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• Windows Azure Mobile Services: New support for iOS apps, Facebook/Twitter/Google identity, Emails, SMS, Blobs, Service Bus and more

  - by ScottGu

  A few weeks ago I blogged about Windows Azure Mobile Services - a new capability in Windows Azure that makes it incredibly easy to connect your client and mobile applications to a scalable cloud backend. Earlier today we delivered a number of great improvements to Windows Azure Mobile Services.  New features include: iOS support – enabling you to connect iPhone and iPad apps to Mobile Services Facebook, Twitter, and Google authentication support with Mobile Services Blob, Table, Queue, and Service Bus support from within your Mobile Service Sending emails from your Mobile Service (in partnership with SendGrid) Sending SMS messages from your Mobile Service (in partnership with Twilio) Ability to deploy mobile services in the West US region All of these improvements are now live in production and available to start using immediately. Below are more details on them: iOS Support This week we delivered initial support for connecting iOS based devices (including iPhones and iPads) to Windows Azure Mobile Services.  Like the rest of our Windows Azure SDK, we are delivering the native iOS libraries to enable this under an open source (Apache 2.0) license on GitHub.  We’re excited to get your feedback on this new library through our forum and GitHub issues list, and we welcome contributions to the SDK. To create a new iOS app or connect an existing iOS app to your Mobile Service, simply select the “iOS” tab within the Quick Start view of a Mobile Service within the Windows Azure Portal – and then follow either the “Create a new iOS app” or “Connect to an existing iOS app” link below it: Clicking either of these links will expand and display step-by-step instructions for how to build an iOS application that connects with your Mobile Service: Read this getting started tutorial to walkthrough how you can build (in less than 5 minutes) a simple iOS “Todo List” app that stores data in Windows Azure.  Then follow the below tutorials to explore how to use the iOS client libraries to store data and authenticate users. Get Started with data in Mobile Services for iOS Get Started with authentication in Mobile Services for iOS Facebook, Twitter, and Google Authentication Support Our initial preview of Mobile Services supported the ability to authenticate users of mobile apps using Microsoft Accounts (formerly called Windows Live ID accounts).  This week we are adding the ability to also authenticate users using Facebook, Twitter, and Google credentials.  These are now supported with both Windows 8 apps as well as iOS apps (and a single app can support multiple forms of identity simultaneously – so you can offer your users a choice of how to login). The below tutorials walkthrough how to register your Mobile Service with an identity provider: How to register your app with Microsoft Account How to register your app with Facebook How to register your app with Twitter How to register your app with Google The tutorials above walkthrough how to obtain a client ID and a secret key from the identity provider. You can then click on the “Identity” tab of your Mobile Service (within the Windows Azure Portal) and save these values to enable server-side authentication with your Mobile Service: You can then write code within your client or mobile app to authenticate your users to the Mobile Service.  For example, below is the code you would write to have them login to the Mobile Service using their Facebook credentials: Windows Store App (using C#): var user = await App.MobileService                     .LoginAsync(MobileServiceAuthenticationProvider.Facebook); iOS app (using Objective C): UINavigationController *controller = [self.todoService.client     loginViewControllerWithProvider:@"facebook"     completion:^(MSUser *user, NSError *error) {        //... }]; Learn more about authenticating Mobile Services using Microsoft Account, Facebook, Twitter, and Google from these tutorials: Get started with authentication in Mobile Services for Windows Store (C#) Get started with authentication in Mobile Services for Windows Store (JavaScript) Get started with authentication in Mobile Services for iOS Using Windows Azure Blob, Tables and ServiceBus with your Mobile Services Mobile Services provide a simple but powerful way to add server logic using server scripts. These scripts are associated with the individual CRUD operations on your mobile service’s tables. Server scripts are great for data validation, custom authorization logic (e.g. does this user participate in this game session), augmenting CRUD operations, sending push notifications, and other similar scenarios.   Server scripts are written in JavaScript and are executed in a secure server-side scripting environment built using Node.js.  You can edit these scripts and save them on the server directly within the Windows Azure Portal: In this week’s release we have added the ability to work with other Windows Azure services from your Mobile Service server scripts.  This is supported using the existing “azure” module within the Windows Azure SDK for Node.js.  For example, the below code could be used in a Mobile Service script to obtain a reference to a Windows Azure Table (after which you could query it or insert data into it):     var azure = require('azure');     var tableService = azure.createTableService("<< account name >>",                                                 "<< access key >>"); Follow the tutorials on the Windows Azure Node.js dev center to learn more about working with Blob, Tables, Queues and Service Bus using the azure module. Sending emails from your Mobile Service In this week’s release we have also added the ability to easily send emails from your Mobile Service, building on our partnership with SendGrid. Whether you want to add a welcome email upon successful user registration, or make your app alert you of certain usage activities, you can do this now by sending email from Mobile Services server scripts. To get started, sign up for SendGrid account at http://sendgrid.com . Windows Azure customers receive a special offer of 25,000 free emails per month from SendGrid. To sign-up for this offer, or get more information, please visit http://www.sendgrid.com/azure.html . One you signed up, you can add the following script to your Mobile Service server scripts to send email via SendGrid service:     var sendgrid = new SendGrid('<< account name >>', '<< password >>');       sendgrid.send({         to: '<< enter email address here >>',         from: '<< enter from address here >>',         subject: 'New to-do item',         text: 'A new to-do was added: ' + item.text     }, function (success, message) {         if (!success) {             console.error(message);         }     }); Follow the Send email from Mobile Services with SendGrid tutorial to learn more. Sending SMS messages from your Mobile Service SMS is a key communication medium for mobile apps - it comes in handy if you want your app to send users a confirmation code during registration, allow your users to invite their friends to install your app or reach out to mobile users without a smartphone. Using Mobile Service server scripts and Twilio’s REST API, you can now easily send SMS messages to your app.  To get started, sign up for Twilio account. Windows Azure customers receive 1000 free text messages when using Twilio and Windows Azure together. Once signed up, you can add the following to your Mobile Service server scripts to send SMS messages:     var httpRequest = require('request');     var account_sid = "<< account SID >>";     var auth_token = "<< auth token >>";       // Create the request body     var body = "From=" + from + "&To=" + to + "&Body=" + message;       // Make the HTTP request to Twilio     httpRequest.post({         url: "https://" + account_sid + ":" + auth_token +              "@api.twilio.com/2010-04-01/Accounts/" + account_sid + "/SMS/Messages.json",         headers: { 'content-type': 'application/x-www-form-urlencoded' },         body: body     }, function (err, resp, body) {         console.log(body);     }); I’m excited to be speaking at the TwilioCon conference this week, and will be showcasing some of the cool scenarios you can now enable with Twilio and Windows Azure Mobile Services. Mobile Services availability in West US region Our initial preview of Windows Azure Mobile Services was only supported in the US East region of Windows Azure.  As with every Windows Azure service, overtime we will extend Mobile Services to all Windows Azure regions. With this week’s preview update we’ve added support so that you can now create your Mobile Service in the West US region as well: Summary The above features are all now live in production and are available to use immediately.  If you don’t already have a Windows Azure account, you can sign-up for a free trial and start using Mobile Services today. Visit the Windows Azure Mobile Developer Center to learn more about how to build apps with Mobile Services. We’ll have even more new features and enhancements coming later this week – including .NET 4.5 support for Windows Azure Web Sites.  Keep an eye out on my blog for details as new features become available. Hope this helps, Scott P.S. In addition to blogging, I am also now using Twitter for quick updates and to share links. Follow me at: twitter.com/scottgu

