Hello, I'm   Jason

How many times have you started a project locally on your machine, initialized it as a git repository, then after doing some work, realized that you have a repository sitting on GitHub or Azure DevOps with a readme markdown file and a .gitignore file? If you’re like me, that probably happens more than you’d like to admit. There’s an easy solution for this.

Five years ago I started at Berkshire Hathaway. At the time, I wasn’t sure what to expect. I was entering an industry that had been relatively stagnant on technology over the years and I was used to working within a cutting edge environment. I spent a good portion of the first two years focused on learning the industry and the types of technology that are being used. About three years ago, I was placed on a project that eventually became the subsidiary that I’m focused on now. Looking back, it’s been an amazing journey at the organization. The company that hired me five years ago has tripled in revenue during that time. The new group I’m with now is looking to push the boundaries of technology in insurance. Hopefully after the next five years I look back at the time spent since now and see the transition that has occurred and the new territory that has been uncovered.

The Wall Street Journal has just posted that Amazon has chosen the two city combination of Long Island City, NY and Crystal City, Virginia as the two city second headquarters. This confirms the story that The New York Times reported last week. As Amazon continues with their development, it will be interesting to see when these locations will open and what roles will be located in each location. It’s anticipated that the new headquarters will bring over 50,000 new jobs to the two areas combined.

If you are doing any scripting or integrating using GUIDs and/or resource names, you may want to pay attention. Azure is changing the GUIDs and resource names for several service types on December 1st. Here is a list of what’s known so far:

At TechBash 2018, Stephen Bohlen talked about AI with Microsoft Cognitive Services. Watch the talk on the TechBash YouTube video to know more.

Yesterday, I started heading down the path to create a Twitter ViewComponent. As I mentioned, when redesigning my website I wanted to show a list of recent tweets that I’ve made on the homepage.

When redesigning my website, I wanted to show a list of recent tweets that I’ve made on the homepage. Rather than creating something that cannot be reused on other sites, I decided to take advantage of view components in ASP.NET Core. View components can be used similar to a partial in that it can render a chunk of the user interface, but it can also contain business logic.

Have you ever wanted to show when a blog post or tweet was last updated in a similar fashion to other social media posts? A few year’s ago I had borrowed a function that mostly handled this, updated the logic, and converted it to an extension method. Feel free to modify it over at GitHub and provide feedback:

At TechBash 2018, Richard Taylor talked about raising the value of unit tests. Watch the talk on the TechBash YouTube video to know more.

At TechBash 2018, Microsoft’s Paul Yuknewicz talked about five Azure services every developer should know. Watch the talk on the TechBash YouTube video to know more.