Monday, November 30, 2015

F# {m}brace cloud and parallel

F# programming language have introduced some important concepts to .NET ecosystem,
such as Generics and Async. Now, it is adding "Cloud" and "Parallel."
With MBrace library there is a "Cloud" command that can submit computing to "Cloud"
and continue with results!

Crunching through big data with MBrace, Azure and F# | fsharp + ML |> MVP Summit 2015 | Channel 9

MBrace - Scripting Compute and Data Jobs in the Cloud Made Simple
"MBrace.Core is a simple programming model for scalable cloud data scripting and programming with F# and C#. With MBrace.Azure, you can script Azure for large-scale compute and data processing, directly from your favourite editor."
Part 1 - Distributed computations and Big Data with F# cloud monads

let maxContentLength = cloud {
    let lengthsJob = [| "https://github.com";"http://www.microsoft.com/"|]
       |> Array.map (getContentLength >> Cloud.OfAsync)
       let! lengths = Cloud.Parallel lengthsJob
    return Array.max lengths
}

let getContentLength (url : string) = async {
    let request = HttpWebRequest.Create(url)
    let! response = request.AsyncGetResponse()  
    return response.ContentLength
}


Raspberry Pi Zero vs. C.H.I.P.

Raspberry Pi Zero vs. C.H.I.P.: Which Mini Computer Under $10 Should You Buy? : PERSONAL TECH : Tech Times

New Raspberry Pi Zero sells out in just 24 hours | TechRadar (for $5 each)

Raspberry Pi Zero

This Cyber Monday, the World's First $9 Computer is $8.


Shipping: June 2016... that is a long wait...


Sunday, November 29, 2015

Windows 10 += SQLite

Another Open Source tool now part of Windows 10.
SQLite is also part of iOS and Android.

Shipping a New Mindset with SQLite in Windows 10 | Engineering @ Microsoft
"How do you ship over 200 Data Access APIs that work across half a dozen different types of devices and have a 100% test coverage, but with only a couple of days of engineering effort? It’s simple, you ship SQLite. Over the last year, Windows engineers have worked closely with the amazing SQLite Core Development team led by Richard Hipp to bring SQLite, the popular open source database engine, to Windows 10."
v2-Win10-image2

SharePoint REST API & Languages

SharePoint 2013 REST API reference and samples

SharePoint Search REST API overview
Search in SharePoint 2013 includes a Search REST service you can use to add search functionality to your client and mobile applications by using any technology that supports REST web requests. You can use the Search REST service to submit Keyword Query Language (KQL) or FAST Query Language (FQL) queries in your SharePoint Add-ins, remote client applications, mobile applications, and other applications.

Query the Office Graph using GQL and SharePoint Online Search REST APIs
"Graph Query Language (GQL) is a preliminary query language designed to query the Office Graph via the SharePoint Online Search REST API. By using GQL, you can query the Office Graph to get items for an actor that satisfies a particular filter."
SharePoint is not (yet) part of "Microsoft Graph" Office APIs

Microsoft Graph - Documentation - overview
"Microsoft Graph (previously called Office 365 unified API) exposes multiple APIs from Microsoft cloud services through a single REST API endpoint (https://graph.microsoft.com)."


This is an interesting approach in design of "API" / services,
where HTTP REST is used as a "transport",
and actual syntax is defined by a text based "Domain Specific Language",
in this case called "Query Languages".

Unfortunately, both typical JSON based REST communication and "Query Language" messages
and custom / proprietary... With simple JSON messages (or even XML) there is a possibility of "mapping", but it is always custom.

Imagine if there was a custom human language for any type of interaction,
without common base vocabulary and grammar: then would need to learn a new language
to go grocery shopping, to visit a dentist, a new language for each office...
An obvious solution is a common "base API language" ("Ontology") and extensions.
As usual, the term "Semantic API" is already used... for a similar but different thing...

Times Developer Network - The Semantic API

"The Semantic API complements the Articles API. With the Semantic API, you get access to the long list of people, places, organizations and other locations, entities and descriptors that make up the controlled vocabulary used as metadata by The New York Times (sometimes referred to as Times Tags and used for Times Topics pages)"




Saturday, November 28, 2015

Azure += German data centers

Microsoft sets up data centers in Germany amid US surveillance concerns | PCWorld

"Microsoft is delivering its cloud services, including Azure, Office 365 and Dynamics CRM Online from two new datacenter regions in Germany...

...control over the data will not be with Microsoft but with Deutsche Telekom subsidiary T-Systems, which will be acting as a data trustee for Microsoft's customers' data."


Markdown editing with Visual Studio Code

Markdown is a simple text syntax that can be converted to web documents by many tools.
It is popularized by GitHub.
One big advantage of text format for editing documents is ability to use "diff" tools to trace history of changes in source controls systems.