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• XSLT is not the solution you're looking for

  - by Jeff

  I was very relieved to see that Umbraco is ditching XSLT as a rendering mechanism in the forthcoming v5. Thank God for that. After working in this business for a very long time, I can't think of any other technology that has been inappropriately used, time after time, and without any compelling reason.The place I remember seeing it the most was during my time at Insurance.com. We used it, mostly, for two reasons. The first and justifiable reason was that it tweaked data for messaging to the various insurance carriers. While they all shared a "standard" for insurance quoting, they all had their little nuances we had to accommodate, so XSLT made sense. The other thing we used it for was rendering in the interview app. In other words, when we showed you some fancy UI, we'd often ditch the control rendering and straight HTML and use XSLT. I hated it.There just hasn't been a technology hammer that made every problem look like a nail (or however that metaphor goes) the way XSLT has. Imagine my horror the first week at Microsoft, when my team assumed control of the MSDN/TechNet forums, and we saw a mess of XSLT for some parts of it. I don't have to tell you that we ripped that stuff out pretty quickly. I can't even tell you how many performance problems went away as we started to rip it out.XSLT is not your friend. It has a place in the world, but that place is tweaking XML, not rendering UI.

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• CPU DB like IMDB for Microprocessors

  - by Jason Fitzpatrick

  If you’re interested in the history of microprocessors, the CPU DB at Stanford is a massive database of microprocessors that covers everything from code names to speed to processor families. Play with their visuals or download the entire database and make your own. CPU DB [Stanford.edu] The Best Free Portable Apps for Your Flash Drive Toolkit How to Own Your Own Website (Even If You Can’t Build One) Pt 3 How to Sync Your Media Across Your Entire House with XBMC

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• BlueNES: A Bluetooth Connector for Classic NES Controllers

  - by Jason Fitzpatrick

  If you’re looking for a DIY way to hook up your classic Nintendo controllers for use in modern emulation programs, this hack allows you to use them without modifying the original casing or cables. Courtesy of Evan Dustin, we find this guide on hacking apart a broken NES unit (to get the basic parts like the port connectors) and then binding it all together with an Arduino board. Check out the video above to see it in action and then hit up the link below to check out the notes on the YouTube video for additional information including parts and code. BluesNES: Bluetooth NES Controller [via Hack A Day] HTG Explains: What Is RSS and How Can I Benefit From Using It? HTG Explains: Why You Only Have to Wipe a Disk Once to Erase It HTG Explains: Learn How Websites Are Tracking You Online

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• Read All The Books from Skyrim on Your Ebook Reader

