We are pleased to announce that the Folder Management and Work Item Visualization extensions have been updated on the marketplace.

Both extensions include the new Feedback section, which we are adding to all of our extensions.
It includes:

1. A link for you to contact us by email.
2. A link to the list of features and resolved issues of latest tools and extensions page, for more information on each release.

The Work Item Visualization contains five bug fixes, including one that enables the visualization to be used from the board.

We need your feedback

What do you think of the Feedback section? How can we improve the marketplace further?

Here are some ways to connect with us:

• Add a comment below
• Send us a tweet @almrangers

The KB number referenced in two recent Errata entries was updated: https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/mt242411.aspx (MS-MWBF) and https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dn392779.aspx (MS-OAPX).

In part 1, a basic Azure Web App website was built and deployed using VSTS Build.  Part 2 illustrated how additional files could be included when building a web project.   In this post, Gulp will be added to the VSTS Build  pipeline.

Gulp

Gulp is a task runner for automating routine development tasks.  For example, a common use of Gulp is to minify the javascript and css files and/or perform other optimizations for a non-development environment.  In this example we want to add the ability to alter the assembly version during the build.

Adding Gulp to Visual Studio

The ASP.Net template and Visual Studio added most of the references an setup we need to run Gulp.  In order to add to our project, we need two files: Gulp.js and package.json.  Gulp.js contains the defined tasks while package.json lists any referenced packages required.  The first step is to add a Gulp.js and package.json file to your project (Add New Item -> Gulp Configuration File and Add New Item -> NPM Configuration File).

Depending on what install you have done you might need to perform an npm install gulp to get things to work.  Please see references for how to get setup.

In the packages.json, we will bring in a couple of helpful packages for parsing supplied parameters (Yargs) and for updating the assembly file (DotNet Assembly Info):

{"version": "1.0.0","name": "ASP.NET","private": true,"devDependencies": {"gulp":"^3.9.1","gulp-dotnet-assembly-info": "^0.1.11","yargs": "^4.8.1"
 } 
}

Working with Gulp is surprisingly simple. The defined task below will apply the supplied version number against the assembly version and the file version.

var gulp = require('gulp');
var assemblyInfo = require('gulp-dotnet-assembly-info');
var argv = require('yargs').argv;

gulp.task('version', function () {
 -- only 
 if (argv.version != undefined) {
   gulp.src('*/AssemblyInfo.cs')
   .pipe(assemblyInfo({
     version: function (value) { return argv.version; },
     fileVersion: function (value) { return argv.version; },
   }))
   .pipe(gulp.dest('.'));
 }
});

Tip: if you receive a Cannot find module error when running the Gulp task locally, verify you have have run npm install locally and the packages were downloaded successfully.  You can review the modules in the node_modules sub-folder:

Adding Gulp to Build

Once the files have been pushed to the server, we need to add two tasks to our Build pipeline.  First npm will be run to the install command to download our node packages.  In the sample, project the working directory of the package file was specified:

Next a Gulp task will be added to the build process.  The version argument is specified to include the BuildID

References

• ASP.Net Using Gulp
• Introducing Gulp, Grunt, Bower, and npm support for Visual Studio
• No Gulp Tasks Found
• Gulp 101 – Getting LESS Up and Running in Visual Studio 2015
• How to use Gulp in Visual Studio

Summary

The following shows the current build pipeline:

Next Steps

In the next post, Load Testing will be reviewed and brought into the build pipeline.

I will speaking at the SQL Server Geeks Annual Summit (#SSGAS2016) which is Asia’s Premier Data & Analytics Conference taking place on 11-13 August in Bangalore, India. SQLServerGeeks Annual Summit 2016 is a full 3-day conference with more than 100 breakout sessions and deep dive pre-con sessions on SQL Server, BI & Analytics, Cloud, Big Data, and related technologies.

Below are the details of some of the sessions I will be delivering –

Here is the excerpt for my Breakout session – 

SQL Server on Azure Iaas  – Performance Best Practices and Lessons Learnt from the Field

With the advent of the cloud world, SQL Server deployments on Azure Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) have increased.

Although the Microsoft platform makes it very easy to deploy a VM’s in Azure, there are a some best practices to ensure that the SQL Server deployed is performant.

In this session, we will talk about these performance best practices along with common pitfalls which are encountered while working with SQL Server on IaaS.

Many of colleagues from Microsoft are also delivering multiple sessions at this conference. You can access the complete list here.

Follow  SQLServerGeeks and the #SSGAS2016 hashtag on Twitter for new and exciting updates about the conference. Be there if you are a Data Professional who wants to learn about the latest in the database world.

With digital transformation and customer engagement top of mind for our customers there’s never been a more relevant time to include cloud business applications in your discussions with your customers.  Last month we announced Microsoft Dynamics 365, bringing together our CRM and ERP cloud solutions into one cloud service with new purpose-built apps to help manage specific business functions, including: Financials, Field Service, Sales, Operations, Marketing, Project Service Automation and Customer Service.  We also announced Microsoft AppSource, a marketplace for business users to find and trial line-of-business SaaS apps from Microsoft and our Partners.

