You are now at Tham's Tech Crib on MSDN https://docs.microsoft.com/archive/blogs/cbtham/feed.xml How-to articles, guides, tech related posts that can fill your inner techie geeky unicorn rainbow needs Sat, 19 May 2018 03:56:27 GMT en-US hourly 1 Activate Microsoft Free $200 Credit - You gateway to Azure cloud https://docs.microsoft.com/archive/blogs/cbtham/activate-microsoft-free-200-credit-you-gateway-to-azure-cloud Sat, 19 May 2018 11:56:27 GMT https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/cbtham/?p=785 How do I activate the cloud? Step 1: Go to https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/offers/ms-azr-0044p/. Step 2: Sign in to your microsoft account (if you don’t have one, create here – you can use gmail or your own domain as well) Step 3: Fill up the form as shown. Make sure you put the correct country. If not you will have problem verifying your bank card. Work phone can be your mobile number. Must put in country code. 65 something, 60 something, 44 something etc. Step 4: Verify by a phone number. You can either have Microsoft to call or text you. The verification code to phone may take a bit of time. If after 10mins and you still stuck at this step, use another mobile number. Maybe your friend’s? This number is just to receive a code to active the subscription. Step 5: Verify yourself as a real person with a bank card. Best is to use a credit card, some debit card works too. Your card must be tied to an active bank account. Microsoft WILL NOT charge you anything at the end of the day. However, we do charge 1USD to make sure the card is a legit one. The refund will take place in 1-few days depending on bank. Microsoft will not charge you beyond your trial $200. All services will stop. What happen if you want your services to be up and running? (Enable Pay as you go upon credit depletion). *Please note if you enable pay as you go from the start, you will be charged until you state you do not want to. Services will continue and will NOT be taken down.   Step 6: Agreement. Click the I agree whenever you are ready. Step 7: Click Purchase and wait for your account to be provisioned. When it’s done, click on ‘Get Started with your Azure Subscription’ as shown below:- a4 Step 8: Done! Now you’re at portal.azure.com – your candy store where you can provision microsoft cloud services. Check out my article in what you can do 😊  https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/cbtham/2016/12/21/what-is-microsoft-azure/  Final notes: To confirm the subscription is correctly provisioned, check your Billing. It should say ‘Developer Benefits’ like the screenshot below:- a5 Welcome to the family 😊 xx]]> Activate Free Azure Cloud Credits - Visual Studio Dev Essentials https://docs.microsoft.com/archive/blogs/cbtham/activate-free-azure-cloud-credits-visual-studio-dev-essentials Sat, 19 May 2018 11:40:43 GMT https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/cbtham/?p=545 In today’s article, we talk about Visual Studio(VS). VS is not only a tool(well, it was once a tool), now it’s a complete suite of things. As the suite goes, Visual Studio Dev Essentials. These are the essentials of what a dev need to get started – the cloud, the tool and how to do it. In other terms, Azure credits, useful tools and trainings. It is all available for free. Free? Really? Yeah. Really* 😉 * = If you need unrestricted access, more powerful tools and every training Microsoft has to offer, then you’ll need a more powerful subscription – namely MSDN or VS that comes with MSDN. What am I signing up for? Well, $25 (USD) of Azure credits allowing you to subscribe to Azure services(check out my article here), tools(like Parallels for Mac, Windows tools, Power BI visualization tools), Plural Sight training, Xamarin University training(the select mobile portion). If you’re not looking for ninja Level 400 trainings, MVA that comes with VS Dev Essentials will already be sufficient. How do I activate the cloud? Step 1: Go to https://www.visualstudio.com/dev-essentials/ and join the program. Step 2: Sign in to your microsoft account (if you don’t have one, create here – you can use gmail or your own domain as well) Step 3: Wait for the subscription to finish provision and accept the terms to begin. After you’re done, you’ll be able to see the dashboard. Step 4: Click Active Azure as shown in the screenshot below:- a1 Step 5: Fill up the form like one showed below:- a2 Step 6: A couple of tips when you fill up. 1.       About you part Make sure you put the correct country. If not you will have problem verifying your bank card. Work phone can be your mobile number. Must put in country code. 65 something, 60 something, 44 something etc. 2.       