Azure IoT Hub (vs Event Hub)

Azure IoT hub is based on same AMQP / HTTPS communication of Azure Event Hub
and it provides additional device identification, authentication and control features.

IoT Hub Documentation | Azure

Overview of Azure IoT Hub
Overview of Azure IoT Hub | AzureCon 2015 | Channel 9


Introducing the Microsoft Azure IoT Suite

Azure IoT Developer Center

hybrid tablets: Surface Pro vs. iPad Pro vs. Pixel C

After Apple iPad made tablets mainstream, Microsoft Surface embraced and extended idea with Surface's attachable "cover keyboard". A few years later, this is becoming popular... 

While devices are very different inside, general idea of attachable light keyboard is similar.

New Surface Pro 4 vs. iPad Pro vs. Pixel C: Which is the right hybrid tablet for you? | SiliconANGLE

Microsoft Surface Pro 4 vs Apple iPad Pro vs Google Pixel C: Which one should you pick?

iPad Pro - Smart Keyboard - Apple

Pixel C vs. iPad Air 2 vs. Surface 3: Which is the best 10” tablet? | SiliconANGLE

Azure: Queue vs Service Bus vs Event Hub vs IoT Hub

Azure Queues and Service Bus queues - compared and contrasted

Service Bus - Cloud messaging service| Microsoft Azure

Azure Service Bus | Microsoft Azure




Windows Azure Service Bus | Channel 9

Azure Event Hubs vs Azure Messaging


azureservicebus - Looking for clarity on Event Hubs vs Topics in Azure Service Bus -Stack Overflow

"The fundamental difference between EventHubs and Topics is - TOPICS offer per-message semantics - but, EventHubs - Offers Stream Semantics - you should not expect any per-message semantics with EventHub"

Overview of Azure Event Hubs | Microsoft Azure
"You can publish an event via AMQP 1.0 or HTTPS. Service Bus provides an EventHubClient class for publishing events to an Event Hub from .NET clients. For other runtimes and platforms, you can use any AMQP 1.0 client, such as Apache Qpid. You can publish events individually, or batched. A single publication (event data instance) has a limit of 256KB, regardless of whether it is a single event or a batch."

Azure IoT Hub | Microsoft Azure

Andoid += ChromeOS? : Mobile Web Apps

Chrome OS rumored to be folded into Android as early as 2017 | Android Central

Google denies that it will fold Chrome OS into Android | Technology | The Guardian

Google Chromebook Pixel review: beautiful, powerful – but still just Chrome | Technology | The Guardian

Pixel C @ Google

Hands-on: the Pixel C is a great Android tablet that costs a great deal of money | The Verge

---

ChromeOS is quite successful in schools, and is essentially for "netbooks": small laptops.
But it can now also run some Android apps.
Android is running Chrome browser as an app.
They both run on Linux. So it is a big mix.

Google Pixel is running ChromeOS, it is a laptop
Google Pixel C is running on Android OS, it is a hybrid tablet with attachable keyboard

Android is for Apps, Chrome is for Web.

Web sites are increasingly running as "SPAs" (Single Page Apps) in web browser,
getting data from "cloud" web server APIs, and often can be "wrapped" to run as mobile apps.
So next "convergence" of web and mobile are web apps that can run as mobile.
Could this be long awaited "Web 3.0?"

Obviously this is already (almost) reality with Cordova/PhoneGap,
and is available on Windows, iOS, Android...
The next step would be W3C standardization of integration JavaScript APIs
as well as server side JSON service "APIs"...