  - by Jason Fitzpatrick

  If you’re a fan of the wildly popular RPG game Skyrim, you’ve undoubtedly discovered the books sprinkled throughout the Empire. This collection brings them all together for out-of-game reading. Blogger and Skyrim fan Capaneus enjoyed reading the in-game books so much (found on the shelves of homes and otherwise scattered throughout the virtual world) that he did a little digging in the game files to turn up the source of the books. It turns out he didn’t have to dig too deeply, the files are stored as text documents (and if you have a copy of the game installed right now you could easily open them up yourself). He took those text files and carefully formatted them as MOBI and EPUB files, well suited for use on an ebook reader or tablet. Hit up the link below to grab a copy for your own perusal. While we can’t see this lasting long in the age of copyright enforcement and litigation we’d like to think the company behind Skyrim will see the utility of sharing the books (existing Skyrim owners will enjoy it and the curious will likely be inspired to buy the game). Dovahkiin Gutenberg [Capane.us via The Unofficial Apple Weblog] How to Use Offline Files in Windows to Cache Your Networked Files Offline How to See What Web Sites Your Computer is Secretly Connecting To HTG Explains: When Do You Need to Update Your Drivers?

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• Macedonian Code Camp 2011

  - by hajan

  Autumn was filled with lot of conferences, events, speaking engagements and many interesting happenings in Skopje, Macedonia. First at October 20, I was speaking at Microsoft Vizija 9 on topic ASP.NET MVC3 and Razor. One week ago, November 15 I was speaking for first time on topic not related to web development (but still deployment of web apps was part of the demos) on topic “Cloud Computing – Windows Azure” at Microsoft BizSpark Bootcamp. The next event, which is the biggest event by the number of visitors and number of tracks is the Code Camp 2011 event. After we opened the registrations for the event, we sold out (free) 600 tickets in the first 15 hours! We all got astonished by the extremely big number of responses we’ve got… In this event, I can freely say that we expect about 700 attendees to come, and we already have 900+ registered. The event will be held at Saturday, 26 November 2011. At Code Camp 2011, I will speak on topic ASP.NET MVC Best Practices. There are many interesting things to say on this presentation, I will mainly focus on Tips, Tricks, Guidelines and other Practices that I have been using in real-life projects developed by using ASP.NET MVC Framework, with special focus on ASP.NET MVC3 and the next release, ASP.NET MVC4 Developer Preview. There are big number of known local and regional speakers, including 7 MVPs. You can find more info about this event at the official event website: http://codecamp.mkdot.net As for my session, if you have some interesting trick or good practice you have been using in your ASP.NET MVC projects, you can freely share it with me… If I find it interesting and if it’s not part of the current practices I have included for the presentation (I can’t tell you which ones for now… *secret* ;))… I will consider including it in the presentation. Stay tuned for more info soon… Regards, Hajan

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• Oracle Announces Leading ISV Integration With Oracle Sales and Marketing Cloud Service

  - by Richard Lefebvre

  More Than 100 ISVs, including Big Machines, Marketo and Xactly, now Provide Integrated Offerings to Help Maximize Sales and Single Customer Viewpoint Demonstrating its continued commitment to business value via open standards and the cloud, Oracle today announced that more than 100 leading ISVs are integrating in the cloud with Oracle Sales and Marketing Cloud Service, a service available through Oracle Cloud. For the first time Oracle Sales and Marketing Cloud Service users can choose from a wide array of directly integrated third-party solutions, providing a new level of choice, seamless deployment and single view of customers with preferred implementations. Top partners, including ActivePrime, Avaya, BigMachines, Box, Brainshark, Callidus Software, CirrusPath, Clicktools, CRMIT, DBSync, EchoSign from Adobe, Eloqua, Fliptop, FPX, HarQen, HubSpot, iHance, InsideSales.com, InsideView, Interactive Intelligence, Lingotek, LinkPoint360, Marketo, Nuance, PerspecSys, Postcode Anywhere, Revegy, salesElement, StrikeIron, upsourceIT, White Springs, X+1 and Xactly, have announced their availability and integration today. By integrating with Oracle Sales and Marketing Cloud Service, ISV solutions can easily be leveraged by customersBy choosing Oracle Sales and Marketing Cloud Service as a sales platform, customers will continue to have complete choice of their own quoting, lead management and sales methodology solutions and it will all be pre-integrated with Oracle Sales and Marketing Cloud Service. With demonstrable integration fusing standards-based technologies, such as SOAP web services, Oracle Sales and Marketing Cloud Service customers choosing ISV integrations will also benefit from familiar ease-of-use and the Oracle Sales and Marketing Cloud ervice user interface, including buttons, links and custom objects for a rich user experience. ISV integration with Oracle Sales and Marketing Cloud Service also enables on-demand contextual data exchange capabilities, linking Oracle Sales and Marketing Cloud Service business data with third-party application data for a complete CRM view. ISVs building robust, repeatable integrations with Oracle Sales and Marketing Cloud Service can begin the process of achieving Oracle Validated Integration, an Oracle PartnerNetwork program that recognizes Oracle partner solutions with proven integration to Oracle Applications. ISVs can learn more about Oracle Validated Integration    here. For customers, Oracle Validated Integration means that a partner’s integration has been tested and validated as functionally and technically sound, that the partner solution is integrated with Oracle Sales and Marketing Cloud Service in a reliable, standardized way, and that the integration operates and performs as documented. Oracle Cloud provides a broad portfolio of Platform Services, Application Services, and Social Services, all on a subscription basis. Oracle Cloud delivers instant value and productivity for end users, administrators, and developers through functionally rich, integrated, secure, enterprise cloud services. Supporting Quotes “BigMachines is a leader in Configure, Price, and Quote solutions in the Cloud. Our solution delivers accurate quotes directly from an opportunity, integrated with the leading Oracle Sales and Marketing Cloud application from Oracle,” says John Pulling, Senior Vice President of Products at Big Machines. “Together, Big Machines and Oracle efficiently automate changes, enabling a faster, more efficient sales process for our joint customers.”   ”Modern marketing and sales must engage customers and prospects in real time across the web, email, social media, online and offline channels to understand where and how to allocate their budgets for maximum return,” said Srini Venkatesan, Senior VP, Products and Engineering at Marketo. “Alignment and integration with Oracle Sales and Marketing Cloud Service allows Marketo’s solutions to deliver innovative capabilities for sales and marketing to adapt and grow their business on the core Oracle platform for CRM.”   “Sales incentives are the best way to drive better performance. Well managed incentives improve the bottom line, particularly when combined with effective sales systems,” said Christopher Cabrera, president and CEO of Xactly Corporation. “With Oracle Sales and Marketing Cloud Service and Xactly working together, customers gain insight and efficiencies. The combination can create more effective compensation programs, while motivating sales to work to its full potential."   “The tremendous integration of leading ISVs with Oracle Sales and Marketing Cloud Service is a testament to the undeniable business value and demand from customers,” said Anthony Lye, SVP of Oracle CRM. “Oracle Sales and Marketing Cloud Service continues to define the industry, and we are proud to work with these leading ISVs to help users simultaneously maximize sales and revenue and extend their current deployments for a deeper and single customer viewpoint.” Supporting Resources Oracle Sales and Marketing Cloud Service Learn More About Oracle Cloud

