A 9yo's perspective on the iPad
via AudioBoo
Developer, entrepreneur, husband, dad, cyclist, sometime triathlete and anything else I can squeeze in. I'm cursed with a short attention span and only 24 hours in most days.
I'm CTO of Esendex the business messaging service provider I founded with Julian Hucker back in 2002.
At the weekends, when I'm not hanging out with my family, I can generally be found on my bike with Beeston Cycling Club or competing in triathlons, bike races or challenging myself in various other ways.
I'm also sharing my progress towards the goal of becoming a Cat 3 bike racer on Bunch Riding
Like much of the tech community on twitter I was left a little non-plussed by the launch of the iPad but having slept on it I think this could be another killer segment for Apple.
A while ago I bought a netbook (Dell Mini 10v) and installed OSX with the help of the community on http://www.mydellmini.com/forum/.
If the tablet is going to redefine how content is being delivered, turning the existing concept of magazines into interactive delights, it would make sense to deliver a purchasing experience.
I read a lot of cycling magazines that contain reviews of wonderful products that I invariably MUST have right at that moment. What if Apple, as part of a new content platform, enabled purchasing of these items, via the iTunes store. I could buy that wicked new Chainset or spangly new jacket with my existing iTunes account. That would be a game changing prospect.need a a CNAME mapping to /cloudapp.net as described here: http://blog.smarx.com/posts/custom-domain-names-in-windows-azure
is to use an environment variable.
The PowerShell Task is a subclassed Executable Task which loads a series of environment variables before the task is executed. You then just need to access those in your PowerShell script via the $Env variable. In my case
One of the pre-requisites I had for using Azure was that it could be deployed automatically as part of an integration and deployment process.
A quick scan through the Labs in the Windows Azure Platform Kit, which by the way have been an excellent resource so far, gave me Windows PowerShell as the option.
It proved pretty easy to get up and running. Here's my quick start guide.
If you're running anything other than Windows 7 you'll need to download and install PowerShell from here: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/926139.
Next you need the Azure Power Shell CmdLets available here: http://code.msdn.microsoft.com/azurecmdlets. Once you've downloaded and extracted the scripts, you then just need to execute the startHere script to get them installed.
I won't regurgitate the full instructions as it's best to read through the Lab Deploying and Monitoring Applications in Windows Azure - Exercise 2 - Using PowerShell to Manage Windows Azure Applications in the Windows Azure Platform Kit.
Is also worth checking reading about them on Ryan Dunn's blog: http://dunnry.com/blog/WindowsAzureServiceManagementCmdLets.aspx
This is the script I ended up with
Add-PSSnapin AzureManagementToolsSnapIn
$service = "<service_name>"
$sub = "<subscription_id>"
$cert = Get-Item cert:\CurrentUser\My\"<thumbnail>"
$package = ""<package_file>""
$config = ""<config_file>""
if ($args.Length -eq 1)
{
$label = $args[0]
}
else
{
$label = "unknown"
}
/*
If the staging deployment doesn't exist, this will create it
*/
/*
New-Deployment -serviceName $service -subscriptionId $sub -certificate $cert -slot staging -package $package -configuration $config -label $label |
Get-OperationStatus –WaitToComplete
*/
/*
Upgrade the current staging deployment
*/
Get-HostedService -serviceName $service -subscriptionId $sub -certificate $cert |
Get-Deployment -slot staging |
Set-Deployment -package $package -label $label |
Get-OperationStatus –WaitToComplete
/*
Set to running
*/
Get-HostedService -serviceName $service -subscriptionId $sub -certificate $cert |
Get-Deployment -slot staging |
Set-DeploymentStatus running |
Get-OperationStatus –WaitToComplete
/*
Move staging to production, this will actually swap them over
*/
Get-HostedService -serviceName $service -subscriptionId $sub -certificate $cert |
Get-Deployment -slot staging |
Move-Deployment |
Get-OperationStatus –WaitToCompleteYou'll note that I have two options for the deployment New-Deployment and Set-Deployment.
When you start off, Azure has nothing in either of the staging or production slots so you have to use New-Deployment.
When you create the first staging deployment then move to production, this empties the staging slot.
When you run through the process again, with New-Deployment, the Move swaps the deployments over so staging then has the first deployment and production the second.
At this point you can then start upgrading the staging deployment with Set-Deployment
You can of course avoid all this by just doing two manual deploys before automating it.
So, I have myself a database in the cloud but it wasn't plain sailing migrating from an existing database.
To access SQL Azure database, you will need SQL Server Management Studio 2008 R2 CTP. The standard SSMS version doesn't cope with the slightly different schema of the cloud based cousin of the SQL 2008 we all know and love.
The Express edition of this is available here: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=c772467d-e45b-43e1-9208-2c7b663d7ad1&displaylang=enJust make sure you read the download options and don't do what I did. I downloaded just the database engine without the tools. Cue head scratching and that oh so familiar feeling of the dunce when I realised what not paying attention resulted in :)To access SQL Azure database, you will need SQL Server Management Studio CTP R2. The 2008 version doesn't cope with the slightly different schema of the cloud based cousin of the SQL 2008 we all know and love.
The Express edition of this is available here: