Pie in the Sky (January 31st, 2014)

This is a client & mobile heavy week, though there's some cloud, Node, PHP, and Ruby goodness in there.

Cloud

MS Open Tech releases open source Microsoft cloud server chassis manager software: This was released at the same time the Microsoft Cloud Server specification was contributed to the Open Compute project.
Windows Azure storage pricing reduction: Lower prices are always nice.
With great Azure VM comes great responsibility: Or "why you really want a web site instead of a VM."
New Azure Cloud Service instance sizes: A8 and A9 instances give you 8 and 16 cores respectively, 7GB of ram per core, and other hotness for your compute intensive workloads.

The modern front-end workflow from start to finish: A discussion of the various bits and pieces of the front-end web developer experience.
You might not need jQuery: Some specific uses of jQuery where you might be better off with a small snippet of code instead.
Pointer events progress - Mozilla and Blink communities reach a significant engineering milestone: Yay standards!
Three typography books front-end people should read: Added to my reading list.
Putting web standards for writers into practice: Putting some of the recommendations from the awesome web standards for writers into practice.
Top website design trends to implement in 2014: If you're following trends that is.
Telerik backend services: Telerik has a new BaaS offering for mobile developers.
Azure Notification Hubs part 1: There's also a part 2, 3, and 4 on using notification hubs to send messages to mobile devices.
10 steps to help users secure their online presence: Security is always relevant.

nodeJX: A fork of node that runs multiple instances in a single process.
Pretty-error: Make your errors easier to read.
What makes Node.js faster than Java?: Or "in what cases is Node.js a better choice?"
Seriously.js: A realtime video compositor.

Need a SQL Server driver for PHP 5.5?: This is currently being voted on to see how many people want it.
Wordpress 3.8 available for Windows Azure Web Sites: New version of WordPress is now available for Azure Web Sites.

Common trip-ups for new rubyists, part 1: Useful if you're coming from another language.

Why you should use continuous integration and continuous deployment: A good discussion of the benefits of using CI and CD.
The Internet of Things or Things on The Internet?: A great read about how the big challenge with the Internet of Things is developing the systems that allow 'things' to interact in useful ways. Unfortunately we're at a point where everyone is still busy building vertical stacks.
Welcome to the API economy: An older article, but still relevant in understanding why APIs are the new hotness in the business world. Also How to join the API economy.

Enjoy!

- Larry