Firewall IP address setting in SQL Azure

SQL Azure Portal can be used for setting IP address(s) that are allowed to access SQL Azure databases. The portal comes up with a suggestion for the IP address from where the user is trying to set up the allowed address. This may not be the correct IP address setting(??????) as I found out trying to connect to SQL Azure from an overseas location different from the usual location that I normally use.


Here is the tip:
Probably the correct address that you should set may be obtained by trying to connect to a SQL Azure database from SSMS. If the IP address is not correct, then a error message will be returned indicating that you cannot access the SQL Azure database from such and such an IP address. The IP address in the error message is the one that should be used for firewall setting in the SQL Azure Portal.

Navigation in XAML Browser Applications

XAML browser applications also known as XBAPs have the features of a web application as well as those of rich client applications leveraging most of the capabilities of WPF. As web applications they can be published to a web server and can be browsed on IE and Firefox.
Page navigation is an important part of application development and Windows Presentation Foundation supports navigation in two types of applications. These are the standalone application and the XAML browser application also known as XBAP applications. In addition to navigation between pages in the application it also supports navigation to other types of content such as HTML, objects and XAML files.


Read the details here.

Windows Azure Platform Training Kit December 2009 Update and Windows 7

Although Windows 7 appears to be a great improvement over Windows Vista and Windows XP

to be replaced by Windows 7, the common prerequisites for working with Windows Azure Platform
appear to be limited to:
Windows Server 2003; Windows Server 2008; Windows Vista; Windows XP as shown.



How come Windows 7 was left out of this?

How come VS 2010 was left out of this?



The common prerequisites from the Microsoft site are:


.NETFramework 3.5 SP1
Visual Studio 2008 SP1 [VS90sp1-KB945140-ENU.exe]
ASP.NET MVC 1.0
Windows Powershell 1.0

The OS requirements for the above are :
Windows Server 2003; Windows Server 2008; Windows Vista; Windows XP
Windows XP Service Pack 2, Windows Server 2003, Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008(for Powershell)

Greening the internet access

WiFi has become a fact of life and many home computers access the internet freely from wherever they are, be it in the kitchen, be it in front of the television. Most of the laptops come with WiFi connectivity. They need a modem and a RF router to get this level of flexibility. It is high time that these devices be integrated to reduce the clutter and the wastage of material. The ISPs supply the cable modems which can really be replaced by an integrated device that has both the functionalities.

SQL Azure and Spatial Data Types

The present version of SQL Azure (10.25.9085) does not support the 'Geometry' and 'Geography' data types of which the 'Geometry' data type conforms to Open Geospatial Consortium's Simple Features of SQL Specification Version 1.1.0.

However businesses may be interested in tagging data from their far flung resources with some information on their location which may involve these data types. Perhaps this is one of the items on the feature wish list of future versions of many businesses. With SQL Azure data being resident in the 'clouds', this feature is all the more important.