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• How Back to the Future Should have Ended (In a Galaxy Far Far Away) [Video]

  - by Asian Angel

  Everyone is familiar with Doc Brown’s statement that they would not need roads where they were going. If only he had known just how true the ‘no roads’ part was going to be! Alternate Ending – Back to the Future [via Geeks are Sexy] HTG Explains: When Do You Need to Update Your Drivers? How to Make the Kindle Fire Silk Browser *Actually* Fast! Amazon’s New Kindle Fire Tablet: the How-To Geek Review

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• The Dark Knight meets The Avengers [Video]

  - by Asian Angel

  Batman and the Avengers team up to defeat a common enemy, but their ‘after battle’ plans are extremely different! Can Batman learn to be a ‘team player’ who relaxes and has fun, or will he brood alone in his cave forever? The Dark Knight Meets The Avengers [CollegeHumor] HTG Explains: How Windows Uses The Task Scheduler for System Tasks HTG Explains: Why Do Hard Drives Show the Wrong Capacity in Windows? Java is Insecure and Awful, It’s Time to Disable It, and Here’s How

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• Roll Your Own Hologram with DIY Holography Kit

  - by Jason Fitzpatrick

  If you’re looking for a DIY project with a 1980s theme, this create-your-own hologram kit is your ticket to 3D greatness. Over at Make magazine they’ve put together a tutorial for creating your own holograms using the DIY holographic kit featured in the Maker Shed–Make’s storefront for DIYers. The kit is $99; certainly not pocket change but on par with other holography kits on the market and even a bit generous with the inclusion of 20 sheets of holographic film. Check out the video above to see how easy it is to capture small objects on the film and create your own holograms. How-To: Holography [Make] How to See What Web Sites Your Computer is Secretly Connecting To HTG Explains: When Do You Need to Update Your Drivers? How to Make the Kindle Fire Silk Browser *Actually* Fast!

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• The Strange History of the Honeywell Kitchen Computer

  - by Jason Fitzpatrick

  In 1969 the Honeywell corporation released a $10,000 kitchen computer that weighed 100 pounds, was as big as a table, and required advanced programming skills to use. Shockingly, they failed to sell a single one. Read on to be dumbfounded by how ahead of (and out of touch with) its time the Honeywell Kitchen Computer was. Wired delves into the history of the device, including how difficult it was to use: Now try to imagine all that in late 1960s kitchen. A full H316 system wouldn’t have fit in most kitchens, says design historian Paul Atkinson of Britain’s Sheffield Halam University. Plus, it would have looked entirely out of place. The thought that an average person, like a housewife, could have used it to streamline chores like cooking or bookkeeping was ridiculous, even if she aced the two-week programming course included in the $10,600 price tag. If the lady of the house wanted to build her family’s dinner around broccoli, she’d have to code in the green veggie as 0001101000. The kitchen computer would then suggest foods to pair with broccoli from its database by “speaking” its recommendations as a series of flashing lights. Think of a primitive version of KITT, without the sexy voice. Hit up the link below for the full article. How To Use USB Drives With the Nexus 7 and Other Android Devices Why Does 64-Bit Windows Need a Separate “Program Files (x86)” Folder? Why Your Android Phone Isn’t Getting Operating System Updates and What You Can Do About It