What does this mean for you, our Microsoft Partners?  You can find out more at next months’ Australia Partner Conference on the Gold Coast.  Alongside inspirational keynote speakers there will be a wealth of sessions valuable for you whether you’re an existing Microsoft Dynamics Partner or exploring what Dynamics could mean for your business.  Below are my top 6 favourite “must attend” sessions to hear more about Dynamics 365, AppSource and how they can help you change business processes into business advantage for your customers.

Join us on the Gold Coast next month to learn more and meet face-to-face with the local and regional Dynamics teams.

Sophie Corker, Business Group Lead, Business Applications, Microsoft Australia

Powering digital disruption with modern business applications

John Leonard – Dynamics Lead, Microsoft Australia

Wednesday 7 September; 14:00 – 14:45

Customers are looking for a trusted Partner to help them with the technology to support their critical business processes as they embark on digital transformation. Gone are the days of lengthy and costly implementation of traditional ERP systems.

ERP in the cloud is allowing customers to spin up and test business processes with little risk; roll-out in timely and manageable steps; and maintain flexibility to stay a step ahead of the competition.

What does this mean for you as a Partner? How do you make money in this new ERP world? How can you build SaaS business apps and sell at volume through marketplaces? Join us to learn more.

Building a practice to enable your customers to deliver intelligent customer engagements

Arman Masoudi – Senior Product Marketing Manager, Dynamics CRM, Microsoft Australia

Tuesday 6 September; 11:15 – 12:00

Gartner’s 2015 CEO survey identified customer experience management as the top priority for technology investments over the next five years.

Discover how Dynamics 365 – together with insights and productivity tools and artificial intelligence – can provide your customers with a platform to deliver amazing customer experiences across sales, services and marketing. Also learn how to build a profitable practice supporting your customers with this critical challenge.

Grab the opportunity with Dynamics 365

Josh Burgess – CRM Partner Technology Strategist, Microsoft Australia

Tuesday 6 September; 13:00 – 13:45

Do you already have a successful Office 365 business with a strong customer base? Are you now looking for the next workload to deliver value to your customers? Are your customers asking for help to build stronger and longer-lasting connections with their customer base?

Learn more about Dynamics 365 and how it can help you grow your business in the SMB market.

A framework to create a customer experience to remember

Dr. Steve Nuttall – Director of CX Research, Fifth Quadrant

Wednesday 7 September; 10:00 -1 2:00 (Masterclass Workshop)

Once viewed as a soft metric, customer experience is now a priority for most businesses, ranking alongside profit and return as measures of an organisation’s success and a key point of differentiation. Businesses that see customer centricity as key to their future success are awakening to the benefits of understanding interactions from the customers’ perspective, and using this knowledge as a catalyst for business transformation.

These businesses have begun to embrace Customer Journey Mapping as an important technique and first step in the process to designing and creating better customer outcomes.

This master class will provide a practical demonstration of how Customer Journey Mapping techniques can be executed correctly and consistently and result in outputs which help transform the customer experience including:

• Journey Mapping definitions, broad frameworks and templates
• How to gather input from customers, and develop empathy
• Creating Journey Mapping deliverables
• Using journey mapping deliverables in the development of creative solutions

Outcome-Based Selling – Maximise Revenue and Value from your Sales Efforts

Bob Erdle – GM Worldwide Dynamics Enterprise Sales, Microsoft Corporation

Session date & time TBC

Ever had a customer waver at the last mile due to lack of stakeholder buy-in? Or, come to deal close and had the customer ask for a massive discount? In this session Bob will showcase a scalable and structured process to build a compelling business value proposition from a customer’s perspective.  You’ll hear how to change the conversation with your prospects to drive increased deal size, better sales velocity, improved deal qualification, reduced discounting and higher deal close rates.

Customer Experience: The new currency of power

Marcy Larsen – Industry Market Development Manager, Retail and Consumer, Microsoft Australia

Tuesday 6 September; 13:00 – 13:45

With the rise (and rise and rise) of social media, we all know the cardinal rule, mistreat your customers at your own peril.

So how do we explain the disparity between the $500 billion spent on marketing annually compared to just $9 billion on customer service?*. And when customers’ retention is recognised as the quickest way to profit growth.

In this session, hear from Australian businesses embracing the notion that customer experience and customer service IS the new marketing.

*source: Luke Brynley-Jones, Our Social Times

TheBuild Usage extension, created by André Dias, allows you show how many build minutes are being used within an account. Make them visible for your team by adding Build Usage tiles to your dashboard!

Add a Build Usage Widget to your dashboard!

Build Usage Hub Group (Collection Level)

See and export to CSV the build usage for all your team projects!

See the build minutes for a specific Team Project grouped by users.

What are the Build Definitions that more use build resources? Yes, you can filter by this month, last month, this year or a custom date range.

Build Usage Hub (Team Project Level)

You can see the build usage hub also on the project level.

We need your feedback.

Here are some ways to connect with us:

• Add a comment below.
• Or send us a tweet @almrangers.

