GCast - The Wit and Ramblings of David Giard
Demanding rigidly defined areas of doubt and uncertainty

GCast 116:

Azure Active Directory B2C Token Generation With No User Interaction

Learn how to configure Azure Active Directory B2C, so you can request an Authentication Token without any user interaction. This is ideal for running automated processes that require a token, such as an integration test that calls a secure API.

GCast 115:

Registering an Azure Account Subscription

Sometimes, you may receive the following error message, when trying to do something in Azure: "The subscription is not registered to use namespace 'Microsoft.AzureActiveDirectory'. This video walks you resolving fixing this issue.

GCast 114:

Creating an Azure Active Directory B2C Tenant

Learn how to create an Azure Active Directory B2C Tenant

GCast 113:

Passing parameters to xUnit net tests with the ClassData attribute

The [ClassData] attribute of xUnit.net allows you to store a collection of data parameters in a single class and pass that class to a single test method, allowing it to run multiple tests with different values.

You can find the source  code at https://github.com/DavidGiard/XUnitDemo

GCast 112:

Passing parameters to xUnit.net tests with the InlineData attribute [GCAST 112 ]

If you have multiple unit tests with redundant code, it may make sense to create a single test and pass parameters to it. You can do this using the [InlineData] attribute of xUnit.net.

You can find the source code at https://github.com/DavidGiard/XUnitDemo

GCast 111:

Writing unit tests with xUnit.net

Learn how to use the xUnit.net open source project to create unit tests for your .NET application You can find the source code at https://github.com/DavidGiard/XUnitDemo

GCast 110:

Renaming Projects and Folders in a Visual Studio Solution

Renaming projects, files, classes, and namespaces is a risky thing that affects anything that references or depends on those objects. The refactoring tools in Visual Studio can help, but only so far.

In this video, I will walk through renaming projects and folders in one of my Visual Studio solutions.

GCast 109:

Using the Video Indexer AI Tool

Video Indexer is a tool from Microsoft that uses Azure Media Services and Cognitive Services to analyze video and audio file. It can use AI to determine a transcription, facial recognition, emotion and sentiment analysis, scene changes, and other useful information. This video shows how to use this tool.

GCast 108:

Managing Deleted Facebook Posts

Learn how to archive, permanently delete, and restore Facebook posts after they are moved to Trash.

GCast 107:

Live Streaming with Azure Media Services

Learn how to broadcast a live video event using Azure Media Services

GCast 106:

Audio Transcription and Captioning with Azure Media Services

Azure Media Services can analyze an audio or video file and transcribe speech into text. You can then take the generated files and provide synchronized captioning for your video.

GCast 105:

Analyzing a Video with Azure Media Services

Learn how to use Azure Media Services to apply Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning to a video, analyzing such things as face detection, speech-to-text, object detection, and optical character recognition

GCast 104:

Sharing a Video Online with Azure Media Services

Learn how to use Azure Media Services to share a video on the web for streaming and/or for downloading.

GCast 103:

Encode a Video with Azure Media Services

Learn how to use Azure Media Services to encode a video into multiple formats, including support for adaptive streaming.

GCast 102:

Video Files and Azure Media Services

Learn the capabilities of Azure Media Services, how to create an Azure Media Services account, and how to add audio and video files as Assets in that account.

GCast 101:

Azure Resource Groups

What are the advantages of Azure Resource Groups? How do I create and manage a Resource Group?

GCast 100:

Creating a Screencast

In this video, I walk you through how I create screencasts for this show and publish it online.

GCast 99:

PowerPoint Animations

Learn how to effectively animate objects in Microsoft PowerPoint.

GCast 98:

Using the Azure Storage Explorer

The Azure Storage Explorer provides a simple way to access objects in an Azure Storage Account. This video walks you through how to install and use this tool.

GCast 97:

Accessing MinIO with the AWS S3 SDK

The AWS S3 SDK for Java allows you to read from and write to MinIO. This allows you to easily migrate an application from using S3 to using MinIO Server or Agent.

Code:

https://github.com/DavidGiard/MinIO_Java_Demo/releases/tag/GCast097

GCast 96:

Using the MinIO Java Client SDK

Learn how to use the Java Client SDK to upload and download files to/from a MinIO server

Code: https://github.com/DavidGiard/MinIO_Java_Demo/releases/tag/GCast096

GCast 95:

Creating a MinIO Agent for Azure Blob Storage

Learn how to use MinIO to manage blobs in an Azure Storage Account

GCast 94:

Creating a MinIO Server

Learn how to create a MinIO server, organize into buckets; then, read and write files to the server.

