Julia Lerman's Blog, page 2

Come Join Me Online Next Week!

I’ve got a pile of live on-line engagements next week and it will be fun if you can come join any of them.

EF Core Community Standup, 
March 10, 1pm EST

First up is an AMA (Ask Me Anything) style Q&A with the EF Core team and me .All of the past standups from the team (and guests) are on  YouTube. Here’s the link to the collection: https://aka.ms/efstandups. I believe the team will set up the “stage” for the upcoming standup at the top of that list, but you can always watch past ones and learn so much. 

Docker Community All Hands , March 11 11am EST

First hour will be company and product updates.
Second hour will be a collection of demos, workshops and lightning talks on various channels. I expect to be doing a lightning talk on Docker tooling in Visual Studio and another one on the VS Code Docker extension. Details here

The 425 Show, March 12 , 11am EST

This is a live show focused on Azure Active Directory, a topic I know nothing about! However, the hosts, Christos Matkas and John Patrick Davidson are experts. Together we are going to secure the data access for a web app that I’ve built using EF Core. Should be fun! Here’s the YouTube channel where you can connect

Entity Framework Core 5 Resources I’ve Created Recently

EF Core 5.0 was released in November 2020.

Whether you are new to EF / EF Core or moving from an earlier version, I’ve been pretty busy creating a number of useful resources for you whether you prefer to learn by video, reading or listening!

Also, I keep links to all of my conference talk and other videos in this YouTube PlayList: 

(Video) Pluralsight Course: 
Entity Framework Core: Getting Started
pub. Dec 15, 2020
4.5 hours(Article) Code Magazine Special Issue:
EF Core 5: Building on the Foundation
pub. Nov 2020
(Video) Pluralsight Webinar Recorded:
Preparing Your Move to Entity Framework Core 5: What’s New and What’s Improved
pub Nov 25, 2020
1 hr plus 20 minutes of Q&A

(Podcast) DevTalk with Kerry Lathrop
53: ON ENTITY FRAMEWORK CORE. WITH JULIE LERMAN
pub. Dec 28, 2020
47 minutes

(Podcast)
Software Engineering Radio
IEEE Computer Society
Episode 435: Julie Lerman on Object Relational Mappers and Entity Framework
Interview with Jeremy Jung
pub. Nov 17, 2020
1 hr

(Video) ASP.NET Monsters
MONSTERS WEEKLY 200B – CONVERSATIONS WITH JULIE LERMAN

pub. 12/21/20
48 minutes

 

 

Someone Masquerading as me on Indeed and LinkedIn

I have recently been contacted by multiple people who have been getting scam virtual assistant job offers on Indeed and LinkedIn from someone using the email address julielerman101@hotmail.com. And they are attempting some standard scammy tasks like “here’s a check” (which is fake) ” please deposit it then transfer $ to [some weird place]”. Please don’t be taken in. It is not me. I don’t have accounts on any of those websites. Indeed.com has been alerted and have done something about that account. If you have been contacted by anyone like this, let me know.  And I’m so sorry.

Protected: Understanding the Key Networking Terms of AWS

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Follow My Explorations into AWS for .NET Developers

Earlier this year, a friend who is a dev advocate for .NET on AWS reached out to me to see if I had any awareness at all about the support Amazon Web Services has for .NET developers and .NET applications. My answer was a definite no. I’m an Azure fan girl and had never even thought about .NET on AWS. When he started rattling off some of what’s available, APIs, tooling and a dedicated team, I was surprised.

And curious.

So I have spent quite a bit of time sating that curiosity. I’ve written two articles that were published in Code Magazine this summer and recently published a course on Pluralsight. I still love Azure (and all my friends who work on Azure), but I’m glad to have deeper familiarity of other options. This makes me a better developer as well as a better consultant to my clients.

My focus has not been on deep DevOps or comparisons to Azure. I just wanted to see how things work and try it out. And I was definitely impressed.

I did all of the work in Visual Studio on my Windows machine because there is a very feature rich extension called AWS Toolkit for Visual Studio. There are also extension for VS Code, JetBrains’ Rider and other IDEs (not just for .NET). The ones for VS Code and Rider are more focused on serverless apps so they don’t have all of the features of the one for Visual Studio.

Since I’ve already created so much content, I’m not going to reiterate it all here but I wanted to be sure you are aware of the articles and the course and…the fact that there is such a thing as .NET on AWS. Whether, like me, you are curious, or like others, you are a .NET developer who has been tasked to learn about using AWS, I hope you find them interesting. Here’s what I’ve created thus far:

Discovering AWS for .NET Developers
Article, May/June 2020 Code Magazine

This is about first foray. Creating an account, installing the toolkit into Visual Studio, creating a SQL Server database (on AWS), pointing a .NET Core 3.1 App with EF Core to use that database, then (using the AWS toolkit), publishing the application to AWS.

Transform Your ASP.NET Core API into AWS Lambda Functions
Article. July/August 2020 Code Magazine

This is the next foray. I took the application from the first article, transformed it into an AWS serverless application (mostly by adding a few files provided by a project template), then publishing it to AWS. In the end, AWS creates a Lambda serverless function in front of the API, which means you get the benefit of the billing that is only based on calls coming through function. That compares to the cost of having the application running and waiting for requests 24/7. 

