How To|Mar 15, 2018

Developing a Routine for Performing Data Analysis with Pandas Webinar

Although there is no universally accepted approach to beginning a data analysis effort, it is typically a good idea to develop a formal process for yourself when first examining a dataset. This routine can manifest itself as a dynamic checklist of tasks that evolves as your data exploration skills progress. Exploratory Data Analysis (EDA) is…
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Blogs|Mar 12, 2018

Implement a CAPTCHA with Azure Functions

CAPTCHA’sĀ are those things that site administrators love because they stop comment and form spam but user hate because they are impossible to read. Regardless though, they have become a mainstay in Internet usage, particularly on websites that allow for unauthenticated feedback. CAPTCHA’s are intended to prevent automated responses from computers by generating a test that…
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Blogs|Mar 7, 2018

Host a Website with Azure Functions and Node.JS, Part 2 — Logging

In part 1 of this series, we looked at how you could use Azure Functions to host a static website. The function basically served up static files it read off the file system and delivered them as HTTP responses. Websites though are not complete without logging! Logging is already supported in functions when one calls…
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Blogs|Mar 5, 2018

Beginning Statistics for Data Science: Analyzing Data

In our last post we discussed different types your data can have. Now letā€™s focus on how to analyze on those types of data. Python code will be used to demonstrate a few of these concepts. To get things start in regards to the Python code, letā€™s go ahead and import our packages and review…
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Blogs|Mar 2, 2018

Host a Website with Azure Functions and Node.JS, Part 1

Azure Functions are Microsoft’s answer to “serverless” computing. Functions enable applications developers to write event-driven code (ie. “functions”) than can be triggered by timers, manual integration, HTTP requests, service buses, message queues and many other integration points. These functions can be written in a number of different languages including C#, NodeJS (which this example uses),…
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How To|Feb 19, 2018

Getting Started with Kubernetes Webinar

In this intro to Kubernetes webinar, weā€™ll give you a primer on Kubernetes and show you how to get started using Kubernetes for container orchestration. Weā€™ll talk about the pieces of Kubernetes, show you how they work together, and finally show you how you can get your containers running on Kubernetes locally and in a…
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Blogs|Feb 18, 2018

Building on App Center

In my previous (and first) blog post on App Center I talked about getting started, adding the SDK to your code, and looking at Analytics and Crash reporting.Ā  In this post I’d like to discuss building your app on App Center; which allows you to distribute your app to Beta testers and others. There are…
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Choices
How To|Feb 14, 2018

Choosing Between Containers and Serverless

Choosing the right tool for the job is not always as easy as it seems. Sometimes, there is more than one tool for doing something, and such is the case for cloud-based applications. In my last “Choosing between” post, I looked out how to choose between containers and virtual machines, and here the same tension…
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Devcenter|Feb 2, 2018

Getting Quick Insights on Sales Data with PowerBI

To finish off getting insights from a sales data set, weā€™re going to look at using Microsoftā€™s PowerBI. PowerBI is a very helpful tool for looking at our data through visualizations. The insights will be the same that we got in our visualization post from before, but using PowerBI we get these visualizations quicker and…
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Blogs|Jan 31, 2018

Handling “Open File – Security Warning”

It seems like a simple enough task. Use an Azure File share to store an executable and use a PowerShell script to execute the application on a new virtual machines. In practice, however, you might find that the executable is quietly failing to run. Running the executable on the server manually, the problem becomes apparent…
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How To|Jan 31, 2018

Data Analysis in Python with Pandas Webinar

Data Science, Machine Learning, and AI are all trends dominating modern computing and revolve around one important thing ā€“ data. All that data needs, is to be cleaned, and transformed in specific ways, to take full advantage of the algorithms available. During this webinar, weā€™ll cover Pandas, one of the best libraries in Python to…
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Blogs|Jan 29, 2018

Getting Started with VS App Center

There is no doubt that Microsoft’s VS App Center is an incredible resource for mobile application programmers.Ā  The problem is that it seems hard to get started.Ā  The good news is that once you get started, it turns out to be wicked easy! For this blog post, I’m going to assume that you are already…
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