Microsoft Japan Data Platform Tech Sales Team

倉重 秀昭 / Hideaki Kurashige

前回の記事に続き、今回も 米国本社の CAT チームの記事を基に、SQL Server R Services を初めて使う人のための Tips について書いていきたいと思います。

R を使う理由の一つに、データを様々なグラフを使って可視化するためのライブラリが豊富にそろっていることがあると思います。SQL Server R Services を使うと T-SQL を使って R のコードを実行することができますが、この場合 R のグラフィックデバイスを使ったグラフ等の表示ができない為、 データの可視化には工夫が必要になります。

今回は T-SQL をつかって R を実行した場合のデータ可視化手法の内、代表的な手法を３つ紹介させていただきたいと思います。

(1) グラフの画像を ファイルとして出力する方法

R の Plot 関数等を使って生成したグラフは、JPG など画像ファイルとしてローカルファイルシステム上に保存する事が可能です。

実現方法としては、以下の２つがあります。

① ストアドプロシージャ― + BCPコマンドを利用す方法

グラフの画像データを varbinary 形式で 出力するストアドプロシージャ―を作成。BCPコマンドから、そのストアドプロシージャーを実行して出力結果を画像ファイルとして保存する方法です。

※以下のサイトの「Storing plots as varbinary data type」に詳細な手順がサンプルスクリプト付きで紹介されています。

https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/mt683486.aspx

② ストアドプロシージャ―のみを用いる方法

①では、グラフデータを画像として保存するためにBCPを利用していますが、こちらはBCPを使わずにすべてT-SQLで記述する方法です。

※こちらにつきましても、以下のサイトの「Saving plots in files (jpg, pdf) on the server」にサンプルコード付きで詳細手順が記載されています。

https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/mt683486.aspx

(2) SQL Server Reporting Services を利用する方法

R の Plot 関数等を使って生成したグラフは、SQL Server Reporting Services（SSRS） の定型レポートの中に埋め込む事も可能です。

実装方法としては、グラフのバイナリデータを SQL Serve のテーブル内に格納し、そのデータを SSRSから読みだしてレポートの中に組み込む方式になります。

詳細な実装方法については、以下のページ（※弊社外HPですので内容についてはご自身で精査ください）にサンプルコード付きで詳細が記載されています。

https://www.mssqltips.com/sqlservertip/4127/sql-server-2016-r-services-display-r-plots-in-reporting-services/

※ SQL Server Reporting Services を利用する方法としては、Custom Report Item を利用して Reporting Service に R グラフィックデバイスを実装する方法もあります。

この方法は、Reporting Services の設定変更が必要になり、すこし大がかりになってしまいますが、以下のページの最下部にサンプルコード付きで詳細が記載されています。

https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/mt590871.aspx

(3) Power BI Desktop を利用する方法

Power BI Desktop には、R ビジュアルという機能が備わっており、R を使って作成したグラフをレポートに組み込むことができるようになっています。

この方法は、上記２つとは異なり、Plot 関数等のグラフ処理を SQL Server R Services で実施するのではなく、Power BI Desktop がインストールされたクライアントマシン側で行います。

Power BI Desktop の R ビジュアルの機能については、詳細が以下のページに紹介されています。

https://powerbi.microsoft.com/ja-jp/documentation/powerbi-desktop-r-visuals/

今回は、SQL Server R Services を初めて使う人のための Tips として、T-SQL を利用して R コードを実行した際の可視化手法についてご紹介させていただきました。

ご興味がある方は、ぜひこれらの機能を試してみていただければと思います。

A lot of times we help customers getting the best out of running their workloads on Azure using any of our Endorsed Linux Distributions.

There are a few best practices and recommendations that will sure help getting the most out of your Linux virtual machines and we would like to share a few of them.

A great starting article is Running a Linux VM on Azure which also focus on deploying virtual machines using our Resource Manager (ARM) approach which is recommended for new deployments on Azure.

One topic that also is important for a lot of customers is security and we highly recommend using SSH Keys to access your Linux virtual machines on Azure, here is also a great article about this side of things How to use SSH with Linux and Mac on Azure.

Sometimes you also need extra space on your Linux virtual machines so you might need to use additional data disks or even set them up to use LVM or MDAM if RAID is required, managing and enabling swap space, these are a few good articles on these topics too:

A) How to attach a data disk to a Linux virtual machine
B) Configure LVM on a Linux virtual machine in Azure
C) Configure software RAID on Linux
D) Optimize your Linux vM on Azure

We hope these tips help you having a great experience when running Linux on Azure and we will be updating this article with more information as they are requested by customers or just found to be useful by anyone running Linux on Azure.

Enjoy!
Azure Linux Support Team

When deploying Linux workloads on Azure, Microsoft highly recommends using SSH keys since they provide a more secure way of logging on to a Linux instance using SSH than using normal passwords. Most of the time passwords can be cracked with for example a brute force attack whereas SSH keys are nearly impossible to decipher by brute force.

Generating SSH key pairs is easy and it will provide you two long string of characters which basically will mean a private key and a public key.

