Advanced Topics Talk

Well as I posted on my course site, I am officially closing out the Spring 2015 semester. This semester was plagued with several scheduling problems, and as a result at times, I felt a little rushed. So today, I held a "make-up" of my advanced topics class and invited people to meet me at Panera Bread for the discussion.

It was a great talk, and a good time. And all seemed to enjoy it. And as promised for a followup, I said I would post links to the resources that I discussed:

• Visual Studio Online: As I mentioned, this provides a fantastic set of project management tools, as well as source control for free to anyone with a Microsoft ID. This allows for syncing and backing up your work in a way that makes everything easier to manage a team.
• Windows Azure: Microsoft's cloud platform, with loads of free options for supporting web apps, database, and a variety of services.
• Windows Azure Pricing Calculator: A great resource for helping to determine how much resources will cost on a monthly basis. It's all ridiculously cheap but it's still nice to know ahead of time an estimated cost.
• ShareItSimple: A startup some friends of mine worked on to help share files in a really simple fashion.
• Microsoft Bizspark: Microsoft's program for startups where if approved will provide free Microsoft products and $300 a month in Azure Credit for years. Great program.
• Visual Studio Code: A new product to install cross platform and work on code, great for light weight operations.
• Channel 9: A collection of instructional videos from Microsoft.
• Microsoft Virtual Academy: A variety of training resources by Microsoft MVPs.
• PluralSight: A paid for service that has amazing technical resources from some of the biggest names in the technical resources.
• Xamarin: A development tool that lets you leverage C# to build Android and iOS apps that share code making it easier.