Go Lang @ Azure

Create Azure Web app with GoLang extension

azure-quickstart-templates/101-webapp-with-golang at master · Azure/azure-quickstart-templates · GitHub

Azure PowerShell

Switch-AzureMode AzureResourceManager New-AzureResourceGroupDeployment 

-Name  

-ResourceGroupName  

-TemplateUri https://raw.githubusercontent.com/azure/azure-quickstart-templates/master/101-webapp-with-golang/azuredeploy.json

Azure CLI

azure config mode arm azure group deployment create --template-uri https://raw.githubusercontent.com/azure/azure-quickstart-templates/master/101-webapp-with-golang/azuredeploy.json

4 Simple Steps to Run Go Language in Azure Websites – Wade Wegner


more Azure Quickstart Templates

Microsoft Azure reorg

Microsoft reorganizes cloud teams as Azure business keeps growing - GeekWire
"To prepare for the next chapter, Microsoft (Executive) Vice President of the Cloud and Enterprise (C+E) Group Scott Guthrie sent out an internal memo detailing the shakeup."

(full memo included in link below)
Microsoft EVP Scott Guthrie leaked cloud memo - Business Insider
"...revenue for Microsoft's Cloud and Enterprise division (internally called C+E) was up 13% year-over-year, as adoption of the Microsoft Azure public cloud computing platform continues to be strong."...

Teams:

• Cloud Infrastructure 
• Data and Analytics
• Business Applications and Application Platform
• Enterprise Mobility
• Developer Tools and Services
• Customer Growth, Analytics & Billing
• China Azure
• Strategy

blog: Just Azure

Just Azure: navigate and understand Microsoft Azure
"Helping you navigate and understand Microsoft Azure"


Microsoft Azure Storage Queues Part 1: Getting Started
Part 2: Hands on Working With Microsoft Azure Storage Queues
Microsoft Azure Storage Queues Part 3: Security and Performance Tips

GPU vs CPU (@ Azure Cloud)

Microsoft has recently announced new Azure VM options that support high-end GPUs.
The reason: for some applications this is much more effective technical solution (see charts below)

Applications that scale using GPU Compute @ Microsoft Azure

Even Amazon Web Services is also offering similar options:
Windows GPU Instances - Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud


Programming Guide :: CUDA Toolkit Documentation @ Nvidia

Colemak keyboard

mentioned in book: The First 20 Hours - Josh Kaufman - How to Learn Anything FAST

first20hours/keyzen-colemak · GitHub

QWERTY keyboard layout that was optimized for mechanical typing machines, not humans.

Dvorak Keyboard is created as more efficient alternative to Qwerty, 

but it is considered hard to learn because it changes all the keys on the keyboard. 

Colemak keyboard has only 17 keys moved from Qwerty layout, so it is faster to learn,  

and people are reporting more than doubling speed of typing with less effort... 

Since Microsoft's mission now is to: 

“empower every person and every organization on the planet to achieve more,” 

and they are already making good keyboards, it would be interesting if some of them start supporting more efficient keyboard layout like this, i.e. with help of machine learning to find more optimal keyboard layouts and apps to help you learn them.

Colemak keyboard layout: ergonomic, fast and easy to learn QWERTY/Dvorak alternative

"The QWERTY layout was designed in the 19th century. Colemak is a modern alternative to the QWERTY and Dvorak layouts. It is designed for efficient and ergonomic touch typing in English.
...
Ergonomic and comfortable – Your fingers on QWERTY move 2.2x more than on Colemak. QWERTY has 16x more same hand row jumping than Colemak. There are 35x more words you can type using only the home row on Colemak."

Learn - Colemak

Amazon.com: LEARNING COLEMAK KEYBOARD LABELS: Computers & Accessories

Keyboard Layout Analyzer - QWERTY vs Dvorak vs Colemak

Azure Storage Documentation & Samples

Storage Documentation | Azure
"Learn about Azure Storage, and how to create applications using Azure blobs, tables, queues, and files"

Get started with Azure Storage in five minutes | Microsoft Azure



How to create, manage, or delete a storage account | Microsoft Azure

IoT clouds: Amazon, Microsoft, Salesforce, Google...

