You may have seen some tongue-in-cheek but technically serious cloud articles on this blog from time to time under the pseudonym "Dr. McCloud". Dr. McCloud's practice is growing at a phenomenal rate and he now has his own blog at http://drmccloud.blogspot.com/. We wish Dr. McCloud well as he evangelizes the masses about the goodness of cloud computing with Windows Azure and overcomes discomfort with his excellent bedside manner. The Doctor is In.
Monday, November 16, 2009
Friday, November 13, 2009
Upcoming O.C. Azure User Group Nov 2009 Meeting on Rich Internet Applications
The next Orange County Azure User Group Meeting is Thursday 11/19/2009 6:00-08:00 PM.
The topic for the November meeting is Rich Internet Applications. RIAs are the new wave in application development: they provide a rich user experience, are often hosted in the cloud, are highly scalable, and leverage new thinking and new technology in their design. At the meeting, we'll see RIA demos and create our own RIA using Microsoft's Azure, Silverlight, and .NET RIA Services technologies. We’ll also have an update of Azure announcements made at PDC 2009.
Pizza, beverages, and give-aways will be provided. RSVP at http://www.clicktoattend.com/?id=142708
As usual, we're meeting at QuickStart Intelligence in Irvine:
QuickStart Intelligence
16815 Von Karman Ave., Ste 100
Irvine, CA 92606
The topic for the November meeting is Rich Internet Applications. RIAs are the new wave in application development: they provide a rich user experience, are often hosted in the cloud, are highly scalable, and leverage new thinking and new technology in their design. At the meeting, we'll see RIA demos and create our own RIA using Microsoft's Azure, Silverlight, and .NET RIA Services technologies. We’ll also have an update of Azure announcements made at PDC 2009.
Pizza, beverages, and give-aways will be provided. RSVP at http://www.clicktoattend.com/?id=142708
As usual, we're meeting at QuickStart Intelligence in Irvine:
QuickStart Intelligence
16815 Von Karman Ave., Ste 100
Irvine, CA 92606
Monday, November 2, 2009
Goodbye, LifeTracks (259 days of uptime in the cloud)
With the Azure Northwest Data Center closing, I reluctantly shut down my longest-running Azure application today, LifeTracks. LifeTracks was my first significant Azure application, written over Thanksgiving 2008. Though it was pretty raw compared to what I can do today with Azure and preceded my Silverlight days, I was still rather proud of it. It incorporated Windows Live ID authentication, Windows Azure hosting, and Windows Azure Blob storage and was one of the first Azure demo applications.
LifeTracks is also where I learned some important Azure best practices. Initially, when I would show someone the app it would sometimes not be available. I would re-deploy and it would be fine for a while, but before long it would again not be available. At first I chalked this up to the platform being in its early stages, but someone from the Azure product team explained that the problem was more likely that I was running a single instance which was probably being frequently taken down for patching. Azure has a very nice system for sequencing patches and updates, but if you're only running a single instance that doesn't help you.
On February 16th I upped my deployment to 2 instances, and there was a night and day difference. LifeTracks has run uninterrupted from 02/16/09 to 11/02/09, 259 days of rock solid uptime in the cloud. Even the partial outage Azure experienced in March didn't take down LifeTracks. I think this shows how reliable Azure has been even during this preview period.
LifeTracks is also where I learned some important Azure best practices. Initially, when I would show someone the app it would sometimes not be available. I would re-deploy and it would be fine for a while, but before long it would again not be available. At first I chalked this up to the platform being in its early stages, but someone from the Azure product team explained that the problem was more likely that I was running a single instance which was probably being frequently taken down for patching. Azure has a very nice system for sequencing patches and updates, but if you're only running a single instance that doesn't help you.
On February 16th I upped my deployment to 2 instances, and there was a night and day difference. LifeTracks has run uninterrupted from 02/16/09 to 11/02/09, 259 days of rock solid uptime in the cloud. Even the partial outage Azure experienced in March didn't take down LifeTracks. I think this shows how reliable Azure has been even during this preview period.
