Yavor Georgiev's Blog

Node bootcamp at SURF Incubator slides

Sat, 19 May 2012 10:40:34 -0700

Here you go!

Azure SDK for Node.js 0.5.4 is out

Fri, 11 May 2012 16:05:00 -0700

We just pushed out a small May update (0.5.4) to the Azure SDK for Node.js, with which we now deploy:

node.js 0.6.17
iisnode 0.1.19

Here are the important changes and additions in this release:

The updated node.js version addresses the recently announced node.js security vulnerability. The vulnerability affects all server-side deployments using versions prior to 0.6.17. If you have deployed a node.js application on Azure using our tooling, you are probably using a version of node.js that is vulerable. Please redeploy your application using the updated tooling to ensure your deployment is secure.

iisnode 0.1.19 brings improved configuration support using YAML files. For a lot of scenarios, you may now be able to configure your app by deploying an iisnode.yml file, instead of messy XML inside your Web.config.

# The optional iisnode.yml file provides overrides of 
# the iisnode configuration settings specified in web.config.

node_env: production
nodeProcessCommandLine: "c:\program files\nodejs\node.exe"
nodeProcessCountPerApplication: 1
# so on...

This is not completely new, but a few weeks ago we also released a refresh (0.5.3) of the npm package for Azure, adding support for accessing the Azure role service runtime. That enables you to: get role configuration settings, work with local role resources (including local storage), get information about the current role instance, as well as other role instances in your application. We have a nice example of this functionality posted here.

Here is a one-click install of the new bits.

Future Insights Live slides

Sun, 06 May 2012 23:28:17 -0700

Thanks to everyone who attended my talk, here are the slides, as promised.

Yosemite Range of Light by Shawn Reeder

Fri, 27 Apr 2012 16:41:27 -0700

Yosemite Range of Light by Shawn Reeder

Here is the video of my talk on node.js in Azure and links to...

Fri, 27 Apr 2012 14:24:00 -0700

Here is the video of my talk on node.js in Azure and links to some of the resources I reference:

Here are my slides:

I’ll be speaking on Node.js at tomorrow’s Microsoft...

Mon, 23 Apr 2012 16:07:23 -0700

I’ll be speaking on Node.js at tomorrow’s Microsoft patterns & practices Symposium 2012, and you still have time to register. It’s free and it will be streamed live on Channel 9, so you can watch it regardless of where you are. My talk is at 13:30 tomorrow (04/23/12), see you there!

In more conference-related news, I’ll be speaking on...

Mon, 02 Apr 2012 13:38:00 -0700

In more conference-related news, I’ll be speaking on Future Insights Live’s newly announced Cloud Track! Registration is still open… see you in Las Vegas!

Writing Node.js apps for Windows Azure
Friday, May 4th: 2:05pm – 2:55pm

Server-side JavaScript? On Windows Azure? Has hell frozen over? Learn about how Azure is quickly turning into an open cloud platform that supports a variety of runtimes: .NET, Java, PHP, and even Node.js! In this session, we will show how to build exciting realtime apps in JavaScript, and how to run them in the cloud. We will take advantage of features such as storage, caches, and queues to make our app scale without a hitch. We will also share the team’s plans for future Windows Azure improvements and give you a chance to voice your opinion.

I’ll be speaking on Node.js in Azure at NDC in Oslo, June...

Thu, 29 Mar 2012 14:00:00 -0700

I’ll be speaking on Node.js in Azure at NDC in Oslo, June 6-8. It’s my first time at NDC and my first time in Oslo, but I’ve heard nothing but good things about the conference and the city itself. Skål!

Hell has frozen over: writing Node.js apps for Windows Azure
Yavor Georgiev
June 7 2012, 10:20 - 11:20

Server-side JavaScript? On Windows Azure? Has hell frozen over? Come learn about how Azure is quickly turning into an open cloud platform that supports a variety of runtimes: .NET, Java, PHP, and even Node.js! In this session we will show how to build exciting realtime apps in JavaScript, and how to run them in the cloud. We will take advantage of great Azure features such as storage, caches, and queues to make our app scale without a hitch. We will also share the team’s plans for future Azure improvements and give you a chance to voice your opinion.

Arctic Light slow-motion capture, courtesy of Norah.

Tue, 06 Mar 2012 23:43:24 -0800

Arctic Light slow-motion capture, courtesy of Norah.

Known issues with RIA Services V1 SP2 on Visual Studio 11 Beta

Fri, 02 Mar 2012 16:25:00 -0800

Visual Studio 11 Beta went out a few days ago, and with it we have a refreshed RIA Services SP2 version that supports all VS 11 goodness:

Universal Providers
Support for the new Metro UI
Miscellaneous small changes to adapt to changes in project system, msbuild, and the designer.

However, there are some kinks that you should be aware of… it is a Beta after all:

If you try to use the Data Binding picker from the Properties pane to bind a property (for example the text in a TextBlock) to a property on a Domain Data Source, you’ll see it is not available. We are looking at addressing this issue.
Universal Providers have a known issue where Windows Authentication and Role Providers don’t work as you might expect. If you switch your web app containing your Domain Service to Windows auth, be sure to change this line:
```
<roleManager enabled="true" defaultProvider="DefaultRoleProvider">
```
from “DefaultRoleProvider” to “AspNetWindowsTokenRoleProvider”. Having to do this is a limitation that will go away after Beta.

Please let us know if you encounter any other issues via our forum.

Great photos by Timothy Allen of the Buzludja (Бузлуджа)...

Thu, 01 Mar 2012 14:16:00 -0800

Great photos by Timothy Allen of the Buzludja (Бузлуджа) monument in Bulgaria. One of many amazing abandoned buildings, right up there with the Ryugyong Hotel.

