Monday, February 29, 2016

Stack Overflow: The Architecture

Nick Craver - Stack Overflow: The Architecture - 2016 Edition
  • 209,420,973 (+61,336,090) HTTP requests to our load balancer
  • 3,084,303,599,266 (+1,958,311,041,954) bytes (3.08 TB) total sent
  • 4 Microsoft SQL Servers (new hardware for 2 of them)
  • 11 IIS Web Servers (new hardware)
  • needing only 1 web server...unintentionally tested this
Logical Overview

Languages Translation (human and computer)

Languages - Google Translate: more tan 100 languages!
  • TYPE: Just use your keyboard.
  • TALK: Have a bilingual conversation.
  • SNAP: Translate images of text in a different language.
  • SEE: Use your phone’s camera to see instant translations.
  • WRITE: Draw letters or characters with your finger.
  • OFFLINE: Get text translations without a data connection.
Bing Translator





Great progress on a hard problem of translating human languages...
and very little progress on what should be easier: translating between programming languages. 
Even translating between .NET and JVM languages, that are using same byte-code, is rarely available and unreliable. An opportunity for Google (or Microsoft Research)?
The best hope may be JavaScript: there are compilers to JS for many languages... 
Ideally, there should be "semantic" translation from human languages to computer code (and reverse)
And then from "functional code" to "nice code" to "fast code"... 
Once automation starts, progress in SW will be much faster.




Snippet Converter for .NET 4.0 (C#, VB.NET, Boo, Python, Ruby)


"Rosetta Code is a programming chrestomathy site. The idea is to present solutions to the same task in as many different languages as possible, to demonstrate how languages are similar and different, and to aid a person with a grounding in one approach to a problem in learning another."

Sunday, February 28, 2016

big data: Azure Data Lake

informative podcast interview:
Azure Data Lake - MS Dev Show Podcast
  • 2.7 Zetabytes of data exist in the digital universe today. (Source)
  • 235 Terabytes of data has been collected by the U.S. Library of Congress in April 2011. (Source)
  • Walmart handles more than 1 million customer transactions every hour, which is imported into databases estimated to contain more than 2.5 petabytes of data. (Source)
Microsoft has tested creating a single file of 5 PB no problem in Azure Data Lake




Bootstrap Admin Theme + morris.js charting lib

SB Admin 2 - Free Bootstrap Admin Theme - Start Bootstrap
Free Bootstrap 3 Themes and Templates


from course: Understanding ASP.NET Core | Pluralsight

fishtankapp.azurewebsites.net

morris.js
"good-looking charts shouldn't be difficult"
Based on Raphael.js library
BSD license

C3.js (that depends on D3.js) may still be a better option,
even though Raphael.js works on older browsers also. 


new Morris.Line({
  element: 'myfirstchart',
  data: [
    { year: '2008', value: 20 },
    { year: '2009', value: 10 },
    { year: '2010', value: 5 },
    { year: '2011', value: 5 },
    { year: '2012', value: 20 }
  ],
  xkey: 'year',
  ykeys: ['value'],
  labels: ['Value']
});


Saturday, February 27, 2016

Azure Storage Explorer (tools)

new tool: Microsoft Azure Storage Explorer (2016, JavaScript, Electron)
"for OS X, Linux, and Windows (and it's free)"
Screenshot
"Microsoft Azure Storage Explorer (Preview) is a standalone app from Microsoft that allows you to easily work with Azure Storage data. The Preview release currently supports Azure Blobs only. Tables, queues, and files are coming soon."Releases · Azure/deco (older open source version)


old tool: Azure Storage Explorer - Home (2014, C# WPF)
"Azure Storage Explorer is not actively maintained and only receives updates about once a year.
You may want to consider Microsoft's Azure Storage Explorer (a different tool) 

http://storageexplorer.com"




Azure Data Storage options (free ebook)

1 - Data Storage for Modern High-Performance Business Applications
@ MSDN patterns & practices
...
3 - Implementing a Relational Database
4 - Implementing a Key/Value Store
5 - Implementing a Document Database
6 - Implementing a Column-Family Database
Azure: Pattern : Data Storage

Azure Storage Resources






PlaNet: Google AI photo geolocation

This Google A.I. Can Figure Out Where Almost Any Photo Was Taken - Forbes



"the team divided the globe into about 26,000 squares of differing sizes based on how many photos from the data set were taken in the area.
...
PlaNet is able to localize 3.6% of the images at street-level accuracy and 10.1% at city-level accuracy. 28.4% of the photos are correctly localized at country level and 48.0% at continent level,”

Visual programming languages (Blockly...)