GCast 93:

Handling Spring Boot Errors with ControllerAdvice

In this video, you will learn how to use the ControllerAdvice pattern to centralize error handling in a Spring Boot application.

Code:
https://github.com/DavidGiard/java-spring-boot-demo/releases/tag/GCast93

GCast 92:

More Error Handling in a Spring Boot Application

More on error handling in a Java Spring Boot application

Code: https://github.com/DavidGiard/java-spring-boot-demo/releases/tag/GCast92

GCast 91:

Throwing and Catching Custom Exceptions in a Java Spring Boot Application

This video shows how to respond appropriately to errors in a Spring Boot application by creating and throwing custom exceptions when appropriate; then, handling them in the controller and returning an appropriate HTTP response to the client.

Source code: https://github.com/DavidGiard/java-spring-boot-demo/releases/tag/GCast91

GCast 90:

Basic Error Handling in a Spring Boot Web Service

Learn how to handle errors in a Spring Boot application.

GCast 89:

HTTP Request and Response Headers in a Spring Boot Application

Learn how to read headers from an HTTP Request and write them to an HTTP Response.

GCast 87:

Logging to Azure Application Insights from a Java Spring Boot Application

With a few configuration settings, you can push your logs from a Java Spring Boot application into Azure Application Insights - even if the app is not running in Azure!

GCast 86:

Logging in a Java Spring Boot Application

Learn how to add logging to your Java Spring Boot application and configure the level of that logging.

GCast 85:

Dependency Injection in Java Spring Apps

Learn how to declarative initialize services using the dependency injection features of the Java Spring framework.

GCast 84:

Java Services

How to create and call services in Java

GCast 83:

Supporting POST HTTP Requests with Spring Boot

Create a web service that supports HTTP POST requests using the Spring Boot framework

GCast 82:

Creating a RESTful Web Service with Spring Boot

Use the Spring Boot framework to create a RESTful web service.

GCast 81:

Spring Boot Quick Start

Learn how to quickly generate a Java application based on the Spring Boot framework.

GCast 80:

Conditional Logic in Power Automate

This video shows how to add conditional logic to a Microsoft Power Automate workflow.

GCast 79:

Creating a Workflow from Scratch in Power Automate

This video shows how to create a workflow in Microsoft Power Automate without starting from a template.

GCast 78:

Creating a Workflow from a Microsoft Power Automate Template

Microsoft Power Automate (formerly Microsoft Flow) allows users to create workflows without writing any code. Learn how to create a workflow from one of the many templates shipping with Power Automate.

GCast 77:

Connecting Azure Synapse to External Data

Azure Data Warehouse has been re-branded as Azure Synapse. Learn how to add data from an external system to an Azure Synapse database.

GCast 76:

Creating an Azure Synapse database

Azure Data Warehouse has been renamed to Azure Synapse. This video walks you through the creation of a Synapse database.

GCast 75:

Creating an Azure SQL Server Logical Server

How to create a logical SQL Server in Microsoft Azure.

GCast 74:

Continuous Deployment with Azure DevOps

Implement continuous integration and continuous deployment by automatically triggering build and deploy pipelines when code is committed to a repository branch.

GCast 73:

Build an Azure DevOps Release Pipeline

How to create a pipeline that will automatically deploy an ASP.NET Core Web Application to an Azure App Service.

GCast 72:

Creating an Azure DevOps Build Pipeline

Learn how to automate a build and test process with an Azure DevOps Build pipeline.

GCast 71:

Integrating Visual Studio Solution with Azure DevOps Repo

Learn how to configure your Visual Studio 2019 solution to integrate with an Azure DevOps repository.

GCast 70:

Deleting an Azure DevOps Project

Deleting a project from an Azure DevOps organization is not intuitive (at least it wasn't for me). Here is how to do it.

GCast 69:

Azure DevOps Branch Policies

Learn how to set branch policies in Azure DevOps, including requiring approvers and requiring a linked work item.

GCast 68:

Azure DevOps Work Items

Learn how to create and manage work items for an Azure DevOps project.

GCast 69:

Azure DevOps Branch Policies

Learn how to set branch policies in Azure DevOps, including requiring approvers and requiring a linked work item.

GCast 67:

Azure Repos, Branches, and Pull Requests

Learn how to edit files in an Azure DevOps repo, create branches and pull requests, and approve mergers.