Microsoft Plans to Launch Azure IoT Suite

Azure IoT Suite | Microsoft

Microsoft Azure IoT Suite

Salesforce Enters IoT Market

Amazon Launches IoT Platform Beta

Internet of Things - Solutions — Google Cloud Platform

6 IoT Startups That Make Connecting Things To The Cloud A Breeze - Forbes



Tracking the Internet of Things: Postscapes

IoT Companies - Internet of Things Company Directory

Developer Virtual Event: Connect() 2015-11-18,19

Connect Event 2015
November 18-19 // Developer Virtual Event

"A year ago Connect(); started the journey for a new Microsoft for developers, unveiling the future of an open source .NET on Linux and Mac, and a free Visual Studio for targeting any device and any OS.

Join us this year to hear directly from Scott Guthrie, Brian Harry, and Scott Hanselman on what’s next in this exciting journey. Get deeper insights into our exciting announcements with over 30 on-demand sessions. Interact with the engineering team members behind Microsoft tools and technologies to help you get started."

Xiaomi: IoT company?

podcast interview: China and the Biggest Startup You’ve Probably Never Heard of  @ Harvard Business Review IdeaCast

"Clay Shirky talks about Xiaomi, the subject of his new book, Little Rice."

A typical view of Xiaomi is that they are cloning design of Apple phones and selling in China only, but there is more to the story: 

Xiaomi started as a are very agile software company with global ambitions , and to this day releases a new version of Android (fork) OS every week, based on feedback from users. In fact the first "product" was a version of Android for Samsung phones that was much more battery efficient that original Samsung's version. 

In only a few years they become largest seller of phones in China, with focus on "mid-market", and now expanding worldwide. Now they are quickly expanding to other types of "smart" products, using the same technique of quick iterations based on users feedback. 

Xiaomi - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

"Since the release of its first smartphone in August 2011, Xiaomi has gained market share in mainland China and expanded into developing a wider range of consumer electronics, including a smart home device ecosystem.
...
According to IDC,[15] Xiaomi is now the third largest smartphone maker in the world followed by Lenovo and LG at fourth and fifth place respectively. Samsung remains at the first place despite declining shipment volume, followed by Apple Inc.at second place. Xiaomi also became the largest smartphone vendor in China in 2014, having overtaken Samsung, according to an IDC report"

Mi Global Home

Cloud+ML: Google, Microsoft, Amazon

Google + Microsoft + Amazon = Cloud Burst - WSJ
"The old adage of spending money to make money seems particularly apt when looking at the fast-growing cloud-services business."

The Cloud Is Raining Cash on Amazon, Google, and Microsoft - Bloomberg Business

"Each company’s impressive earnings can be attributed to a shift in the industry that’s punishing a slew of legacy firms.

...

Amazon.com, Google, and Microsoft all topped profit estimates last quarter, highlighting the widening gulf between companies that deliver computing via server-laden warehouses and a generation of latecomers to the cloud boom. Together, the three companies added more than $90 billion in market cap in after-hours trading following their earnings reports on Thursday."


"There's no end in sight for this trend—or at least, that's what one of the early leaders thinks. "It just reflects a secular shift," said Google's Pichai. "Every business in the world is going to run on cloud eventually."

"At IBM, the future doesn't look so bright. Shares dropped to a five-year low after the company cut its profit forecast earlier this week."

​HP drops out of the public cloud storm | ZDNet

"That's not to say that HP is entirely abandoning the cloud. It's not. HP will still be selling its Helion Rack for integrated private clouds; its hyperscale Cloudline and Moonshot servers; and a variety of private and hybrid cloud offerings. It's just that HP will no longer try to battle it out with Amazon Web Services and the like."


Google says it's 'rethinking everything' around machine learning | PCWorld

"New Google CEO Sundar Pichai took part in his first earnings call, and in between discussing the numbers he revealed how important Google thinks machine learning is to its future.

”Machine learning is a core, transformative way by which we’re rethinking everything we’re doing,” he said... Our investments in machine learning and artificial intelligence are a priority for us,” he said. Microsoft, IBM and Facebook are investing in similar areas, and machine learning is showing up in apps for business.
”We’re thoughtfully applying it across all our products, be it search, ads, YouTube, or Play,” Pichai said. “We’re in the early days, but you’ll see us in a systematic way think about how we can apply machine learning to all these areas.”

