Last month, I interviewed Pixel Squad CEO Will Malouk. Pixel Squad uses Azure to enhance their popular Crime Coast game. He discusses the technical challenges of developing this game and his reasons for moving from AWS to Azure.
11/1
Today I am grateful for lunch with Noelle yesterday.
10/31
Today I am grateful to attend my first Hack Night at the University of Chicago yesterday.
10/30
Today I am grateful that I was part of something very special yesterday.
10/29
Today I am grateful to share the Hololens experience with so many people at the event in Chicago this week.
10/28
Today I am grateful for a much-needed night of sleep.
10/27
Today I am grateful for a chance to play with a Hololens yesterday.
10/26
Today I am grateful for brunch yesterday with Corrina and Chris, who I haven't seen in years.
10/25
Today I am grateful -that I made it home safely after way too many miles driving and way too little sleep this week. -for a surprise call from my brother Dan in Australia to tell me he's coming to visit. -for an amazing week at a series of fortunate events.
10/24
Today I am grateful for #CloudDevelop
10/23
Today I am grateful for speaker gifts.
10/22
Today I am grateful for a chance to go back and speak last night at #MIGANG - where I used to spend so much of my time and energy!
10/21
Today I am grateful for a successful cloud computing workshop at Michigan State University last night.
10/20
Today I am grateful to all those who volunteer their time to the tech community.
10/19
Today I am grateful for a weekend in West Lafayette, IN.
10/18
Today I am grateful that miracles sometimes happen.
10/17
Today I am grateful that Mark Dantonio has raised the level of MSU football, while maintaining a high standard of integrity for the program. #GoGreen
10/16
Today I am grateful that Indian food is a thing in America.
10/15
Today I am grateful to all those who invite me to their tech events.
10/14
Today I am grateful for 2 years at the best job I have known.
10/13
Today I am grateful for a quiet morning at home and a chance to catch up on some things.
10/12
Today I am grateful to see the Titans-Bills game at Nissan Stadium yesterday.
10/11
Today I am grateful for my first ever visit to Alabama.
10/10
Today I am grateful to spend time last night in Huntsville with old friends.
10/9
Today I am grateful for: -Dinner with Michael in Huntsville last night -Chris arranging a workshop for me at UAH yesterday afternoon.
10/8
Today I am grateful for a visit yesterday with Kent and his family at his home in Tennessee.
10/7
Today I am grateful that the weather is still nice enough to ride my bike around town.
10/6
Today I am grateful to all those who help me do my job better.
10/5
Today I am grateful for the ability to watch my favourite TV shows when it's convenient to me.
When I moved to Chicago, I did not know many people in the developer community. But after living here over a year and working here for over 2 years, I've discovered that the metropolitan Chicago area boasts a strong developer community, led by a number of dedicated influencers. I was impressed by the number of meetups, code camps, and other events that are run by volunteers.
On October 19, Microsoft invited influencers from Chicago and its surrounding areas to come to our office for a Chicago Influencers Summit.
The goals of the summit were:
We invited leaders of key user groups from around Chicagoland, as well as influencers who frequently lead community events.
Not all the influencers were from the .NET community, as we invited leaders from Java User groups, the node.js meetup, Ruby developers, and many others who have very little interest in Microsoft technology but who still volunteer their time supporting the local developer community. 18 influencers attended, as well as Microsoft Technical Evangelists Sarah Sexton and me.
We began by giving everyone a chance to introduce themselves, followed by an introduction Microsoft DX and its goals within the community.
We had an excellent discussion about how we can better communicate with one another and debated the value of regular phone calls, threaded discussions with tools like Yammer and Slack; and a community calendar. We decided on creating a Wordpress site with a calendar and a comment section. We also decided to reboot the monthly "Midwest Geeks Call" - a once-popular Skype call that has not been well-attended in recent months. We settled on a more convenient day and time for this call.
An open discussion on issues faced by event organizers yielded some interesting conversation topics, including an exchange of ideas on the importance of diversity among conference speakers and how to increase diversity.
We also discussed the possibility of hosting a community event in early 2016, but did not finalize plans for this before adjourning for the day.