GCast 66:

Creating a Repo in Azure DevOps

How to create an Azure DevOps project and a code repo within that project.

GCast 65:

Artificial Intelligence, Whale Sharks, and WildBook

With help from Microsoft's AI for Earth, Wild Me has created WildBook to use artificial intelligence to track the location and migration of animals.

GCast 64:

Noise Reduction with Audacity

Learn how to use Audacity to reduce the background noise in an audio file.

GCast 63:

In this video, I walk you through a JavaSript application that calls the Sentiment Analysis Cognitive Service.

GCast 62:

This video explains the Sentiment Analysis service, which is part of the Text Analytics Cognitive Service.

GCast 61:

In this video, I walk you through a C# application that calls the Text Recognition service, passing in an image of text and retrieving that text.

GCast 60:

The Text Recognition Service supports sending a binary image and reading any text in that image. This video shows you how.

GCast 59:

Cognitive Services Text Recognition service

Learn to extract text from an image using the new Text Recognition service.

GCast 58:

Creating and Deploying Azure Resources with ARM Templates

Learn how to generate an ARM template and use it to create and deploy resources to Azure.

GCast 57:

Azure Data Factory GitHub Deployment

Learn how to set up automated deployment from a GitHub repository to an Azure Data Factory.

GCast 56:

Azure Web App Deployment Slots

Deployment slots allow you to test changes to your web application in a production-like environment before deploying to production.

GCast 55:

GitHub Deployment to an Azure Web App

Learn how to set up automated deployment from a GitHub repository to an Azure Web App

GCast 54:

Azure Storage Replication

Learn about the data replication options in Azure Storage and how to set the option appropriate for your needs.

GCast 53:

Creating a Data Warehouse in Azure

Learn how to create a new SQL Sever data warehouse in Microsoft Azure.

GCast 52:

Using hilite.me to Format Code as HTML

The online tool at hilite.me allows me to format code in just about any language and paste it into my blog.

GCast 51:

Creating an Azure Container Instance

Learn how to create an Azure Container instance from a container repository.

GCast 50:

Angular pt 9: Incremental Search

Implementing Incremental Search with Angular JavaScript framework

GCast 49:

Learn how to make HTTP calls from within your Angular app.

GCast 48:

Angular pt 7: Routing

Routing in Angular is similar to routing in an MVC framework - except it happens on the client side. Learn how to implement it here.

GCast 47:

Angular pt 6: Services

Learn how to use Services in Angular to separate functionality and take advantage of dependency injection.

GCast 46:

Angular pt 5: Master Detail Components

Continuing the Angular tutorial: Learn how to coordinate the data-bound items in a list with a component showing the selected item.

GCast 45:

Angular pt 4: Displaying a List

Learn how to use Angular to bind to a list of items and iterate through that list.

GCast 44:

Angular pt 3: The Hero Editor

Learn how to do 1-way and 2-way data binding in Angular

GCast 43:

Angular pt 2: The Application Shell

This video walks you through creating the application shell for the Angular Tutorial at angular.io

GCast 42:

Angular pt 1: Getting Started

Learn how to install Angular and its prerequisites and build a simple Angular application using the CLI.

GCast 41:

Using the PowerPoint Selection Pane

The Selection Pane is a little-used PowerPoint feature that can make it easier to manage a complex slide.

GCast 39:

Azure Search REST API

Azure Search allows you to make your internal data searchable in the same way that search engines like Google and Bing make public information on the Internet searchable.

GCast 38:

Azure Search

Azure Search allows you to make your internal data searchable in the same way that search engines like Google and Bing make public information on the Internet searchable.

GCast 37:

Managing Blobs with the Azure Storage Explorer

The Azure Storage Explorer is a free resource to manage Azure Storage Accounts.
This video shows how to manage Azure blobs with this tool.

GCast 36:

Managing Tables with the Azure Storage Explorer

The Azure Storage Explorer is a free resource to manage Azure Storage Accounts.
This video shows how to manage Azure tables with this tool.

GCast 35:

Customizing Microsoft Teams

Microsoft Teams is a set of tools that help users collaborate with one another. Learn how to create a new Team, add a Channel to an existing team, and add a Tab to an existing Channel.

GCast 34:

Exposing Local Web Apps with ngrok

Learn how to speed up development and testing by using ngrok to expose to the public Internet web applications running on your local machine.

