Events

It's pretty warm in New York right now: 33°C. That's cooler than 38°C, the current official temperature in Chicago, making it the third day in a row that Chicago has gotten that hot: July's opening 5 days the hottest in 101 years The month is young—just 5 days old. Yet it's 30.2°C average temperature is 7.3°C above normal and makes it the warmest July open since 1911 when the period averaged 31°C. Apparently relief is coming with temperatures predicted to fall into the mid-20s (mid-70s Fahrenheit)...

2:15 pm: 4:10 pm: And why am I here? That, at 7pm tomorrow:

I'm not just complaining; heat accounts for more deaths than any other kind of weather. Yesterday the temperature hit 39°C in Chicago; today and tomorrow the forecast calls for the same. Good thing it doesn't happen often: The 39°C peak reading marked only the second time in 142 years an Independence Day has recorded a triple digit [Fahrenheit] temperature here. The rarity of Chicago temperatures at that level can't be overstated. Of 51,465 daily temperatures which have been archived over the 142 years...

Yes, Azure is hot, but not like this: Chicago's official (O'Hare) temperature has passed 38°C and may go up a degree or two more this afternoon. My apartment is up to 27.5°C, the point where the server rack starts sending me whiny emails. And not that I called it or anything, but so far this is the hottest summer in my lifetime.

I've finished two complete migrations from my living room the Inner Drive Technology Worldwide Data Center to Microsoft Windows Azure web sites. Astute readers may remember that in one case I moved to the Web site offering and then moved it to a full-fledged Web role. Well, today, I moved it back. Even though I'm still on the free trial, it turned out that the Web role would cost $15 per month, which, for a site that gets one or two visitors per day, simply wasn't worth it. Moving the second site, a...

The temperature at O'Hare just hit 35°C, and it's still rising. This is the 7th day in a row of above-32°C temperatures, and it looks like we're in for another 4 more days of it—including 38°C tomorrow and 39°C Thursday. But that isn't the main weather story of the day; the drought is: The latest USDA Illinois Weather and Crops report was released this afternoon. The topsoil conditions were rated at 52 percent “very short” and 37 percent “short” and only 11 percent adequate. Soil moisture conditions...

I have successfully ported my first (existing) application to the Microsoft Windows Azure platform, and have shut down the running instance on my local Web server. I hope the second one takes less than a week. It's a funny little site called Boxer's Shorts. Dr. Bob Boxer is a local allergist who likes puns. He worked with a local illustrator, Darnell Towns, and self-published the five paperback pun compilations advertised on the site. Local web designer Lauren Johnson (née Liss) did the look and feel...

I've spent much of the past week trying to get a single, small website up into the cloud on the Windows Azure platform. Much of this effort revolved around the Azure Website product, mainly because it's free. Well, I got the application up as an Azure website...and there's a big problem with it that means I'll have to redeploy it as a Web role after all. First, let me just outline how much fun I've had today, starting from this morning when I first tried to publish the application to the cloud: For the...

Yes, I just said I was taking Parker out for a walk, but I cut it short after five minutes. Here's why: Just as we got back home the gust front hit. Trees are now moving in ways that trees probably shouldn't. This should be a lot of fun to watch. ...but Parker is sulking. Tant pis, mon bête noir. Update, 1:25 pm: Huh. The storm just missed us, though reports have come in of 145 km/h gusts in Elmhust and Lombard, which "looks like a war zone" according to the Tribune.

In the past week, I've been "on the bench" at work, so I've take the time to get deeply familiar with Microsoft Windows Azure. My company, 10th Magnitude, is a 100% cloud-computing shop, and a Microsoft partner. I've been developing for Azure Web applications for a year, but I haven't had to deal with migrating existing sites, pricing, or configuration on my own; this is why we're a team, right? So, anyway, I've taken what I've learned at work, and: Selected a simple website to migrate; in this case...