The public key is the one that you are going to place on any Linux server that you need access to and then the client that you are connecting from you will have your private key stored. In some cases or tasks (for example automation or moving data from one server to another) you might use a private key without a password set, that means that it won’t ask for a password when the private key and the public key matches; however it is a best practice to add a password to it if you are going to be using them for interactive access.

Here we will show the required steps to generate an SSH (RSA) key pair and how to use it in Azure.

1) Create the SSH RSA key pair (You will need OpenSSL to be installed, these steps were tested on Mac and Linux):

ssh-keygen -t rsa

You will be asked for a couple of questions:

Enter file in which to save the key (/home/<your-user-name>/.ssh/id_rsa):
You can press enter here, saving the file to the user home (in this case, the example user is called azureuser).
Enter passphrase (empty for no passphrase):NOTE: If you DO NOT type a password, you will never need to type one when logging in to other hosts, it is a recommended security practice to use a password

All the steps together should look similar to this:

ssh-keygen -t rsa
Generating public/private rsa key pair.
Enter file in which to save the key (/home/azureuser/.ssh/id_rsa):
Enter passphrase (empty for no passphrase):
Enter same passphrase again:
Your identification has been saved in /home/azureuser/.ssh/id_rsa.
Your public key has been saved in /home/azureuser/.ssh/id_rsa.pub.
The key fingerprint is:
4a:dd:0a:c6:35:4e:3f:ed:27:38:8c:74:44:4d:93:67 azureuser@a
The key's randomart image is:
+--[ RSA 2048]----+
|          .oo.   |
|         .  o.E  |
|        + .  o   |
|     . = = .     |
|      = S = .    |
|     o + = +     |
|      . o + o .  |
|           . o   |
|                 |
+-----------------+
The public key is now located in /home/azureuser/.ssh/id_rsa.pub The private key (identification) is now located in /home/azureuser/.ssh/id_rsa

2) Copying the public key

Once the key pair is created, it is time to place the public key on the Linux server that you want to use.

You can copy the public key into the new machine’s authorized_keys file with the ssh-copy-id command.

Make sure to replace the example username and IP address below.
ssh-copy-id azureuser@192.168.1.2/

Alternatively, you can paste in the keys using SSH:
cat ~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub | ssh azureuser@192.168.1.2 “mkdir -p ~/.ssh && cat >>  ~/.ssh/authorized_keys”

No matter which command you chose, you should see something like:

The authenticity of host '12.34.56.78 (12.34.56.78)' can't be established.
RSA key fingerprint is b1:2d:33:67:ce:35:4d:5f:f3:a8:cd:c0:c4:48:86:12.
Are you sure you want to continue connecting (yes/no)? yes
Warning: Permanently added '12.34.56.78' (RSA) to the list of known hosts.
azureuser@192.168.1.2's password:

Now, try logging into the machine with "ssh 'azureuser@192.168.1.2'", and check in: ~/.ssh/authorized_keys to make sure you haven't added extra keys
that you weren't expecting.

Now you can go ahead and log into azureuser@192.168.1.2 and you will be asked for a password which is the one that you set when creating the key pair, if you have not added a password you will login directly.

In the future when deploying Linux virtual machines on Azure you can then copy and paste the contents of your public key, in this example /home/azureuser/.ssh/id_rsa.pub on the portal when you choose the SSH Key option when creating a new virtual machine or you can also use the file when deploying using azure vm create , available in our Azure CLI tools by specifying the option -M.

Some useful tips when working with SSH keys

1) For OSX users:

If you are deploying virtual machines in Azure using public keys, you can just copy and paste the contents of your id_rsa.pub file, if you are using OSX, a good way of making this process easier and faster is by adding an alias that will automatically copy the contents of your public key so all you have to do when deploying from the portal is paste it, in this example I created an alias in my .bash_profile that is called azuressh:

alias azuressh=”cat ~/.ssh/idrsa_rsa.pub | pbcopy

So every time I need my SSH public key I just open a terminal, type azuressh then I just hit COMMAND+V on the azure portal and get my key pasted in there.

2) Using the SSH “config” file:

A great way of customizing and making your SSH work for you is by using its config file, usually located under ~/.ssh

This is an example of a config file, it basically adds the ServerAliveInterval 60 to ALL hosts (*) that I connect to:
Host *
ServerAliveInterval 60

This other line, defines a host called “myhost” which I can connect just using “ssh myhost”, with my own user defined, ssh key and hostname:
host myhost
Hostname myhostname.example.com
User admin
IdentityFile ~/.ssh/mypublickey_rsa

Other useful examples:

# Here I apply these settings to any host under the cloudapp.azure.com domain, meaning I always login with that user and key:
host *.cloudapp.azure.com
User myuser
IdentityFile ~/.ssh/mypublickey_rsa

# Here I apply a different SSH port automatically when connecting to this specific host
host securehost
Hostname www.myserver.com
User myuser
Port 50000
IdentifyFile ~/.ssh/mypublickey_rsa

For more details about available options, you can always read more at The Linux Documentation Project link.