The biggest benefit we gained from this event was an opening of communication channels - not only between Microsoft and the community; but also between supporters of disparate areas of the developer community. I believe this will be a good step in the direction of keeping these communication channels open.
Hurricane Joaquin pounded the east coast much of the week and threatened to cause havoc with thunderstorms in Huntsville, AL, hundreds of miles from the ocean. Chris Gardner, organizer of the first DevSpace conference, crossed his fingers, glanced at the sky and hoped the weather would not deter attendees and speakers.
Huntsville, AL
Ultimately, the thunderstorms did strike Huntsville, but only in the evening and they were not enough to disrupt the first DevSpace conference.
In its first year, the DevSpace conference in Huntsville, AL attracted about a hundred attendees.
Although the attendees were mostly from within 200 miles of Huntsville, the speakers came from all over the US, including Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Florida, Tennessee, Texas, and California.
Sessions covered a variety of software development technologies, including JavaScript frameworks, Application Lifecycle Management, PowerShell, Azure Machine Learning, Unity game development, and Python.
There were a surprising number of presentations on Application Lifecycle Management and quite a few talks on soft skills, such as Finding Leadership Opportunities, Public Speaking, and Improving Listening Skills.
Alan Stevens of Knoxville, TN delivered an excellent keynote in which he talked about the inherent imperfections in production code and how we can continually improve that code base.
I delivered 2 sessions: Own Your Own Career - Advice from a Veteran Consultant; and Microsoft Azure Without Microsoft.
Huntsville, AL is also home of the University of Alabama - Huntsville and Chris arranged a student workshop for me at the university the day before the conference. I was able to teach students about cloud computing and Azure and get them to activate their Dreamspark Azure accounts and deploy a web app.
DevSpace is one of several smaller conferences that have started or grown recently in response to the cancellation of DevLink in Nashville, TN.
Conference organizer Chris Gardner announced plans for a 2016 edition of DevSpace.
Chris Gardner
This was my first visit to Alabama and I really enjoyed it. The people were friendly, the area is beautiful, the conference was enjoyable, and Hun4tsville has a quaint, pleasant downtown area. My only regret is that I did not get a chance to visit the Space Museum. But that gives me a reason to return.
In this screencast, you will learn 3 different ways to create an Azure Web App using the Azure Management Portal.
In this screencast, we show how to create a new Virtual Machine in the Windows Azure portal.
I recently spoke with Data Scientist Richard Conway from Elasta Games, who described how his company does analysis of online games.
You can watch and listen to this interview below.
In order to use Azure tables, blobs, and queues, you must first create an Azure storage account. In this article, I will walk you through the steps to create a new Azure Storage Account.
Log into your Azure account and launch the portal (https://manage.windowsazure.com/).
In the left menu, click the "STORAGE" icon (Fig 1). This will list any storage accounts you currently have for this subscription.
To create a new Storage Account, click the [NEW] button (Fig 2) at the bottom left of the portal and select DATA SERVICES | STORAGE | QUICK CREATE from the popup menu (Fig 3).
The QUICK CREATE dialog displays, as shown in Fig 4.
At the URL field, enter a name for your storage account. This name must be a combination of only numbers and lowercase letters and it must be unique among storage accounts because it will be accessible publicly with a name like https://accountname.core.windows.net
where accounttname is the name you assign to the storage account. The portal will let you know if you enter a name this is not allowed or that is already taken.
At the LOCATION/AFFINITY GROUP field, select a region in which to create your storage account. (Affinity groups are no longer necessary and have been deprecated.)
At the REPLICATION field, select the type of replication you would like for your storage account.
Azure always makes extra copies of your storage accounts, but you control how much redundancy and where that redundancy is stored. Options are:
For an explanation of each type of replication, see my article: Azure Storage Replication Options Explained
Click the [CREATE STORAGE ACCOUNT] button to create the new storage account with the settings you have entered.
When finished, a confirmation message displays (Fig 5) and your storage account should be listed in the portal.
You are now ready to use your storage account.