Identification by phone part The verification code to phone may take a bit of time. If after 10mins and you still stuck at this step, use your friend’s mobile number. This number is just to receive a code to active the subscription. 3.       Payment information part Best is to use a credit card, some debit card works too. Your card must be tied to an active bank account. Microsoft WILL NOT charge you anything at the end of the day. However, we do charge 1USD to make sure the card is a legit one. The refund will take place in 1-few days depending on bank. Microsoft will not charge you if you exceed $25. All service will stop. Service will resume the next month. What happen if you want your services to be up and running? (Enable Pay as you go upon credit depletion). 4.       Agreement Agree with the privacy statement. If you don’t want to receive mails from Microsoft, don’t check the second box. Step 7: Click Purchase and wait for your account to be provisioned. When it’s done, click on ‘Get Started with your Azure Subscription’ as shown below:- a4 Step 8: Done! Now you’re at portal.azure.com – your candy store where you can provision microsoft cloud services. Check out my article in what you can do 😊   Final notes: To confirm the subscription is correctly provisioned, check your Billing. It should say ‘Developer Benefits’ like the screenshot below:- a5 Welcome to the family 😊 xx]]> Cannot get Microsoft Teams @mentions to work? https://docs.microsoft.com/archive/blogs/cbtham/cannot-get-microsoft-teams-mentions-to-work Wed, 24 Jan 2018 17:41:39 GMT https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/cbtham/?p=745 Node.js example code: Check for and strip @bot mention If it doesn’t work for you, don’t worry. I have found the cause. You just have to declare var botId = "YOUR BOT ID";   Session.message instead of message.text in the documentation. Good luck.]]> No response from bot emulator after the new update to Bot Framework/Azure Bot Service? https://docs.microsoft.com/archive/blogs/cbtham/no-response-from-bot-emulator-after-the-new-update-to-bot-frameworkazure-bot-service Wed, 24 Jan 2018 17:31:53 GMT https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/cbtham/?p=715
Not really. But I spent a good few hours searching for the cause. The cause? bot.set('storage', tableStorage); Comment this little guy out when you’re doing a local debug. Upon publish, re-enable it. //bot.set('storage', tableStorage); You’re welcome if this save you a couple of minutes/hours.]]> Setting up your machine for Xamarin – Visual Studio 2017 https://docs.microsoft.com/archive/blogs/cbtham/setting-up-your-machine-for-xamarin-visual-studio-2017 Mon, 17 Apr 2017 15:07:02 GMT https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/cbtham/?p=685 vanilla(Visual Studio 2015) and chocolate(Visual Studio 2017). So let’s get started. Chocolate guide 😊
  1. You’ll need a machine with at least 8GB of RAM. (Okay lah, 4GB also can but you must have greater patience. For folks like me, I like to trade patience with more RAM)
  2. Getting the installer
  1. For the cool kids that already have Visual Studio 2017 installed – we just have to modify the installer a abit 😉
  Step 1: Make sure you have this checked when you install
  •     Universal Windows App development
  •     .NET desktop development
  •     .NET and web development
  •     Mobile Development with .NET
  •     Mobile Development with Javascript
  •     .Net core platform development
*It’s a long list compared to 2015. Since these would be the commonly used stuff besides pure Xamarin, let’s just do everything in one go. 1 2 3 Step 2: Wait for it to finish install & you’re done 😊 Installation depends on feng shui – your internet speed, your processor speed, the amount of RAM you have etc.   For the cool kids – with Visual Studio 2017 installed Step 1: Launch Visual Studio and type in installer on the top right corner (under quick search) 4 Step 2: Click on the unreal engine installer. Step 3: Make sure you have this checked when you install.
  •     Universal Windows App development
  •     .NET desktop development
  •     .NET and web development
  •     Mobile Development with .NET
  •     Mobile Development with Javascript
  •     .Net core platform development
OR Locate and click on the installer that you’ve downloaded to install visual studio. Normally it’s named VS_something.exe. I find it easier to use the previous method.   To verify you have everything installed, after it’s done installing, launch Visual Studio and create a new project. If you see Android and iOS you’re most likely done and have a fully working development environment. There might be some errors due to feng shui issues but they can be corrected by using the cool kids way 😊 Reinstall, recheck, profit. 5

Happy Developing & welcome to the fam!