References:
http://linux.die.net/man/1/ssh-keygen
https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/documentation/articles/virtual-machines-linux-mac-create-ssh-keys/

Final Update: Monday, 8 August 2016 02:54 UTC

We’ve confirmed that all systems are back to normal with no customer impact as of 08/08/2016 02:45 UTC. Customers should now have no issues while using the Search feature in their Visual Studio Team Services accounts. We are working with our engineering team to root cause the issue.

We understand that customers rely on VS Team Services as a critical service and apologize for any impact this incident caused.

Sincerely,
Manjunath

Initial Update: Monday, 8 August 2016 00:45 UTC

We are actively investigating issues with ALMSearch feature in Visual Studio Team Services. Some customers may experience failures while searching using the ALM Search feature from their Visual Studio accounts.  

We are working to resolve this issue and apologize for any inconvenience.

Sincerely,
Manjunath

Previously, I mentioned that MSAGL was open-sourced an available on GitHub. The good news today is that MSAGL will now also be available on NuGet.org as a pre-built binary package!

We are just kicking off the process now so a “beta” prerelease NuGet package of an older build is available on NuGet.org. Once we work out the full process, an up-to-date and non-prerelease package will be available soon.

Final Update: Monday, 8 August 2016 04:02 UTC

We’ve confirmed that all systems are back to normal with no customer impact as of 08/08/2016 3:40 UTC. Automated builds should now not fail while doing a GIT fetch. We are working with our engineering team to understand the root cause.

We understand that customers rely on VS Team Services as a critical service and apologize for any impact this incident caused.

Sincerely,
Manjunath

Initial Update: Monday, 8 August 2016 00:45 UTC

We are actively investigating issues Visual Studio Team Services where Automated Builds trying to do a Git Fetch would fail. We are currently deploying the fix to the impacted regions.   

We are working to resolve this issue and apologize for any inconvenience.

Sincerely,
Manjunath

Guest post by Trent Ray, Microsoft Teacher Ambassador and Expert Educator

Learning to code with Touch Develop is a great way to introduce students to skills in the Digital Technologies Curriculum, including computational thinking and computer programming. Accessing the Touch Develop Web App makes it easy for students to create touch apps and games in minutes and gives them the opportunity to learn these valuable industry skills. It also allows teachers who are designing the learning to share App links, capture thinking and monitor student progress. OneNote has yet again come to the rescue making it easy for my learner’s to develop a digital portfolio and for myself to collect evidence of student thinking and work  through a scaffold in our collaborative OneNote Class Notebook.

Build Your First App

Objective: When recently developing a unit for my Year 9 – Build Your Own Apps class I wanted the task to be as authentic as possible so Skype became our portal to accessing an authentic audience outside of our school. Whilst ensuring that the Learning Intentions explicitly linked to the ICT skills and knowledge in the curriculum, I also wanted to extend my student’s to think critically, innovate, create and challenge their abilities in working as 21st Century Learners.

The Task: Through the Design and Technology processes develop a touch app to engage and entertain young users of technology. Have real users or game players test student’s work and for them to use feedback the modify or improve their product.

The Tools: In order to get my idea off the ground I needed a range of tools for my students to access throughout their design journey. Each tool served a purpose to help develop a skill, build knowledge or provide a digital space for recording their designs and reflections.

• Microsoft OneNote: Each student kept a digital portfolio of their learning which included scaffolded pages for each individual student to work through. They were required to systematically work through the phases of the Design & Technology Process (AusVELS) as well as self-regulate with a focus on managing their time, setting short and long-term goals and reflecting on their achievements. Having access to each of my students’ work through OneNote I was also able to monitor progress and collaborate with students to provide timely feedback.

• Touch Develop: Was the platform used for purpose of adhering to the ICT for Creating in the AusVELS curriculum – (now found in the Digital Technologies Curriculum). With a combination of old fashioned explore and play, working through Touch Develop tutorials/walk throughs, as well as teacher lead instruction, students successfully created their first App or Game. All students needed were a Microsoft Account (Windows Live ID) to access the online Touch Develop profile which can be used on any connected device with a web browser. Microsoft also have fantastic online modules that students can self-pace through to learn the fundamentals.

• Skype: Was used as a platform to connect to the authentic audience to survey interest and to get to know their target audience. In this case a group of younger Grade 5 primary school students from another school. We used this tool to leverage discussions about appropriate behaviour in a web conference and practised different communication skills required for online interaction. Students were extremely excited when @skypeclassroom retweeted our images on twitter.

• Sway: As we were two separate schools, we needed an outward facing platform where students could share their work. My Year 9 students used Sway as a place to create and publish a blog with information, images and instructions and a link to their web based prototypes, allowing the Grade 5 students to act as ‘game testers’. Through this tool the collaborating teacher was also able to shape a learning activity for their students where the writing of constructive feedback become part of his classes literacy rotation.

What did the students have to say?

 “I liked that real kids got to play my game” Year 9 Student

“It was good to be able to work at my own pace and choose from a couple of options for how I learnt how to code” Year 9 Student

“It was fun to play games at school and know the person who made it” Grade 5 Student

 Curriculum Resources for Touch Develop:

Educator Community: access Trent’s lesson plan, including OneNote Scaffold and Assessment Rubric click here.