Earlier today, Microsoft held an event in New York city to talk about devices that support Windows 10. Most of these devices (Surface Pro 4, SurfaceBook, new Lumia phones, Microsoft Band v2) will be released in the next few weeks, while the Hololens will likely be out next year.
Personally, I am most excited by the new phones (Continuum is amazing) and by the upcoming SurfaceBook (which I did not know about before today), but there was impressive news in every category.
Below are my notes while watching this event:
10/4
Today I am grateful for time spent yesterday with friends at the MSU football game and dinner afterward in downtown East Lansing.
10/3
Today I am grateful for 1500 Twitter followers.
10/2
Today I am grateful for a chance to spend an afternoon with Bill Fink and his family yesterday.
10/1
Today I am grateful for my first tech presentation at the University of Illinois and the premiere of a new talk last night.
9/30
Today I am grateful for a chance to meet up with local MVPs last night.
9/29
Today I am grateful the 3 cloud camps are successfully behind me.
9/28
Today I am grateful for -A call from my brother yesterday -A chance to see the super blood moon last night from my roof
9/27
Today I am grateful for a good night sleep 3 nights i a row.
9/26
Today I am grateful that I did not gain weight while traveling the last 3 weeks.
9/25
Today I am grateful for dinner last night with Jason Fox.
9/24
Today I am grateful for Texas barbecue.
9/23
Today I am grateful to Eric, Michael, and Randy for helping make the first cloud camp a success yesterday.
9/22
Today I am grateful for a chance to visit my mother this past weekend.
9/21
Today I am grateful for John and Kim's wedding celebration yesterday.
9/20
Today I am grateful for: -The MDOT worker who rescued me when my car died on the freeway yesterday. -Dinner & drinks with college friends last night.
9/19
Today I am grateful for: -A week in San Diego -Dinner with Nick last night -A place to stay this weekend, thanks to my sister and her family -A good night sleep (finally)
9/18
Today I am grateful for yesterday's events: -Improv training -An afternoon at a San Diego beach -A party on the USS Midway
9/17
Today I am grateful for time with the DX team from all across the country this week.
9/16
Today I am grateful for a chance to learn about Azure Machine Learning at yesterday's hackathon.
9/15
Today I am grateful for a chance to visit yesterday with Steve for the first time in years.
9/14
Today I am grateful for my first trip to Qualcomm Stadium in San Diego to watch the Chargers-Lions game yesterday.
9/13
Today I am grateful to watch a huge Spartan victory from the um campus. #GoGreen
9/12
Today I am grateful my son stopped by to visit yesterday while I was in town working the hackathon.
9/10
Today I am grateful for a full room last night for my first time speaking at the ACM Chicago chapter.
9/9
Today I am grateful I was able to make it to Purdue yesterday in spite of a driving rain storm.
9/8
Today I am grateful to spend time with WhatsThe BigIt yesterday for the first time in months.
9/7
Today I am grateful for my first game at the current version of Busch Stadium last night.
Earlier this week, I interviewed John Brengman of Radication Games. He and a group of students have created applications that teach about diseases and their treatments while playing games.
zure storage includes built-in redundancy by default. In this screencast, I explain the Replication options that allow you to configure how many copies of your data are created, where they are created, and how they can be accessed.
Earlier this week, dozens of technologists from the Microsoft DX Team met in San Diego for a team hackathon.
Some brought projects they started back home; some brought hardware with them to control via Bluetooth or USB cable or through the Internet; some brought an idea for a software project; some for a hardware project.
I came with a desire to learn more about Azure Machine Learning. I was inspired by the work that my teammate Jennifer Marsman was doing analyzing EEG data with AML. (link)
I began by walking through a couple tutorials: here and here.
Then I tried it myself. AML provides some sample data sources, so I imported the xxx data. I cleaned the data and applied a Category algorithm.
Machine Learning seems complex and the AML tools are not all intuitive when you first begin working with them; but they are not difficult to master. And the graphical interface of ML Studio lowers the learning curve considerably.
I'll provide more details and instructions about this project in a future blog post.