Fundamentals of Building .NET Applications on AWS
Pluralsight course, 2.5 hours. Published Aug 7, 2020

The course leans on what I learned through the articles but also allowed me to spend more time explaining and teaching additional information. In the course, I walk through creating an account, installing the toolkit, creating the SQL Server database, publishing the .NET Core/EF Core app and publishing the serverless app. There is an additional lesson which is about publishing the application as docker containers, fully managed by AWS via a service called Fargate. There’s a lot more detail than the articles and I’m really walking you through  step by step from start to end for each task.

I hope you’ll find the articles and course helpful and interesting, especially, if like me, you had no idea all of this support for .NET devs exist from AWS. 

Resize Windows’ Screen Resolution with a Touch of a Stream Deck Button

I have a lovely pair wide screen monitors with 1080p resolution. However, when recording software training courses for Pluralsight, we are asked to use a resolution of 1280×720 so that text and code are legible across a variety of devices and sizes.

Therefore, when recording a course, which may take me many many weeks, I tend to leave one of my monitors at 1280×720. But I’m constantly doing other things on that monitor such as email or writing and that resolution is discomforting.

There is no easy way to change the resolution other than going into system settings. But I now have a super easy way to change that monitor’s resolution back and forth.

Like many of us who are now creating content at home (although I am not streaming on twitch like many of my friends) I recently added an Elgato Stream Deck controller to my toolkit, along with some key lights, too! I use the stream deck to control the lights while recording  video that requires that I be in it.

Step 1: Find a command line tool for affecting screen resolution.

There are some apps and there are a few CLI tools. After asking around on Twitter, I learned about Display Changer 2, used by two very trusted nerds (and friends): 

I took @DamianEdwards‘s word for it.

Resize Windows’ Screen Resolution with a ouch of a Stream Deck button

I have a lovely pair wide screen monitors with 1080p resolution. However, when recording software training courses for Pluralsight, we are asked to use a resolution of 1280×720 so that text and code are legible across a variety of devices and sizes.

Therefore, when recording a coruse, which may take me many many weeks, I tend to leave one of my monitors at 1280×720. But I’m constantly doing other things on that monitor such as email or writing and that resolution is discomforting.

There is no easy way to change the resolution other than going into system settings. But I now have a super easy way to change that monitor’s resolution back and forth.

Like many of us who are now creating content at home (although I am not streaming on twitch like many of my friends) I recently added an Elgato Stream Deck controller to my toolkit, along with some keylights, too! I use the stream deck to control the lights while recording  video that requires that I be in it.

Step 1: Find a command line tool for affecting screen resolution.

There are some apps and there are a few CLI tools. After asking around on Twitter, I learned about Display Changer 2, used by two very trusted nerds (and friends): 

I took @DamianEdwards‘s word for it.

MSDN Mag Data Points Column Archives in Microsoft Docs

With MSDN Magazine shutting down, all of the content has been archived on the Microsoft docs site.

You can get to a listing of magazines by issue at https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/archive/msdn-magazine/msdn-magazine-issues

And if you are looking specifically for my Data Points column archives, here is a link to the list of those articles:

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us%5Carchive%5Cmsdn-magazine%5Cauthors%5CJulie_Lerman

Pluralsight is totally free for the month of April

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While many of you who read my blog are already Pluralsight subscribers with work or personal subscriptions, there are so many who do not have access. So Pluralsight is opening up the entire library of over 7,000 courses for people to watch while stuck at home. And you do not need to use a credit card to sign up.*

So whether you want to watch one my my courses such as 

EF Core Getting Started (completely new for EF Core 3.1)
The recently updated Getting Started with EF6
The updated and soon to be republished EF 6 Ninja Edition (focus on advanced features)
Automated Testing for Fraidy Cats Like Me (a getting started course on testing aimed at new and experienced devs)
EF in the Enterprise (this is for EF6 …will be updated to EF Core but most of the architectural concepts are the same).
Domain-Driven Design Fundamentals, co-authored with Steve Smith and still one our most popular courses!

Or any of the other 7,000+ courses from some of the most knowledgeable devs who happen to be great at teaching ….

Have at it!

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There is also a free plan for business accounts.

Business Free April Details: “To support your team’s skill development during these new challenges, for a limited time we’ve extended our free team trial from 14 days to 30 days.”

*The fine print: Free April is open to anyone who is not a current, active subscriber. New free accounts and reactivated accounts opened through April 30, 2020 will have access to Pluralsight’s library of video courses through April. Payment information will not be required for new free accounts opened through April 30, 2020. New free accounts opened after May 1, 2020, will only have access to a portion of Pluralsight’s library and will require payment information.

Eek! 2 More Days of Pluralsight sale..ends tomorrow Dec 6

I struggle with sounding like a shill for Pluralsight but I also don’t want people to miss out on a chance to get a subscription (to the video training platform that I have committed my content to since 2009 because it is SO good) for a great discount: 40% off.

So here I am again, letting you know that they extended the sale through tomorrow (Friday Dec. 6).

You can get a new subscription or extend an existing one.