Markdown editing with Visual Studio Code


Open any Markdown file and press Ctrl+Shift+V in the editor to toggle between the code and a preview of the Markdown file. You can view the preview side-by-side with the file you are editing and see changes reflected in real-time as you edit.Markdown Preview

Markdown Tutorial

http://www.markdown-tutorial.com/

Markdown Basics - User Documentation

GitHub Flavored Markdown - User Documentation

Daring Fireball: Markdown Syntax Documentation


Friday, November 27, 2015

Google Maps API, gmaps.js, travelMaps.js

Google Maps APIs  |  Google Developers



JavaScript API Usage Limits  |  Google Maps Javascript API  |  Google Developers

hpneo/gmaps · GitHub
gmaps.js allows you to use the potential of Google Maps in a simple way. 

gmaps.js — Google Maps API with less pain and more fun

shawnwildermuth/travelMap · GitHub
This project extends the GMaps project and allow a building of map that shows a travel map.

Wilder Minds World Tour

Gmaps.js the easiest way to use Google Maps | Hacker News

OpenLayers 3 - Welcome
"A high-performance, feature-packed library for all your mapping needs."
Google Maps or Bing Maps are one of the possible layers.

FsLab : Data science and machine learning with F#

FsLab - Data science and machine learning with F#

"FsLab is a collection of libraries for data-science. It provides a rapid development envi­ronment that lets you write advanced analysis with a few lines of production-quality code.

Access data using type providers, explore it using a efficient data-frame and time-serieslibrary and through the R language integration and use rich visualization and reporting"


Welcome/Introduction and Doing Data Science with FsLab | fsharp + ML |> MVP Summit 2015 | Channel 9

web: Chrome Dev Summit 2015

Chrome Dev Summit 2015
November 17&18

Chrome on mobile: from 400 million in 2014 to 800 in 2015.

Many web browser improvements... reliability, performance, engagement

"service worker" for offline connections

"RAIL":

  • Reaction time (<100 li="" ms="" nbsp="">
  • Animation time (60frames/sec = 16.6 ms), 
  • Idle time (<50 background="" li="" ms="" tasks="">
  • Load time (< 1 s for web app to start)

AMP: ampproject.org : Accelerated Mobile Pages Project

POLYMER: web components

"push notifications"

"progressive web apps"

Web Fundamentals | Web Fundamentals - Google Developers

Front-End Web Developer Nanodegree - Udacity

Google Chrome Developers - YouTube


Thursday, November 26, 2015

cloud: Azure + HP E

Its public cloud soon gone, HP aligns with Microsoft Azure | PCWorld

"Hewlett-Packard Enterprise has partnered with Microsoft to offer its Azure cloud services to customers, filling a gap when HPE closes its own public cloud early next year.

Microsoft will be a "preferred" public cloud partner to HPE, and HPE will become a "preferred provider" of Microsoft Azure services, CEO Meg Whitman"

...
It's no surprise to see HPE cut its first cloud deal with Microsoft rather than Amazon or Google. The companies work closely in servers and PCs, and they're both trying to sell customers a mix of on-premises and cloud products.

"Microsoft shares our view of a hybrid IT approach for enterprises," Whitman said."


HP Enterprise will maximize opportunities as Azure reseller | InfoWorld


Raspberry Pi Zero: $5 computer (!)

Meet Raspberry Pi Zero: The $5 computer is here | PCWorld

Raspberry Pi Zero: the $5 computer - Raspberry Pi



Four fathers!?!??

The Magpi Magazine - The official Raspberry Pi magazineThe Magpi Magazine

The making of Raspberry Pi Zero - The Magpi MagazineThe Magpi Magazine

Bing Maps API

Bing Maps: Create a Bing Maps Key

"...The Basic Key is for use with consumer-facing, education, and non-profit applications as well as for internal commercial Windows or Windows Phone applications that qualify for free use.
  • Public website, mobile apps that are not on/for the Windows Phone: Maximum 125,000 cumulative billable transactions within any 12-month period at no charge.
  • Public Windows app and Windows Phone apps: Maximum 50,000 cumulative billable transactions within any 24-hour period.
  • Applications used by authenticated enterprise users (employees or agents of the enterprise) over a private network.
  • Maximum 125,000 cumulative billable transactions within any 12-month period at no charge."

plotly.js: declarative charting library

plotly/plotly.js · GitHub

"Built on top of d3.js and stack.gl, plotly.js is a high-level, declarative charting library. plotly.js ships with 20 chart types, including 3D charts, statistical graphs, and SVG maps."


