Software & Services - Bret Grinslade https://docs.microsoft.com/archive/blogs/bretgrinslade/feed.xml Making the world a better place, one application at a time. Wed, 17 Apr 2019 03:18:51 GMT en-US hourly 1 Troubleshooting Application Insights https://docs.microsoft.com/archive/blogs/bretgrinslade/troubleshooting-application-insights Sun, 02 Mar 2014 15:43:00 GMT https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/bretgrinslade/2014/03/02/troubleshooting-application-insights/ preview for Application Insights is going well. We are signing up new customers and learning a lot about what works and where we need to improve. We still need to add many features, but it is satisfying to know that customers are making good use of our product even at this early stage.  We have been working a lot on making it super easy to get started.  We have new Visual Studio extensions and keep improving the Agent installer and our portal. In the past few sprints, we have improved how portal detect whether or not you have data. Each tab like Server Performance, Availability, and Usage will show a configuration experience if you don’t have any of this data coming through.   However, sometimes there are other issues.  Here a set of resources I use to help me when things don’t seem to be working. For the Agent, Charles Sterling has posted a great entry:  the ALM Blog on troubleshooting the MMA agent.  For the client libraries: Also the Application Insights JavaScript SDK preview update just had an update you can read about on the ALM blog.

Thanks for trying out Application Insights. As always, we
look forward to your comments, suggestions, and input. Here are the links.

 

]]> Application Insights Preview https://docs.microsoft.com/archive/blogs/bretgrinslade/application-insights-preview Thu, 14 Nov 2013 07:08:00 GMT https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/bretgrinslade/2013/11/14/application-insights-preview/ Yesterday, Brian Harry and the Visual Studio team announced the availability of Visual Studio Online and with it two cool new projects – Monaco and Application Insights.  I am working on the Application Insights project and am excited about sharing ideas and experiences now that we are in limited public preview.  Keep an eye on Brian’s blog to find out about invite codes or request access via the new tile on your Visual Studio Online home page (formerly known as your TFS Online Account).   The overall goal for Application Insights is to help you understand whether your application is available, performing, and improving.  While there are many different tools in the market to help with these different aspects – Automated performance management (APM), client analytics, crash analytics, performance monitoring, outside-in test tools, web application analytics, ... and many more.  Many of these are really great.  However, these always feel a bit disconnected from the development process in my opinion.  With Application Insights, the focus is to make this simple, accessible, and actionable as a developer.  That is the focus.  We really want all applications to be the best they can be by using real world data.  Data should drive what you do to make your application amazing -- which bugs to fix, which performance issues to work on first, which features are not being used, when is your service down.  As a developer, there are many ways to spend your time. It may be trite but what you focus on is what you get.  It is always better to catch problems early and work on the things that matter the most from your backlog! Here is a collection of a few articles about the launch: Announcing Application Insights Preview Microsoft’s Visual Studio 2013 Launches With New Online Tools, Previews Browser-Based Code Editor Microsoft Pulls Developer Power Move With Visual Studio Online In the past five years, I have worked on services from AdCenter to Dynamics to Visual Studio Online.  One common trend is to more and more DevOps focus in the development process. In modern applications, there is almost always a component of services combined with your web site or client code.  As a development team, tools such as Azure and AWS/EC2 empowers use to move from idea to shipping service much more quickly.  This a truly exciting time to be a developer.  Next up, I will describe a few ways I have been using Application Insights and look forward to your comments and questions.

 

]]> Azure Web Sites update https://docs.microsoft.com/archive/blogs/bretgrinslade/azure-web-sites-update Wed, 06 Nov 2013 17:55:33 GMT https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/bretgrinslade/2013/11/06/azure-web-sites-update/ https://bretwpmdp2.azurewebsites.net Just out of the box VS template and a quick publish. On the internet and testing out my idea in < 5 minutes including coding time.  Awesome.