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• Announcing: Improvements to the Windows Azure Portal

  - by ScottGu

  Earlier today we released a number of enhancements to the new Windows Azure Management Portal.  These new capabilities include: Service Bus Management and Monitoring Support for Managing Co-administrators Import/Export support for SQL Databases Virtual Machine Experience Enhancements Improved Cloud Service Status Notifications Media Services Monitoring Support Storage Container Creation and Access Control Support All of these improvements are now live in production and available to start using immediately.  Below are more details on them: Service Bus Management and Monitoring The new Windows Azure Management Portal now supports Service Bus management and monitoring. Service Bus provides rich messaging infrastructure that can sit between applications (or between cloud and on-premise environments) and allow them to communicate in a loosely coupled way for improved scale and resiliency. With the new Service Bus experience, you can now create and manage Service Bus Namespaces, Queues, Topics, Relays and Subscriptions. You can also get rich monitoring for Service Bus Queues, Topics and Subscriptions. To create a Service Bus namespace, you can now select the “Service Bus” tab in the Windows Azure portal and then simply select the CREATE command: Doing so will bring up a new “Create a Namespace” dialog that allows you to name and create a new Service Bus Namespace: Once created, you can obtain security credentials associated with the Namespace via the ACCESS KEY command. This gives you the ability to obtain the connection string associated with the service namespace. You can copy and paste these values into any application that requires these credentials: It is also now easy to create Service Bus Queues and Topics via the NEW experience in the portal drawer.  Simply click the NEW command and navigate to the “App Services” category to create a new Service Bus entity: Once you provision a new Queue or Topic it can be managed in the portal.  Clicking on a namespace will display all queues and topics within it: Clicking on an item in the list will allow you to drill down into a dashboard view that allows you to monitor the activity and traffic within it, as well as perform operations on it. For example, below is a view of an “orders” queue – note how we now surface both the incoming and outgoing message flow rate, as well as the total queue length and queue size: To monitor pub/sub subscriptions you can use the ADD METRICS command within a topic and select a specific subscription to monitor. Support for Managing Co-Administrators You can now add co-administrators for your Windows Azure subscription using the new Windows Azure Portal. This allows you to share management of your Windows Azure services with other users. Subscription co-administrators share the same administrative rights and permissions that service administrator have - except a co-administrator cannot change or view billing details about the account, nor remove the service administrator from a subscription. In the SETTINGS section, click on the ADMINISTRATORS tab, and select the ADD button to add a co-administrator to your subscription: To add a co-administrator, you specify the email address for a Microsoft account (formerly Windows Live ID) or an organizational account, and choose the subscription you want to add them to: You can later update the subscriptions that the co-administrator has access to by clicking on the EDIT button, and then select or deselect the subscriptions to which they belong. Import/Export Support for SQL Databases The Windows Azure administration portal now supports importing and exporting SQL Databases to/from Blob Storage.  Databases can be imported/exported to blob storage using the same BACPAC file format that is supported with SQL Server 2012.  Among other benefits, this makes it easy to copy and migrate databases between on-premise and cloud environments. SQL Databases now have an EXPORT command in the bottom drawer that when pressed will prompt you to save your database to a Windows Azure storage container: The UI allows you to choose an existing storage account or create a new one, as well as the name of the BACPAC file to persist in blob storage: You can also now import and create a new SQL Database by using the NEW command.  This will prompt you to select the storage container and file to import the database from: The Windows Azure Portal enables you to monitor the progress of import and export operations. If you choose to log out of the portal, you can come back later and check on the status of all of the operations in the new history tab of the SQL Database server – this shows your entire import and export history and the status (success/fail) of each: Enhancements to the Virtual Machine Experience One of the common pain-points we have heard from customers using the preview of our new Virtual Machine support has been the inability to delete the associated VHDs when a VM instance (or VM drive) gets deleted. Prior to today’s release the VHDs would continue to be in your storage account and accumulate storage charges. You can now navigate to the Disks tab within the Virtual Machine extension, select a VM disk to delete, and click the DELETE DISK command: When you click the DELETE DISK button you have the option to delete the disk + associated .VHD file (completely clearing it from storage).  Alternatively you can delete the disk but still retain a .VHD copy of it in storage. Improved Cloud Service Status Notifications The Windows Azure portal now exposes more information of the health status of role instances.  If any of the instances are in a non-running state, the status at the top of the dashboard will summarize the status (and update automatically as the role health changes): Clicking the instance hyperlink within this status summary view will navigate you to a detailed role instance view, and allow you to get more detailed health status of each of the instances.  The portal has been updated to provide more specific status information within this detailed view – giving you better visibility into the health of your app: Monitoring Support for Media Services Windows Azure Media Services allows you to create media processing jobs (for example: encoding media files) in your Windows Azure Media Services account. In the Windows Azure Portal, you can now monitor the number of encoding jobs that are queued up for processing as well as active, failed and queued tasks for encoding jobs. On your media services account dashboard, you can visualize the monitoring data for last 6 hours, 24 hours or 7 days. Storage Container Creation and Access Control Support You can now create Windows Azure Storage storage containers from within the Windows Azure Portal.  After selecting a storage account, you can navigate to the CONTAINERS tab and click the ADD CONTAINER command: This will display a dialog that lets you name the new container and control access to it: You can also update the access setting as well as container metadata of existing containers by selecting one and then using the new EDIT CONTAINER command: This will then bring up the edit container dialog that allows you to change and save its settings: In addition to creating and editing containers, you can click on them within the portal to drill-in and view blobs within them.  Summary The above features are all now live in production and available to use immediately.  If you don’t already have a Windows Azure account, you can sign-up for a free trial and start using them today.  Visit the Windows Azure Developer Center to learn more about how to build apps with it. We’ll have even more new features and enhancements coming later this month – including support for the recent Windows Server 2012 and .NET 4.5 releases (we will enable new web and worker role images with Windows Server 2012 and .NET 4.5, and support .NET 4.5 with Websites).  Keep an eye out on my blog for details as these new features become available. Hope this helps, Scott P.S. In addition to blogging, I am also now using Twitter for quick updates and to share links. Follow me at: twitter.com/scottgu

