Today's $10 Deal of the Day from APress at http://www.apress.com/97814... is Pro PowerShell for Amazon Web Services. “Pro PowerShell for Amazon Web Services teaches you to automate cloud deployments using Amazon Web Services and PowerShell, the scripting language of choice for Microsoft administrators.” ......
Today's $10 E-book of the Day from APress at http://www.apress.com/97814... is Using R for Statistics. “If you need to use a variety of statistics, then Using R for Statistics will get you the answers to most of the problems that are likely to be posed. This book is a problem-solution primer for using R to set up your data, pose your problems and get answers using a wide array of statistical tests.” ......
From now to Monday night (1/December/2014), Learn Visual Studio is offering a substantial discount off 1-year and lifetime membership at http://www.learnvisualstudio.net/buy-now/.
1-Year membership is $49 instead of $75 and lifetime membership is $139 instead of $200.
Until 05:00 PT 2/December/2014, O’Reilly are offering 50% off all E-books and Videos at http://shop.oreilly.com/cat... (Discount is 60% if buying over $100.) “” p.s. APress are also going to have a Cyber Monday sale but that sale does not start until Monday ......
Today’s $10 Deal of the Day from APress at http://www.apress.com/catal... is .NET IL Assembler. “Advanced .NET IL Assembler drills down into the internal structures and operations of the .NET common language runtime and teaches you how to master the IL assembly language, ILAsm. These skills will allow you to write tighter, faster code for all versions of the .NET Framework.” ......
Microsoft have released some more information about Visual Studio 2015 and the excellent new features! What's New In C# 6.0 “C# 6.0 adds about a dozen bite-sized new features to C#, all aimed at making your code cleaner and clearer. Instead of introducing new concepts, each feature makes a common coding pattern simpler, and removes boilerplate to let the intent of the code stand out. The video takes a quick tour through the new features: auto-properties without setters, methods and properties with ......
Each week, on Sunday at 12:01 AM PST / 7:01 AM GMT, a new eBook is offered for a one-week period. This weeks book at https://www.microsoftpresss... is Microsoft SharePoint 2013 Step by Step. “The smart way to learn Microsoft SharePoint 2013—one step at a time! Experience learning made easy—and quickly teach yourself how to boost team collaboration with SharePoint 2013. With Step by Step, you set the pace—building and practicing the skills you need, just when you need them!” ......
Today’s half-price E-book deal from O’Reilly at http://shop.oreilly.com/cat... is for cook books. Concurrency in C# Cookbook “If you're one of the many developers uncertain about concurrent and multithreaded development, this practical cookbook will change your mind. With more than 75 code-rich recipes, author Stephen Cleary demonstrates parallel processing and asynchronous programming techniques, using libraries and language features in .NET 4.5 and C# 5.0. Concurrency ......
As of 19:00 UTC 26/November/2014, the New Horizons space probe to the planet Pluto reached 31 Au from the Sun. The New Horizons spacecraft is currently hibernating December 6th 2014 when it will be woken up in preparation for the fly past of the Plutonian system on 14 July 2015.
Congratulations to Dr Alan Stern and his team of scientists, engineers and computer programmers – well done all!

Today’s $10 Deal of the Day from APress at http://www.apress.com/97814... is Pro WF 4.5. “In Pro WF 4.5, you'll find the insight and direction for understanding how to build workflows using WF 4.5 and host them as long-running services using Microsoft’s Windows Server, for on-premises work, and Azure AppFabric, for hosting workflows in the cloud. ” ......
On Cyber Monday 1st December from 00:00:00 to 23:59:59 EST, APress are offering every APress eBook (including Alpha books) at $15 each and every Springer eBook on APress.com at $30 each. Make a date in your diary!