For now, my message is that building something yourself is the best way to learn any technology. Pick a project, set aside some time, and build it. I know that not every company invests in a day of hacking like mine did, so many of you will need to invest your own time in order to get this benefit. But it’s worth it.
My project wasn't nearly as sexy as some created by my colleagues. But my knowledge of Machine Learning is an order of magnitude greater than it was a week ago.
My Machine Learning experiment
A few weeks ago, Seth Juarez of Channel 9 invited me to be his guest for an interview. We talked about Microsoft's support for open source software and Azure's support of non-Microsoft technologies. You can view this interview below.
Recently, I interviewed technologist Andy Abbott about his startup BookdeOut, the technologies involved, and how he and his team leveraged the cloud to build the application.
At That Conference last month, Jason and Carl of the MS Dev Show set up a small recording studio in the middle of a hallway and interviewed speakers, organizers, and interesting people. I was fortunate to be included in this list. The show is below and my part is at the end
Azure storage includes built-in redundancy by default. In this screencast, I explain the Replication options that allow you to configure how many copies of your data are created, where they are created, and how they can be accessed.
Recently, I sat down with my old friend Manohar Kamath to talk about his new startup – Pursuits. Manohar describes Pursuits as a CRM for career transitions because it helps graduating students and other job seekers manage their job search.
He talks about the startup process, his choice of platform (Pursuits is built on Azure) and how BizSpark helped.
You can view and listen to the entire interview below or at this link.
9/6
Today I am grateful for an afternoon yesterday at the Chicago History Museum.
9/5
Today I am grateful for my first visit to Waldo Stadium in Kalamazoo and for a Spartan victory last night! #GoGreen
9/4
Today I am grateful that I get to spend so much time with passionate developers and entrepreneurs.
9/3
Today I am grateful for the pleasure and privilege of raising of my son Tim, who turns 21 today.
9/2
Today I am grateful to the Azure support team, who fixed my web site, even though it was totally my fault.
9/1
Today I am grateful that my cousin Sharon is cancer-free and her ovarian cancer is in remission following 3 months of chemo and radiation treatments.
8/29
Today I am grateful for a minor league baseball game last night.
8/28
Today I am grateful that my custom Illinois license plate finally arrived after months of delays.
8/27
Today I am grateful to all the Purdue students who came out to yesterday's Microsoft event.
8/26
Today I am grateful to be able to ride my bike to work.
8/25
Today I am grateful that my bike is repaired and fit to ride for the first time in years.
8/24
Today I am grateful I got my Angular Service demo working yesterday.
8/23
Today I am grateful that, for the first time in over a decade, I am living in a place of my own choosing.
8/22
Today I am grateful that, although I lost money on my house sale, I did not have to bring a check to the closing to cover any of the mortgage principle, as some folks in Michigan have done.
8/21
Today I am grateful for a day in East Lansing and an evening with the local user group communities.
8/20
Today I am grateful for an excellent evening with the Great Lakes Area .NET User Group - one of my favourite tech communities. Missed you guys! It's been too long. #MIGANG http://migang.org/
8/19
Today I am grateful to spend a few hours with my mother in her new home last night.
8/18
Today I am grateful for: 1. Selling my house yesterday 2. Dinner with Michele 3. Patrick providing me a place to stay last night.
8/17
Today I am grateful for 11+ years in this house.
8/16
Today I am grateful for coffee in Minnesota with Derek yesterday.
8/15
Today I am grateful for: 1. My first game at Target Field 2. Speaking for the first time at #MidwestJS.
8/14
Today I am grateful to Sarah, Brian, Brian, Paul, and David, who made me look good with all their hard work at #ThatConference this week.
8/13
Today I am grateful to those that work so hard and make #ThatConference great every year.
8/12
Today I am grateful for so many good conversations yesterday.
8/11
Today I am grateful for a busy, hectic, crazy, productive, successful first day at #ThatConference.
8/10
Today I am grateful for seeing so many old friends yesterday.
8/9
Today I am grateful for all I've learned about AngularJS this past week.
8/8
Today I am grateful for my son's new job offer.