Thanks to Norah for the forward.

beat-machine: Our pitch at Startup Weekend Redmond

Tue, 21 Feb 2012 15:37:10 -0800

beat-machine:

Our pitch at Startup Weekend Redmond

beat-machine: 3rd place at Startup Weekend Redmond… not bad for...

Tue, 21 Feb 2012 15:28:40 -0800

beat-machine:

3rd place at Startup Weekend Redmond… not bad for a crew of 4

Azure SDK for Node.js 0.5.3 is out

Fri, 17 Feb 2012 13:16:25 -0800

We just pushed out a small February update (0.5.3) to the Azure SDK for Node.js, containing the following fixes:

#81: Start-AzureEmulator errors if there’s a space in the service path: we corrected an issue where the emulator would fail if there was a space in the path to the service
#82: Remove-AzureService prompts for yes/no confirmation: when you want to remove a service, you will now see this prompt to prevent accidental data loss:
```
Confirm
Are you sure you want to remove service "foo"?
[Y] Yes  [A] Yes to All  [N] No  [L] No to All  [S] Suspend  [?] Help
(default is "Y"):Y
```
#131: Start-AzureEmulator -Launch fails if run twice on the same web role: corrected a problem where our attempt to clean up logs was causing the emulator to crash
#138: Publish-AzureService throws ArgumentNullException when no certificates element provided in .cscfg: this may have affected folks using the Mongo commandlets
#141: Worker role did not allow write access: the user under which Node was running in worker role did not have sufficient permission to write to disk. This may have surfaced as some modules who need to write to disk (such as stylus) failing.

Here is a one-click install of the new bits.

Alongside this, we also released a refresh (0.5.2) of the npm package for Azure, adding support for accessing ServiceBus queues and topics, among other fixes. Read Glenn’s blog post for more details.

One of the most beautiful libraries in the world (Codrington...

Tue, 03 Jan 2012 22:18:53 -0800

One of the most beautiful libraries in the world (Codrington Library at Oxford). UW’s Suzzallo library also made the list.

Node.js/express blog on Azure in 5 minutes

Tue, 13 Dec 2011 14:34:00 -0800

Following up on the announcements and demos shown at today’s Learn Windows Azure event, I decided to put together a very quick demo that gets you going on Azure with a real app as fast as possible.

I decided to modify express’ blog sample to use Azure storage, and also pre-configured all the service/role settings that Azure needs so you can get going as fast as possible.

Here is the 5-minute recipe:

Get your Windows Azure account
Get the Windows Azure SDK for Node.js
Get the sample source code from GitHub. If you are wondering where some of the static content in the sample came from, check out this getting started document.
Get the needed Node packages by running this inside the ExpressBlog\WebRole folder:
```
npm install
```
You should now be able to launch the Windows Azure PowerShell for Node.js shortcut from your start menu. Make sure you run as Administrator. The rest of the steps here should be completed from that shell.
Download your Azure publish settings:
```
Get-AzurePublishSettings
```

Import the settings:

Import-AzurePublishSettings mine.publishsettings

Head to the Azure portal and create a storage account under your subscription. Make note of the account name and access key.
Modify the ExpressBlog\WebRole\Web.cloud.config file where indicated to include the storage settings.
You are now ready to publish. Anywhere inside the ExpressBlog folder, run the following, making sure you use a unique service name:
```
Publish-AzureService -Name uniqueServiceName
```

You’re all done!

Unfortunately things don’t always go according to plan, so in case you get an Internal Server Error or anything else goes wrong after you deploy to the cloud, use this simple trick to debug.

Inside the Web.cloud.config file, enable logging:
```
<iisnode loggingEnabled="true" />
```
Redeploy the service by simply typing:
```
Publish-AzureService
```
Look at the Node.js log file for hints of what may be wrong at http://uniqueServiceName.cloudapp.net/server.js.logs/0.txt

RIA Services SP2 RTW released

Fri, 09 Dec 2011 12:13:00 -0800

We’re happy to announce the final release of WCF RIA Services V1 SP2:

In this release, we add the following new features:

Support for Silverlight 5 (the standalone installer linked above also supports Silverlight 4)
DateTimeOffset support + various bugfixes
Entity Framework Code-First development, using this NuGet package

Known issues include:

Entity Framework 4.1 is required, but version 4.2 isn’t supported yet
Requires Visual Studio 2010 or SP1. Visual Studio 11 isn’t supported yet
Work on supporting Universal Providers for improved Windows Azure deployment is ongoing
If you want to create a Silverlight 4 Business Application Template, first create an instance of the Silverlight 5 template, and then use the Silverlight project properties to retarget it to Silverlight 4. You might see some temporary errors (System.Windows.Markup.XamlParseException) in the designer and error window, but rebuilding will make those disappear.

Street Art Utopia - cool street art and graffiti blog

Fri, 09 Dec 2011 00:00:00 -0800

Street Art Utopia - cool street art and graffiti blog

Amazing ISS time-lapse

Thu, 17 Nov 2011 00:31:00 -0800

Amazing ISS time-lapse

Trying to clone a repo using the GitHub for Mac client at work...

Fri, 04 Nov 2011 12:03:00 -0700

Trying to clone a repo using the GitHub for Mac client at work today was failing due to our proxy server. All my repos would show up, but they would fail when cloning, and trying to synchronize wouldn’t work either. I know I am sitting behind a HTTP proxy at work, but I assumed the GitHub client would just inherit the proxy settings already defined in the OSX preferences. Apparently not… so I hunted around the app to try and find dedicated proxy settings. Again, no luck here, but after looking around forums I discovered you could use the command line to set the proxy:

git config --global http.proxy http://proxy:port

I restarted the GitHub client, and now it would happily clone and sync my repos.