3/18
Today I am grateful for: -a chance to speak at Indy Software Artisans for the first time in almost 2 years. -a visit to my so Nick's home.

3/17
Today I am grateful I was able to unpack a bunch of boxes yesterday and remove some clutter from my life.

3/16
Today I am grateful for an amazing view of last night's lightning storm.

3/15
Today I am grateful for a good afternoon at the gym yesterday.

3/14
Today I am grateful for another Big10 Championship! #GoGreen

3/13
Today I am grateful to attend the St. Patrick's Day parade yesterday in downtown Chicago.

3/12
Today I am grateful for coffee with Tom yesterday.

3/10
Today I am grateful for a sushi dinner, and a walk around the South Loop on a balmy evening.

3/9
Today I am grateful for a surprise gift from my sons.

3/8
Today I am grateful for good dental insurance.

3/7
Today I am grateful for: -A long walk through the city yesterday -Relaxing in this apartment's Jacuzzi last night for the first time.

At the beginning of this semester, Microsoft hired a new Student Partner at Indiana University. A Microsoft Student Partner (MSP) is a college student responsible for helping promote the Microsoft platform on campus. Part of that responsibility involves hosting technical events.

This new MSP invited me to campus to co-present with him. He reserved a room, ordered pizza, invited students, and brought some giveaways. We decided to present on Project Oxford - a set of web services that use machine learning to analyze images, videos, and voice. A day before the presentation, Project Oxford was renamed to Microsoft Cognitive Services, so I had to rush to update my slides and re-test all my demos.

The event was a success. Students studying computer science and related fields attended, students who were curious about the technology attended, and one Informatics professor attended.

For me, it was a rewarding experience - in part because it was a chance to connect with students and to share a cool technology that Microsoft is offering;

But more importantly, I was excited to work with the new Indiana University MSP - Tim Giard.

Tim is my son and a junior majoring in Informatics at IU. This was our first chance to work together professionally and it was one of the highlights of my year.

The Microsoft Build conference opened this morning. Some of the announcements were technologies that had been previously announced, but are now more generally available (such as Hololens); Some were brand new technologies, such as Bash on Windows.

I was most excited about the Microsoft Bot Framework that allows you to build intelligent bots that interact with Cortana to act as a personal assistant within your app; and Cognitive Services, which includes many of the APIs included in Project Oxford.

Below are the raw notes I took during the keynote. Please let me know (politely) if you discover any typos.

Edge: Biometric authentication for supporting web sites

Fingerprint login (USAA web site)

Ink

Sticky notes: Cortana recognizes words like "tomorrow" as date in appointments or reminder

Draw lines on a map: Distance automatically calculated.

Add labels to map: Labels stay in place when map is rotated in 3D space

Low latency: Ink from pen

Virtual ruler on screen to draw straight line

Developer

GPU Effects, e.g., Blur background synchronized with touch movement

control

control: Allow users to mark up your screen

Over 1000 new APIs and features

Released today: VS 2015, Update 2

Announced: Bash shell is coming to Windows (native Linux binaries)

Gaming

UWP: Achieve 4k at 60 frames/second

Xbox games running on desktop

• Take advantage of Windows features
• Consistent input experience

Xbox developer mode

• Run, test, debug game on Xbox
• Preview available today

Cortana on Xbox One

Direct X 12

Hololens

First & only Untethered holographic computer

Hololens shipping today

Releasing app and source code

Apps

• Holographic anatomy: View internal organs &nerves; collaborate with remote partners
• Destination Mars by NASA: Virtual tour of another planet

Cortana

Works on lockscreen

Add Cortana to your app.

Insights: When Cortana surfaced in app

Users must give permission for Cortana to their data

Windows, Android, Web Sites, and (soon) iOs

Skype

Interaction with Cortana

Bots: Remembers context from conversation

• Location of events, friends in locations
• Bots available today

Skype for Hololens

Microservices

Microsoft Bot Framework

https://dev.botframework.com/

Build conversational bots for your application

Rule-based natural language processing

UI to teach bot to understand your jargon/ terms/ slang

Cognitive Services

22 APIs

https://www.microsoft.com/cognitive-services/

Many of them used to in Project Oxford

Custom Recognition Intelligent Service (CRIS):

• Understand speech and language
• Customize speech-to-text

Demo

Smart Phone / Smart glasses app for blind people

Facial recognition and analysis

Read menu, including headings

Episode 411

In the last article, we described the 2-way data binding with the ng-binding directive. In this article, I will introduce the ng-repeat directive.

Recall that a directive is a well-known attribute defined by AngularJS or your AngularJS application that is applied to an HTML element to provide some functionality.

The ng-repeat directive acts in a similar way to foreach loops or other constructs in a programming language. We point ng-repeat to an array of objects and Angular will loop through this array, repeating the HTML contained in the attributed element once for each element in the array.

In the following example, our controller creates an array of "customers" and adds it to the $scope directive, making the customers stateful and available to the HTML. Each customer has a firstName, lastName, and salary property.

var app = angular.module("myApp", []);

app.controller("mainController", function($scope) {

    $scope.customers = [{

      id: 1,

      firstName: "Bill",

      lastName: "Gates",

      salary: 200000

    }, {

      id: 2,

      firstName: "Satya",

      lastName: "Nadella",

      salary: 100000

    }, {

      id: 3,

      firstName: "Steve",

      lastName: "Balmer",

      salary: 300000

    }, {

      id: 4,

      firstName: "David",

      lastName: "Giard",

      salary: 1000000

    }];

}); 

In our HTML, we can loop through every customer in the array by applying the ng-repeat directive to a element, such as:

<tr ng-repeat="customer in customers"> 

Because the array contains 3 customers, the tag and all markup within this tag (including any bound data) will be repeated 3 times. As a result, the user will see 3 rows.

Here is the markup for the entire table.

<table>

  <thead>

    <tr>

      <th>Firstth>

      <th>Lastth>

      <th>Salaryth>

    tr>

  thead>

  <tbody>

    <tr ng-repeat="customer in customers">

      <td>{{customer.firstName}}td>

      <td>{{customer.lastName}}td>

      <td style="text-align:right">{{customer.salary | currency:$USD}}td>

    tr>

  tbody>

table> 

The beauty of this is that we don't need to know in advance how many customers we have or how many rows we need. Angular figures it out for us.

The ng-repeat directive allows us the flexibility of repeating HTML markup for every element in an array.