8/7
Today I am grateful for: 1. Lunch with Manohar yesterday 2. A good crowd for my presentation last night at the .NET meetup.
8/6
Today I am grateful that nearly all of my possessions are now in Chicago.
8/5
Today I am grateful to Ondrej, who drove over 600 miles yesterday to help me move.
8/4
Today I am grateful for all the things I sold, gave away, and threw away the past few days.
8/3
Today I am grateful for dinner in Dexter last night with my sons, Nick's girlfriend, and her parents, who I met for the first time.
One of the nice things about Azure storage is that Azure always makes extra copies of your data. How and where those copies are made is up to you.
In the current Azure portal, you select the REPLICATION property of a new Storage Account; In the Azure Preview Portal, you select the Storage Account Type.
In both cases, the options are:
Here is an explanation of each type:
Three copies of your storage data are created - all within the same region. No two copies will reside in the same Fault Domain and no two copies will reside in the same Upgrade domain.
This provides fault tolerance in case of the failure of one of the machines on which a copy of the storage account is stored. If the entire data center goes down, no copies of your data will be available.
This is the cheapest of the available redundancy options.
As with Locally Redundant storage, Geo-Redundant storage also creates 3 copies of your data on separate fault domains and update domains in the same data center. But it also creates 3 more copies of your data in another region - typically the region nearest the primary region for this account. For example, if you select North Central US as your storage account's primary region, the account data will be replicated in the South Central US Region.
Once this cross-region replication occurs, you are protected from data loss, even if an entire Azure region fails.
Read-Access Geo-Redundant storage is identical to Geo-Redundant storage, but it also provides read access to data stored in the secondary region,
Three copies of your storage data are created and stored in at least 2 geographically disparate data centers. These data centers may or may not be in the same Region. This provides fault tolerance, even if an entire data center fails.
Zone Redundant Storage Accounts only support Block Blog storage, so selecting this option will limit the uses of your Storage account.
Data within a region or data center is always distributed across multiple update domains and fault domains to protect against most hardware failures or planned maintenance downtime.
Replication within a data center is an atomic operation. In other words, success is not reported to the client until all 3 copies have been successfully written.
Replication to a secondary data center is done asynchronously and typically completes after success has been reported to the client. The good news about this is that clients don't experience any latency when writing to one of a Geo-Redundant storage account. A potential downside is that there is that data in the secondary data center is eventually consistent. If the primary data center fails, it is possible that not all data was written yet to the secondary data center.
Geo-Redundant and Read-Access Geo-Redundant are very similar - both create 6 copies of your data spread across two regions. The difference is that in a Geo-Redundant scenario, the data in the secondary region is only accessible in the event of a failure in the primary region. If all 3 copies of the data in the primary region are unavailable, Azure will fail over to a copy of the data in the secondary region. This also holds true with Read-Access Geo-Redundant, but you get one more benefit: users can access a read-only copy of the data in the secondary region, even if there is no failure in the first region. This can make for greater availability and access speed for users. This also explains why Read-Access Geo-Redundant is the most expensive option. It's the only option that allows users to read copies of the data.
For maximum performance and reliability, Read-Access Geo-Redundant storage is your best option. But this is also the most expensive option. If you are very cost-conscious or if the government requires you to keep data within specific geographic boundaries, you should consider Zone Replication. Geo-Redundant storage is a good compromise between these two options for most scenarios.
Learn how to deploy to an Azure web app from a local Git repository.
Now in its fourth year, That Conference is one of the premiere developer community events in the Midwest. Most attendees come from the upper Midwest, but dozens of speakers traveled from all over the country to share their knowledge.
Like many code camps, That Conference features classroom-style presentations, an Open Spaces area for interactive discussions, booths for attendees and sponsors to interact, and food (good food!) in a common dining area.
What sets apart That Conference is its emphasis on family. The conference drew 800 attendees and speakers, but nearly 400 family members accompanied them. It was not uncommon to see strollers pushed down the conference hallways between sessions.