Visual programming language - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


google/blockly: The web-based visual programming editor. @ GitHub

FAQ | Blockly | Google Developers
"Why are graphics better than text?
Novice programmers are fighting two battles at once: the fight to translate their ideas into logical statements, and the fight to keep the syntax legal. Blockly makes it completely impossible to make a syntax error. There are no unbalanced parentheses, no unescaped strings, no missing semicolons. Blockly allows novice programmers to concentrate on the logic.

... 
Blockly has been under full-time development at Google since 2011."

Friday, February 26, 2016

"Soundslice": Music sheets on Web

Soundslice | Living sheet music (using SVG, and playing music!)
"Learn and teach music better with our interactive notation."

Soundslice features

Thursday, February 25, 2016

new Native Prog. Languages: Go, Rust, Swift, C# core

Beyond the Hype: 4 Years of Go in Production @ InfoQ
GoLang 2 servers vs Ruby 30 servers (in production)

The Computer Language Benchmarks Game

Go vs Java (64-bit Ubuntu quad core) | Computer Language Benchmarks Game
In most of tests Go is faster than Java.

Go vs Node vs Rust vs Swift
Interesting... Even Python is apparently using LLVM to compile to native code (pypy).
Even .NET core is using LLVM for compiling to native code on Linux.
Apple's Swift language is created by Chris Lattner, same person who created LLVM.
And while Go and C# are still using GC even when compile to native code, 
Swift is using reference counting, that is more predictable than GC. 
Result: solid performance, so it may be a good language for sever and system programming also.
Even Rust is based on LLVM.

Swift vs Go vs Python battle

first
Less time is better on this chart:
third

IBM Pushes Swift for the Cloud with Swift Runtime, Package Catalog, and More

Introducing the IBM Swift Sandbox - Swift



Wednesday, February 24, 2016

Microsoft += Xamarin

Microsoft to buy app-development startup Xamarin - MarketWatch
"Xamarin ... raised $82 million in three funding rounds from venture-capital firms
... person close to the deal pegged the price at between $400 million and $500 million"


ScottGu's Blog - Welcoming the Xamarin team to Microsoft

Microsoft’s Acquisition of Xamarin is Good News for C# Developers @ InfoQ

Mobile App Development & App Creation Software - Xamarin

Tuesday, February 23, 2016

'Augmented Reality' phone: Google Tango + Lenovo

Lenovo aims to crack mainstream in July with new 'augmented reality' phone | afr.com
"China's Lenovo Group is ready to break into mature markets this summer with the launch of its new smartphone which sports "augmented reality" features developed under Google's Tango project, its chief executive said on Tuesday.
...
Project Tango combines 3D motion tracking with depth sensors to give a mobile device the ability to know where it is and how it moves through an area, creating the potential to use augmented reality features on the phone.
Augmented reality software then overlays text or graphics on the real-life image. It differs from virtual reality, which seels to simulate real-world views."

A few extra cameras on the phone:
Lenovo will launch a new smartphone which sports 'augmented reality' features developed under Google's Tango project in July.


$512
"Project Tango combines 3D motion tracking with depth sensing to give your mobile device the ability to know where it is and how it moves through space."

IoT Printers with Amazon Dash

Samsung printers automatically re-order ink with Amazon Dash
"Amazon didn't stop at handy buttons for its Dash re-ordering tech. Back in January, the company announced a collection of devices that leverage the system to automatically order supplies when you're running low. That lineup includes a number of printers from Brother that take care of ink refills when levels begin to disappear. Amazon has now added four Samsung printers to the fold, tapping Dash Replenishment to make sure you're able to continue putting ink to paper as needed."

"After purchasing one of the four Samsung printers, you can tell the device to monitor the ink levels and re-order from Amazon should the need arise."