]]> Setting up your machine for Xamarin - Visual Studio 2015 https://docs.microsoft.com/archive/blogs/cbtham/setting-up-your-machine-for-xamarin-visual-studio-2015 Mon, 17 Apr 2017 14:27:43 GMT https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/cbtham/?p=635 chocolate(Visual Studio 2017). So let’s get started. Vanilla guide 😊
  1. You’ll need a machine with at least 8GB of RAM. (Okay lah, 4GB also can but you must have greater patience. For folks like me, I like to trade patience with more RAM)
  2. Getting the installer
* Download the one with Update 3
  1. For the cool kids that already have Visual Studio 2015 installed – we just have to modify the installer a abit 😉
Step 1: Make sure you have this checked when you install.
  • Universal Windows App Development Tools (check everything in it)
  • Cross Platform Mobile Development (check everything in it)
3  4   Step 2: Wait for it to finish install & you’re done 😊 Installation depends on feng shui – your internet speed, your processor speed, the amount of RAM you have etc.   For the cool kids – with Visual Studio 2015 installed Step 1: Go to control panel, uninstall or change a program. Double click/tap Visual Studio 2015. 1 Step 2: Wait for the Wizard to load and click Modify. 2 Step 3: Make sure you checked these.
  • Universal Windows App Development Tools (check everything in it)
  • Cross Platform Mobile Development (check everything in it)
3  4 Step 4: Let it install through and you’re done. Have lots of patience as this really depends on feng shui – internet speed, processor, RAM etc.   Verify all is well To verify you have everything installed, after it’s done installing, launch Visual Studio and create a new project. If you see Android and iOS you’re most likely done and have a fully working development environment. There might be some errors due to feng shui issues but they can be corrected by using the cool kids way 😊 Reinstall, recheck, profit. 5

Happy Developing & welcome to the fam!

]]> BizSpark Tools with Benefits https://docs.microsoft.com/archive/blogs/cbtham/bizspark-tools-with-benefits Thu, 23 Mar 2017 15:33:54 GMT https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/cbtham/?p=535 Congratulations! BizSpark members unite! So here's how you get access to your tools. Its located at https://my.visualstudio.com/benefits (If you have dev essentials activated and tied to this account, you'll need to choose between the drop down to your BizSpark account). The tools:-  https://my.visualstudio.com/downloads The product keys: https://my.visualstudio.com/productkeys Why is Microsoft making my life so hard? There's MSDN, there's Visual Studio, which one should I go for? A: We're simplifying things for the young, budding devs to look it all up at one place instead of splitting here and there. MSDN site will slowly be transitioned to Visual Studio Portal. So for the IT Pros out there, let's sit back, get our tools, chill a little and let the younger, budding devs to join our ranks 😎 The screenshots: b1   b2   b3  ]]> DIY: Build your own VPN with Microsoft Azure #OSS https://docs.microsoft.com/archive/blogs/cbtham/diy-build-your-own-vpn-with-microsoft-azure-oss Tue, 07 Mar 2017 20:52:55 GMT https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/cbtham/?p=225
  • We are not building a VPN service! If you plan to build a subscription service with a bunch of servers, please look else where.
  • The traffic will go out from Azure Datacenter. If the website/app you are browsing/using blacklist Microsoft's Azure datacenter IP addresses, this will not work for you.
    • If you want to build your own VPN server for personal use, i.e. travelling, visiting a site that your country blocks, VPN on your mobile phone, care about your data privacy, don't trust other VPN host/app, too much Azure credits, this is the article that will interest you. Bonus: you get a Windows 10 machine that sits in the cloud which you can connect via mobile phones, cyber café desktops, your neighbour's laptop or anything that has internet access with RDP(remote desktop) capability.
    So lets start Here are a couple of things that you must have.