"JavaScript library for scientific interactive charts"
Getting Started with Plotly.js

Wednesday, November 25, 2015

Visual Studio Code += PowerShell

PowerShell/vscode-powershell · GitHub

Provides PowerShell language and debugging support for Visual Studio Code
Visual Studio Marketplace




Powershell in VS Code - MS Dev Show Podcast



Visual Cryptography

Visual Cryptography
"Visual Cryptography is a technique that allows information (images, text, diagrams …) to be encrypted using an encoding system that can be decrypted by the eyes. It does not require a computer to decode."

link from:
Powershell in VS Code - MS Dev Show Podcast

Tuesday, November 24, 2015

Microsoft Graph: Unified Office 365 API

Microsoft Graph - Home
The easiest way to call Microsoft APIs
Users, Groups, Mail, Calendars, Contacts, Files,
Tasks, People, Notes and more —— all from a single endpoint.


Microsoft Graph - Documentation - overview
"Microsoft Graph (previously called Office 365 unified API) exposes multiple APIs from Microsoft cloud services through a single REST API endpoint (https://graph.microsoft.com). Using the Microsoft Graph, you can turn formerly difficult or complex queries into simple navigations."

Microsoft Graph API developer stack.

There is a potential naming confusion, since there is Azure AD Graph API that is an API for accessing Azure Active Directory (that by the way is different from Windows Active Directory :)


Today at Connect 1


Monday, November 23, 2015

desktop web platfrom: Electron.io

"Brackets" web editor by Adobe is also based on Electron.io platfrom.
There are 27 tools currently listed that are based on this Chrome+node.js tool,
including Microsoft VisualStudio Code.

Electron.io
"Build cross platform desktop apps with web technologies
Formerly known as Atom Shell. Made by GitHub."

Sunday, November 22, 2015

ASP.NET 5 Webinar

ASP.NET 5 Webinar by Shawn Wildermuth @ Pluralsight
Source Code



Upgrading ASP.NET 5 Beta 8 to RC1

ASP.NET 5 Kestrel Web Server


"ASP.NET 5 comes with built-in support for running on IIS (Microsoft.AspNet.Server.IIS), directly on a thin HTTP.SYS wrapper (Microsoft.AspNet.Server.Web­Listener), and on a new .NET cross-platform Web server called Kestrel (Microsoft.AspNet.Server.Kestrel).
...
The Katana Project (katanaproject.codeplex.com) was Microsoft’s initial effort to implement support for OWIN, and many of the ideas and concepts in ASP.NET 5 were derived from it. Katana had a similar model for building up a middleware pipeline and for hosting on multiple servers. However, unlike Katana, which exposed the low-level OWIN abstractions directly to the developer, ASP.NET 5 instead bridges from OWIN to more convenient and user-friendly abstractions. With a little extra code you can still use Katana middleware in ASP.NET 5 using the OWIN bridge"

NuGet Gallery | Microsoft.AspNet.Server.Kestrel 1.0.0-rc1-final

aspnet/KestrelHttpServer · GitHub
"a web server for ASP.NET 5 based on libuv.
This project is part of ASP.NET 5"



libuv is a multi-platform support library with a focus on asynchronous I/O. It was primarily developed for use by Node.js, but it's also used by Luvit, Julia, pyuv, and others.
libuv


Bootstrap templates and fonts

Bootswatch: Free themes for Bootstrap

Clean Canvas

SB Admin - Free Bootstrap Admin Template - Start Bootstrap
A Bootstrap 3 admin theme featuring powerful jQuery plugins to extend the functionality of the Bootstrap framework.
Free Bootstrap 3 Themes and Templates

SB Admin 2 - Free Bootstrap Admin Theme - Start Bootstrap

Simple Sidebar - Bootstrap Sidebar Template - Start Bootstrap

Bootstrap · The world's most popular mobile-first and responsive front-end framework.

Font Awesome, the iconic font and CSS toolkit

Font Awesome Icons


Saturday, November 21, 2015

State of the Cloud and Container Ecosystems

Structure 2015 - State of the Cloud and Container Ecosystems @ InfoQ

Structure 2015 Livestream - Structure Events

All of Adrian Cockcroft's Content on InfoQ

"...Docker wasn’t on anyone’s roadmap for 2014. It was on everyone’s roadmap for 2015..."


science of Martian

Podcasts interviews with Andy Weir about his book "Martian"
Andy Weir is a software engineer that was aspiring to write science fiction.
For years he has published blog with small stories, that eventually become a self published book on Amazon, and i a very short time become a best seller and a movie.
The science in the book is real, validated by a community of Andy's readers.
Suggested next step: a science textbook based on this book.

Andy Weir: The Red Planet for Real - The Long Now
"Andy Weir's self-published novel The Martian has become a New York Timesbestseller and the #1 movie in America. But it began with a series of blog posts that reflected Andy's lifelong love of space science and detailed research about traveling to and surviving on the fourth planet in our Solar System... (in this interview) Andy skip the fiction and talk about the details of how a real world mission to reach and colonize Mars would work."

