![azure[1]](http://www.joshholmes.com/blog/content/binary/WindowsLiveWriter/RunningJoomlaonAzure_BFDC/azure%5B1%5D_thumb.png "azure[1]")
There are a few applications that I’m playing with in Windows Azure that are reliant on MySql for various reason. For example, I’m working with a group that is doing Joomla development and it’s completely dependent on MySql. Mostly this is due to using MySql native drivers rather than using a database independent layer such as ADO.NET in .NET or PDO in PHP or leveraging database specific features that are only found in MySql. Regardless of the reason, for me to run these applications in Windows Azure, I have to get MySql running in Azure. I found that it wasn’t as hard as I initially thought it would be and it’s a technique that I can reuse for a lot of binary executables.
I’ve got some strong thoughts on whether or not this is a good idea but to find out more, check out my post at Getting MySql Running on Azure
There are times that you just need to leverage the raw power that you can get from the command line. For example, if you are trying to script something or if you are on a machine that is not all tooled up with Visual Studio, Eclipse and the like and, believe it or not, there are times that it’s just a lot easier to get stuff done without an IDE in the way. Great news is that we’ve got a couple in the Windows Azure SDK called CSPack and CSRun that work wonders.
To that end, I created a little tutorial on using the command line tools to create a very simple Azure package and deploying it up to the development fabric. To see the full tutorial at Windows Azure Command Line Tools
Last year I did a Polar Plunge to raise money for the Special Olympics – Read about it at Taking The Polar Plunge.
I’m doing it again this year and have much loftier goals this year. Last year I raised $725.00 and this year I want to raise $1000.00 and inspire others to do the same. At the time of this writing, I’ve raised $500 personally and have inspired 2 others to do the dive with me.
To find out WHY I’m doing this and HOW you can help – check out my post at Josh Holmes - Taking The Polar Plunge Again
For full disclosure, Packt Publishing sent me a review copy of this book. They did not ask for a positive review, just a review.
This is the first book by Jorge Ramon that I’ve read. This book is exactly what the title says that it is, a Cookbook. It’s got 109 solutions to problems solved by Ext JS 3.0. I was expecting, like a lot of other books to get a fill of all of the philosophy behind what they are trying to promote but that wasn’t the case. This book just in with no nonsense and gets right to the code.
More on my blog at Review of Ext JS 3.0 Cookbook
I’ve come to realize that many web designers don’t understand what “Above the Fold” and how it really should be used. Above the Fold is an old print newspaper layout term for what’s on the top part of the page, the part that is displayed in the window at the newspaper stand. In web design, the term is used for the bits that the user can see without having to scroll
Read all about it on my blog at - Above the Fold and how It Really Should be Used
Building on the success of the DreamSpark and BizSpark program that we launched about 11 months ago Microsoft is now launching the WebsiteSpark program.
WebsiteSpark is designed for small web consultancies ranging in size from 1 to 10 people. With WebsiteSpark, you get a package of software specifically selected for a web consultancy to serve their customers better.
For a lot more details, read my full blog post at Announcing the WebsiteSpark Program.
I’m going to be speaking at
RIAPalooza in about two weeks, well more specifically at the time of this writing it’s 10 days, 12 hours, 48 minutes and 45 seconds. :)
I’m going to be tag teaming with Mike Labriola again talking about “10 questions about RIA you haven’t had the courage to ask”. We’ve got a short list of questions but are hoping to get some questions from the crowd as well. If you happen to have any questions, feel free to shoot them to me in the comments section on this post.
Anyways, we were discussing different ways to get the word out about RIAPalooza and someone mentioned that we didn’t have have a blog badge so I decided to create one in Silverlight. In this post, I explain how I built the blog badge and share the code. Full details on my blog at Creating a Simple Silverlight Countdown Blog badge
I’m in conversation with a group that’s using Ext JS for their RIA. As I haven’t used it, I thought I’d go ask at the international water fountain that is twitter about it.
Anyone using Ext JS? Thoughts compared to jQuery or Prototype/Scriptaculous?about 3 hours ago from TweetDeck
Read the responses I got back from a number of industry leader and JavaScript experts at Antidotal info on JavaScript Library Ext JS
On the heels of the announcement by Michael Eaton, I thought I should post about how excited I am about the upcoming Kalamazoo X Conference…
The Kalamazoo X conference, while being put on by the technical community, is a very different sort of conference. You’re not going to hear “technical” talks. All of talks pertain to technical folk but it’s a step back from the nuts and bolts that we usually deal with day in and day out and focusing on the topics that are really important.
There’s an amazing line up of speakers and content. I blogged about a lot of these speakers on my blog at Kalamazoo X conference.
Like so many thing that we do in our daily development, there’s a high probability that someone has already solved the problem if you know where to look. This is just a collection of resources that I’ve found useful over time. Honestly, I’m posting these here because I need them in one place so that I can find them easily…
Read about all of these resources on my blog at Interesting Web Development Related Resources
I ran across this article on ZDNet (Wanted: ROI for internal app development) that really worried me. My friends at PreEmptive Solutions ran a survey across a wide number of developers that included people from 21 different industry segments in 33 countries asking about how the company measure the ROI of an application that they are building. The terrifying part is that the survey found that 58% of companies don't bother measuring ROI on their internal applications and the majority of the ones that do measure don't do so in a consistent and proven way.
For the full article – see my blog post at Measuring ROI – Moving from Cost Center To Strategic Partner
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Expression Blend, believe or not, has an add-in model. It’s highly unsupported but it exists. The unsupported nature of it means that you have to do a little Red Green style patching to get them to run in the first place and if they cause instability, don’t call Microsoft support. However, there are a couple of really cool ones that are out there.
To read all about these add-ins and how to get them running in Blend regardless of where you launch it from – check out my post at Three Essential Expression Blend Add-ins
I’m going to be polar plunging to raise money for the Special Olympics Michigan this coming weekend in Belleville.
This is a charity that is special to me because of my youngest daughter, Maura, who has a lot of challenges of her own. One day, my hope is to see her compete in the Special Olympics.
To find out how you can help – check out my post at Polar Plunging for the Special Olympics