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Setting Up a MongoDB Server on Alibaba Cloud

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Since the early days of NoSQL, many database engines have been developed but MongoDB is no doubt one of the pioneers in the scalable, fault-tolerant NoSQL database. MongoDB itself is document-oriented, meaning you store the documents, not objects and entities. And this the core concept of the NoSQL databases, you don't manage the relations between the entities, rather, you store them with them. It's like, instead of assembling Lego pieces as needed and returning them back to their own blocks, you prepare a complete object, and then store it in the box—saves time each time you have to show what you built. This is something that happens when we are trying to store the objects (the documents!), and data inside the MongoDB server. MongoDB internally takes care of several concepts for us, such as (but not limited to) sharding, replication, indexing and much more of similar operational management services. Recently, I stumbled upon Alibaba Cloud services for databases, their Apsa...

Node.js web development with Visual Studio Code

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Node.js is a JavaScript framework for web development, and high-performant and scalable APIs. I got introduced with the Node.js a few months ago, and ever since I am in love with the framework itself -- despite the fact that I hate JavaScript. In this video I cover most common things for web development with Node.js, such as what you need to get started with Node.js development. I used, Express framework Pug templating engine To build the basic web server. I was unable to finish off with the Pug templating framework and I will start with Pug in the next video as soon as that goes live.  The source code for this is available at,  https://github.com/afzaal-ahmad-zeeshan/nodejs-sample , you can use that code as you wish . 

PyCharm vs Visual Studio Code for Python Development

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One of the most primary questions in the minds of a development startup, a beginner, is which language to use, and Okay, if I do have a language, which IDE to consider using with it? These are merely the questions, it goes down in the stack to understand more about different aspects of the IDE, such as, Productivity Performance Extensions and Add-ons Ease of use Learning scope And much more. All these key points are focused toward the development of a software engineer, as he gets to understand how to develop a vital piece of software. For the time being, I have just started out with Python development. Before you start asking me, why I did that:  Python is amazing. Python is being used for many machine learning libraries. Python is portable (just like .NET Core, which is my first love) Scripting is sometimes fun with Python (as compared to bash, command prompt or PowerShell) Open Source software love Python (Blender, GIMP, TensorFlow, etc. etc. etc.).  Lon...

My Review of Free Cloud Hosting with Heroku

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I recently had an opportunity to try out the Heroku platform that I had cheated on a few years ago 一 when Facebook initially started out working out with Facebook apps, I created an account with Heroku platform, and didn't get a chance to try them out. The Heroku platform deserved a try out, and so I did. For those who don't know, Heroku platform is a cloud hosting platform, owned by Salesforce now. Overview of the review I was initially impressed by the overall service they provide. Heroku is one of the cloud platforms, that I have tried and enjoyed working with. But it comes with its own flaws, and I understand all of them too. The basic app that I had created to try and test on the platform was known as Friend Knower , it is a simple app written in Node.js runtime with SQLite databases to support the development practices and to ensure things go quite well.  I will not be talking about the development patterns, or practices, because for that I have a separate a...

Published Speak It! App, a Text-To-Speech and OCR scanner app for Android

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Writing software, creating applications, generating some major projects with good image processing, machine learning stuff... Has never been any problem to me. But, when it comes to publishing a software in production, I have always been shy, afraid (of reviews like, "what the heck is this?") and underwater for various reasons. Anyways, I have recently started to push apps in production as well, I started at Windows Store and now Android's Play Store as well. Recently, a text-to-speech application is being pushed out, and since this is the first version there would be several bugs or missing-features, please bear with me. Nonetheless, the application currently does feature a few services that would be useful as of now, Android text-to-speech service, that lets you convert your text to speech. I implemented the service in a simple manner, that let me stream the content right away!  OCR scanner to scan your images, application at the moment also supports camera activ...

Understanding the Azure Cosmos Db

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Microsoft recently introduced, Azure Cosmos Db accounts in their Build 2017. Who doesn't like a successful Build , and personally saying there were so many excellent announcements made at Build, that it has been intriguing almost everyone to know more about the products Microsoft is offering now. Among them is the Azure Cosmos Db. So, in this post I will give a million-feet overview, that you can read in under 5 minutes to fully understand what Azure Cosmos Db is all about. What is Azure Cosmos Db First thing to understand is that, Azure Cosmos Db is a wrapper around all the models that developers are using currently. Following are only a few of the models implemented by developers all across the globe,  Relational models -- the SQL databases. NoSQL models -- Azure already has a NoSQL model, DocumentDB.  Key-value pairs -- Typically apart from NoSQL, Key-value pairs are highly used for data interchanging; such as in JSON documents.  Graph etc -- Gremlin was men...

Integrating Azure Application Insights in ASP.NET Core web app

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My 4-video overview of Visual Studio Team Services

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I had been working on Git environments previously and was able to get my hands dirty with VS Team Services a while ago, while I never used TFS, I thought I should give it a go indeed to see if I can "learn it." Indeed I did learn and personally saying, it was not as much tough as I had thought of it to be. So, if you are a beginner I have something for you, if you are struggling with VS Team Services, you are also addressed, kindly have a look at my YouTube series that takes you from zero to hero in VS Team Services in a matter of only few hours and a free account from Visual Studio . Part 1: Introduction This part provides you with an overview of the service itself. It shows you, how to navigate here and there in the service online, how to setup a few things and how to interact with the service portal itself. Watch the video on YouTube ,  Part 2: Developing with VSTS In this video, I head over to basically explain how you can develop your applications in remot...

ASP.NET 5 mixed with Windows 10!

Recently I was amazed by the new things ASP.NET 5 has in the Web API of its and also on the other hand I was looking forward to write an article for Windows 10. I thought why not write an article for them both! It was a great opportunity for me to do so, as I learnt many things while on the way to write the article and while compiling the resources for my article.  The article that I recently published on CodeProject and C# Corner introduces how users can create a Windows 10 application which actually serves as the client for an ASP.NET 5 Web API! ASP.NET 5 introduces many updates to old Web API and this one is as simple as a single controller that you can use to create and set your API, yes a single controller!  I would recommend that you definitely go and read the article on any of the following networks, which ever you prefer.  on CodeProject on C# Corner Do not forget to vote and share your valuable comments or feedback so that I can make the post...

A few tips for security in .NET framework

Hello everybody, I am back with another good article for covering security in .NET framework for passwords of users. Although I was very much disappointed by the articles and resources published previously by many editors and authors. So I thought I must publish an article that covers all of the parts, that a good article needs. I wrote an article for C# Corner community specifically, titled as: Efficiently Storing Passwords in .NET Framework . In that article I have discussed a lot of points and topics that a reader is trying to get in an article about Cryptography . A few major points are: What is cryptography? Why protect the passwords? How password should be protected? What algorithms are there to protect my password. Which of those algorithms are out-dated and which are expensive for my company? Where would the algorithms in .NET framework work. And many more similar things are discussed there. Another major thing to understand is the usage of Salt. A salt is a random...

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