GGG#169: Andy Weir | Geek's Guide to the Galaxy - Science Fiction Writer Interviews, Movie Reviews, Fantasy/Horror/Sci-Fi Books and Writing



a detailed commentary about science and technology of the book and the movie:
The Martian Geek Out @ .NET Rocks! vNext

How Andy Weir’s The Martian became so successful - Business Insider






Friday, November 20, 2015

AI: smart swarms vs stupid herds (!)

Fascinating science:
  • "swarms" : groups that communicate in parallel, together, are much smarter than individuals (bees)
  • "herds" : groups where individuals follow one another are just larger, but less smart than individuals (sheep). 
The difference: in "team thinking" there is interactive engagement where individuals of community considers many options in parallel, like small magnets. In "follower" model, individual contribution is much less. So key is in the techniques of communication.

Big idea: to enhance human intelligence by effective communication, to be a viable competition to machine artificial intelligence.

Unanimous AI CEO Dr. Louis Rosenberg on Human Swarming @ Singularity 1 on 1

"...company Unanimous AI; the definition of a swarm and its differences from both a herd and a crowd; his platform computer interface for human swarming called UNU; predicting the Oscars with a human swarm; flocks of birds and schools of fish versus swarms of bees; swarms of experts as a super-expert; Miguel Nicolelis‘ brain-to-brain computers; collective intelligence

...Rosenberg has been awarded more than 300 patents for his technological efforts."
Unanimous AI CEO Dr. Louis Rosenberg on Human Swarming - YouTube

SWARM 2

unanimous.ai


"don't just chat together, think together"


API testing tool: Postman

Postman | Supercharge your API workflow

"Build, test, and document your APIs faster. More than a million developers already do."

Thursday, November 19, 2015

Azure Resource Explorer

Introducing Azure Resource Explorer for the Azure Resource Management APIs - Scott Hanselman

"Go hit http://resources.azure.com/ and login with your Azure Credentials. It's an Object Explorer if you've ever used Visual Studio to move around a large object model, except this is a resource try of all the hypermedia nodes within your view of Azure."

Azure Resource Explorer

Azure Resource Explorer: a new tool to discover the Azure API | Microsoft Azure Blog
Azure Resource Explorer - YouTube

Alternatives: There's a PowerShell interface to Azure, this xplat nodejs one I'm using, as well as other libraries like the Azure Management Libraries for .NET again, all calling the backend REST API.
Managing the Cloud from the Command Line - Scott Hanselman
Azure command line format

Amazon tablet < $50

Amazon Fire review - CNET
"THE BOTTOM LINE The Amazon Fire is a fine tablet for casual use,
but it's not a good tablet, it's just good for the price."

$50 Fire - Amazon's Official Site - Learn More @ Amazon

Amazon reveals its 2015 Black Friday deals - CNET
$34.99 Fire 7-inch tablet (regularly $50)





ML book online free: Understanding Machine Learning: From Theory to Algorithms

Like open source for software, more and more books are becoming available as "online free for personal use". Next step: collaborative, evolving Wiki "Books"

www.cs.huji.ac.il/~shais/UnderstandingMachineLearning/copy.html
Understanding Machine Learning: From Theory to Algorithms
Free Online Copy











link from Hacker News

Wednesday, November 18, 2015

event: Microsoft Connect(); // 2015, ASP.NET 5 (!)

Microsoft Connect (); // 2015 Developer Event Set for November 18-19 - The Visual Studio Blog - Site Home - MSDN Blogs

image

http://www.visualstudio.com/connect2015

Channel 9: Videos about the people building Microsoft Products & Services

Scott Guthrie's Keynote: The Future of Microsoft Tools and Services for the New Role of Developers | Connect(); // 2015 | Channel 9




Scott Hanselman's Keynote: The Microsoft Cloud Platform for Developers | Connect(); // 2015 | Channel 9

Introducing ASP.NET 5 and Web Tooling | Connect(); // 2015 | Channel 9

Announcing ASP.NET 5 Release Candidate 1 - .NET Web Development and Tools Blog - Site Home - MSDN Blogs

Get ASP.NET

ASP.NET 5 is now RC level with "go live" license and full support, on Windows, Linux and Mac!
Demo of ASP.NET 5 running on a Docker container on Linux on Azure:
http://healthclinic.eastus.cloudapp.azure.com/

ASP.NET 5 Documentation — ASP.NET 0.0.1 documentation

Microsoft open sources its Visual Studio Code light-weight editor | ZDNet
Microsoft/vscode · GitHub
There are plugins for VS Code for many languages, including Go, Pascal etc.

