Tech Tips, Tricks & Trivia

Microsoft provides handy URL shortcuts to key Azure documentation pages . All you have to remember is this - aka.ms/Azure/ <the thing> I made it a little more simpler for myself by configuring the custom search engine option in Chrome browser. So now to jump to the Azure Pricing Calculator, I use: az {tab} pricing This custom search engine option in Chrome is invaluable when websites provide a standard URL pattern. In case of this Azure Shortcuts feature, the keyword suffix is what keeps changing & we can use %s to handle this dynamically for us - aka.ms/Azure/ %s Here is how I customized this through Chrome Settings: 1. Click on "Manage search engines" within Settings 2. Click on Add button to configure aka.ms  3. To invoke the aka.ms URLs, I have chosen "az" as the "wake word"

This Week I Learned - *  SQL Server Azure VMs can use Automated Patching to schedule a maintenance window for installing important windows and SQL Server updates automatically, take advantage of Automated Backup. High availability can be configured using SQL Server Availability Groups * Matt Felton  has shared his AZ 300 & AZ 500 exam prep notes and it's very useful *  Employers are mining the data their workers generate to figure out what they’re up to, and with whom. People/workplace analytics tools like TrustSphere help with the analysis of digital interactions. It doesn’t look at the content of emails or chats but it can identify which employees have strong relationships with peers. It can  highlight an organization’s internal influencers by identifying those whose messages get quick responses and who have strong, ongoing relationships with peers throughout the company - WSJ * Usually when a person eats, their blood glucose rises. I...

Inspired by articles on NatGeo , Gates Notes and the resilience of The Flying Vampires, I created this infotoon with Comicgen & Powerpoint - Click image for enlarged view. Mosquito silhouette image courtesy of Elias Schäfer, Pixabay Mosquitoes are the deadliest animals in the world , humans come second Image courtesy of Gates Notes Of the 3,500 species that researchers have identified so far, only a few hundred feed on human blood, including the Zika-carrying Aedes aegypti and Aedes albopictus. In the mosquito world, males live off plants. The female is the biter, the worker, the source of human peril; she lives off plants too, but all those blood nutrients are for her eggs, the nourishing and laying of which are the great project of her short, purposeful, and somewhat solitary life. A single mating may be all an Ae. aegypti needs; she stores sperm inside her body, fertilizing separate batches of eggs as needed, up to several hundred at a time. Five or six occasions...