Machine Learning @ Microsoft Azure

Microsoft Azure Machine Learning Studio

Amazon Machine Learning - Predictive Analytics with AWS

Azure Portal like GUI: Journey SPA Framework

Azure Portal GUI with wizard expanding to the right side,
now available as an (independent third-party developed) open source JavaScript framework.

NuGet Gallery | Journey SPA Framework 1.1.1.5

NuGet Gallery | Journey SPA Framework Jumpstart 1.1.1.5

IntelliTect/journey · GitHub


interview:
CodeChat 044 - With Mark Michaelis Asking Why Beginning Development Can Still Be So Hard | CodeChat | Channel 9

book from same person:
IntelliTect | » Essential C# 6.0

WebHooks

Introducing Microsoft ASP.NET WebHooks Preview - .NET Web Development and Tools Blog - Site Home - MSDN Blogs

"WebHooks is a lightweight HTTP pattern providing a simple pub/sub model for wiring together Web APIs and SaaS services. When an event happens in a service, a notification is sent in the form of an HTTP POST request to registered subscribers. The POST request contains information about the event which makes it possible for the receiver to act accordingly."

From Webhooks to the Evented Web :: Jeff Lindsay

webscript - scripting on the web

"personal cloud": Sandstorm.io

podcast interview:
Your Personal Cloud Platform with Sandstorm.io and Kenton Varda on the Hanselminutes Technology Podcast: Fresh Air for Developers

Sandstorm.io is a tool based on Linux virtualization technology that is also used for Docker,
but in this case it is optimized to security / app isolation more than portability that Docker is focused on.

"Install apps to create documents, spreadsheets, blogs, git repos,
task lists, and more as easily as you'd install apps on your phone.
Sandstorm is open source and can be installed anywhere.


It is using communication protocol Cap'n Proto that is an "successor" to Google's Protocol Buffers, It is very fast by avoiding serialization for sending messages. Instead, it is using same data format in memory and when sending messages.

free ebook: Docker Up & Running

FREE Book: Docker Up & Running - Preview Edition (by O'Reilly)

free ebook: Building Cloud Apps with Microsoft Azure

ScottGu's Blog - Free ebook: Building Cloud Apps with Microsoft Azure

1. Automate everything
2. Source control
3. Continuous integration and continuous delivery
4. Web development best practices
5. Single sign-on
6. Data storage options.
7. Data partitioning strategies
8. Unstructured blob storage
9. Design to survive failures
10. Monitoring and telemetry
11. Transient fault handling
12. Distributed caching
13. Queue-centric work pattern
14. More patterns and guidance

book is based on talks by ScottGu (videos):

Building Real World Cloud Apps with Windows Azure Part 1 | TechEd Australia 2013 | Channel 9

Building Real World Cloud Apps with Windows Azure Part 2 | TechEd Australia 2013 | Channel 9

Since the presentation Azure has significantly extended available services, on the same foundation...

IoT, Azure labs: ThingLabs.io

ThingLabs.io - Educational Labratories for the Internet of Things
"a group of engineers who frequently get distracted by blinking lights and shiney objects"
Workshops...

Arduino IoT Labs

Particle Photon IoT Labs

Azure Architecture Blueprints

Microsoft Software Architecture Diagrams and Blueprints

"Architecture blueprints

Scenario-based diagrams that help you build new solutions fast

Designed to help you build real-world Azure solutions faster, Azure Architectural blueprints provides a repository of scenario-based diagrams available in 2-D, 3-D and video."

big data: Graph API, GraphQL, GraphDB

some confusing names...

API for Azure Active Directory (that by the way is different than Windows Active Directory)
is called "Graph API", since data structure is graph more than a tree (directory).