Learn More from Brother

Monday, February 22, 2016

Flow: Science of Ultimate Human Performance

The Rise of Superman
Flow = balance of Boredom vs Anxiety + 4%
mastering flow cycle: 4 step process

book review & interview: The Rise of Superman | Brian Johnson


The Rise of Superman | The Rise of Superman

slides: The Rise of Superman: 17 Flow Triggers @ slideshare

Steven Kotler - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Optimized Brain: A Workshop on Flow States with Steven Kotler | Big Think
Flow Genome Project « The Official Source For Flow Science And Training
Why does Flow matter?

Flow State of Mind Chart

another famous book from the same author:
Abundance: The Future Is Better Than You Think - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

quote: "No pressure, no diamonds." - Thomas Carlyle at BrainyQuote

Smartphone with Thermal Camera

CAT Announces S60 Rugged Smartphone with integrated FLIR Thermal Camera
"The key feature of the Cat S60 is its miniature thermal imaging camera based on the FLIR Lepton sensor (with 80×60 active pixels). The camera, which highlights temperature contrasts, can be used to identify over-heating electrical appliances and circuitry (or just check which computer components are the hottest ones and measure their actual temperature using a special application), detect heat loss around windows and doors, spot moisture and missing insulation and even see in complete darkness... The Cat S60 smartphone is based on the octo-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 617 system-on-chip... the smartphone can withstand drops onto concrete from up to 1.8 meters (MIL Spec 810G) and can even be used underwater (up to five meters depth) for one hour."


Sunday, February 21, 2016

Extensible: HP Windows Phones for Business

HP’s Elite x3 is a flagship sailing into a dangerous Windows phone wasteland | PCWorld
hp elite x3 with continuum feb 2016
  • "A 5.96-inch, 2560x1440 (WQHD) edge-to-edge display with Corning Gorilla Glass 4 and an anti-reflective coating
  • The brand-new Qualcomm Snapdragon 820 CPU with integrated Adreno GPU
  • 4GB of LPDDR-4 RAM
  • 64GB eMMC storage, SD extensible to 2TB
  • Cat 6 LTE (“Designed for continuity,” explained Park: “We know LTE is where things are going.”)
  • 8MP front-facing camera, 16MP rear-facing camera
  • Dual SIM slots 
  • A 4,150mAh battery (No life spec yet, but Park promised it would last “all day”)
  • Dimensions: 3.29x0.31x6.36 inches
  • Weight: 0.43 pounds (options could add weight)
  • Durable: passed IP-67 and MIL Standard 810G, including a four-foot drop"
video: HP Elite x3 is serious business

alternative: top consumer level Android phone
LG's G5 is a radical reinvention of the flagship Android smartphone | The Verge

Both have something in common: hardware extensions.

HP device can attach to external monitor and keyboard to act as a desktop,
and there is even a laptop-like shell to hold the phone inside.

HP Elite x3 smartphone for business is also a Windows laptop... or desktop - Liliputing


LG has extenders to work as a camera, a music device etc.


The "only" problem with this logic is the price. It is likely that for less money one can purchase
a decent phone and decent laptop, or a phone and a camera.

Azure IoT Hub

Microsoft Azure IoT Hub Reaches General Availability
"Microsoft has recently announced its Azure IoT Hub offering has reached general availability (GA)...
Azure IoT Hub is one of the foundational services that make up the Azure IoT Suite. The Azure IoT Hub service provides bi-directional communication between devices and the cloud. Devices may connect through a local field gateway when internet connectivity may not be available on the device or when a device only communicates in unsupported protocols such as ZigBee or Modbus. The field gateway, in turn, will communicate with the IoT Hub Cloud gateway. Alternatively, if a device supports HTTP(S) 1.1, MQTT 3.1.1 or AMQP 1.0 it can natively communicate with the IoT Hub Cloud gateway. Device SDKs are available for C/C#, Java, and JavaScript/Node.js."




