February, 2011

If you’ve started reading from this post, you’ll need to go through the previous parts of this series before going starting this one: Introduction Part 1: Setting Up a SQL Azure Server and Database Part 2: Scripting the On-Premise Database for SQL Azure Part 3: Executing the Scripts on the SQL Azure Database Part 4: Creating the Cloud Solution Part 5: Testing Locally Part 6: Preparing the Deployment...

If you’ve started reading from this post, you’ll need to go through the previous parts of this series before going starting this one: Introduction Part 1: Setting Up a SQL Azure Server and Database Part 2: Scripting the On-Premise Database for SQL Azure Part 3: Executing the Scripts on the SQL Azure Database Part 4: Creating the Cloud Solution Part 5: Testing Locally With testing complete, it’s time...

If you’ve started reading from this post, you’ll need to go through the previous parts of this series before going starting this one: Introduction Part 1: Setting Up a SQL Azure Server and Database Part 2: Scripting the On-Premise Database for SQL Azure Part 3: Executing the Scripts on the SQL Azure Database Part 4: Creating the Cloud Solution Almost there! We’re going to do some local testing to make...

If you’ve started reading from this post, you’ll need to go through the previous parts of this series before going starting this one: Introduction Part 1: Setting Up a SQL Azure Server and Database Part 2: Scripting the On-Premise Database for SQL Azure Part 3: Executing the Scripts on the SQL Azure Database With the database deployed, we can now focus our attention on the application itself. In this...

If you’ve started reading from this post, you’ll need to go through the previous parts before going starting this one: Introduction Part 1: Setting Up a SQL Azure Server and Database Part 2: Scripting the On-Premise Database for SQL Azure In this part, we’ll connect to our SQL Azure database and execute some scripts required by the application. Connect to the SQL Azure Server In the Windows Azure Management...

If you’ve started reading from this post, you’ll need to go through the previous parts before starting this one: Introduction Part 1: Setting Up a SQL Azure Server and Database In this part, we’ll take our application’s on-premise database and script it for SQL Azure. Attach the SQL Server Database Unzip the Nerd Dinner zip file you downloaded.  If you haven’t yet downloaded Nerd Dinner, download...

The screenshots used in this series were done in preparation for the SQL event being held on February 26, 2011.  You can find out more information about the event here . To get started, log in to the Windows Azure Management Portal . Once you get started with Cloud development, you’re going to be visiting this site often.  I highly suggest bookmarking it or committing https://windows.azure...

Many of you have now attended our first wave of local events where we show you how to deploy a simple application to Windows Azure. I hope that you enjoyed the events and that they were of value. If you haven’t been to a one of these in your community, there is another wave coming soon, so stay tuned here as well as to your local user groups.  As feedback from those events, you told us that it...

Here’s a great site for geeks and laypeople alike: How Secure is My Password?, which performs as advertised. Enter a password into the textbox, and you’ll be told the maximum time it would take for a desktop PC to generate that password using the brute force method. (Of course, if I wanted to spend less time cracking people’s passwords, I’d try a dictionary attack , given how many people who use ordinary...

The following guest blog post was written by Dana Epp ( @DanaEpp ). One of the benefits of being a Microsoft Security MVP is seeing the most interesting environments to build secure systems and applications. One day I will be talking to someone about command and control systems for critical armaments, and the next day I will be talking with someone who is building a website that takes credit card...

Original image by Mykl Roventine Guest blog post by Windows Azure MVP Cory Fowler ( @SyntaxC4 ) Remembering back to when I was in the Audience in the Community, the one thing I always wanted to find out about was Best Practices for the Particular Technology I was listening about. I’m sure a number of people feel the same way. Best Practices are hard to introduce in a talk as you’re typically only speaking...

Couldn’t make it out to TechDays Canada? Made it out but couldn’t split yourself into 6 people to attend all of the tracks? No worries! All 70 sessions of technical content across the 6 track are now available to everyone at TechDays Online ( techdays.ca ). With full HD videos of the sessions from Toronto and Montreal, PowerPoint decks, and virtual labs for that hands-on experience, you and your colleagues...

