Tech Tips, Tricks & Trivia

The Web Speech API  is not consistently supported in all popular browsers but the simplicity with which it makes conversion of speech to text is very impressive. The Web Speech API has two parts: SpeechSynthesis (Text-to-Speech), and SpeechRecognition (Asynchronous Speech Recognition) Samples from Google and Mozilla show proof of the rich possibilities On Chrome, using Speech Recognition on a web page involves a server-based recognition engine . Pages hosted on HTTPS do not need to ask repeatedly for permission to use the microphone, whereas HTTP hosted pages do. The API also supports multiple global languages There is a caveat when using this API: it only works when you have an active internet connection. The reason for this is that the API doesn’t do its magic inside the browser. It will send a recording coming from your microphone to a server where it will analyse the sound and try to recognise the words being said. Once that server recognises some words or senten...

This Week I Learned - *  Azure SQL Database Managed Instances (currently in Preview)is a new managed database service that represents fully-managed SQL Server Instance in Azure cloud. It shares the same code with the latest version of SQL Server Database Engine and has the latest features, performance improvements, and security patches. *  There are some unsupported features and configurations that should be taken note of while considering migration of infrastructure as a service (IaaS) resources from the Classic to Resource Manager deployment models.  For most VM configurations, only the metadata is migrating between the Classic and Resource Manager deployment models. The underlying VMs are running on the same hardware, in the same network, and with the same storage. The management-plane operations may not be allowed for a certain period of time during the migration. However, the data plane continues to work. That is, your applications running on top of VMs (classic)...

Designed To Disrupt  [PDF] is written for CIOs, CTOs, strategy officers, IT decision makers & business leaders but it can be read anyone who wants to understand the big picture of cloud computing & how digital transformation can aid businesses. It is co-authored by the same folks (Eduardo Kassner, Barry Briggs) who wrote the excellent guide, Enterprise Cloud Strategy published by MS Press The writing in the 133-paged free ebook is informal and well-illustrated with interesting infographics Key points & extracts  - Examples that show how transformative technology is now affordable -  In 2000, sequencing human DNA cost $2.7 billion. By 2014, the cost had been reduced to under $1,000, and several companies will provide DNA analytic services today for under $100. Drones in 2007 cost tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars, and were rare; commonplace today, they can be purchased for a few hundred dollars.  The time for many digital-centric companie...

This Week I Learned - *  General availability (GA) of the Azure Database Migration Service was announced recently at the Microsoft Build 2018 Conference. *  To ensure that the Azure Database Migration Service runs smoothly when performing database migrations, Azure Virtual Network (VNET) Network Security Group rules should not block the following communication ports 443, 53, 9354, 445, 12000 . *  RPO of backup solutions are most dependent on the backup policies.  For example, if someone setups up a daily backup policy, then the RPO is closer to a day. *  Fallacy of Sunk Costs - “I’m halfway done with college. This is so tough, and It’s not nearly as fun as I thought it would be, but I don’t know. I guess I’ll finish it and get my degree.” *  When scientists injected brain molecules from trained snails to untrained snails, the animals behaved as if they had experienced the training. *  “I’m Puerto Rican with an abundance of thick black hair...

This Week I Learned - * Many REST web services return results formatted as JSON text or accept data formatted as JSON. Most Azure services such as Azure Search, Azure Storage, and Azure Cosmos DB have REST endpoints that return or consume JSON.  Azure SQL Database lets you parse and query data represented in JavaScript Object Notation (JSON) format, and export your relational data as JSON text. * From the Microsoft veteran and co-author of "Enterprise Cloud Strategy" comes the new free ebook " Designed to Disrupt " [PDF] *  OpenShift on Azure will be jointly engineered, operated, and supported by both Red Hat and Microsoft. As a fully managed service, it will be kept up-to-date, with a single unified bill, integrated support experience, and in all respects a native Azure service. *  CloudEndure Disaster Recovery is now available as a SaaS subscription for direct purchase on the newly expanded Microsoft Azure Marketplace * The minimum required Android vers...

This Week I Learned - Azure Container Instances (ACI) is a serverless way to run both Linux and Windows containers, and is now generally available. General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) is a European Union order to protect personally identifiable information (personal data that can identify a person). It’s a big update to the older data protection laws, which were out of date and inconsistent. Any personal data that identifies a European Union citizen is covered – no matter where that data is. The fines for non-compliance are huge, up to €20 million or 4 percent of a company’s global revenue, whichever is higher. GDPR will become effective on May 25th for all companies all over the world that hold data on EU citizens. GDPR is now the new Y2K, an opportunity to make a fortune by being “an expert”. The security requirements are a bit vague. It’s full of “do the right thing”, which you can take to be more than just have a firewall and some malware scanning! Data encryption, multi...