Bots: An Understanding of Time

9th of July, 2018 / / No Comments

Some modern applications must understand time, because the messages they receive contain time sensitive information. Consider a modern Service Desk solution, that may have to retrieve tickets based on a date range (the span between dates) or a duration of time.
In this blog post, I’ll explain how bots can interpret date ranges and durations, so they can respond to natural language queries provided by users, either via keyboard or microphone.
First, let’s consider  the building blocks of a bot, as depicted in the following view:

The client runs an application that sends messages to a messaging endpoint in the cloud.… [Keep reading] “Bots: An Understanding of Time”

Getting Started with Adaptive Cards and the Bot Framework

28th of June, 2018 / / No Comments

This article will provide an introduction to working with AdaptiveCards and the Bot Framework. AdaptiveCards provide bot developers with an option to create their own card templates to suit variety of different scenarios. I’ll also show you a couple of tricks with node.js that will help you design smart.
Before I run through the example, I want to point you to some great resources from adaptivecards.io which will help you build and test your own AdaptiveCards:

  • The schema explorer provides a breakdown of the constructs you can use to build your AdaptiveCards.
… [Keep reading] “Getting Started with Adaptive Cards and the Bot Framework”

How to configure a Graphical PowerShell Dev/Admin/Support User Interface for Azure/Office365/Microsoft Identity Manager

16th of January, 2017 / / No Comments

During the development of an identity management solution I find myself with multiple PowerShell/RDP sessions connected to multiple environments using different credentials often to obtain trivial data/information. It is easy to trip yourself up as well with remote powershell sessions to differing environments. If only there was a simple UI that could front-end a set of PowerShell modules and make those simple queries quick and painless. Likewise to allow support staff to execute a canned set of queries without providing them elevated permissions.… [Keep reading] “How to configure a Graphical PowerShell Dev/Admin/Support User Interface for Azure/Office365/Microsoft Identity Manager”

Deploy Hardened HA-Proxy Azure VM from VM Depot (Microsoft Open Technologies)

10th of October, 2014 / / No Comments

In this post, we will discuss how to deploy various VM image developed by community from VM Depot (Microsoft Open Technologies).

Microsoft Azure Cross Platform Command Line (X-Plat CLI)

I blogged Microsoft Azure Cross Platform Command Line previously. This post will continue to explore Microsoft dedication on Open-Source technologies.

Firstly let’s prepare quickly our tools to run Azure X-Plat CLI:

1. I am using my Windows machine. I run my Azure Command Prompt or You can use node.js… [Keep reading] “Deploy Hardened HA-Proxy Azure VM from VM Depot (Microsoft Open Technologies)”

Microsoft Azure Cross Platform Command Line Step by Step

24th of June, 2014 / / No Comments

Microsoft Azure is not just about Windows, Microsoft Azure also supports Linux workloads. Spinning up Linux VMs in Microsoft’s fabric offers alternative options for open-source technologies with Microsoft Azure services.

Microsoft also provides Azure Cross-Platform Command-Line Interface (X-Plat CLI) which is a set of Open-Source, Cross-Platform commands for managing Microsoft Azure platform. X-Plat CLI has few top-level commands which correspond to different set of Microsoft Azure features. Typing “azure” will list each of the sub commands.… [Keep reading] “Microsoft Azure Cross Platform Command Line Step by Step”