Family attendance did not happen by accident. That Conference is held at the Kalahari resort, which features a huge water park - ideal for family activities. The conference even reserved the water park one evening after the normal closing time for the exclusive use by attendees and their families. Best of all, the conference organized a kids' programming track to teach children about software development and computer science in a fun and engaging way. In fact, many of the sessions in this track were delivered by children - usually the kids of attendees or speakers. 
I was happy to be a part of That Conference this year - as a sponsor, speaker, and attendee.
As a sponsor, I coordinated Microsoft's presence at the event. Microsoft was the Principal sponsor (the highest level available) and we promoted the theme "Microsoft Is Open" to emphasize Microsoft's support of Open Source Software and non-MS technologies.
As a speaker, I delivered a presentation titled "Microsoft Azure Without Microsoft" in which I talked about how developers using Open Source and other technologies could take advantage of the Azure platform. I organized an open space after my session where I heard how others are using Azure with their own sets of tools. Two people from a nearby open space ended up joining my group.
As an attendee, I sat in on a couple sessions (Wade Wegner's talk on Azure Apps was very interesting), sat in a couple open space discussions, and had numerous conversations with others at the conference. It was great sharing ideas with developers from different technologies and geographies.
I was excited to be interviewed by both Seth Juarez of Channel 9 and by Jason Young and Carl Schweitzer for their excellent MS Dev Show podcast. I conducted a few interviews of my own, which will be released over the next few weeks at Technology and Friends.
Of course the content was great and included keynotes from software craftsmanship advocate Robert “Uncle Bob” Martin, Ionic framework creator Max Lynch, and FBI Special Agent Byron Franz, along with breakout sessions on a wide variety of technologies.
I wish I could have attended more presentations at That Conference, but I came away with some new connections, some new ideas, and a lack of sleep.
Links
Last week, I had a chance to attend, sponsor, and present at the Midwest JS conference in Minneapolis, MN.
I was excited because, I used to do a lot of web development but switched to other technologies a few years ago. During my time away from web development, JavaScript technology has had some amazing advances as many frameworks were created, rose to great popularity and fell out of favor to be replaced by a new framework. I watched from a distance as the web I knew changed from mostly server side code generating HTML to powerful client-side code calling back-end web services and dynamically updating content in the browser. Although my historical experience began with "classic" ASP and continued through ASP.NET Web Forms and MVC, I've spent the past few weeks learning how to build a site with Angular.
This conference featured very little Microsoft technologies and most of the attendees did not development with Microsoft tools. A quick glance around the room revealed more Macs than PCs. I was nervous because I didn't know many attendees and speakers and because I didn't know how they would respond to a Microsoft employee in their midst.
It turns out that I worried for nothing. I met so many people who were interested in hearing about what Microsoft was doing. Our support of open source technologies the past few years really resonated with this crowd and there was a lot of interest in tool like TypeScript.
I created a talk on Microsoft Edge - the new browser that ships with Windows 10 and replaces Internet Explorer. The audience was interested in the speed of this browser (it's a total rewrite of the rendering engine) and with its support of web standards. During Q&A, one attendee expressed frustration that the Edge team had not announced a version for the Mac.
It wasn't long ago that a non-Microsoft conference would have also been an anti-Microsoft conference. But I experienced none of this. Everyone I met kept an open mind about other technologies - including ours. And I learned a great deal from them about the tools and frameworks that they embrace.
I left with a favorable experience of the JavaScript community and a desire to connect with them more. Of course, my education in this area continues as I try to catch up with the advances of the past 4 years, but conferences like Midwest JS help.
In this screencast, I show off some of the features of Microsoft Edge - the new browser included in Windows 10 - that help end users be more productive.
In this screencast, you will learn how to create your own table linked to an Azure Mobile Service and manage the data in this table from a client Windows or Windows Phone application.
At CodeStock last month, I was asked to participate in a Mobile Development Panel. The panel consisted of Ed Charbeneau and Michael Crump were also on the panel, while Sam Basu moderated. A late cancellation left them with an open chair, so Sam asked me to step in at the last minute. I quickly agreed in part because Sam and Michael are old friends and because the other three participants are Developer Advocates for Telerik – a company I’ve worked with in the past and admire.