Curriculum Resource: An introduction to computer science course built with Touch Develop! Includes day-by-day plans for implementing the curriculum as a 6, 9, 12, or 18-week instructor-led course.

Learn Touch Develop:Microsoft Virtual Academy’s Hour of Code

Guest post by Trent Ray, Microsoft Teacher Ambassador and Expert Educator

Premier Support for Developers provides access to a wide range of advisory and training options that include most popular developer technologies.  Options range from onsite, instructor-led workshops to remote training, and even access to a distinguished team of Developer Consultants for specialized advisory needs.  Content frequently includes proven practices established through the support of Microsoft’s largest customers.

Teams struggle to keep up with the latest technology trends, so training and knowledge transfer are important investments to build the expertise required for optimal application and infrastructure.  It’s a great way to proactively stay in front of technical gaps that can manifest in the form of implementation delays, architectural problems, and/or costly production outages. 

Online sessions for popular technologies are continuously offered by Premier in the following formats:

• Tech-Talks are 60 minute online presentations with 30 minutes of Q/A.
• Webcasts are 90 minute online sessions with 30 minutes of Q/A.
• Remote Workshops are typically multi-day, instructor-led online events.
• Ramp-Up is a collection of 20+ webcasts, ~90-min in duration EACH, covering the fundamentals of development and a broad range of programming languages and applications. Customers gain access for 90 days to consume all the content.
• Productivity Series provides 1 month of access to user-level training on various Microsoft technologies. Any number of users from an organization can access the content during the 1 month.

Upcoming Remote Workshops and Webcasts (United States and Canada)

Through a Premier Support relationship, ADMs can often recommend high value proactive services based on the support trends and activity of your organization.  Contact your TAM/ADM for more information –or- to register for any upcoming event listed above.

For a list of regional workshop titles and advisory options on any Microsoft technology, contact your TAM/ADM or email us to learn how Premier Support for Developers can help you.

If you’ve been using our docker tools you’ve noticed we depend highly on network sharing for Docker for Windows. For the Linux host to mount your Windows drives, you need to provide a username/password. What you may not realize is Linux has some special characters it may not always handle.

Short story: if you’re having trouble with volume sharing & Docker for Windows, make sure you don’t have a $ in your password. ” and ; are also suspect at this point. Simply changing from these characters to alternate characters across the top of your numbered keyboard should work.

The Docker folks say they’re working on solving this, but at least for 1.12.0-beta21 (build: 5971), we can confirm this is a problem.

Steve

I was asked about these terms from a blog reader.  As I thought about these terms and how to blog about them I became concerned that I might just be as clear as mud, but I will do my best.

Each of the terms means something within a specific context.   For example, when your teenager says something is “BAD” they really mean is it GOOD.  You have to understand the context in which the term is being used to fully understand the meaning.

COLD, WARM, HOT

Take a metal pole as an example.   If I tell you the metal pole is hot you don’t want to touch it and get burnt.  If I tell you it is cold you might envision my fathers favorite Christmas movie where Ralphy’s tongue gets stuck to a frozen pole. 

Let’s talk about these terms in light of a computer and more specifically SQL Server.  There are two main avenues that these three terms are associated with; Synchronization and Resources (Memory, I/O, CPU, etc.)

When talking about synchronization objects (Lock, Latch, Spinlock, Mutex, Semaphore, Event, …) the term HOT is analogous to contention and bottlenecks.   You will often hear this described in terms of ‘The lock is hot’, ‘The latch is hot’, ‘The spinlock is hot.’  When expressed in this context it means you are experiencing a bottleneck on a specific resource.   Usually hot indicates you have many threads/workers attempting to access the same, shared resource.  To simplify this discussion think about your CPU.  The more work on the system the more CPU is consumed.   The CPU has a property of requiring electricity and the physical translation of that energy into CPU activity results in heat.   The more activity the HOTTER the CPU which generally kicks in the cooling fans.   The less work on the system the COOLER the CPU.

When you experience a HOT object the goal is to reduce the contention and bottleneck.   This could be something such as partitioning the table or adding an index.  There are is a wide range of remediation activities depending on the type of bottleneck.    For internal structures SQL Server often applies partitioning designs.   For example, SQL Server may employ a per NODE or per CPU based design.   SQL Server can even dynamically partition Latches and Memory Objects to reduce a HOT spot.

COLD synchronization objects are the opposite of HOT.  For example, a value may need to be protected but it is not written to or read frequently.  It is protected by a synchronization object but seldom accessed.

If you talk about database pages HOT is a good thing. If the database page is held in the SQL Server Buffer Pool, main ram it is called HOT.  In fact, during SQL Server startup, as pages are read in and hashed it is termed the warm up phase.   The concept is fast access to the data on the page.  

The closest to the executing code is RAM.   The local SSD used for Buffer Pool Extension is WARM because it is commonly faster than going to the stable storage (COLD, Disk.)

You may hear the same discussion around CPU access to memory.   If you study a CPU you will find various cache levels (L1, L2, …)  In fact, the further away from the CPU the colder the memory is considered.   Having the memory the instructions need in CPU cache allows for faster response.   Having to load data from remote memory locations or secondary cache lines is considered COLD (takes longer.)