Saturday, October 31, 2009
The Azure Handbook
It's official, I'm writing an Azure book (isn't everybody?). The Azure Handbook is in progress and should become available not too long after the Azure 1.0 release. I'm expecting it will be available as both an e-book and a print book.
The Azure Handbook will cover the full Azure platform (Windows Azure, SQL Azure, .NET Services) from both business and technical perspectives.
In the spirit of all good technical books these days, I want lots of feedback before it's published. There's a book site up at http://AzureHandbook.com where I'll be posting chapters for feedback as I write them. (And yes, the site is of course hosted in Windows Azure).
I have some specific goals for this book. It's my fourth technical book, and I've certainly learned some lessons from the previous ones that now make me a better writer.
Commitment #1: Shoot for brevity. This book will have lots of good things in it, but it's not going to be any longer than it needs to be. I'll be packaging the content as simply and clearly as possible. Nor will it regurgitate content that is readily available online already such as reference documentation.
Commitment #2: Don't repeat yourself. There was a time when I tried to write books where each chapter could stand completely on its own. This turns out to be a bad idea, as plenty of people will read a book through and resent the repetition. So, no repetition: just a logical progression of material with cross referencing as needed.
Commitment #3: Keep it up to date. As long as the book is active, I'll keep updates on the book site to keep the content current--up until the next major release of Azure.
I'm excited to write this book. I expect the content will flow easily as I'm speaking on Azure, writing on Azure, or developing in Azure just about every day now. I've also been fortunate enough to get experience with early adopters which is a big help in communicating what the experience is and what the best practices are shaping up to be.
The Azure Handbook will cover the full Azure platform (Windows Azure, SQL Azure, .NET Services) from both business and technical perspectives.
In the spirit of all good technical books these days, I want lots of feedback before it's published. There's a book site up at http://AzureHandbook.com where I'll be posting chapters for feedback as I write them. (And yes, the site is of course hosted in Windows Azure).
I have some specific goals for this book. It's my fourth technical book, and I've certainly learned some lessons from the previous ones that now make me a better writer.
Commitment #1: Shoot for brevity. This book will have lots of good things in it, but it's not going to be any longer than it needs to be. I'll be packaging the content as simply and clearly as possible. Nor will it regurgitate content that is readily available online already such as reference documentation.
Commitment #2: Don't repeat yourself. There was a time when I tried to write books where each chapter could stand completely on its own. This turns out to be a bad idea, as plenty of people will read a book through and resent the repetition. So, no repetition: just a logical progression of material with cross referencing as needed.
Commitment #3: Keep it up to date. As long as the book is active, I'll keep updates on the book site to keep the content current--up until the next major release of Azure.
I'm excited to write this book. I expect the content will flow easily as I'm speaking on Azure, writing on Azure, or developing in Azure just about every day now. I've also been fortunate enough to get experience with early adopters which is a big help in communicating what the experience is and what the best practices are shaping up to be.
Azure ROI Calculator Updated With Better International Support
Neudesic's popular Azure ROI Calculator has been updated to work better for users outside of the U.S. (that is, for those with regional settings besides English-US).
Even though the calculator only reflects the U.S. pricing announced in July, it turns out lots of people outside the U.S. still want to use the calculator. In this update the calculator will correctly format and compute charges regardless of your locale settings.
Even though the calculator only reflects the U.S. pricing announced in July, it turns out lots of people outside the U.S. still want to use the calculator. In this update the calculator will correctly format and compute charges regardless of your locale settings.
Friday, October 30, 2009
Azure Storage Explorer 3.0 Beta Now Available
I'm pleased to announce Azure Storage Explorer version 3.0 is now available as a beta release on CodePlex. Azure Storage Explorer is Neudesic's free tool for viewing and managing Windows Azure blobs, queues, and tables.
This third generation of Azure Storage Explorer has a fresh new user interface and many new features. Text blobs can be edited within the tool, and each of Windows Azure's storage types (blobs, queues, tables) can be imported/exported between the cloud and your local file system.
For tables, you can import or export records from spreadsheet CSV files, allowing you to conveniently use Excel to work with table data locally.
As this is a beta, users are advised to be careful in their use of it and to back up their cloud data frequently.