How do we, developers, learn cool new things? Do we read some materials, take some notes, and then we’re good to go? Maybe take a class or two and that’s it? No. We read, maybe take some classes, but most importantly, we learn by building apps! With on-premise solutions, that’s relatively easy. Build out a virtual machine, install the required software, and off we go. How do we do...

What’s a Blogger? I’m sure that the folks at the New York Times are regularly told by everyone – analysts, tech pundits, their customers and even their peers – that their industry is doomed. So it’s not hard to imagine the schadenfreude with which they reported the decline of blogging in a recent article titled Blogs Wane as the Young Drift to Sites Like Twitter . In the article, they suggest that...

Another day, another book deal: today’s book deal from Manning Publications is the MEAP (Manning Early Access Program, a “books in beta” sort of thing) edition of the book Hello! HTML5 and CSS3, which is being written by Rob Crowther. For today only, you can get this book for a mere USD$25 (CAD$24.57 as I write this) in both paper form (when the final edition comes out) and ebook form (right now, and...

It’s Family Day in certain parts of Canada: Alberta, Ontario, Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Prince Edward Island. We’d like to wish every one of you, whether you get the day off or not, a happy Family Day. We’d also like to remind you to enjoy and appreciate your families, whether they’re the one you were born with, or the ones you picked up along life’s travels. I’d like to send a personal greeting to...

Here’s what was up in the Windows Azure Cloud last week (February 13 – February 19): New This Week New PRO exam: Designing and Developing Windows Azure Applications Things To Try Walkthrough these Windows Azure Storage Samples of both the REST and the .NET Storage Client Library implementations of every Windows Azure Storage operation (blobs, queues, and tables). Finish off your Windows Azure Junk...

Continuing my series of articles on Windows Phone development books, I’ve posted an article on the Great Canadian Apportunity blog about books covering game development in XNA 4.0 . With XNA, you can target Windows Phone as well as the Xbox 360 and Windows.

In addition to the free books on Windows Phone 7 development that I told you about, there are a number of books you can buy in either ebook or paper form. I’ve got them list over at the Great Canadian Apportunity blog. What is the Great Canadian Apportunity? The Great Canadian Apportunity is a competition where we challenge developers in Canada to write the best Windows Phone 7 app. We’re offering...

Over at the Great Canadian Apportunity blog, I point to 4 free ebooks that every Windows Phone 7 developer should have in their e-library: Charles Petzold’s Programming Windows Phone 7 Rob Miles’ Windows Phone Programming in C# The UI Design and Interaction Guide for Windows Phone 7 Patterns and Practices’ Windows Phone 7 Developer Guide They’re free-as-in-beer and only a download away, so you have...

There were a lot of announcements made at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona about what to expect from Windows Phone 7 in the coming months. I’ve got them listed in an article at The Great Canadian Apportunity, along with what they mean for developers.

Here’s what was up in the Windows Azure Cloud last week (February 6 – February 12): New This Week Windows Azure Extra Small Instances – Public Beta Windows Azure AppFabric CTP – February Release Windows Azure AppFabric SDK V2.0 CTP – February Update Windows Azure Service Management CmdLets Windows Azure Native Code Virtual Lab   Things To Try Follow along Put Stuff In Your Windows Azure Trunk...

Over on The Great Canadian Apportunity , I’ve posted an article titled On Writing Apps that looks at the Dyson DC25 “Ball” vacuum, smartphones and tools that transform workaday experiences into something completely different. From there, I talk about the three motivations that drive people to use mobile apps, an idea I swiped from a great mobile app dev book called Tapworthy . Go check it out!

Today only (Sunday, February 13th, 2011), you can get the ebook version of the upcoming Manning Publications book Continuous Integration in .NET for a mere USD$15. Simply go to Manning’s site, order the ebook edition and enter dotd0213cc in the promotional code field when you check out. The book is a MEAP (Manning Early Access Program) book . This means that the book is still being written, and you...

My coworker Rick Claus (that’s him and me at a recent team get-together ) is a great guy and knows his way around a Microsoft IT setup, but the guy is cursed. He has a reverse “ Midas Touch”, and can render just about any technological device by touching it or even being around it. He’s managed to do it so many times that the Developer and Platform Evangelism team uses the word “Claused” for broken...