    1. Azure subscription (check out my other posts if you're a startup applying for BizSpark).
    2. Azure subscription that have credits to provision virtual machines.
    3. 30 minutes of your life (maybe longer depending on skillz)
    You can get an Azure subscription with various programs. Like Azure passes(normally from Microsoft events), MSDN Subscription, Visual Studio Dev Essentials(apply here), BizSpark subscription, Azure trial, or other subscriptions that allows you to use compute services or virtual machines.
    Overview of things We are using Softether an open-source multi-protocol free VPN server software to host the service(Kudos to the university that develops it). It will be on Azure cloud sitting in a virtual machine(Windows 10). You can connect to the VPN server via mobile phones(iPhones, Android, Windows) or desktops(Mac, Windows, Linux). This tutorial is using OpenVPN client (easier for both phones and desktops).
    Let's really start First we'll have to provision a virtual machine on Azure. To do this, go to portal.azure.com and hit the '+' on your left. Click on compute. Click 'see all'. Search for 'Windows 10 Enterprise N'. 1   Click the blue create button (you might need to scroll down to find it). You'll be presented with a few settings. Give your VM a name, give a user login name and password, give a resource group name(any name will do), choose a location your VM is gonna be at. 2   Next, choose a size. You can choose one that suits you. Normally a small instance will do if you don't have to much users. If you're sharing with friends and family, you might want to choose a bigger one. Next would be configuring the network stuff. I would recommend going for manage disk for easier management, but storage account works fine(just choose managed disk if you are not sure what am I talking about). For public ip addresses, I like to use a static one(easy to manage because the IP address will not change). Rest of settings just leave it.   3   Step 4 is checking all info is valid. Continue with deployment and wait for the machine to provision itself. It will normally take 5-10mins.
    Installing VPN portion After the machine is done provisioning, we will have to
    1. Login to the machine (clean up the services we do not need)
    2. Install the VPN server
    4 As shown in screenshot above, press the connect button. It will download an rdp file. Just open it, key in your username and password to login to your machine in the cloud. You can say 'yes' to all the certificate prompt. Do not worry, you are not agreeing to sell your soul. Once you are in the virtual machine, search for 'program and features'. Once in, click 'turn on and off windows features'
    1. Check .NET Framework 3.5
    2. Uncheck Microsoft Print to PDF
    3. Uncheck Print document and services
    4. Uncheck XPS services
    5. Uncheck XP viewer
    Click OK and download the framework from Windows Update. Once that's done, you can go ahead and restart the machine. *This is to save resources in our VM. If your VM is a powerful one and you do not care about resources and cost, you can skip this step. 1 Once restarted, go back into the machine. Fire up 'Internet Explorer' (Ok, I know. You can use Chrome or Edge too), search for softether VPN. Once you're in the site, go to the download page. You can choose to download the beta or stable version. It does not really matter which one you choose. Download 'Softether VPN Server Manager for Windows' and install it. Install Softether VPN server. Finish and launch the VPN Server Manager. 2
    Configuring VPN portion At VPN Server Manager, click 'Connect' and give a password. After that, check the options as shown in screenshot below. 3 Give a VPN name or stick to default. When ask for dynamic hostname, give it a name of your choice. 4-1 Exit the config and check the next config that pops up as shown in screenshot below. 5 Click 'Create User' and give it a username and password. This is your user that is going to connect to your VPN server. If you want to add more friends or family to your VPN server, this is the place to do it. 6 Set local bridge to Microsoft Ethernet adapter as shown in screenshot. 7 Create a port for your clients/devices to connect to your VPN. I like to use a custom port. Some organizations block VPN ports, using a custom one might just bypass that. In my example I use 9201. You can use other ports other than 9201. 8 Next go to the OpenVPN configuration page. 9 Remember to change the port to the one you configured earlier. After that generate a openvpn config file. This file is the settings you need to give to your client/devices for it to connect back here. Just click generate, save the zip file somewhere, extract the zip file, open the 'remote access.opvn' file (as shown as screenshot) with notepad. 10 11 Two things to change here.