Azure IoT Suite backend include:

Google Web Fonts

A never ending list of free fonts available on Google

Google Fonts

google/fonts: Font files available from Google Fonts @GitHub

Google Fonts - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Google Fonts (previously called Google Web Fonts) is an interactive directory of free hosted application programming interfaces for web fonts. It was launched in 2010,[1] and revamped in 2011.[2] Many of the fonts are released under the SIL Open Font License 1.1, while some are released under the Apache License; both arefree software licenses.


Not just 


link href="https://fonts.googleapis.com/css?family=Tangerine" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css"


Using Web Tangerine Font :)

Thursday, February 18, 2016

hack.summit() 2016

hack.summit() 2016
A Virtual Event for Developers
Presented by Pluralsight - February 22nd-24th, 2016
Featuring programming language creators,
open-source contributors, and thought leaders

The largest virtual conference in history
The largest programming conference in history
The largest hackathon in history
hack.summit() virtual hackathon ($150K in rewards)
February 20th and 21st, 2016


Microsoft to donate $1 billion in Azure resources

Azure Newsletter February 2016
"Last month, Microsoft chief executive officer, Satya Nadella, announced that Microsoft Philanthropies will donate $1 billion USD in cloud computing resources over the next three years to 70,000 nonprofits and NGOs worldwide. Three initiatives are part of this commitment: serving the broad computing, storage, and software needs of the nonprofit community; expanding access to cloud resources for faculty research in universities; and reaching new communities with last-mile connectivity and cloud services. For more information, be sure to read the blog post from Brad Smith, president and chief legal officer."

Wednesday, February 17, 2016

Microsoft MSR NExT research

page also features interesting text animation, by custom script using d3.js

How Microsoft Plans to Beat Google and Facebook to the Next Tech Breakthrough - Bloomberg 
Business

"To break down the walls between its research group and the rest of the company, Microsoft reassigned about half of its more than 1,000 research staff in September 2014 to a new group called MSR NExT. Its focus is on projects with greater impact to the company rather than pure research. Meanwhile, the other half of Microsoft Research is getting pushed to find more significant ways it can contribute to the company's products."


DraganSr.js: How Microsoft Plans to Beat Google and Facebook to the Next Tech Breakthrough


Animation works in Chrome and Edge, does not in Firefox

Tuesday, February 16, 2016

book: "Mindset" by Carol Dweck (!)


Mindset
Mindset | Brian Johnson (review)
"Carol Dweck, Ph.D is a Stanford Professor and one of the world’s leading authorities on the science of motivation."
  • Fixed vs Growth mindset
  • Effort is good
  • Genius is made (not born)
  • Feeling depressed (proving to be "smart")
  • Embrace failures! (to get better)

MindSet: A Book written by Carol Dweck. Teaching a growth mindset creates motivation and productivity in the worlds of business, education, and sports.

review of another book from Carol Dweck: Self-theories | Brian Johnson

Carol Dweck Revisits the 'Growth Mindset' - Education Week


a teaching program based on this, with a free trial option
Mindset Works®: Student Motivation through a Growth Mindset, by Carol Dweck, Ph.D.

Public Cloud Computing providers compared

Global location wars: Amazon vs. Microsoft vs. Google | InfoWorld

global cloud coverage

Cloud review: 8 public cloud services put to the test | InfoWorld

Microsoft Cloud (notice "Cloud", Azure is just a part of it, with Office 365 and Dynamics CRM)

Cloud Vendor Benchmark 2015 [PDF download]



There are more "clouds", that used to be "web hosting" providers
DigitalOcean - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Pricing | DigitalOcean
99.99% Uptime SLA, all VMs with SSD

Monday, February 15, 2016

podcast feeds: iTunes => RSS

Here is an online tool that converts iTunes feed to "standard" RSS feed
that can be used in non-Apple environments (web, Android, Windows)

Podcast URL Extractor (itunes.so-nik.com)

How to listen iTunes podcasts on Android - Android Enthusiasts Stack Exchange


visual: AzureLens.net with BabylonJS and WebGL

Mat Velloso's blog | Announcing the first alpha of AzureLens.net

www.azurelens.net
This allows the visualization of Azure based systems in a very cool way. More details on our GitHub repo: https://github.com/matvelloso/AzureLens/