You may have experienced this in your own environment.   The production server supports the application (HOT), a secondary site allows (WARM) access and in a disaster you can access a backup (COLD.)

The best way to describe this concept is syrup.   The colder the temperature of syrup the longer you have to wait for the pour to enjoy your breakfast.  When accessing resources your often want HOT access.

CLEAN, DIRTY, FREE

SQL Server tracks database pages in RAM or BPE (Buffer Pool Extension) with a BUF structure.   The BUF structure contains a pointer to the database page in RAM or BPE, a latch used to protect physical changes, … and a status.   The status is where the CLEAN, DIRTY, FREE, ON LRU, HASHED, … state is stored.

When the database page is

• On the free list the status if FREE
• Loaded in memory and associated with a database (HASHED for fast lookup), available for LRU (removal based on memory pressure and reference activity)
• Loaded in memory, associated with a database and data has been modified (DIRTY) – DIRTY implies the database page in memory does not match what is one disk
• Loaded in memory, associated with a database and data matches the version on disk (CLEAN)

The status is used by various activities.  As an example, Checkpoint and Lazy Writer only write DIRTY pages after making sure the associated log records have been secured.   As soon as the write completes the DIRTY status is removed and the BUF status can again indicate CLEAN.

In the background, lazy writer performs constant page scanning.   Randomly, CLEAN pages are selected and the checksum is re-validated.  If the page is DIRTY the checksum can’t be re-validated as the checksum is only updated when output to disk and until the write is completes it can’t be considered CLEAN.

Lazy Writer helps maintain the free list.  When Lazy Writer encounters a DIRTY status, the page has to be written to disk first.   When the status is CLEAN the page can be removed from the HASH table and directly returned to the the free list (FREE.)

Summary

It could easily take several chapters in a book to fully describe each of these topics and describe the various contexts.  Hopefully it is a bit clearer then mud but I won’t claim that I made it crystal clear.   When you are talking to someone and hear these types of terms be sure to get the correct context to help you make the right assumptions and decisions.

Bob Dorr – Principal Software Engineer SQL Server

Join us at the Microsoft Innovation Centre in Brisbane on Thursday 11th August for an event being run by River City Labs and Startup Catalyst. River City Labs are launching the next intake of their accelerator program in partnership with Telstra’s muru-D, and are currently looking for startups to apply. At the same time, Startup Catalyst will provide an overview of their upcoming international trade missions, and an update on key markets of the US and Europe. Themed around “Going Global”, this event will give you insights into some of the programs available to help you scale your startup into international markets.
Register here: https://www.eventbrite.com.au/e/information-session-on-the-rcl-muru-d-accelerator-and-startup-catalyst-mic-tickets-26937571000

I added 5 more book reviews to this article:

• Book Info + Reviews: “Learn to Program with Small Basic: An Introduction to Programming with Games, Art, Science, and Math” by Dr. Majed Marji & Ed Price

Here are the five reviews that I added:

“This book… assumes no prior knowledge of programming and introduces readers to projects that take them from basic programming concepts (such as understanding variables, and user input) to more complex aspects (such as arrays)… The examples are relevant to students, and the narrative flows easily for the target audience to understand.

Each chapter shows example code and encourages readers to try out the code to see how it behaves. This approach creates some intrigue and a sense of curiosity to try out the code. At the end of the chapter are “Programming Challenges” that readers can do. While solutions to the exercises can be found, they are not in the book but on a website. The additional step to lookup the solutions encourages readers to work on the program first, then lookup the solution later. This book has some unique approaches to helping readers learn programming. Pros: Easy to understand, Helpful examples, and Well-written.”

—MH from Shaker Heights

 

“I feel the examples and exercises given in “Learn to Program with Small Basic” provide a fun and informative way of delivering the concepts… I found the book easy to read and follow; the examples are clear and well explained.

The use of colour coding and visuals enables students to easily follow along and gives them the confidence to try coding themselves.”

—Susan Nicholson, Middle and High School Teacher

 

“I am an teacher in a small University here in Brazil. I discovered Small Basic a few months ago and began to use it to create and test small algorithms to show my students. I have the paperback version of this book and it is amazing… It also has a lot of exercises that you can test and discover new ways to program with Small Basic. A special note here is that this book explains in a useful way how to use graphics… And I also believe that this is a good start for game programming because it has a few example games.

It is obvious that this book was written with love and dedication. It is clear for me that the authors are deeply involved with the Small Basic Community. My 14 year-old son will also use this to learn programming, and I am planning to create a small course focused to teach kids about programming in my city. This book is very easy to read and filled with examples. Buy this book and have fun, especially if you used Basic in the past!”

—Brazil University Professor, Amazon Review

 

This book has been really fun to read and the instructions are very detailed and very easy to follow. No previous experience is needed, and I was impressed by how quickly I went from no experience to writing simple programs. My 8-year-old son was watching over my shoulder when I was writing some of the code and his first question was “when can I try it too!”. I’m excited to move beyond the basic skills and try out some of the activities in the later sections of the book… this book is the best tool I could ever want!”