News and Announcements at Connect(); //2015 - The Visual Studio Blog - Site Home - MSDN Blogs

"Visual Studio Dev Essentials is a new, free program that brings together everything developers need to create applications on any device or operating system including Visual Studio Community and Visual Studio Code, and the free tier of Visual Studio Team Services. Dev Essentials adds priority forum support, training services from Pluralsight (3-6 months free!), Wintellect, and Xamarin, and—something that many have asked for—monthly credits to use in Azure, which will be coming in early 2016. You can find all the details on
https://www.visualstudio.com/products/free-developer-offers-vs."



Azure chat with Scott Guthrie

A Lap Around Azure with Scott Guthrie | DEVIntersection 2015 | Channel 9



The best way to improve a product or service: let its top managers try to use it!
ScottGu!




Web Components with Aurelia(.js)

A very nice introduction to Aurelia by its creator...
19 people on the core team, that is almost Angular-size :)

Rob Eisenberg on Aurelia | DEVIntersection 2015 | Channel 9



Aurelia

Building Applications with Aurelia | Pluralsight
by Scott Allen
"Aurelia is a next generation JavaScript framework using the newest versions of the JavaScript language. In this course, we'll demonstrate the simple conventions to follow with Aurelia to build a rich web application."

Announcing Aurelia with Rob Eisenberg @ .NET Rocks! vNext

Tuesday, November 17, 2015

AI TensorFlow @ AWS GPUs

A few days ago Google released open source AI toolkit,
and it is already available to run on Amazon Web Services.
Expect Azure version soon...

tensorflow/README.md at master · pavlovml/tensorflow · GitHub

"Play with TensorFlow on a real GPU. This is a fork of TensorFlow with support for AWS G2 instances using CUDA 7.0. The NVIDIA GRID K520 cards these instances have use CUDA Compute 3.0 which is not currently supported by TensorFlow, but as far as I can tell they still work."

AI book online free: Multiagent Systems

Multiagent Systems

"Multiagent systems consist of multiple autonomous entities having different information and/or diverging interests. This comprehensive introduction to the field offers a computer science perspective, but also draws on ideas from game theory, economics, operations research, logic, philosophy and linguistics. It will serve as a reference for researchers in each of these fields, and be used as a text for advanced undergraduate and graduate courses."



Yoav Shoham  Stanford University
Kevin Leyton-Brown  University of British Columbia

Monday, November 16, 2015

Azure Service Fabric

Introducing Azure Service Fabric @ InfoQ

"Microsoft has been working on Service Fabric for the past 5-6 years as it is foundational in their own cloud platform; Microsoft Azure. Azure Service Fabric supports many of Microsoft’s cloud services that run on top of it...

"Azure Service Fabric... is a state-of-the-art distributed system that allows developers to easily build and manage Internet scale services. It is used to build services such as Azure DB, Azure Document DB, Bing Cortana, Windows Intune, and core Azure services"

asm.js: super fast JavaScript chess playing demo

Supercharging JavaScript performance with asm.js | Microsoft Edge Dev Blog

"Asm.js is a strict subset of JavaScript that can be used as a low-level and efficient compile target. It applies constraints such as static typing to enable opportunities for optimizations, such as type specialized compilation without bailouts and ahead-of-time (AOT) compilation. These optimizations allow asm.js code to have near-native performance and predictable behavior. A popular way of using asm.js is porting C/C++ projects to asm.js with Emscripten (an LLVM to JavaScript compiler).

... because the asm.js-optimized engine has a significant performance advantage, it can evaluate more moves per turn and has a substantially higher likelihood of victory"





A Guide for Learning: 10 Steps / Principles

There are many attempts to accelerate and improve learning.
In most cases "self help" books come as a result of personal research
and are "prescriptive heuristics," "trust us this works" methods.
On the other side, strict scientific research is usually abstract and not practically usable.

So learning process is left to empirical experimentation, "learning on own mistakes"
and following hints from various sources. Not very effective, to say the least.
There are almost no learning resource, physical or online, that starts or contains a "mental map"
and "learning path". What a waste, and also an opportunity to improve.

Leaning materials should come with a "users guide."
Preferably such content would be structured ("a graph"), open / editable / web based,
and self-improving based observation of many users.
And it should not be a "linear" "waterfall" method anymore:
software development has perfected many better, agile iterative methods.

Anyway, here are a few interesting resources about learning techniques:

Deliberate Practice (learning method) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
"...how expert one becomes at a skill has more to do with how one practices 
than with merely performing a skill a large number of times. 
An expert breaks down the skills that are required to be expert
and focuses on improving those skill chunks during practice or day-to-day activities,
often paired with immediate coaching feedback.
Another important feature of deliberate practice lies in
continually practicing a skill at more challenging levels with the intention of mastering it."
 