MicrosoftDX/AzureLens @ GitHub



"This is an ASP.Net project meant to run on Visual Studio 2015. It's mostly C# and TypeScript. In order to run it, you will need the following dependencies:
  1. DocumentDB: This is where diagrams get stored. You need to point the web.config to your instance of DocumentDB (app settings)
  2. Azure Active Directory: In order to design diagrams, the user has to be authenticated against Azure AD. To thest the app locally you will need to setup your own Azure AD application and configure the settings (Client ID, Tenant, Audience and Password) in the web.config for it
  3. Azure blob storage: Setup an Azure blob storage and point the web.config (StorageConnectionString) to it."
using:
BabylonJS - 3D engine based on WebGL/Web Audio and JavaScript
WebGL. Simple. Powerful.
A complete JavaScript framework for building 3D games with HTML5, WebGL and Web Audio

books: "The Motivation Manifesto" & "Charge" by Brendon Burchard

The Motivation Manifesto
The Motivation Manifesto | Brian Johnson
  • "Motiv": a reason for doing something,
    from latin word "motivus" = "to move"
    motivation is "an engine for doing things", what drives us
  • Phases of motivation
    • "Spark" = ambition (desire)+ expectancy (belief)
    • "Sustain" = attention (often) + effort (persistent action)
    • "Amplify" = attitude + environment (including supportive people)
  • Digital Addictions (let go)
    • "reclaim our agenda" from distractions
  • Your manifesto (to write down)
    • your "mission" in life
    • high level "plan"
    • "steps" to do today
  • Qualities by which you want to be remembered
    • like "begin with the end in mind" habit from Stephen Covey
    • like a compass
    • connect back to today, to live with integrity
Brendon.com - YouTube by Brendon Burchard


Official Site Brendon Burchard. #1 New York Times Bestselling Author

Brendon Burchard - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

THE CHARGE, New Book by Brendon Burchard
"free book, pay for shipping and handling"

The Charge: Activating the 10 Human Drives that Make You Feel Alive (Book Review)

The Charge – Actionable Books
"baseline drives"
1. Control
2. Competence
3. Congruence
4. Caring
5. Connection
“forward drives”
1. Change
2. Challenge
3. Creative expression
4. Contribution
5. Consciousness

Sunday, February 14, 2016

Azure: DateTimeOffset

Many of Azure storage APIs are using DateTimeOffset .NET type instead of usual DateTime.
That structure includes UTC times and local offset to UTC

Choosing Between DateTime, DateTimeOffset, TimeSpan, and TimeZoneInfo @ MSDN

datetimeoffset (Transact-SQL)
Storage size: 10 bytes, fixed is the default with the default of 100ns fractional second precision

course: Date and Time Fundamentals | Pluralsight

c# - DateTime vs DateTimeOffset - Stack Overflow
Instantaneous Time vs Calendar Time Visualization
"If you ever need to modify a previously recorded DateTimeOffset - you don't have enough information in the offset alone to ensure that the new offset is still relevant for the user. You must also store a timezone identifier (think - I need the name of that camera so I can take a new picture even if the position has changed).

It should also be pointed out that Noda Time has a representation called ZonedDateTime for this, while the .Net base class library does not have anything similar. You would need to store both a DateTimeOffset and a TimeZoneInfo.Id value."



book: The 8th Habit by Stephen Covey

8thHabit.JPG
The 8th Habit - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
"The 8th Habit: From Effectiveness to Greatness is a book written by Stephen R. Covey, published in 2004.[1] It is an upgrade of The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, first published in 1989. As such, it clarifies and reinforces Covey's earlier declaration that "Interdependence is a higher value than independence."

The eighth habit is "Find your voice and inspire others to find theirs."
Voice is Covey's code for "unique personal significance."
Those who inspire others to find theirs are the leaders needed now and for the future, according to Covey."


For Impact Ideas | For Impact | The Suddes Group
"‘VOICE’ is about unique, personal significance! Covey says, “VOICE lies at the nexus of 

  • Talent (your natural gifts and strengths,
     'what you are good at') plus 
  • Passion (those things that naturally energize, excite, motivate and inspire you,
     'what you like doing'), 
  • Need (including 'what the world needs' enough to pay you for) and 
  • Conscious (small voice within that assures you of 'what is right' and prompts you to actually do it).”