But there is another Graph API by Facebook for searching Facebook data-base.
Those data are also a graph structure, so it kind-of makes sense.
To query those graph data-base, Facebook is using language GraphQL Introduction | React

But GraphDB is a third thing, and most known graph database is Neo4j,
and name GraphDB is now taken by company Ontotext that makes semantic web based software.
By the way, Neo4j founder consider semantic databases not to be graph.

The lesson from all this confusion may be that "graph data" are everywhere...

Azure Active Directory: What is the Graph API? - KuppingerCole
"AAD Graph API is the interface for navigating the content of AAD (walking the tree, or, more correctly, the graph) and accessing (and creating and manipulating) the information stored therein. Developers can perform CRUD (Create, Read, Update, Delete) operations through REST (Representational State Transfer) API endpoints"

AD Graph REST

Azure AD Graph REST API reference

Microsoft Azure Active Directory Graph Team @ MSDN Blogs

Rosetta Code: comparing programming languages

Rosetta Code
"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"
Help:Similar Sites - Rosetta Code

Category:Programming Tasks - Rosetta Code

examples:
Category:Sorting Algorithms - Rosetta Code

Sorting algorithms/Bubble sort - Rosetta Code

Calendar - for "REAL" programmers - Rosetta Code

Arithmetic evaluation - Rosetta Code

Menu - Rosetta Code

edu: O'Reilly Learning Paths

MOOCs are moving to "nano-degrees", bundling a few related courses and selling that.
O'Reilly / Safari (books & videos) online has plenty of material, now also combined in small groups.

List: O'Reilly Learning Paths: Safari
"LEARNING PATHS VIDEO TRAINING
Stop hacking your way through the underbrush.

O'Reilly's cleared the way: our Learning Paths will help you get where you want to go, whether it's learning a programming language, developing new skills, or getting started with something entirely new."

Find a Learning Path - O'Reilly Media

GoLang resources

Books · golang/go Wiki · GitHub

The Little Go Book

karlseguin/the-little-go-book · GitHub

source, in markdown, converting to PDF, ePub, Mobi

the-little-go-book/go.md at master · karlseguin/the-little-go-book · GitHub

build-web-application-with-golang - GitBook


An Introduction to Programming in Go | Go Resources

Go Bootcamp, Everything you need to know to get started with Go. - Matt Aimonetti | Softcover.io

Documentation - The Go Programming Language

Mike Van Sickle – Pluralsight author
good courses on Go Lang

IoT Printer: Pi vs HP

Adafruit IoT Pi Printer Project Pack - Includes Raspberry Pi ID: 1289 - $189.95 : Adafruit Industries, Unique & fun DIY electronics and kits
"Once assembled, the little printer connects to Ethernet to get Internet data for printing onto 2 1/4" wide receipt paper. The example sketch we've written will connect to Twitter's search API and retrieve and print tweets according to your requests..."


$189.95

includes: 

Mini Thermal Receipt Printer ID: 597 - $49.95 : Adafruit Industries, Unique & fun DIY electronics and kits

Raspberry Pi Model B 512MB RAM ID: 998 - $39.95 : Adafruit Industries, Unique & fun DIY electronics and kits

or 

Hewlett-Packard Designates Printing A First-Class IoT Security Platform - Forbes

Printing and the ‘Internet of Things’ Revisited

HP Launches the HP Print Channel on IFTTT Creating Over 40M IoT Printers | Shane Wall

HP’s IoT Printing Services | Shane Wall

HP Instant Ink - Ink Cartridge Replacement Service - Learn more here | HP® Official Site

bubbles: unicorns & skyscrapers

podcast: Episode 656: Bubblelicious : Planet Money : NPR
"A unicorn is a private company that is worth more than a billion dollars. And there are 140 unicorns out there right now."

book "Boombustology: Spotting Financial Bubbles Before They Burst."
"... says skyscrapers are a great indicator of bubbles because it's a sign that people are really ambitious, especially if they're trying to build the tallest. It's also a sign there is easy money in the economy"
About - Vikram Mansharamani
"earned a PhD and MS from the Sloan School of Management at MIT, an MS in Political Science from MIT, and a BA from Yale University,"
"Salesforce Tower (in San Francisco)...  is going to be the tallest building west of the Mississippi."