The First 20 Hours - Josh Kaufman - How to Learn Anything FAST

Summary of The First 20 Hours, by Josh Kaufman | Pablo's miscellany
Ten major principles of rapid skill acquisition:
  1. Choose a lovable project.
  2. Focus your energy on one skill at a time.
  3. Define your target performance level.
  4. Deconstruct the skill into subskills.
  5. Obtain critical tools.
  6. Eliminate barriers to practice.
  7. Make dedicated time for practice.
  8. Create fast feedback loops.
  9. Practice by the clock in short bursts.
  10. Emphasize quantity and speed.
Ten principles of effective learning:
  1. Research the skill and related topics.
  2. Jump in over your head.
  3. Identify mental models and mental hooks.
  4. Imagine the opposite of what you want.
  5. Talk to practitioners to set expectations.
  6. Eliminate distractions in your environment.
  7. Use spaced repetition and reinforcement for memorization.
  8. Create scaffolds and checklists.
  9. Make and test predictions.
  10. Honor your biology.
a new material by John Sonmez of SimpleProgrammer.com


  1. Get the Big Picture 
  2. Determine the Scope 
  3. Define Success 
  4. Find Resources 
  5. Create a Learning Plan 
  6. Filter Resources 
  7. Learn Enough To Get Started 
  8. Play Around 
  9. Learn Enough To Do Something Useful 
  10. Teach


Cover image for Pragmatic Thinking and Learning

Sunday, November 15, 2015

ML open source: Microsoft DMTK, Azure certificate

DMTK, a Machine Learning Toolkit from Microsoft


"About the same time Google announced open sourcing TensorFlow, Microsoft has pushed to GitHub DMTK, a Distributed Machine Learning Toolkit...

DMTK is a parameter server framework for training machine learning models with large amounts of data on a cluster of machines, taking care of data storage and operation, inter-process and inter-thread communication. DMTK was written in C++, comes with a client API and SDK and it uses ZeroMQ and/or MPI for communication."




note: currently "there is a problem with this website’s security certificate...
This server could not prove that it is https://www.dmtk.io; its security certificate is from*.azurewebsites.net."

Web sites on Azure by default run on "azurewebsites.net" domain. 
So when a web site has assigned custom domain but not a custom certificate, web browsers get upset. So if no custom certificate is available, it may be better to just redirect for HTTPS, or use HTTP.


photo: Alpamayo

Alpamayo - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
"Alpamayo (in hispanicized spelling), Allpamayu (Quechua allpa earth, mayu river,[1] "earth river") or Shuyturahu(Ancash Quechua huytu, shuytu oblong, slim and long, Quechua rahu snow, ice, mountain with snow, "slim and long snow-covered mountain")[2][3][4] is one of the most conspicuous peaks in the Cordillera Blanca of the Peruvian Andes. It is named after the river Allpamayu which originates northwest of it.
...
On July 1966, on the German magazine "Alpinismus", a photo made by American photographer Leigh Ortenburger, came together with an article resulting from an international survey among climbers, photographers, etc., making the choice for Alpamayo as "The Most Beautiful Mountain in the World".

Alpamayo.jpg



music: Viva La Vida on Cellos

Viva la Vida - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Viva La Vida - Coldplay - Google Play Music



Coldplay - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia



2CELLOS



Our Story — String Theory Cellos




Saturday, November 14, 2015

Microsoft Productivity Future Vision (!)

Productivity Future Vision



A Look Behind the Latest Envisioning Video | Larry Larsen | Channel 9


Roles vs Groups: Azure Role Based Access Control (RBAC)


Group vs role (Any real difference?) - Stack Overflow

"A group is a collection of users with a given set of permissions assigned to the group (and transitively, to the users).
A role is a collection of permissions, and a user effectively inherits those permissions when he acts under that role.
...
Typically your group membership remains during the duration of your login.
A role, on the other hand, can be activated according to specific conditions.
...
Roles can be activated by time of day, location of access. 
Roles can also be enhanced/associated with attributes.
You might be operating as 'physician', but if you do not have a 'primary physician' attribute or relation with me (a user with 'patient' role), then you cannot see my entirety of medical history."

Azure Active Directory AD Role-based Access Control | Microsoft Azure

"Access is granted by assigning the appropriate RBAC role to users, groups, and applications, at the right scope. To grant access to the entire subscription, assign a role at the subscription scope. To grant access to a specific resource group within a subscription, assign a role at the resource group scope. You may assign roles at specific resources too, like websites, virtual machines and subnets, to grant access only to a resource."


RBAC: Built in Roles | Microsoft Azure

Azure RBAC is GA! - Active Directory Blog - Site Home - TechNet Blogs

RBAC and the Azure Resource Manager - Cloud Solution Architect - Site Home - MSDN Blogs

Role-Based Access Control | Security content from Windows IT Pro
"In the RBAC model, role-enabled applications query the RBAC policy database or the associated access control authority to determine whether a user has permission to perform a particular action."