STEPHEN COVEY | THE 8TH HABIT FROM EFFECTIVENESS TO GREATNESS FULL - YouTube

There are 4 dimensions to human nature: capabilities, needs, intelligence
  • body (need)
  • mind (talent)
  • hart (passion)
  • spirit (conscience)
People can discover their voice because of the three gifts everyone is born with:
  1. The freedom to choose
  2. The natural laws or principles – those that dictate the consequences of behavior. Positive consequences come from fairness, kindness, respect, honesty, integrity, service and contribution
  3. The four intelligences – mental, physical, emotional and spiritual.
The book talks of "5 Cancerous Behaviors" that inhibit people's greatness:
Stephen Covey explaining the charactor ethic and the personality ethic - YouTube

Saturday, February 13, 2016

Material Design for Bootstrap

Google'e Material Design guidelines applied to extremely popular Bootstrap GUI library.
"Free" and "Pro" versions available

Material Design for Bootstrap
"Compare how easly MDB changes a Bootstrap elements"
very interesting "slider" comparison

"After" vs "Before"
 


"Antifragile" Cloud Architectures

Free O'Reilly Microservices eBook - Migrating to Cloud-Native Application Architectures | Pivotal
"This report discusses application architectures that include:

  • The Twelve-Factor App: A collection of cloud native app architecture patterns
  • Microservices: Independently deployable services that do one thing well
  • Self-Service Agile Infrastructure: Platforms for rapid, repeatable, and consistent provisioning of app environments and backing services
  • API-based Collaboration: Published and versioned APIs that allow interaction between services in a cloud native app architecture
  • Anti-Fragility: Systems that get stronger when subjected to stress"
Antifragile.png
TNS Analysts Show 43: Pivotal's Matt Stine on Cloud-Native Application Architectures - The New Stack

Antifragile - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (book)

"Nassim Nicholas Taleb introduces the book as follows: "Some things benefit from shocks; they thrive and grow when exposed to volatility, randomness, disorder, and stressors and love adventure, risk, and uncertainty. Yet, in spite of the ubiquity of the phenomenon, there is no word for the exact opposite of fragile. Let us call it antifragile. Antifragility is beyond resilience or robustness. The resilient resists shocks and stays the same; the antifragile gets better"

3 categories:
  • Fragile (sensitive to shocks)
  • Robust (not sensitive to shocks)
  • Anti-frigile (benefits from shocks)
‘Antifragile,’ by Nassim Nicholas Taleb - The New York Times

Nassim Nicholas Taleb - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Nassim Taleb and Daniel Kahneman discusses Antifragility at NYPL.mp4 - YouTube

Antifragile - Nassim Nicholas Taleb - YouTube

ANTIFRAGILE BY NASSIM TALEB ANIMATED BOOK REVIEW - YouTube

books: "Bounce" & "Black Box Thinking" by Matthew Syed

about science of success

Bounce: The Myth of Talent and the Power of Practice
Bounce | Brian Johnson
  • Purposeful Practice + 4% ("Flow", balance of skill and challenge + 4%)
  • 1 million repetitions (to become excellent in doing something)
  • (top of the) icebergs (visible success is on top of huge invisible practice)
  • DoubleThink: yes can do it vs. what can go wrong, at the same time
  • Everyone can do it, "Mindset" is the key,
    getting better by practice vs. proving inborn potential
Black Box Thinking
Black Box Thinking | Brian Johnson
All airplanes are  equipped with "black box" for recording and analyzing "what went wrong" in tragic situations; result: extremely good safety record. Opposite: medical environment hiding and not improving based on data, huge number of people dying from preventable mistakes.
  • 50 lb of clay = better art: (practice makes perfect) students with
    • goal to "do more" clay pottery produced much better results than 
    • those with goal to "make best" possible pottery
  • "Marginal gains": small improvements in many details compound to better performance
  • "Practice 50000 times": examples from sports
  • "Cognitive Dissonance" Galileo example, when church refused to look trough telescope
  • Pre-mortems: "what-if" exercises, to avoid preventable mistakes 
Matthew Syed - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
"the key to success is a positive attitude to failure"

Home « Matthew Syed

Matthew Syed - Talent - YouTube

Matthew Syed: The myth of talent and the power of practice | 09.07.13 - YouTube
a lot of high quality practice

Thursday, February 11, 2016

R for SQL Server 2016 (and Oracle)

R for SQL Server 2016

"The R programming language ... has become an industry standard for statistical analysis with nearly a dozen graphical interfaces as well as packages for various IDEs and text editors.