GCast 33:

An Introduction to Power BI

Power BI is a tool that allows you to create visualizations from a variety of data sources. This video shows how to get started with this tool.

GCast 32:

Handwriting OCR with Cognitive Services

See how to perform OCR on images with handwritten text, using Microsoft Cognitive Services. I walk through the API and show sample JavaScript code.

GCast 31:

OCR with Cognitive Services

Cognitive Services can automatically detect text from pictures of text. This video shows how.

GCast 30:

Creating Applications with the Analyze Image Cognitive Services API

Learn how to create C# and node applications using the "Analyze Image" service of the Microsoft Cognitive Services Vision API.

GCast 29:

Introducing Cognitive Services and Computer Vision

Microsoft Cognitive Services allow you to take advantage of Machine Learning without all the complexities of Machine Learning. In this video, I introduce Cognitive Services by showing how to use Computer Vision to analyze an image, automatically detecting properties of that image.

GCast 28:

Natural Language Processing with LUIS

Learn how to use Microsoft Language Understanding Information Service (LUIS) to build models that provide Natural Language Processing (NLP) for your application.

GCast 27:

QnAMaker

Learn how to use QnA Maker to create a bot that automatically answers questions.

GCast 26:

Creating a Chatbot in the Azure Portal

In this video, I show how to create, deploy, and edit a chatbot completely within your web browser using the Azure Portal. You can event download the source code and edit it in Visual Studio, if you wish.

GCast 24:

Azure Function CosmosDB Binding

Using the CosmosDB binding in an Azure Function allows you to read and write documents in an Azure CosmosDB database without writing code.

GCast 23:

Azure Logic Apps

Learn how to create a Logic App to deploy a workflow in the cloud.

GCast 22:

Creating an Azure Function Proxy

Learn how to create a proxy URL using Azure Functions

GCast 21:

Azure Functions Continuous Deployment

Learn how to configure continuous deployment from GitHub to Azure functions. Each time you push code changes to GitHub, that code is automatically deployed to Azure.

GCast 20:

Creating an Azure Function in Visual Studio

GCast 19:

Creating an Azure Function in the Azure Portal

GCast 18:

Azure Data Factory

GCast 17:

Azure CosmosDB with Other APIs

GCast 16:

Azure CosmosDB with SQL API

GCast 15:

Creating an Azure Web App

Azure Web Apps allow you to host your web sites and applications in the cloud. I walk through the steps of setting up an Azure Web App.

GCast 14:

Creating an Azure Storage Account

Learn how to create a new Azure Storage account.

GCast 13:

Azure Media Services: Closed Captioning

Generate and add closed captioning to your video with Microsoft Azure Media Services.

GCast 12:

Azure Media Services: Live Streaming

Learn how to Upload, Encode, and Share a Video using Azure Media Services.

GCast 11:

Azure Media Services - Uploading, Encoding, and Sharing a Video

Learn how to Upload, Encode, and Share a Video using Azure Media Services.

GCast 10:

Azure Linux Virtual Machines

Learn how to use the Chocolatey package manager to quickly install Windows applications and their dependencies.

GCast 9:

Azure Linux Virtual Machines

Microsoft Azure supports many open source and non-Microsoft technologies, including Linux VMs. Learn how to create and connect to a Linux VM hosted in Azure.

GCast 8:

Azure Virtual Machines

What is an Azure Virtual Machine? How do I create one?

GCast 7:

Azure SQL Database

Azure MySQL Database

GCast 6:

Azure SQL Database

How to create an Azure SQL database in the Azure portal.

GCast 5:

Azure Databricks

Learn how to create a free library and Jupyter notebooks hosted in Azure.

GCast 4:

Azure Notebooks

Learn how to create a free library and Jupyter notebooks hosted in Azure.

GCast 3:

Creating and Deploying a Predictive Web Services with Azure ML Studio

Building on Episode 2, I show you how to create, publish, and call a predictive web service from a trained model built with Azure ML Studio.

GCast 2:

Azure Machine Learning Studio

Azure Machine Learning Studio is a graphical designer that allows you to quickly build Machine Learning solutions without writing a lot of code.

GCast 1:

A Lap Around Cloud and Azure

What is cloud computing, why is it important, and how does Microsoft Azure fit in?

I have twice begun a screencast web series; but each time it fizzled as I ran out of time, motivation, and/or subject matter.

This time, I'm optimistic and I have a lot to say.

So, starting tomorrow, I am re-booting "GCast", a technical screencast in which I will walk through a technical topic in a short video.