    1. Proto tcp
    2. Make sure the port is the one you specify
    Leave everything else on default. Save this and send this file to your client/device. This will be the setting they need to connect to this server. 13-1 Last thing to configure is NAT. Without this, your client will not be able to authenticate and connect back to this server. To do this. Click 'Manage Virtual Hub', 'Virtual NAT and Virtual DHCP' then enable it.
    Configuring the last step on Azure To make the connection work, your machine in the cloud(this virtual machine) will need to accept connection via the port you specify. By default Azure doesn't allow random ports to connect. You will need to whitelist the port(allow the port to accept connection). To do that, go back to Azure Portal (you can do it outside the virtual machine). Go to network interfaces, click into your network interface as shown in screenshot below. 5 Go to network security group, click in your network security group as shown in screenshot below. 6 Go to inbound security rule, click add as shown in the screenshot below. 7-1 Give the rule a name and key in the port you specify. Click ok to apply the rule. 8  
    Making it work on phone If you are still following, congratulations! We are all done with configuration. Now we just need to send the .ovpn file to our client/device and connect from there. I am showing an example on the iPhone. This will work with Android or desktop as long as you have OpenVPN app/client installed. First is to get the client. On the phone, just go to the App Store to download OpenVPN. img_4887 Next is to get the .opvn file to the phone. This, you can be creative on how to do it. You can use a cloud drive(in my case OneDrive), email, iTunes transfer to OpenVPN app or any other way you can think of to send the file to OpenVPN app. I'm using OneDrive app(really awesome, you should check it out too). Login to your OneDrive, go to the file, click on 'open in another app', choose OpenVPN. img_4888       img_4889 Press the '+' button to save the configuration file, input in your username and password you have created on your VPN server. After that, press the slider button to connect. If you do everything right, this is how it looks like. img_4890 CONGRATULATIONS! You have created your very own VPN service! To confirm, turn off the VPN. Go to whatismyipaddress.com. It will show your current IP location. For mine it is in Malaysia. Now try again with the VPN on. It shows me I am now in Redmond, Washington, USA. before-after To recap what we have done, we had provisioned a virtual machine on Microsoft Azure, installed a VPN server, configured the VPN server and Azure to accept connection, connect via OpenVPN to our server with the configuration file. Again, you've created a VPN service from scratch. WITH GREAT POWER COMES GREAT RESPONSIBILITY Now with your own VPN server, your connection will be private. You can now access sites blocked by your country. You can bypass geo-restrictions set by some apps/websites(like watching Hulu out of US, watching Chinese TV shows out of China). You are also now more secured compared to the person sitting next to you on public Wi-Fi at the coffee shop. While you are enjoying all this benefits, please do not break any laws like downloading pirate content or surf the dark web for services. Whatever we do online can be traced one way or another 🙂 Have fun and enjoy the freedom 😎 Peace~ V]]>         How to activate Azure $150 credits on Microsoft BizSpark program https://docs.microsoft.com/archive/blogs/cbtham/how-to-activate-azure-150-credits-on-microsoft-bizspark-program Tue, 07 Mar 2017 15:40:00 GMT https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/cbtham/?p=205 https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/offers/ms-azr-0064p/. Log in to the BizSpark portal, under 'myBizSpark' you'll see 'Offers'. This is the place where you can assign accounts (screenshots shown) BUT FIRST You'll have to have a valid BizSpark account. To apply for BizSpark, head to the BizSpark portal (https://bizspark.microsoft.com). Sign in with a Microsoft account(preferably your email with your domain). Follow through the process. Make sure you select the correct country. Once that's done, we'll have our team here in Microsoft approving (contact us if it's pending for more than 2 weeks). Welcome to the family 🙂 Note: When you add a new email, there is a wait time for it to change from 'Processing' to 'Pending' to 'Assigned'. Please wait a few hours before activating the Azure portion. bizsparkofferpage]]> What is Microsoft Azure - The World Map of Things https://docs.microsoft.com/archive/blogs/cbtham/what-is-microsoft-azure Wed, 21 Dec 2016 16:02:29 GMT https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/cbtham/?p=55 In today’s journey to the middle earth, let’s talk about Microsoft Azure. In your journey to explore the world of Azure, you’ll need a map. The map will be your key to understanding different components of Azure and how they can fit together. The great sea of Datacenter Infrastructure The great sea connects 30+ datacenters around the world. These are located in different regions, connected. These datacenters at time several football fields houses all the servers, equipments, containers to power the ever growing digital world. The great sea connects the underlying layer of cloud computing, Infrastructure as a Service. The land of Security & Management Azure AD can be used as a standalone cloud directory for your organization or as an integrated solution with your existing on-premises Active Directory.
