Deploying a Web App from a Command Line using MSBuild and WebDeploy

Modern CI/CD process especially in an agile/scrum environment often includes a deployment step so the automated and manual testing can be done. Depending on specifics of the development process it can be implemented in variety of ways but for a .NET Web Application the most convenient way is to call the MSBuild to publish a package to a target machine running IIS and instrumented with the Web Deploy.

Finalized Agenda for the Global Azure Bootcamp 2017 Event

The finalized agenda for the Global Azure Bootcamp 2017 community event is finally available. It is also updated on the event registration page. The organizers (the Toronto Azure/Architecture User Group ArcUG) managed to assemble a group of great speakers to cover an exciting list of topics.

The morning session will include one of the hottest topics "Big Data and Machine Learning" presented by Anthony Bartolo, Microsoft technology evangelist, followed by related hands-on lab.

Global Azure Bootcamp 2017

All around the world user groups and communities want to learn about Azure and Cloud Computing! On April 22, 2017, all communities will come together once again in the fifth great Global Azure Bootcamp event! Each user group will organize their own one day deep dive class on Azure the way they see fit and how it works for their members. The result is that thousands of people get to learn about Azure and join together online under the social hashtag #GlobalAzure! Join hundreds of other organizers to help out and be part of the experience!

Ingenious USB Flash Drive Repair Utility

Every now and then it happens when you expect it the least: Windows fails to mount and read your trusted USB flash drive that is urgently needed and requests to format it. When you reluctantly agree after struggling to remember whether there was any important information on it (check point: never use USB flash drives for long term storage) you only see that Windows recognized just a tiny portion of the drive as accessible and it's useless because the file you need to copy is way larger. What to do?

Intel Network Cards are a Disappointment: still no solutions

For years, Intel network cards both wired and wireless have been a standard of quality, performance and compatibility in my book. Unfortunately, this situation is changing rather quickly. Recently, the quality of hardware and software drivers of the Intel products have been disappointing. There are compatibility problems with Windows 10 and I haven't found solutions to resolve the problems described below. I am sharing this information in the attempt to help other people avoid the problems if they can.

VPN Site-to-Site connection between Azure VPN Gateway and pfSense: Important Details

When implementing an IaaS solution on Azure for, let's say, hosting a web application, it is important to have a controlled secure access to the Azure network from the office site in order to limit an exposure of the Azure virtual machines to the public Internet and prevent unauthorized access to the Azure network resources. Standard solution for this requirement is a site-to-site VPN that allows continuous encrypted connection between two networks: a physical office network and a virtual network on Azure.

Easily add config transformation files to a Console App project

This is a very short post. Not digging into a theory of config transformations just add this add-on Configuration Transform to your Visual Studio and you'll be able to right click on an App.config file and see "Add Config Transforms" in the context menu. Works just fine.

Using Google Tag Manager to deploy Azure Application Insights client-side monitoring

If your web application is hosted on Microsoft Azure and you are using Application Insights for monitoring you'll have to add a piece of JavaScript on web pages to collect client-side statistics like page load time, JavaScript errors, users and sessions analytics, etc. The script can be found on Azure portal when Application Insights is enabled for a web application.

WebDav Client for Windows

Recently I've been involved in migrating JIRA Server to JIRA Cloud and one particular required step was to upload exported JIRA data files on to Atlassian cloud storage. Atlassian supports WebDav protocol but they have no suggestions about what client software to use most likely because of the large diversity of what operating systems their customers use.

I was working on Windows 8/Server 2012 and did not have previous experience nor preference for a particular WebDav client. Google search returns a number of choices on the first page but it's hard to pick one based just on reading so I ended up installing and trying a number of different software packages. Without further ado to save time to someone who is facing similar exercise my tool of choice happened to be BitKinex. Extremely easy and intuitive to use, works immediately with no additional configuration, and provides familiar Windows Explorer user experience with drag and drop support. Thumbs up!