Friday, November 13, 2015

Microsoft Agile

Surprise: Microsoft Is Agile - Forbes
"Microsoft’s Developer Division, ... was less like a giant battleship and more like a flotilla of speedboats operating and maneuvering in an orchestrated fashion."
Microsoft-BeforeSiteVisitMicrosoft-AfterSiteVisit-r1

Autonomy, Mastery and Purpose

Microsoft-BicyclesVsFerraris

Microsoft's 16 Keys To Being Agile At Scale - Forbes

"The teams don’t blindly follow what customers say. They have what they call “the cookie principle.” If you have a plate of cookies and you ask people if they want one, they will say yes. No one turns down a cookie. If you go to a customer and ask them, “Do you want this feature?” guess what they say? Why wouldn’t they? It’s the innovator’s dilemma. There’s a whole bunch of good stuff out there that you could do. You need to listen, but not blindly follow."

Wednesday, November 11, 2015

Azure Stack resources

Azure in Your Datacenter | Microsoft
"Microsoft Azure Stack brings proven innovation from Microsoft’s hyper-scale public cloud into your datacenter, providing agility and productivity for application owners, flexibility and control for IT, and assurance that corporate assets are protected."

#AzureStack @ #MSIgnite - Blog D'Joy - Site Home - TechNet Blogs

Microsoft Brings the Next Generation of Hybrid Cloud - Azure to Your Datacenter - Microsoft Server and Cloud Platform Blog - Site Home - TechNet Blogs

Windows Azure Pack to Become Azure Stack | Azure content from Windows IT Pro


Magic Quadrant for Cloud Infrastructure as a Service, Worldwide
Figure 1.Magic Quadrant for Cloud Infrastructure as a Service, Worldwide

Tesla Model S: Autopilot, Machine Learning

Model S | Tesla Motors



Autopilot allows Model S to steer within a lane, change lanes with the simple tap of a turn signal, and manage speed by using active, traffic-aware cruise control. Digital control of motors, brakes, and steering helps avoid collisions from the front and sides, as well as preventing the car from wandering off the road. Model S can also scan for a parking space, alert you when one is available, and parallel park on command.

The Autopilot is learning fast: Model S owners are already reporting that Tesla’s Autopilot is self-improving | Electrek

"During the press conference for the release of the Autopilot, Tesla CEO Elon Musk referred to each Model S owners as an “expert trainer” – meaning that each driver will train the autonomous features of the system to feed the collective network intelligence of the fleet by simply driving the electric vehicle on Autopilot.

He said that the system should improve every day, but that improvements might only become noticeable every week or so by adding up. Just a few weeks after the release, Model S owners are already taking to the Tesla Motors Club forum to describe how the Autopilot is improving…"



Tuesday, November 10, 2015

Azure hybrid storage: StorSimple

StorSimple overview | Microsoft
  • "Cloud storage is used to offload inactive data from on-premises and for storing backup and archive data
  • Inline deduplication and compression reduce storage growth rates and increase storage utilization
  • Solid state drives (SSD) deliver low-cost input/output"
StorSimple Documentation | Azure


AI, ML, MI: Toyota $1B, Google TensorFlow, BrainRank (!)

Here's Why Toyota Is Spending $1 Billion On AI In Silicon Valley - Fortune
"Toyota Motor Co is getting serious with its work on autonomous cars and robotics. The world’s largest automaker said Friday it will invest $1 billion over the next five years in a new research center for Artificial Intelligence to be based in Silicon Valley"


In the meantime Google already has working self-driving cars, as well as Tesla Motors. 
And Google is using AI to enhance its search algorithms and everything else...

The terminology is also shifting slightly, Artificial Intelligence, then Machine Learning,
and now is Machine Intelligence

Home — TensorFlow
"TensorFlow is an Open Source Software Library for Machine Intelligence"
"TensorFlow™ is an open source software library for numerical computation using data flow graphs. Nodes in the graph represent mathematical operations, while the graph edges represent the multidimensional data arrays (tensors) communicated between them. The flexible architecture allows you to deploy computation to one or more CPUs or GPUs in a desktop, server, or mobile device with a single API. TensorFlow was originally developed by researchers and engineers working on the Google Brain Team within Google's Machine Intelligence research organization for the purposes of conducting machine learning and deep neural networks research, but the system is general enough to be applicable in a wide variety of other domains as well."Tensors Flowing

download.tensorflow.org/paper/whitepaper2015.pdf

Google Just Open Sourced TensorFlow, Its Artificial Intelligence Engine | WIRED

TensorFlow, Google's Open Source AI, Signals Big Changes in Hardware Too | WIRED
"IN OPEN SOURCING its artificial intelligence engine—freely sharing one of its most important creations with the rest of the Internet—Google showed how the world of computer software is changing."