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• Floppy Autoloader Automatically Archives Thousands of Floppies

  - by Jason Fitzpatrick

  The thought of hand loading 5,000 floppy disks is more than enough to drive an inventive geek to create a better alternative–like this automated floppy disk archiver. DwellerTunes has several crates of floppy disks that contain old Amiga software and related material, personal programming projects, personal documents, and more. Realistically there’s no way he could devout time to hand loading and archiving thousands upon thousands of floppy disks so he built a automatic loader that accepts stacks of several hundred floppy disks at time. The loader not only loads and archives the floppy disks, but it photographs the label of each disk so that each archive includes a picture of the original label. Watch the video above to see it in action and then hit up the link below for more information. Converting All My Amiga Disks [DwellerTunes via Make] How to Own Your Own Website (Even If You Can’t Build One) Pt 2 How to Own Your Own Website (Even If You Can’t Build One) Pt 1 What’s the Difference Between Sleep and Hibernate in Windows?

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• Hack Your Lights for Remote Control

  - by Jason Fitzpatrick

  This clever hack combines a modified wall switch with unused buttons on a universal remote to create one-touch wireless control of the lighting in a media room. Andrew, the tinker behind this home theater hack, writes: I really liked the idea of controlling my “Home Theater” lights with a remote (TV or other), this would save me the exhausting task of heaving myself off the couch to turn the lights on or off. I found one of my remotes has a spare power button, its one of those stupid “universal” remotes that comes with DVD players or TVs but only work if you have all the same brand equipment, I don’t so this made a good option for a light switch. Hit up the link below to check out more photos of his project and download the source code. Why Does 64-Bit Windows Need a Separate “Program Files (x86)” Folder? Why Your Android Phone Isn’t Getting Operating System Updates and What You Can Do About It How To Delete, Move, or Rename Locked Files in Windows

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• Virtual Developer Day: Oracle Fusion Development - December 11th - 10:00-14:00 CET

  - by Richard Lefebvre

  Get up to date and learn everything you wanted to know about Oracle ADF & Fusion Development plus live Q&A chats with Oracle technical staff. Oracle Application Development Framework (ADF) is the standards based, strategic framework for Oracle Fusion Applications and Oracle Fusion Middleware. Oracle ADF's integration with the Oracle SOA Suite, Oracle WebCenter and Oracle BI creates a complete productive development platform for your custom applications. Join us at this FREE virtual event and learn the latest in Fusion Development including: Is Oracle ADF development faster and simpler than Forms, Apex or .Net? Mobile Application Development with ADF Mobile Oracle ADF development with Eclipse Oracle WebCenter Portal and ADF Development Application Lifecycle Management with ADF Building Process Centric Applications with ADF and BPM Oracle Business Intelligence and ADF Integration Live Q&A chats with Oracle technical staff Developer lead, manager or architect – this event has something for everyone. Don't miss this opportunity. December 11th, 2012 9:00 – 13:00 GMT 10:00 – 14:00 CET 12:00 – 16:00 AST 13:00 – 17:00 MSK 14:30 – 18:30 IST Register online now for this FREE event! Agenda 9:00 a.m. – 9:30 a.m. Opening 9:30 a.m. – 10:00 a.m. Keynote Oracle Fusion Development Track 1 Introduction to Fusion Development Track 2 What's New in Fusion Development Track 3 Fusion Development in the Enterprise Track 4 Hands On Lab - WebCenter Portal and ADF Lab w/ JDeveloper 10:00 a.m. – 11:00 a.m. Is Oracle ADF development faster and simpler than Forms, Apex or .Net? Mobile Application Development with ADF Mobile Oracle WebCenter Portal and ADF Development Lab materials can be found on event wiki here. Q&A about the lab is available throughout the event. 11:00 a.m. – 12:00 p.m. Rich Web UI made simple – an ADF Faces Overview Oracle Enterprise Pack for Eclipse - ADF Development Building Process Centric Applications with ADF and BPM 12:00 p.m. – 1:00 p.m. Next Generation Controller for JSF Application Lifecycle Management for ADF Oracle Business Intelligence and ADF Integration View Session Abstracts We look forward to welcoming you at this free event!  

