What are the different Web Apps you can build in Microsoft Azure?

Between Web Apps and Native apps, the browser based Web Apps have a lot of advantages while in some cases Native Apps are more advantageous.

In the beginning there were ASP.NET Web sites and Cloud Services made their appearance later on Windows Azure, and now there are lots of Web Apps.

Under Web Apps you can build the following kind of apps. Some of the web apps can be built in the Windows Azure Portal and those in preview can only be accssesed in the preview portal:

• App Service Environment
• Application Insights
• Template deployment-classic
• Web App
• Web App+MySQL
• Web App+SQL
• ......

While the above are all from Microsoft, there are others from third party such as:

• DNN Platform from DNN Corporation
• Scalable Wordpress from WordPress
• Engine Yard Platform as Service
• SendGrid Email Delivery from SendGrid
• Umbraco CMS from Umbraco.org
• Notification Hub -not ready even for preview
• Joomla! from Joomla
• .....

There are many more and you login to the preview portal here to obtain the details (Search for Web+mobile).

 

How do you add an URL to the exception site list to run a Java Application?

I recently wanted to access an online java application  which had only a self-signed certificate. Since the application required a Java version higher than the one I had, I installed the Java 8 Update 45 (April 15 release). The installation removed the older versions successfully.

The following warning suggested that I put the web site on the Exception Site List.

However starting with Java 8 Update 20, the medium security level has been removed from the Java Control Panel. Only high and very high levels are available.

In order to run an application with a self-signed certificate, the application's URL must be added to the exception site list.

"The exception site list provides users with the option of allowing the same applets that would have been allowed by selecting the Medium option but on a site-by-site basis therefore minimizing the risk of using more permissive settings."

In order to place the URL on the exception site list, Open the Java Control Panel. As this is a Windows 8 computer you can get a link to the Java Control Panel in the Windows Control Panel. The Java Control Panel opens as shown.

JavaControlPanel1

Click on the Security tab to display the following, the default is very high.

JavaControlPanel2

Click on the Edit Site List... to open the following:

JavaControlPanel3

You can add an item to the list (presently empty) by clicking the Add button. The recommended protocol is HTTPS, but you can also add HTTP and FILE protocols as long as you are sure they are safe.

You need to type in the URL as shown and click OK.

JavaControlPanel4

Now although the site has only self-signed certificate you can still run the Java program.

What is Java Mission Control?

Java Mission Control provides you with the tool to troubleshoot your java applications. Using Java Mission Control(jmc) you can manage. monitor and profile Java Applications.

When you install(jmc)( this got installed when I did a Java Update to Java 8 Update 64). I had Java Updates 25 and 71 and these got removed by the Java 8 installed from here (http://java.com/en/download/manual.jsp).

By installing Java Mission Control, Java Flight Recorder Tool gets installed by default and it records the behavior of JVM at runtime and analyzes the records off line.

You can also install the JMX console that monitors the Java application at runtime and other specialized plug-ins to extend the functionality of JMC.

Here is the JMC UI.

Do you need to know the programming language Scala?

BigData is all the rage now.

The functional coding language Scala is Object Oriented, type safe and compiles to ByteCode, the format for JVM. It is therefore interoperable with Java. Apache Spark understands BigData.  For working with Apache Spark and BigData, you better learn Scala.

I would say it is essential to have a knowledge of Scala. Sure Java and Python are also the other languages you should have in your toolbox as all of these allow you to build parallel applications for a distributed environment. In addition to Java, Python, and Scala, R programming can also be used.

How easy is it to create a IFTTT Recipe?

It is very easy and only takes a couple of mouse clicks.

Since you have asked the question, I assume you know about IFTTT.
If you are reading this and do not know what IFTTT is, read this recent post.

IFTTT makes it easy to trigger something based on your desire to do something else you want done. There are two 'somethings' here.  The something to set up the trigger and a something will go into action. The nice thing is there are a lot of sources to create trigger and there are a lot of sources where your action is executed.

Let us take a concrete example, when the stock ticker symbol MSFT goes above $50.00 you want an email sent to your, let us say gmail account. IFTTT uses Yahoo Finance to create the stock related trigger.

First of all you need to sign up for an IFTTT account.
Once you have an account you can sign-in to it to access MyRecipes as shown:

IFTTT_Myrecipe1

Click on Create a Recipe.

Click on the highlighted word 'this'

 

You will get to this web page. The Choose Trigger Channel page. The stock symbol is further down and you need to scroll.

 

 

When you choose the stock channel you will be guided to this page.

 

There are predefined triggers that you can create. I chose the trigger for 'Price rises above'.

 

This guides me to the 3rd step as shown.

 

Fill in your trigger detail and click Create Trigger. This takes you to the next page as shown.

The inadequacy of this recipe is that you can only create trigger for on symbol at a time for one chosen option.

Now click on the highlighted word, 'that'.

You will be guided the following.

 

 

Now click on the Action Channel related to GMAIL.

 

 

Here there is only one possible action. Click on Send an email to get to the following:

 

You only need to insert the email addresses. You are almost done as you have arrived at the last step.

 

Just click on Create a Recipe and you are done! The recipe you created goes into your My Recipes container.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 



 

Can you use a Here-Strings query to retrieve data using PowerShell?

Yes you can.
You need to understand a few items. Let me go over them.

What is meant by here-strings?
http://hodentekhelp.blogspot.com/2015/06/what-is-here-string-in-windows.html

Using a variable in a here-strings:
http://hodentekhelp.blogspot.com/2015/06/can-you-have-variable-in-powershell.html

How to query a SQL Server with SQLCMD?
http://hodentekmsss.blogspot.com/2015/06/querying-sql-server-database-with-sqlcmd.html

How do you query a database using PowerShell?
http://hodentekmsss.blogspot.com/2015/06/how-do-you-query-database-using.html
If you review the above articles then you can put together all the information in running a query as shown where the query to the database is in here-strings.

That is all folks!

Here-strings come in very handy when the query contains single quote, double quotes and other such ugly characters which a mere string representation cannot handle.

Can you run queries on multiple SQL Server Instances at the same time?

It is possible to query multiple SQL Servers using the SQLCMD mode in SQL Server Management Studio. You start getting connected to atleast on instance.

In the following example, there are two instances of SQL Server:
1. SQL Server 2012 with named instance 'RegencyPark'
2. SQL Server 2016 CTP2 with named instance 'May2015'

I start with SSMS 2012 and run the following statements after enabling SQLCMD Mode in SSMS 2012.
You will get connected to the two named instances when you query them as shown here (in a query window in SSMS 2012):

:Connect .\May2015
Select @@version
Use MSDB
go
Select * from dbo.msdb_version
GO
:Connect .\RegencyPark
Select @@version
Use AdventureWorks2012
go
Select * from Person.person
go

You get the following response from the server.