How to create an IoT/AI Slack Chat Bot

So what is IoT, AI, Slack & Bots anyway?.... Let's get started with a quick breakdown of what each of these are: IoT - According to Wikipedia IoT is defined as "The internet of things (IoT) is the network of physical devices, vehicles, buildings and other items—embedded with electronics, software, sensors, actuators, and network connectivity …

Upgrading to Team Foundation Server 2015 Update 2.1

How to upgrade an on premises Team Foundation Server to version 2015 update 2.1 Recently I had the task of upgrading our on premises TFS solution from TFS 2013 Update 5 to TFS 2015 Update 2.1. This article discusses the upgrade steps, how long the process took, as well as some of the pitfalls with …

Working with Sass in Visual Studio 2015

Introduction Sass is the perfect modern solution for maintaining many large complex CSS files, and keeping the CSS code DRY; with many developers using Sass now to overcome these maintenance problems. If you have never heard of Sass and want to learn more then look at the sections below. The official Sass website describes Sass as: Sass …

SSIS MySQL to Azure SQL using Visual Studio 2015

Introduction Recently I had the pleasure of using SSIS (SQL Server Integration Services) to transfer a database from a remote MySQL database to an Azure SQL database in the cloud. This post describes the steps in transferring the data using SSIS through Visual Studio 2015 and the integrated BI Data Tools. What is SSIS? Microsoft …

Enterprise Library 6 Semantic Logging to Azure SQL Database

What is the Semantic Logging block? Any time I need to log to a database, flat file, console, or event viewer I always go back to the Microsoft Enterprise Library. The Enterprise Library is a set of components created by Microsoft to simplify and standardise common software development using best practice and patterns. Microsoft describe …

Speed up .NET development with the CodeDOM

How to speed up .NET development using the CodeDOM and Reflection I recently worked on an ASP.net AngularJS/WebAPI hybrid project which had around 45 models linked to SQL Server tables using Entity Framework (nothing too unusual there); and the requirements in the product backlog was to create files for each. I am not talking 45 different files here.. I am …

16 essential free resources for web developers

Which free resources do I keep going back to as a web developer or designer? I thought about that question a few days ago.. "Which resources do I keep going back to as a web developer?"... regardless of which web project I am working on. I have listed below the 16 I seem to always …

How .Net developers can get the most out of their Mac

How to run native Visual Studio on your powerful MacBook Air About a year ago I sat there with my shiny new MacBook Air and thought "hmm I would love to run native Visual Studio on here".. Having used Visual Studio for years I felt that Visual Studio Code on a Mac just didn't cut …

How to pass Microsoft exam 70-480

Having taken and passed the 'Microsoft 70-480 Programming in HTML5, with JavaScript and CSS3' exam last week I thought I would share my thoughts on how I prepared for the exam; and ultimately how it can help you to pass it too hopefully. Firstly; a bit on the exam. The exam is around 40-60 multiple choice …