Commercial support for R is offered by Revolution Analytics, ... company recently acquired by Microsoft as part of their big data and machine learning initiatives. The result of this acquisition is support for R in the upcoming SQL Server 2016.

...With R running in the database, you eliminate the performance hit normally associated with moving the data from your DB server to your R server. ...


The gateway for this is sp_execute_external_script. This stored procedure allows you to pipe data from SQL Server to R using standard queries. An R variable, usually a data frame, can likewise be returned back to SQL Server upon completion of the R script.

... a plugin model for other scripting languages will be offered."


There is a similar integration for Oracle DB also:

R Enterprise @ Oracle
"Oracle R Enterprise, a component of the Oracle Advanced Analytics Option, makes the open source R statistical programming language and environment ready for the enterprise and big data. Designed for problems involving large volumes of data, Oracle R Enterprise integrates R with Oracle Database. R users can run R commands and scripts for statistical and graphical analyses on data stored in Oracle Database."

Wednesday, February 10, 2016

Azure AutoRest tool: JSON API => SDK Code

Azure/autorest @ GitHub



"The AutoRest tool generates client libraries for accessing RESTful web services. Input to AutoRest is a spec that describes the REST API using the Swagger format.
AutoRest is developed primarily in C# but generates code for multiple languages."

Microsoft Azure @ MVA

Cloud Development Courses - Microsoft Virtual Academy

Developing Microsoft Azure Solutions - Microsoft Virtual Academy

Azure IaaS for IT Pros @ MVA

Establish Microsoft Azure IaaS Technical Fundamentals @ MVA
  • Establish the Foundation: Core IaaS Infrastructure Technical Fundamentals
    by Mark Russinovich, Microsoft Chief Technology Officer, Azure
  • Dive Deep into Networking, Storage, and Disaster Recovery Scenarios
  • Embrace Open Source Technologies to Accelerate and Scale Solutions
  • Optimize Windows Workload Architecture and Administration Capabilities Within Azure

Tuesday, February 09, 2016

Rules for successful presentations

James Whittaker: How to change the way people think in four easy steps


"Rule #1: Come out swinging"
"The only time people will ever give you their attention –
 where you don’t have to earn it, they just give it to you –
 is the first 30 seconds of a presentation.”


Rule #1.5: "Attention span interlude"
“Every six minutes, include something of high interest.
That’s the length of the average human attention span.”


Rule #2: "Know your 'shit'"
“People connect with speakers who have passion –
who are really in love with their subject.
You inherit some of that love from them.”


Rule #3: "Make it Epic"
“Albert Einstein said, 

‘Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds.’
Quote powerful people.
You can assume some of the power of those you quote.”


Rule #4: "Be brief. Be bright. Be gone."
“Avoid long and tiresome summaries.”

blog: James Whittaker — Medium

link from: Presenting and Career Super Powers - MS Dev Show Podcast

Azure certification links

useful links about Azure certification

Early Experts Study Group - Site Home - TechNet Blogs
Get Started as a Hybrid Cloud Early Expert!

Monday, February 08, 2016

Microsoft $300 Azure credits for "Dev Essentials"

Free Visual Studio Dev Essentials Program now includes $300 in Azure credits and Exclusive Xamarin University access | The Visual Studio Blog

"Over the past 75 days more than 400,000 developers have signed up for the (free) program...

$300 in Azure Credits: enjoy $25/month in credits for 12 months to take advantage of Azure services for your apps.). That’s enough to run a D2 Windows Virtual Machine for 95 hours a month, or try out an A3 HDInsight Cluster for 24 hours. These credits can be applied on top of the free options offered by many Azure services. Learn more here"


Visualizing Microservices by D3.js

Adrian Cockcroft on Analyzing Response Time Distributions for Microservices @ InfoQ