Google Turning Its Lucrative Web Search Over to AI Machines - Bloomberg Business

"RankBrain is the nickname given to the proprietary artificial intelligence (or AI) used by Google to handle search queries. The AI may never be given a formal name, or maybe RankBrain will stick, but for now, it’s the name being used for the artificial intelligence that’s handling 15% of Google’s search volume.
An important distinction to be aware of is that RankBrain is not (currently) a standalone technology at Google – it’s incorporated directly into the existing algorithm that Google uses to rank web pages. "



Monday, November 09, 2015

SSD++: WD+=SanDisk, Intel/Micron 3D XPoint, Samsung SSD 950 PRO

There is only a few very large manufacturers of flash memory and SSD drives,
and even smaller number of remaining manufacturers of HDDs.

One trend are hybrid SSD+HDD drives (by Seagate).
With a $19B purchase of SunDisk WD can prepare for migration to SSDs.

But the technology is moving fast, and Intel + Micron have announced
a new type of permanent memory that is 1000 times faster than SSD
(while SSDs are 1000 times faster than HDD). Apparently coming in 2016.

In the meantime, the fastest SSDs are available from Samsung,
and only in "M.2" form factor, no SATA anymore, it is too large and too slow...

All this will even more accelerate "Cloud" storage and processing.
A few huge storage factories for a few huge clouds :)

Here's why Western Digital is buying SanDisk | Computerworld
Western Digital SanDisk hard drive SD card

This new 3D XPoint memory could last forever | Computerworld

3D XPoint™ Technology Revolutionizes Storage Memory - YouTube


SanDisk, Toshiba double down, announce the world's highest capacity 3D NAND flash chips | Computerworld

Samsung SSD 950 PRO Overview | Samsung SSD

Samsung unveils 15TB SSD based on densest flash memory | Computerworld

Sunday, November 08, 2015

cloud data: Ingress vs Egress price

Azure network traffic is paid only when leaving the Azure network (egress),
and network traffic to Azure (ingress) is free.

Traffic between Azure data centers is free between data centers in the same region ("Local Redundant"), and it is paid for transfer between data centers in different regions ("Geo Redundant")

define:ingress - Google Search  a place or means of access; an entrance.
define:egress - Google Search the action of going out of or leaving a place.

What is Ingress Traffic? Webopedia
Network traffic that originates from outside of the networks routers and
proceeds toward a destination inside of the network.

What is Egress Traffic? Webopedia
Network traffic that begins inside of a network and proceeds through its routers
to a destination somewhere outside of the network


In simpler terms, upload to Azure is free, download from Azure is paid (but relatively not expensive). The lowest price $0.07 per GB for monthly traffic above 100 TB.
So what would be a price of YouTube like service traffic over Azure?

480p : 5.50 MB / minute
720p : 8.57 MB / minute
1080p 15.96 MB / minute (that is almost 1GB / hour)

New Google service YouTube "Red" consts 10/month for unlimited add-free videos (and music).
Apparently Google keeps about 40+% of the revenue, and remaining is shared with content creators.
With Azure prices that is $4/month for traffic, for total of 57 GB.
So in average users need to watch less than 2 hours/day for service to be profitable...
Most likely Google's (or Netflix) internal cost is much lower...






Saturday, November 07, 2015

Azure Caching: Redis

ScottGu's Blog - Azure: Redis Cache, Disaster Recovery to Azure, Tagging Support, Elastic Scale for SQLDB, DocDB
"Unlike traditional caches which deal only with key-value pairs, Redis is popular for its support of high performancedata types, on which you can perform atomic operations such as appending to a string, incrementing the value in a hash, pushing to a list, computing set intersection, union and difference, or getting the member with highest ranking in a sorted set. Other features include support for transactions, pub/sub, Lua scripting, keys with a limited time-to-live, and configuration settings to make Redis behave more like a traditional cache."

Microsoft AppFabric 1.1 for Windows Server Ends Support 4/2/2016 - AppFabric Team Blog - Site Home - MSDN Blogs
"recommend all Microsoft AppFabric customers using Cache to move to Microsoft Azure Redis Cache."
Azure Redis Cache - Redis cache cloud service | Microsoft Azure

Trying Redis Caching as a Service on Windows Azure - Scott Hanselman

Using Redis as a Service in Azure to speed up ASP.NET applications - Scott Hanselman

Redis - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
"Redis is a data structure server. It is open-source, networked, in-memory, and stores keys with optional durability. The development of Redis has been sponsored by Redis Labs since June 2015.[3] Before that, it was sponsored by Pivotal Software[4] and by VMware.[5][6] According to the monthly ranking by DB-Engines.com, Redis is the most popular key-value database.[7] Redis has also been ranked the #1 NoSQL (and #4 database) in User Satisfaction and Market Presence based on user reviews,[8] the most popular NoSQL database in containers,[9] and the #2 NoSQL among Top 50 Developer Tools & Services.[10] The name Redis means REmote DIctionary Server."

Redis Logo.svg