My new computer and a fresh install of Camtasia Studio and Adobe Premiere Elements will help.

I’ve recorded a few episodes and I’ll be releasing them here once a week, for now. The first 2 are about 20 minutes long, but I plan to keep most videos 5-10 minutes.

Tomorrow's episode is A Lap Around Microsoft Azure and talks about the advantages of cloud computing in general and Azure in particular. 

I hope you like it an I hope you keep watching.

Microsoft Cognitive Services is a set of APIs built on Machine Learning and exposed as REST Web Services. The Speech API offers a way to listen to speech and convert it into text.

GCast 16: Cognitive Services - Speech to Text

Microsoft Cognitive Services is a set of APIs based on Machine Learning and exposed as REST web services. The Emotion API analyzes pictures of faces and determines the emotion shown in each face.

GCast 15: Cognitive Services - Emotion API

Microsoft Cognitive Services uses Machine Learning to recognize text within pictures and exposes this functionality via a RESTful Web Service.

GCast 14: Cognitive Services - Thumbnail Generation

Microsoft Cognitive Services uses Machine Learning to recognize text within pictures and exposes this functionality via a RESTful Web Service.

Cognitive Services - Optical Character Recognition

Microsoft Cognitive Services (formerly Project Oxford) provides a set of APIs for analyzing images, video, speech, and language. Learn how to get started and start developing against these APIs..

In this screencast, you will learn 3 different ways to create an Azure Web App using the Azure Management Portal.

In this screencast, we show how to create a new Virtual Machine in the Windows Azure portal.

zure storage includes built-in redundancy by default. In this screencast, I explain the Replication options that allow you to configure how many copies of your data are created, where they are created, and how they can be accessed.

Azure storage includes built-in redundancy by default. In this screencast, I explain the Replication options that allow you to configure how many copies of your data are created, where they are created, and how they can be accessed.

Learn how to deploy to an Azure web app from a local Git repository.

In this screencast, I show off some of the features of Microsoft Edge - the new browser included in Windows 10 - that help end users be more productive.

In this screencast, you will learn how to create your own table linked to an Azure Mobile Service and manage the data in this table from a client Windows or Windows Phone application.

In this screencast, you will learn how to turn on authorization in an Azure Mobile Service and allow users to log in with their Twitter account.

G-Cast 3

This video describes the basics of Azure Mobile Services and walks you through creating a new Mobile Service with a JavaScript backend.

G-Cast 1

Azure Mobile Services, Part 1 – Creating a Mobile Service

Every once in a while, I record a screencast and I post it on this blog.

You can find links here to a series of screencasts I did on Visual Studio Coded UI Tests.

It has been a long time since I did so because screencasts tend to be a lot of work when done correctly.

But now I’m motivated to start doing these regularly. I plan to keep them short – anywhere from 5-30 minutes and to keep each video focused on a single topic. My goal is to release a new video every Friday – in the same way that I release a new Technology and Friends episode every Monday.

As in the past, I’m branding these as “G-Cast” – an abbreviation of Giard’s Screencasts and I’m rebooting the franchise to start at Episode 1. I even have a fun intro sequence that will appear at the beginning of each video.

The first G-Cast will debut tomorrow and will be part of a series showing how to use Azure Mobile Services.

Stay tuned and let me know what you think of this project.

In this screencast, I show 3 ways to create a Windows Azure web site.

Part 1: Fundamentals and Smoke Tests

Part 2: Assertions

Part 3: Modifying Maps

This screencast demonstrates how to change a Visual Studio 2012 Coded UI Test after you have recorded it.

This screencast shows how to add assertions to a Visual Studio 2012 Coded UI Test while recording your mouse and keyboard actions.

This screencast covers the fundamentals of Microsoft Coded UI Tests, a feature of Visual Studio 2012, Premium and Ultimate Editions. You will learn how to record mouse and keyboard actions to record a simple "smoke test".

Part 1: Fundamentals and Smoke Tests

Part 2: Assertions

Part 3: Modifying Maps

This screencast demonstrates how to change a Visual Studio 2010 Coded UI Test after you have recorded it.

This screencast shows how to add assertions to a Coded UI Test while recording your mouse and keyboard actions.

This screencast covers the fundamentals of Microsoft Coded UI Tests, a feature of Visual Studio 2010, Premium and Ultimate Editions. You will learn how to record mouse and keyboard actions to record a simple "smoke test".