Ed Charbeneau recorded the panel and released it as an episode of his Eat Sleep Code podcast. You can listen to the panel at this link.
In this screencast, you will learn how to turn on authorization in an Azure Mobile Service and allow users to log in with their Twitter account.
8/2
Today I am grateful for a party at Velichka's last night to celebrate her 15 years in the US.
8/1
Today I am grateful for a sunny day, some shade, and a tall glass of water.
7/31
Today I am grateful that my team is sponsoring more community events than when I first joined.
7/30
Today I am grateful for a chance to work with high school students yesterday in south Chicago.
7/29
Today I am grateful to Layla and Elizabeth, who inspired me to begin each day thinking of what I'm grateful for.
7/28
Today I am grateful for an afternoon with my son yesterday
7/27
Today I am grateful for all the people who came to my garage sale this weekend.
7/26
Today I am grateful for a surprise visit last night from John and Kim.
7/25
Today I am grateful for a late-night swim yesterday.
7/24
Today I am grateful to be back in Michigan for a few days.
7/23
Today I am grateful that I am 40 lbs. lighter than I was at this time last year.
7/22
Today I am grateful for a year in my Old Town apartment - a year that went by much faster than I expected.
7/21
Today I am grateful for member access to 1871;
7/20
Today I am grateful for dinner with Oksana last night to celebrate her new job.
7/19
Today I am grateful for all the videos I produced yesterday.
7/18
Today I am grateful I've been able to schedule my long-neglected medical & dental appointments this month.
7/17
Today I am grateful for:
7/16
Today I am grateful for:
7/15
Today I am grateful to Tim, who rearranged his schedule to pick me up from the doctor office yesterday.
7/14
Today I am a grateful for a free Matthew Sweet concert in Millennium Park last night.
7/13
Today I am grateful for a few days at home.
7/12
Today I am grateful to the organizers and attendees of #codestock2015 for making this an excellent conference and a great overall experience
7/11
Today I am grateful for dinner last night with Jennifer and Paul.
7/9
Today I am grateful for my second trip ever to Appleton, WI - the hometown of my maternal grandmother.
7/8
Today I am grateful I'm on a team that collaborates so well and so willingly.
7/7
Today I am grateful I finished all my demos yesterday for my new presentation.
7/6
Today I am grateful for a Japanese Hibachi dinner last night - tasty and entertaining.
Recently, Brian Lewis and I teamed up to record a session working through a set of labs teaching how to automate Microsoft Azure IAAS with PowerShell.
The first 3 videos covered labs 1 and 2.
We have now released 2 new videos that cover Lab 3. This lab synchronizes an Azure Active Directory with an on-premises Active Directory.
Click the links below to view these videos.
In this video, you will see how to use the portal to quickly create a table linked to an Azure Mobile Service and a Windows Universal App client that connects to that mobile service.
A couple weeks ago, I was in Knoxville, TN talking with Microsoft Senior Program Manager Jeff Fritz. He agreed to record an interview with me about the awesome new features of this upcoming framework. My plan was to release it as an episode of Technology and Friends. Unfortunately, technical issues left me with excellent audio but no useable video.
Jeff did a great job and the topic is very interesting. So, given the release of Visual Studio 2015 last week and Windows 10 today, I decided to make the audio interview available here.
Enjoy: Jeff Fritz talks about ASP.NET 5
![IMG_2542-X2[1]](/content/binary/WindowsLiveWriter/InterviewwithJeffFritzaboutASP.NET5_1146F/IMG_2542-X2%5B1%5D_2.jpg "IMG_2542-X2[1]")
The Milky Way galaxy of Vernor Vinge's A Fire Upon the Deep is divided into 4 major concentric sections, known as "Zones of Thought":
The Unthinking Depths at the center of the galaxy, in which little or no intelligent life has evolved;
The Slow Zone, where the Earth exists. Intelligent life has evolved here but there is no true artificial intelligence and faster-than-light travel is not possible in this zone;
The Beyond, where intelligent species have mastered faster-than-light travel and and advanced civilizations have arisen;
The Transcend, the home of mysterious races of hyper-intelligent beings.
