Tech in the 603, The Granite State Hacker

Global Azure Bootcamp 2018 – Manchester, NH, United States

THANK YOU!

Global Azure Bootcamp 2018, held at over 280 locations around the world on Saturday, April 21st, 2018 is in the books.

These are exciting times.  When Microsoft airs commercials that point out that “there is more computing power at your fingertips than in past generations”, I think that’s a severe understatement.  There’s more computing power at your fingertips today than there has ever been, over the cumulative course of human history.

Further, Microsoft has never been more clear about their commitment to Azure, to the point of burying Windows within their own organization.  It’s not that Windows is gone, it’s that Windows is merely a client to Azure, and their new organization structure reflects this.

I was mostly focused on the Granite State event location, and had my hands full with that… though I did assist the Burlington / Boston event as well, especially getting local sponsorship in the form of custom t-shirts from Insight/BlueMetal.

Thanks so much to all the folks who contributed to make it happen… Peter Lamonica of Manchester Community College for making the facilities available to us…   Carl Barton, Xamarin MVP, Roman Jaquez, Patty Tompkins, Marie Patrick in the Granite State (New Hampshire) community for presenting, and Patrick El-Azem, Dave Stampfli, Bret Swedeen, and Gino Filicetti from Microsoft itself, for presenting, and taking the content up a notch.  All helped organize the event.

The event really was perfect for the Granite State Users Groups, LLC, an organization I created several years ago specifically to enable users groups to plan events and manage their own resources in the process.

We shared a lot of learning!

Topics included

  • Azure 101
  • Azure Functions
  • Lift & Shift
  • App Services
  • Azure Resource Management
  • Azure Networking
  • Bot Framework
  • Cognitive Services
  • Azure DevTest Labs
  • SQL on Azure
  • Azure IoT Hub
All of the support from Global Azure Bootcamp central made some of the harder parts easy… in particular setting up lunch, and providing sponsorship for things like $300 Azure passes and the like.
In retrospect, we had a few minor misses:
  • We didn’t print up schedules for everyone, which was a mistake.  We had enough to effectively share, but should have just printed out a copy for everyone.
  • We had coffee, but it didn’t arrive till near end of day.
  • We didn’t take enough photos. 🙂

Azure Passes!

Manchester Community College floor plan

Jetbrains stickers

The “Go-kit” turned into a stack of boxes.

Custom event tshirts from BlueMetal/Insight

Our schedule, with some marked up for specific rooms

Locked & loaded early, ready to roll.

Schedule on display

Our 3rd classroom was a bit remote from the rest of the event.

Carl Barton presenting Azure Functions in session 1.

Panorama of Carl’s session

The school MPR in panorama, rolling with Patrick El-Azeem’s Azure 101, just one of several sessions rolling at the time.
Patrick El-Azeem presenting Azure 101
Tech in the 603, The Granite State Hacker

Microsoft Build 2017 Recap

[Edit:  I wrote this originally back in May, 2017, but realized I never published it.  Anyway, very belated, here’s a rundown on Build 2017 with some light analysis at the end.]

You know an event is “Epic” when, at its conclusion, leaves you feeling like the climax was forever in the making and then suddenly complete…  done…  over.   Even post-event celebrations feel like the long drawn out ending from the Lord of the Rings trilogy.

Build 2017 is an interesting twist on that for me.   I spent most of the beginning of 2017 looking forward to it.  Then it finally came, and the world was in its midst. 

The twist is that Build, for me, is not the end, but a refreshed beginning.  It’s the kickoff of new ideas, new development stories, and new opportunities, rather than an end.   Build came and went, and left me feeling like I’m alive at the best time in the history of the world to be a developer, and especially a full Microsoft stack developer.

I’ve already presented my recap a couple of times.   Here’s the slides.

[office src=”https://onedrive.live.com/embed?cid=90A564D76FC99F8F&resid=90A564D76FC99F8F%211274221&authkey=&em=2&wdAr=1.7777777777777776″]

The slides are not as well organized however, so I’ll run through a recap with a bit more organization.