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• CERN Announces the Discovery of a Higgs-Boson-like Particle

  - by Jason Fitzpatrick

  CERN scientists dropped a press release today indicating they’ve found a particle consistent with the long sought after Higgs Boson particle–the “God” particle, that could help radically refine our understanding of Standard Model of Particle Physics. For years scientists at CERN have been harnessing the power of the Large Hadron Collider to answer fundamental questions about the nature of particles and the universe around us. In the above video John Ellis, a theoretical physicist, answers the question “What is the Higgs Boson?” The video pairs nicely with the CERN press release: “We observe in our data clear signs of a new particle, at the level of 5 sigma, in the mass region around 126 GeV. The outstanding performance of the LHC and ATLAS and the huge efforts of many people have brought us to this exciting stage,” said ATLAS experiment spokesperson Fabiola Gianotti, “but a little more time is needed to prepare these results for publication.” “The results are preliminary but the 5 sigma signal at around 125 GeV we’re seeing is dramatic. This is indeed a new particle. We know it must be a boson and it’s the heaviest boson ever found,” said CMS experiment spokesperson Joe Incandela. “The implications are very significant and it is precisely for this reason that we must be extremely diligent in all of our studies and cross-checks.” “It’s hard not to get excited by these results,” said CERN Research Director Sergio Bertolucci. “ We stated last year that in 2012 we would either find a new Higgs-like particle or exclude the existence of the Standard Model Higgs. With all the necessary caution, it looks to me that we are at a branching point: the observation of this new particle indicates the path for the future towards a more detailed understanding of what we’re seeing in the data.” How to Use an Xbox 360 Controller On Your Windows PC Download the Official How-To Geek Trivia App for Windows 8 How to Banish Duplicate Photos with VisiPic

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• Orchard CMS translation in Macedonian language

  - by hajan

  In the past two weeks I have been working on translating Orchard CMS in my native (Macedonian) language. Finally, the translation is completed and it is available for download in the Orchard Localization page. About 90% of the strings are translated. If you are Macedonian native speaker, you can take a look at it and if you have any remarks or have better translations for some phrases or strings, please provide me your feedback on my mkdot.net email: hajan[at]mkdot.net. I would also like to thank my friend Jane Stanojovski for his contribution in this project. He has translated part of the modules and the themes translation files. You can find the same blog post in Macedonian language here. Regards,Hajan

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• DIY Door Lock Grants Access via RFID

  - by Jason Fitzpatrick

  If you’re looking to lighten the load on your pocket and banish the jingling of keys, this RFID-key hack makes your front door keycard accessible–and even supports groups and user privileges. Steve, a DIYer and Hack A Day reader, was looking for a solution to a simple problem: he wanted to easily give his friends access to his home without having to copy lots of keys and bulk up their key rings. Since all his friends already carried a Boston public transit RFID card the least intrusive solution was to hack his front door to support RFID cards. His Arduino-based solution can store up to 50 RFID card identifiers, supports group-based access, and thanks to a little laser cutting and stain the project enclosure blends in with the Victorian styling of his home’s facade. Hit up the link below to see his code–for a closer look at the actual enclosure check out this photo gallery. RFID Front Door Lock [via Hack A Day] HTG Explains: What is DNS? How To Switch Webmail Providers Without Losing All Your Email How To Force Windows Applications to Use a Specific CPU

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• New Tabs at End Opens New Tabs at the End of the Chrome Tab Bar

  - by Jason Fitzpatrick

  Chrome: If you’d prefer to have new tabs open at the end of the row instead of next to their parent tab, New Tabs at End is a simple Google Chrome extension that will scoot your tabs where you want them. It’s a minor thing, to be sure, but many users prefer to have tabs open at the end of the row–I know it took me quite awhile as a new Chrome user to get used to the default next-to-parent action. If you’d prefer to have the new tabs open at the end, hit up the link below to install New Tabs at End to tweak your tab bar workflow. New Tabs at End [via Addictive Tips] How To Be Your Own Personal Clone Army (With a Little Photoshop) How To Properly Scan a Photograph (And Get An Even Better Image) The HTG Guide to Hiding Your Data in a TrueCrypt Hidden Volume

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• DIY LEGO Settlers of Catan Board Mixes Two Geeky Hobbies in One

  - by Jason Fitzpatrick

  While Settlers of Catan (a modular board game) and LEGO (a modular building system) seems destined to fit perfectly together, the execution of a functional Catan board out of LEGO bricks is tricky. Check out this polished build to see it done right. Courtesy of LEGO enthusiast Micheal Thomas, this Settlers of Catan build overcomes the problem of fitting the numerous modular Catan board pieces together by using an underlying framework to provided a preset pocket for each tile. The framework also doubles as a perfect place to lady down the roads and settlements pieces in the game. Currently the project is listed in LEGO Cuusoo–a sort of LEGOland version of Kickstarter–so pay it a visit and log a vote in support of the project. You can also check out the Michael’s Flickr stream to see multiple photos of the build in order to get ideas for your own Settlers of Catan set. LEGO Settlers of Catan [via Mashable] How to Use an Xbox 360 Controller On Your Windows PC Download the Official How-To Geek Trivia App for Windows 8 How to Banish Duplicate Photos with VisiPic