As a blogger one has to put up with a lot of spam – so unimaginative that it gets quite boring. However there is a new twist, send a message in another language. The message could get mistaken for a legitimate name however run it by https://translate.google.com and the meaning soon becomes clear! The term “Spam” comes from the famous Monty Python Sketch – details at http://en.wikipedia.org/wik... ......
Today O’Reilly are offering two excellent half-price Deals of the Day Learning Agile “Agile has revolutionized the way teams approach software development, but with dozens of agile methodologies to choose from, the decision to "go agile" can be tricky. This practical book helps you sort it out, first by grounding you in agile’s underlying principles, then by describing four specific—and well-used—agile methods: Scrum, extreme programming (XP), Lean, and Kanban. Each method focuses on a different ......
Today’s $10 Deal of the Day from APress at http://www.apress.com/97814... is Windows 8 MVVM Patterns Revealed. "The Model-View-View-Model (MVVM) pattern is held in high regard by many developers as an excellent way of creating sophisticated modern applications. It's clear seperation of presentation and business logic produces a clean implementation that promotes speed, scalability and code reuse in applications with a complex UI. These strengths have found it favor with WPF and Silverlight developers. ......
Today's $10 Deal of the Day from APress at http://www.apress.com/97814... is Pro Exchange Server 2013 Administration. “Pro Exchange Server 2013 Administration starts with what’s new, leads you through deployment, presents configuration and management best practices, and ends with real world troubleshooting tips.” ......
Microsoft have made available a preview of Visual Studio 2015 together with .Net 4.6 at http://www.visualstudio.com/en-us/downloads/visual-studio-2015-downloads-vs.
This preview should only be installed on a virtual machine or other machine that can be readily re-formatted.
Update 4 for Visual Studio 2013 is now available. If you use Web Essentials, you will also need to install Web Essentials 4 as Web Essentials 3 will unload when update 4 is applied.
If you need to load the new Release Management for Visual Studio 2013, then you will need to start Visual Studio by ‘Run As Administrator’.
To allow certain currently unused functions to be removed from the CommonData and related solutions, I have created a new project on CodePlex - https://commonwindows.codeplex.com/
I have loaded to CodePlex a C# sample Windows Service project. The URL of the solution is https://commonservicecs.cod... The windows service calls an action function is a separate class project. This separation of responsibility is necessary to facilitate testing of the action. The downloads page at https://commonservicecs.cod... includes a help file with full instructions for configuring and installing this sample windows service. An NUnit test project is provided. ......
Today's $10 Deal of the Day from APress at http://www.apress.com/97814... is Beginning PowerShell for SharePoint 2013. "Beginning PowerShell for SharePoint 2013 is a book for the SharePoint administrator looking to expand his or her toolkit and skills by learning PowerShell, Microsoft's vastly flexible and versatile object oriented scripting language" ......
Today’s $10 Deal of the Day from APress at http://www.apress.com/97814... is Pro Single Page Application Development. “One of the most important and exciting trends in web development in recent years is the move towards single page applications, or SPAs. Instead of clicking through hyperlinks and waiting for each page to load, the user loads a site once and all the interactivity is handled fluidly by a rich JavaScript front end. If you come from a background in ASP.NET development, you’ll be ......
Today's $10 Deal of the Day from APress at http://www.apress.com/97814... is Microsoft Dynamics CRM API Development for Online and On-Premise Environments. “Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 API Development presents the essential aspects of API development including Plugin, Workflow Activity, JScript, integration/migration and SSRS report development.” ......
Today’s half-price Deal of the Day from O’Reilly at http://shop.oreilly.com/pro... is Mastering Bitcoin. “If you’re interested in bitcoin basics, bitcoin’s technical operation, or planning to build the next great bitcoin killer app or business, Mastering Bitcoin is essential reading. From using a bitcoin wallet to buy coffee to running a bitcoin marketplace with hundreds of thousands of transactions or building new financial innovations that will transform our understanding ......
Today’s $10 Deal of the Day from APress at http://www.apress.com/97814... is Designing for Windows 8. “Designing for Windows 8 is a fast-paced, 150-page primer on the key design concepts you need to create successful Windows 8 apps. This book will help you design a user interface that is both delightful and effective, feels ‘right’ to your users, and encapsulates a great Windows 8 experience.” ......
Back in 2005, I had written a simple utilities to create custom event logs so many times that I decided to write one and release it under LGPL as a command line utility. Recently (11/November/2014) I issued this as an open source project on CodePlex at https://commonmakelog.codep... It was necessary to release as an open source project rather than an executable as under Windows Vista, Windows 7 and Windows 8, it has to be run as administrator rather than just being run by an account with local ......
Today’s $10 Deal of the Day from APress at http://www.apress.com/97814... is Big Data Imperatives. “Big Data Imperatives, focuses on resolving the key questions on everyone’s mind: 'Which data matters? Do you have enough data volume to justify the usage? How do you want to process this amount of data? How long do you really need to keep it active for your analysis, marketing, and BI applications?” ......
Today’s $10 Deal of the Day from APress at http://www.apress.com/97814... is Physics for JavaScript Games, Animation, and Simulations with HTML5 Canvas. “Physics for JavaScript Games, Animation, and Simulations teaches JavaScript programmers how to incorporate real physics into their HTML5 games, animations, and simulations. ” ......
Today’s $10 Deal of the Day from APress at http://www.apress.com/97814... is Pro Team Foundation Service. “Pro Team Foundation Service gives you a jump start into Microsoft’s cloud-based ALM platform, taking you through the different stages of software development. Every project needs to plan, develop, test and release software and with agile practices often at a higher pace than ever before. ” ......
Today’s $10 Deal of the Day from APress at http://www.apress.com/97814... is Pro PowerShell for Amazon Web Services. “Pro PowerShell for Amazon Web Services teaches you to automate cloud deployments using Amazon Web Services and PowerShell, the scripting language of choice for Microsoft administrators.” ......
Until 05:00 PT 7/November/2014, O’Reilly are offering a half-price deal on a number of new JavaScript titles at http://shop.oreilly.com/cat... Here are some of the titles on offer. AngularJS: Up and Running “If want to get started with AngularJS, either as a side project, an additional tool, or for your main work, this practical guide teaches you how to use this meta-framework step-by-step, from the basics to advanced concepts. By the end of the book, you’ll understand ......
As of 17:00 hrs yesterday, 4/November/2014, the New Horizons probe to the planet Pluto reached within 2 au (2 times the average distance of the Earth from the Sun).
Congratulations to Alan Stern and his team of Engineers and Scientists!

Today’s $10 Deal of the Day from APress at http://www.apress.com/97814... is Dart for Absolute Beginners. “Dart for Absolute Beginners enables individuals with no background in programming to create their own web apps while learning the fundamentals of software development in the cutting edge Dart language from Google.” ......
Today’s $10 Deal of the Day from APress at http://www.apress.com/97814... is Pro ASP.NET MVC 5 Platform. “To make the best ASP.NET MVC framework applications, you need to fully understand how the ASP.NET platform works. The ASP.NET platform underpins the entire ASP.NET technology stack and provides features and services to make developing scalable and robust applications simpler and easier.” ......
Today’s $10 Deal of the Day from APress at http://www.apress.com/97814... is Big Data Application Architecture Q&A. “Big Data Application Architecture Pattern Recipes is a tailor made problem-solution approach answering key questions for software architects, solution designers, database professionals, CIOs and CXOs keeping in mind the various problems they encounter while dealing with big data application architecture patterns for clients in a range of industries.” ......