The intelligence that exists in these zones is not a coincidence - something about the physical properties of the zones prevent species and societies from evolving beyond a given allowable intelligence and technology.
In the novel, a group of humans have migrated from the Slow Zone to the Beyond-Transcend border, where they discover and accidentally awaken a dormant entity in the Beyond. The entity - known as the Blight - travels into the Beyond, destroying entire solar systems and threatens to destroy all life in the galaxy. Most of the story follows various inhabitants of the galaxy as they try to defend themselves and their worlds from the oncoming Blight.
The two factions have each adopted a human child - siblings whose parents were killed when they got in the way of a Tine battle.
I liked the universe that Vinge creates. He never explains why each zone restricts technology, but the fact that it does explains why species and societies evolve as they do within each zone.
I like the creatures with which he populates his universe, especially the Tines - a sentient, but primitive race that resemble long-necked dogs and group together in small packs that share a single consciousness; and the Skroderiders - a plantlike species that are able to travel thanks to a special cart built for them millennia ago by an unknown benefactor.
And I liked the contrast between the civil war waging on the Tines' world to gain mastery over a small bit of land and the oncoming Blight, which destroyed everything in its path and headed toward that same world.
But I found it difficult to sympathize or identify with Vinge's characters or their trials as much as I wanted to. Reading the story, I learned of death and love and trust and betrayal and they passed over me without moving me.
A Fire Upon the Deep was good for my head but it left my heart wanting more.
This video describes the basics of Azure Mobile Services and walks you through creating a new Mobile Service with a JavaScript backend.
G-Cast 1
Every once in a while, I record a screencast and I post it on this blog.
You can find links here to a series of screencasts I did on Visual Studio Coded UI Tests.
It has been a long time since I did so because screencasts tend to be a lot of work when done correctly.
But now I’m motivated to start doing these regularly. I plan to keep them short – anywhere from 5-30 minutes and to keep each video focused on a single topic. My goal is to release a new video every Friday – in the same way that I release a new Technology and Friends episode every Monday.
As in the past, I’m branding these as “G-Cast” – an abbreviation of Giard’s Screencasts and I’m rebooting the franchise to start at Episode 1. I even have a fun intro sequence that will appear at the beginning of each video.
The first G-Cast will debut tomorrow and will be part of a series showing how to use Azure Mobile Services.
Stay tuned and let me know what you think of this project.
![TechnologyAndFriends[1]](/content/binary/WindowsLiveWriter/MyTVshowismovingtoChannel9_8C1D/TechnologyAndFriends%5B1%5D_2.gif "TechnologyAndFriends[1]"){kind=small}
Technology and Friends began in Sandusky, OH in January 2009. I brought my video camera to Codemash and walked into the speaker room asking people if they wanted to talk on-camera about their favourite technology.
I had an idea that I wanted to publish these interviews on-line but I did not know what form that would take. Eventually, this idea evolved into Technology and Friends and I've been regularly publishing this show for over 6 and a half years. It's rare that a Monday passes without the release of a new episode.
375 episodes later, we are moving. From technologyandfriends.com to Channel 9.
This change offers several advantages:
Users can now subscribe to the show
This has been the single biggest request I've received. And it’s built into Channel 9.
Users can download each episode in the resolution of their choosing.
Channel 9 encodes all videos in High, Medium, and Low Quality. If bandwidth or disc space is tight, you can choose the lower quality. For better viewing, choose the high quality. For lower bandwidth or limited disc space, choose the smaller files.
Users can download the audio
This was another common request from fans of the show. It's now possible to grab just the audio to listen while you're driving, exercising or working around the house.
Reduced cost
I've been paying for this show out of my own pocket and the online fees alone come to almost a thousand dollars a year.
Wider exposure
Channel 9 reaches a very broad audience and this show will be indexed along with their other content, making it easier to find for a number of people.
So far, I have migrated the last 6 months of shows. In the coming weeks, I plan to move more of the older shows to the new site. I hope you enjoy the experience. Let me know your thoughts.