The formal release of Azure Storage Explorer 3.0 will come shortly after the release of Azure 1.0 in November. As always, Azure Storage Explorer is and will remain free.
This third generation of Azure Storage Explorer has a fresh new user interface and many new features. Text blobs can be edited within the tool, and each of Windows Azure's storage types (blobs, queues, tables) can be imported/exported between the cloud and your local file system.
For tables, you can import or export records from spreadsheet CSV files, allowing you to conveniently use Excel to work with table data locally.
As this is a beta, users are advised to be careful in their use of it and to back up their cloud data frequently.
The formal release of Azure Storage Explorer 3.0 will come shortly after the release of Azure 1.0 in November. As always, Azure Storage Explorer is and will remain free.
Monday, October 26, 2009
Voice 2.0 for Silverlight/Azure is Coming November 5, 2009
Would you like to add voice and telephony capabilities to your Silverlight and Azure applications? Think of the extra dimension of user experience that could add to your Rich Internet Applications. Now you can, and the premier event to learn all about it (in person if you’re in the San Francisco area, else via webcast) is coming up on November 5, 2009.
For several months now I’ve been part of a Microsoft-Ribbit-Neudesic collaboration working to make Ribbit’s Voice 2.0 technology available to Silverlight developers in the form of customizable Silverlight controls integrated with Visual Studio and Expression Blend. Now that I’m allowed to start talking about it, I want to encourage Silverlight and Azure developers to attend the debut announcement and demo of Ribbit for Silverlight at Ribbit’s upcoming developer event, Spawn. After the event, I’ll be posting more about developing Voice 2.0 applications using Ribbit for Silverlight.
Here’s the official announcement from Ribbit:
Please join Ribbit in San Francisco November 5, 2009 for a deep dive into our open telephony APIs.
We’re excited to formally launch our RESTful API, and we’re looking for early adopters like you!
In the network of the future:
• Voice will simply be another data object – and will be carrier, network, device and protocol agnostic
• Legacy carrier networks will be merged with open networks / the internet
• Innovation will be developer driven, not constrained by existing carrier / telco business models
Ribbit is revolutionizing the communications paradigm by providing an open and fully programmable global communications platform. This platform allows any developer to integrate voice, messaging, and rich communications into any application, on Web experience.
Join us for a day of innovation and learning and an evening of coding and cocktails.
Ribbit + REST = Open Programmable Communications
Rebuilding the Ribbit Platform on top of a RESTful framework allows developers to interact with Ribbit at the server level, enabling new forms of application-to-person and application-to-application services. REST treats users, devices, calls, messages, and other elements as resources with which developers can easily interact — and exposes Ribbit’s core communications services in a platform-agnostic format using simple and secure HTTP calls.
Space is limited, Register ASAP! http://developer.ribbit.com/blog/spawn/
If you cannot attend in person, please join us via webcast. Register by 11/3 at: http://developer.ribbit.com/blog/spawn-webcast/
Agenda
8:00 – 9:00 Registration and continental breakfast
9:00 – 10:00 Ribbit Platform Overview — New Features, Platform Roadmap & Pricing
10:00 – 11:00 Integrating Ribbit into Any Application, Workflow, Site or Online Campaign
11:00 – 11:30 New APIs and application showcase
11:30 – 12:00 Platform opportunities
12:00 - 1:00 Lunch
1:00 - 2:45 Afternoon Breakout Sessions
• Flash
• Java
• .NET
• PHP
3:00 – 4:45 Afternoon Breakout Sessions
• Building Client-and Server-Side Apps
• JavaScript
• Silverlight
• REST
5:00 - 9:00 Hands-On Coding with Ribbit’s API/Programming Language Experts
• Coding for Flash, Silverlight
• Coding for Java, JS, PHP, REST, .NET
We look forward to seeing you there!
Team Ribbit
Ribbit is an open, cloud-based platform for communications innovation. By exposing our carrier-grade SmartSwitch™ though popular programming APIs, Ribbit enables the development of next generation “voiceware” applications, such as our white-labeled Ribbit for Salesforce® and Ribbit Mobile™ applications.
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