Platform:   Azure

  • Azure IoT Edge
I liken Asure IoT Edge to the autonomic reflexive system of the cloud.
  • Cloud Shell Management
  • Azure Management Mobile App for iOS & Android
  • Appsource
  • Azure Stack

Platform:  3rd Party

  • Visual Studio for Mac

Platform:  Mixed Reality

  • AI-enabled Workplace monitoring
  • New motion controllers
  • Acer & HP MR Dev kits available

Platform:  Windows 10 client

  • Fall Creators Update
  • Remix
  • Fluent Design System
  • Project Rome & Graph
  • Legacy App Bridging
  • Continuous Delivery
  • Windows Identity & FIDO
  • Ubuntu Linux updated
  • SUSE & Fedora Linux added

Platform:   .NET

  • .NET Standard 2.0 & XAML Standard 1.0
  • Embeddinator-4000
  • Live Player for iOS & Android

Technology: Cognitive

  • Twice as many services available under Azure Cognitive Services banner

Technology:  Database

  • PostgreSQL as a service
  • MySQL as a service
  • Cosmos DB

Technology:  BOT FX

  • Adaptive Cards
Technology:  Cortana 
  • Hardware units from Harmon Kardon, HP, Intel

Concluding Observations

Microsoft has fully given up on Windows 10 Mobile as an OS, and redefined “Mobile” to mean that the computing experience roams across all devices.  This is now what they mean when they say “Mobile First / Cloud First”. This roaming experience even cuts into iOS, OS X, and Android.  The big celebration of Build 2017 is “Microsoft is no longer a monopoly” which means that they are on top of “innovation hill” again.  Expect amazing things from Microsoft, and expect them to be on their game once things like Augmented Reality to really dig in on the consumer market.

Tech in the 603, The Granite State Hacker

Data Persistence in Windows Universal (8.1) apps (Boston Code Camp 23)

Thanks to everyone who joined me for my Boston Code Camp 23 presentation.  Shuffling data around is a core responsibility of any serious computing platform.  Windows Universal really goes above and beyond the mundane call of duty with consistency and utility. It’s part of what makes the Windows client platform a true “cloud car”, especially with its Backup, Roaming Settings / Folders, and Roaming Password Vault capabilities as native functionality… all from the Windows.Storage namespace.

Here are

For the individual who asked what encryption level the Windows Password Vault functionality uses, I looked it up, and it’s 128bit AES encryption.  Stern stuff there.

Another question came up about app backups.  As I said in the presentation, the content of the Local storage is backed up automatically to the cloud by the OS.  (Isn’t that fantastic?!)

Likewise, as mentioned, the Temporary storage is excluded from backups.

One detail I missed however… the LocalCache storage area.  LocalCache is like Local except that it is not backed up.  LocalCache differs from Temporary storage in that the OS will not wipe it as it occasionally does the Temporary storage.  Next time I do this presentation, I’ll make sure to update it to discuss LocalCache.

Here’s a comparison of the storage options available to developers in the 8.1/universal platform. Note that each user on a device gets their own app-specific sandbox *and* OneDrive space for each installed app.

Type Availability Limits Settings hashtable Backed Up By OS Sync’d to all App / User / Devices by OS Encryption Wiped By OS if space is low Uri prefix Suggested use
Install Package Universal Static/ReadOnly Media from Install No No No Sandboxed No ms-appx:// Version specific static app media
Local Universal Available free storage Yes Yes No Sandboxed No ms-appdata:///local/ General
Local Cache Windows Phone Only Available free storage Yes No No Sandboxed No   Persistent cache
Temporary Universal Available free storage Yes No No Sandboxed Yes ms-appdata:///temp Semi-persistent cache
SD/Removable Universal Available free storage No No No None No   Removable/general
Roaming Universal 100k Yes (by virtue of roaming) Yes Cloud Partitioned No ms-appdata:///roaming Roaming settings
Password Vault Universal 100k (included in Roaming) Password-friendly structure (by virtue of roaming) Yes Cloud Partioned + 128bit AES No   Roaming credentials /OAuth tokens

I asked my stunt audience (the kids) later what my presentation had been about.  I was glad to know at least one of them had gotten it right. 

They were inspired, though, and that’s the important part. 

I hope you found inspiration in technology from both the day and maybe in some small part from my presentation.