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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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.  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, we’re going to look at using Microsoft’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 – 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, we’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.  The problem is that it seems hard to get started.  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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Blogs|Jan 17, 2018

Beginning Statistics for Data Science: Types of Data

Statistics is becoming a must learn topic for anyone looking to get into data science. Look at any data scientist job posting, and you will be hard-pressed to find a listing that does not mention a degree in statistics, mathematics, or some experience in analytics as a minimum qualification. Courses in data science are including…
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Webinar|Jan 12, 2018

Data Analysis in Python with Pandas

During this webinar, we’ll cover Pandas, one of the best libraries in Python to clean, transform, and run a quick analysis on your data. We’ll also have a look at NumPy, a library that Pandas rely so heavily upon.
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Docker + Python
Blogs|Dec 20, 2017

Containerize a Python App in 5 Minutes

Python for better or worse has found cemented itself as the lingua franca of data science. With its rise in popularity also comes how it is deployed. Simultaneously with the rise in Python has also been the rise in container deployments. Like Python, containers are being used in data science as well to run processes…
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Node Docker
Blogs|Dec 4, 2017

Containerize a Node App in 5 Minutes

Node and Docker are a match made in heaven because the strengths of Node play to the strengths of Docker. Node microservices typically are built on top of the Express web server which can be configured with “just enough” server and run an application. Additionally, the Node package manager, NPM, makes installing and running Node…
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