 

]]> Why Use Yammer? https://docs.microsoft.com/archive/blogs/bretgrinslade/why-use-yammer Wed, 28 Nov 2012 20:42:30 GMT https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/bretgrinslade/2012/11/28/why-use-yammer/ Yammer is actually pretty cool. I have started to use it today. It is kind of like Facebook for an enterprise.  It is an interesting fusion of email, feeds, groups, sharepoint – get the real product overview here. So, why use it?  Because if you start to use it as a group or team, it can help you be much more productive, connected, and flexible. It encourages behavior that is the opposite of TPS reports.  People in technology usually work together on things they care about and have a lot of
desire to contribute. (Full disclosure here, I work for Microsoft and Microsoft bought Yammer recently. However it is still very much its own R&D group right now). The coolest part was watching how the internal Yammer folks use their own tool. This is real dogfood. The team really understands and values the power of this type of social interaction.  They really use it well.  I will look for some examples that I can post.  Go get check it out for yourself.

 

]]> Pilot Thinking (part 1) https://docs.microsoft.com/archive/blogs/bretgrinslade/pilot-thinking-part-1 Mon, 19 Nov 2012 17:25:00 GMT https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/bretgrinslade/2012/11/19/pilot-thinking-part-1/ (wait ...  there’s more)

]]> So what is a funnel (part 2) https://docs.microsoft.com/archive/blogs/bretgrinslade/so-what-is-a-funnel-part-2 Mon, 19 Nov 2012 17:23:00 GMT https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/bretgrinslade/2012/11/19/so-what-is-a-funnel-part-2/ Nokia 920 phone on the web (red please), then you get to a carrier, you agree to their two year contract … and BAM! You have completed a funnel. Now think about something like Facebook. It is viral, it get referrals directly from customers, they sign up and, then, hopefully they will send more people to Facebook.   This is a lot more complicated. Customers come in from lots of places and millions of streams of connections pull in people.

So… on to part 3…

]]> Funnel's are for other people (part 3) https://docs.microsoft.com/archive/blogs/bretgrinslade/funnels-are-for-other-people-part-3 Mon, 19 Nov 2012 17:20:25 GMT https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/bretgrinslade/2012/11/19/funnels-are-for-other-people-part-3/ CAPTCHA and then you add in some personal questions (what is your favorite beer maybe) and then… soon you have a lot of steps.  You need to make sure you understand what all of these steps are doing. This is not a clear as a “sign-up funnel” but it is still a task with flow that you can measure and you want to understand key things – time to complete, abandon rate, number of sessions, where folks went as they left….  So, the call to action is to learn about The Funnels in your product and service. Work immediately on key tasks – making them better (faster for administrative tasks, richer and more engaging for entertainment).  Work with business to understand who and why customers sign up and who stays.  More on this next time – what is customer value and how can you measure it?

 

]]> Microsoft Dynamics CRM https://docs.microsoft.com/archive/blogs/bretgrinslade/microsoft-dynamics-crm Fri, 16 Nov 2012 17:45:47 GMT https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/bretgrinslade/2012/11/16/microsoft-dynamics-crm/ https://www.marketingpilot.com/news/marketingpilot_release_msft.shtml

Looks very interesting... can't wait to see what is next.

]]> Azure Web Sites https://docs.microsoft.com/archive/blogs/bretgrinslade/azure-web-sites Fri, 12 Oct 2012 11:14:22 GMT https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/bretgrinslade/2012/10/12/azure-web-sites/ https://www.windowsazure.com/en-us/home/features/web-sites/ I am impressed at how easy it was to get started.  Here is an example post: https://bretwp.azurewebsites.net/2012/10/12/healthy-new-site/ I haven't decided how best to use these new tools, but I am excited about the possibilities!

]]> Vista and Windows XP Upgrade to Windows 7 https://docs.microsoft.com/archive/blogs/bretgrinslade/vista-and-windows-xp-upgrade-to-windows-7 Thu, 12 Mar 2009 12:09:00 GMT https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/bretgrinslade/2009/03/12/vista-and-windows-xp-upgrade-to-windows-7/ Ars Techinca: Upgrading to Windows 7: what XP and Vista users need to know On a related note, I have been using more and more ClickOnce apps.  It is really great when app deployment just works. I think we all appreciate that. 

All of this got me thinking about Silverlight. As I have posted before, we are actively developing much of our new UI in Silverlight. With MIX09 just around the corner there are a lot of good resources popping up on Silverlight.  Check out the Robert Hess interview of Brad Abrams on Silverligth 3.0

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