What’s Old is New Again – Web Forms meets Blazor

BLAZOR!

I live for these types of conversations: “Hey, is there a way to upgrade my application to the new framework?” The answer is almost ALWAYS no, because the person asking me has already searched the web and is looking for some secret upgrade technique from me. This time, this conversation, well it was a bit more interesting.

“Hey Jeff, Blazor Server-Side and ASP.NET Web Forms are pretty similar in concepts. They both render code on the server and both have a component-based model. Is there a way we could somehow re-use markup between the two frameworks?” That question not only got my interest, but also started some interest with my colleague Dan Roth. We were planning to go on stage at Microsoft Ignite 2019 and talk about Blazor for Web Form developers… when Dan had the idea: “What if we had a shim, a component library that LOOKED and rendered HTML like the original ASP.NET controls? That could help with migration.”

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Streaming on the Road – Building a Studio Edition

Last week, I had the pleasure of producing the Twitch stream for the DEVintersection conference in Las Vegas. This is a tremendous event that the Microsoft .NET, Visual Studio, and Azure teams as well as the Google Angular team speak at. I brought my travel streaming rig to the MGM Grand and built a studio with a backdrop, lighting, and some extra large monitors. In this post, I’ll walk you through the preparation of that physical space in a series of photos.

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Azure Functions with QueueTriggers and .NET Core – Configuration and Troubleshooting

On my Twitch stream today, I wanted to use Azure Functions to receive notifications when a stream goes offline and start downloading the chat transcript. I’m writing this post to share the things I learned while writing that code so that you can benefit from my research as I bumped and bruised my way through the code

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Code of Conducts, Conferences, and Better Behavior for Everyone

It’s been a week since TwitchCon San Diego 2019, and I’ve had some time to reflect on the VERY public events of that weekend and my own experiences at conferences / conventions (cons from here forward) over the last year. I wanted to take some time to write about Codes of Conduct at cons and what I have learned that should make for better and more enjoyable events for everyone.

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New Live Streaming Gear for July 2019 – Updating the Travel Rig

My SurfaceBook set up for streaming at the SharePoint Conference

This May, I spent a week in Las Vegas hosting and streaming the SharePoint Conference event. It was the first event that I streamed that relied on me solely as the producer. I brought in a friend to help with the art and direction throughout the event, and I realized just how under-equipped I am to live stream at an event. Fortunately, we got some help from the crew at the event, and I made a list of gear that I would need to upgrade or order. This is that list of gear that I have since acquired or will be acquiring in the near future with the reasons why they’re needed. I’ll also include some notes about other equipment that I already have and conclude with information about what my entire travel rig looks like in July 2019.

This continues my ongoing strategy of getting just the equipment that I need now, and not investing more for the best equipment before I’m sure that direction is appropriate for my production.

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