    • Active Directory- Secure, enterprise ready identity and access management for the cloud. Synchronise on-premise directories and enable single sign-on.
    • Multi-Factor Authentication- safeguards data/application access while addressing demand for a simple sign-in process
    Media & CDN This section is where your scale, CDN goodness comes in. Reduce latency? No problem. This is you have come to the right place.
    • Media Services- Create end-to-end media workflows with flexible and highly scalable encoding, packaging, and distribution services
    • CDN - delivering content to end-users through a robust network of global data centres
    Integration The integration area is a place you can find stuff like logic apps. Business workflow? Logic app can help you to take care of it by connecting to different services. You then can automate workflows. #justinbieber, save all the picture on insta to my DB. Checked. Compute Services This section is to assist you scale your VM. Clone them, scale up. Application Platforms This section is where the goodness is. From creating a website to connecting your mobile app to cloud backend. It’s all here. You can do push notifications, host APIs, or even host functions.
    • Web Sites – develop, deployment & scale web apps
    • Mobile Services - scalable & secure backend for your mobile apps
    • Notification Hubs - easily route cross-platform, personalized push notification messages to millions of users simultaneously, and scale automatically without needing to rearchitect your app
    • API Management - Publish APIs to developers, partners and employees securely and at scale
    Developer Services This place is where you use think about app distribution, analytics, app insights. Got a beta program? Why not use hockeyapp to distribute. We are friendly to iOS, Android, Windows & Web too. Mobile Engagement helps you to understand your app users more. Data land In this realm, you’ll be exposed to different database flavors. From SQL Azure to Mongo to DocumentDB, its all here.
    • Storage– Blobs, Tables, Queues & Files Storage - store large amounts of unstructured text/binary data such as video/image &audio.
    • SQL Database- For applications that need a full featured relational database-as-a-service
    • DocumentDB – fully managed NoSQL document database that offers query and transactions over schema free data
    • Cache- High throughput, low latency data access for your application to build fast, scalable cloud applications
    • Azure Redis Cache -Based on the popular open source Redis Cache, this gives you access to a secure, dedicated Redis cache for your Azure applications.
    • Azure Search – “Search as a Service” for web and mobile applications without the typical complexities of full-text search
    Intelligence This is the land of AI. Artificial Intelligence they call. This section live cognitive services. 22 APIs available to developers to leverage on. Recognizing face, emotion, converting speech to text, making sense of objects are just some of the easier stuff cognitive services allows you to do. Bots, bots everywhere. Make use of Bot Framework to build for Facebook Messenger, Skype, Slack, Telegram and many more. Analytics and IoT This area you can find all the tools to help you munch big data like biting a banana. Hadoop, machine learning, predictions are some of its muscles. You can connect your Internet of Things(IoT) device here to make use of the predictive, machine learning capabilities. You can even build a chart using PowerBI embedded.
    • HDInsight - Microsoft’s Hadoop-based service for gaining insight from any data, size or location
    • Machine Learning – Powerful cloud-based predictive analytics
    • Stream Analytics – Real-time stream processing in the cloud
    • Data Factory – orchestrate and manage data transformation and movement
    • Event Hubs – Ingest, persist, and process millions of events/telemetry per second from websites, apps and devices
    Hybrid Cloud This section lives the hybrid dragon. Disaster recovery, archiving and backup. You can use this.
    • Storage – Blobs, Tables, Queues & Files Storage - store large amounts of unstructured text/binary data such as video/image & audio.
    • Backup - Automated server backups – stored securely in the cloud
    • Site Recovery–Orchestrate the protection and recovery of your applications for simplified disaster recovery
    • StorSimple - A unique hybrid cloud storage solution that lowers costs and improves data protection
    ]]>