IoT tools: Samsung SAMI

Samsung SAMI – a D3 Platform for the IoT
"Samsung SAMI is a Data-driven Development (D3) platform for receiving, storing and sending data to/from IoT devices. Any device can send data in various formats which is then normalized into a JSON format and stored in the cloud. Data can then be requested by other devices.
...Data can be later requested using REST or WebSocket API calls (API specification)

...Samsung has published a number of sample applications for Android, iOS, Node.js, Arduino, and the browser (JavaScript) that show how to use SAMI. There are also a number of SDKs that help with the creation of applications in Java/Android, Objective-C/iOS, PHP, Python and Ruby."

SAMI Developer Portal

interesting "cloud thing" logo :)

Matte vs Glossy Monitors

Are there "real" anti-glare touch screen monitors?
Some touchscreen 2-in-1 like Lenovo Flex are declared anti-glare, but they are not matte.
Flex 3 (14 inch) | Affordable, Thin, & Light Multimode | Lenovo US

Matte vs Glossy Monitors - PC Monitors

Tesla's Auto Pilot

Tesla's Cars Now Drive Themselves, Kinda | WIRED
TESLA MAKES its cars... semi-autonomous. And it did it with an over-the-air update,

cloud: AWS resources @ GitHub

donnemartin/awesome-aws · GitHub
"A curated list of awesome Amazon Web Services (AWS) libraries, open source repos, guides, blogs, and other resources."


Amazon Launches IoT Platform Beta @ InfoQ
The AWS Well-Architected Framework @ InfoQ
"Amazon has published the AWS Well-Architected Framework (PDF), a guide for architecting solutions for AWS, with design principles that apply to systems running on AWS or other clouds."

Azure: Patterns and Practices

CodeChat 041 - Straight Talk with Christopher Bennage from Patterns and Practices | CodeChat | Channel 9
Microsoft Patterns and Practices team is now part of Azure...
an indication of Microsoft's focus now.

patterns & practices

Cloud Development

Cloud Design Patterns: Prescriptive Architecture Guidance for Cloud Applications



CQRS Journey

cloud: AWS VM technology

Amazon WS is not using VMware or Hyper-V, but customized Linux for VMs.
That is a huge value from open source software.

Current market value of VMware is $28B
vmware stock valuation - Google Search

Amazon Machine Images (AMI) - Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud


Linux AMI Virtualization Types - Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud

Amazon Linux - Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud

What Is Amazon EC2? - Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud


Comparison of platform virtualization software - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Hypervisor - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia



On the Origin of KVM (Virtualization@IBM)

History of Virtualization | Everything VM

IoT protocol: AMQP @ Azure

The AMQP 1.0 Protocol - 1/6 - Overview | Subscribe! | Channel 9
by Clemens​ Vasters

"This is part 1 of a 6 part series introducing the AMQP 1.0 protocol.
Part 1 - Part 2 - Part 3 - Part 4 - Part 5 - Part 6

The AMQP 1.0 protocol is used by Azure Service Bus, Service Bus for Windows Server, Azure Event Hubs, Azure IoT Hub, and by numerous open source projects like Apache Qpid, Apache ActiveMQ, and Apache Apollo, as well as by commercial messaging products of other vendors like JBoss A-MQ, RedHat MRG, SwiftMQ, and IBM MQLight. The content of this video series is product neutral and applies to all AMQP 1.0 based infrastructure and applications. 

The slide deck can be downloaded from here."

Overview of Azure Event Hubs | Microsoft Azure

Home | AMQP

Advanced Message Queuing Protocol - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Azure Event Hubs vs Azure Messaging

azureservicebus - Looking for clarity on Event Hubs vs Topics in Azure Service Bus - Stack Overflow

cloud: Microsoft Azure, the Big Picture

Microsoft Azure - Microsoft Azure--the Big Picture @ MSDN magazine