—Michelle, Amazon Review

 

Great for kids: Like a lot of kids (and adults), my son enjoys computer games… I showed my son that he could download the program for free… This book offers a thorough introduction into Small Basic. It’s laid out like a simplified text book… it offers simple stories that introduce the programming basics that every language uses — if this happens, then do that — in fun and engaging ways. Once my son learns the “basics” of Small Basic, I think he’ll be ready to learn new ways to do the same things in other programming languages.”

—Hello Happy, Amazon Review

您是一個正在建置行動應用程式的網頁開發者嗎？還是您正在考慮加入網頁開發者從開發行動網頁變到開發行動應用程式的行列呢？我們提供一個全新的 Visual Studio 範本，建置在 Apache Cordova平台之上、Ionic UI framework、使用 TypeScript語言。

如果您還不熟悉這個，Ionic 是一個非常熱門的起始點對於 Cordova 的開發者；幫助您建置有出色使用者體驗的 Android、iOS 與 Windows 10 應用程式。本地的 SDKs 提供一組對行動裝置最佳化的現成的 UI 控制。另一方面，HTML 只提供一組原始物件─長方形─來畫您的 UI。Ionic 為行動開發者傳遞以 HTML 為基礎的控制。

我們的 Tools of Apache Cordova（TACO）團隊這一年以來一直與 Ionic 團隊密切地合作，來確保 Visual Studio的開發者在使用 Ionic framework 與 TypeScript 語言能有一流的體驗，而 TypeScript 是選擇用來開發即將到來的 Ionic 2 framework 的語言。這週我們釋出了兩組使用 TypeScript 語言的 Ionic 範本。

• 一組全新的 Ionic 2（Beta 10）範本
• Ionic 1 範本的更新，新增支援 TypeScript

點選上面的連結來下載它們，或閱讀更多有關它們的資訊。

來體驗看看 Ionic 2 吧！

Ionic 團隊正在為下一個以 Angular 2 為基礎的 Ionic RC 版本努力工作。我們的團隊同樣致力於讓 Visual Studio 可以有很棒的 Ionic 2 支援，我們今天要跟您分享的是一個 Ionic 2 範本的早期版本，基於目前的 Ionic 2 Beta 10 版本。

這組範本包含與上面 Ionic 1 版本相同的三個範本：

• Blank（空白）
• Sidemenu（側目錄）
• Tabs（索引標籤）

我們團隊正釋出這些範本在 Visual Studio 2015 作為實驗，同時努力在 Visual Studio “15” ，也就是下一個 Visual Studio 版本做出卓越的 Ionic 2 開發者體驗 。

有一些開發者體驗的小缺陷，被標註在 Project Readme 頁面，您將會在第一次用範本建立專案時看到。值得注意的是，當要使用這些 Ionic 2 範本時，您將會需要做以下的事：

• 安裝 Update 3 或更新的 Visual Studio 2015
• 安裝最新的 ASP.NET Web tooling
• 第一次建立您的專案之後，等待「（Restoring）」訊息從 dependencies 物件消失在 Solution Explorer
• 在建置之前，開啟 Task Runner Explorer 從 View> Other Windows> Task Runner Explorer目錄。這會啟動 Visual Studio 執行此範本使用的客製化 Gulp 建置 script。

要瞭解更多有關這個 framework 與如何使用這些 beta 範本，看看我們最新的 Ionic 2 教學。

TypeScript 與 Ionic 1；更棒的組合

對 JavaScript 開發者的 Ionic 1 範本已經提供給 TACO 開發者一段時間了。有了這個更新，我們對 JavaScript 範本做出一些細微的更新，新增一組使用 TypeScript 程式語言的新範本。

一樣的三個 Ionic 範本現在 JavaScript 與 TypeScript 的開發者都可以使用：

• Blank（空白）
• Sidemenu（側目錄）
• Tabs（索引標籤）

一旦安裝了，您將會在 File> New Project…目錄的 JavaScript> Apache Cordova Apps與 TypeScript> Apache Cordova Apps底下找到這些。

現在有了 TypeScript 的支援，您可以取得與其他 TypeScript 開發者一樣的好處。一些重點包含：

• 高精確度的 IntelliSense
• 重構工具
• 為來源找尋所有的 references
• 基於符號的巡覽程式碼

了解更多有關使用 Visual Studio & Ionic 1 工作，查看我們的Ionic 1 教學。

幫助我們讓 Ionic 體驗更棒！

請試試看 Ionic 2與 Ionic 1 TypeScript 範本並讓我們知道您的感想！您可以直接留言在下載頁面，或寄 email 給我們、在 Stack Overflow 上與我們聯絡、在 Twitter 寄給我們一個 tweet、或直接提供回饋給我們的文件在我們的文件網站。

本文翻譯自 Create high quality mobile apps with Ionic & Visual Studio

若對以上技術及產品有任何問題，很樂意為您服務! 請洽：台灣微軟開發工具服務窗口 – MSDNTW@microsoft.com / 02-3725-3888 #4922