Recent Posts

Query the cloud with PHP (PHPLinq and Windows Azure)

I’m pleased to announce PHPLinq currently supports basic querying of Windows Azure Table Storage. PHPLinq is a class library for PHP, based on the idea of Microsoft’s LINQ technology. LINQ is short for language integrated query, a component in the .NET framework which enables you to perform queries on a... Read more »

Authenticating users with RPXNow (in ASP.NET MVC)

Don’t you get sick of having to register at website X, at website Y, at website Z, …? It is really not fun to maintain all these accounts, change passwords, … Luckily, there are some large websites offering delegated sign-in (for example Google Accounts, Live ID, Twitter OAuth, …). You ca... Read more »

PHP SDK for Windows Azure - Milestone 2 release

I’m proud to announce our second milestone for the PHP SDK for Windows Azure project that Microsoft and RealDolmen started back in May. Next to our regular releases on CodePlex, we’ll also be shipping a Zend Framework version of the PHP SDK for Windows Azure. Announcements on this will be made later. Th... Read more »

I’m an MVP ASP.NET!

Yesterday evening, I received the following e-mail: Dear Maarten Balliauw, Congratulations! We are pleased to present you with the 2009 Microsoft® MVP Award! This award is given to exceptional technical community leaders who actively share their high quality, real world expertise with others. We appreciate you... Read more »

How we built TwitterMatic.net - Part 7: Deploying to the cloud

“Knight Maarten The Brave Coffeedrinker had managed all there is to building an application to interact with the great god of social networking, Twitter. A barn in the cloud, worker roles, web roles, a gate keeper, … The moment of truth came near: would the application survive if it was thrown at the az... Read more »

How we built TwitterMatic.net - Part 6: The back-end

“Now that the digital villagers could enter their messages in the application, another need arose: knight Maarten The Brave Coffeedrinker would have to recruit a lot of slaves to tell all these messages to the great god of social networking, Twitter. Being a peaceful person, our knight thought of some digital ... Read more »

How we built TwitterMatic.net - Part 5: the front-end

“After having found a god-like guardian for his application, Knight Maarten The Brave Coffeedrinker found out that his application still had no functional front-end. It’s OK to have a guardian and a barn in the cloud, but if there’s nothing to guard, this is a bit useless. Having asked the carpente... Read more »

How we built TwitterMatic.net - Part 4: Authentication and membership

“Knight Maarten The Brave Coffeedrinker just returned from his quest to a barn in the clouds, when he discovered that he forgot to lock the door to his workplace. He immediately asked the digital village’s smith.to create a lock and provide him a key. Our knight returned to his workplace and concluded th... Read more »

How we built TwitterMatic.net - Part 3: Store data in the cloud

“After setting up his workplace, knight Maarten The Brave Coffeedrinker thought of something else: if a farmer wants to keep a lot of hay, he needs a barn, right? Since the cloudy application would also need to keep things that can be used by the digital villagers, our knight needs a barn in the clouds. Looki... Read more »

How we built TwitterMatic.net - Part 2: Creating an Azure project

“Knight Maarten The Brave Coffeedrinker was about to start working on his TwitterMatic application, named after the great god of social networking, Twitter. Before he could start working, he first needed the right tools. He downloaded the Windows Azure SDK, a set of tools recommended by the smith (or was it t... Read more »