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• Microsoft MVP 2013 - ASP.NET/IIS

  - by hajan

  Microsoft MVP 2013 I AM VERY PLEASED TO ANNOUNCE THAT I'VE BEEN AWARDED MICROSOFT MVP 2013 - ASP.NET/IIS I'm honored and it feels great to see this kind of appreciation for what we do in community.This is my third year in a row being Microsoft MVP and getting the email from Microsoft feels exactly the same as the very first one... I'm pleased and really happy to be awarded again.And, here is part of the email message I got: Dear Hajan Selmani, Congratulations! We are pleased to present you with the 2013 Microsoft® MVP Award! This award is given to exceptional technical community leaders who actively share their high quality, real world expertise with others. We appreciate your outstanding contributions in ASP.NET/IIS technical communities during the past year. I would like to say a great THANK YOU to everyone who supports me in the quest of sharing and caring about others in community. A special THANK YOU to Microsoft who brings us this opportunity to encourage our work and increase our enthusiasm to create better community and make great impact through the products and technologies they innovate. Thanks to Yulia Belyanina & Alessandro Teglia for their leadership! Thanks to my family, friends, colleagues, students, acquaintances and all stakeholders who are directly or indirectly involved in my network and deserve respect for my success to getting awarded again with the most prestigious award in community, Microsoft MVP. THANK YOU! Hajan

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• Travelling MVP #3: Community event in Varna, Bulgaria

  - by DigiMortal

  Second stop in my DevReach 2012 trip was at Varna. We had not much time to hang around there but this problem will get fixed next year if not before. But still we had sessions there with Dimitar Georgijev and I had also chance to meet local techies. Next time we will have more tech and beers for sure! We started in the morning from Bucharest and travelled through Ruse, Razgrad and Shumen to Varna. It’s about 275km. We used cab, local bus and Dimitar father’s car. We had one food stop in Ruse and after that we went directly to Varna. Here is our route on map. Varna is Bulgarian city that locates on western coast of Black Sea. I have been there once before this trip and it’s good place to have vacation under sun. Also autumn is there milder than here in Estonia (third day of snow is going on). Bulgaria has some good beers, my favorite mankind killer called rakia and very good national cuisine. Food is made of fresh stuff and it is damn good experience. Here are some arbitrarily selected images (you can click on these to view at original size): Old bus “monument” in Razgrad Stuffed peppers, Bulgarian national cuisine Infra-red community having good time and beers We made our sessions at one study class of Varna technical university. It’s a little bit old style university but everything we needed was there and we had no problems with machinery. Sessions were same as in Bucharest. The user group in Varna is brand new and hopefully it will be something bigger one good day. At least I try to make my commits so they get on their feet quicker. As we had not much time to announce the event there was about 15 guys listening to us and I’m happy that it was not too much hyped event because still I was getting my first experiences with foreign audiences. After sessions we took our stuff to hotel and went to hang around with local techies. We had some good time there and made some new friends. Next time when I go to Varna I go back as more experienced speaker and I plan to do there one tougher and highly challenging session. Maybe somebody from Estonian community will join me and then it will be well planned surprise-attack to Varna :)

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• How DNS Works [Video]

  - by Jason Fitzpatrick

  Want an easy and visual way to explain DNS to a curious friend or cubemate? This clean and simple short video does a great job highlighting exactly what goes on during a typical DNS request. Last month we explained what DNS is and showed you why you might want to use alternate DNS servers; this short video serves as an excellent visual companion for our article. How DNS Works [YouTube] 8 Deadly Commands You Should Never Run on Linux 14 Special Google Searches That Show Instant Answers How To Create a Customized Windows 7 Installation Disc With Integrated Updates

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• Awesome Bookmarklet Collection Ready to Select from and Add to Your Browser

  - by Asian Angel

  Bookmarklets are extremely useful additions to have for your everyday browsing needs without the hassle (or slowdown effect) of extensions. With that in mind tech blog Guiding Tech has put together a terrific collection of 21 bookmarklets that are ready to add to your favorite browser. Just scroll down and select/install the bookmarklets you like from the blog post and enjoy the enhanced browsing! You can see the beginning and end results from our sample use of the Search Site Bookmarklet in the screenshots above and below… Note: We altered the bookmarklet slightly to focus the search results through Google Singapore. How to Stress Test the Hard Drives in Your PC or Server How To Customize Your Android Lock Screen with WidgetLocker The Best Free Portable Apps for Your Flash Drive Toolkit

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• Android Evolution Marches On [Wallpaper]

  - by Asian Angel

  A newer, stronger Droid cometh… Note: The original size of the comic image is 1996*402 pixels, but it can be easily resized and placed on a white background to best fit your monitor’s resolution. Original image comes in .png format with a transparent background. Robot Evolution [Manu Cornet - Bonkers World Blog] Our Geek Trivia App for Windows 8 is Now Available Everywhere How To Boot Your Android Phone or Tablet Into Safe Mode HTG Explains: Does Your Android Phone Need an Antivirus?

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