When Software Attacks!

About

Sun, 23 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +0000

As CEO and co-founder of Zure in the UK, Rik helps organisations large and small use cloud better. Whether that’s a new adoption where governance and management are key, or an application modernisation project where technology choice and team knowledge are the deciding factors in success.

Privacy

Sun, 23 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +0000

This is a personal blog. I am not selling anything, and I have no interest in building a profile of you. What follows is the whole picture.

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Speaking

Sun, 23 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +0000

I speak regularly at conferences and user groups on Azure, infrastructure-as-code and the realities of running cloud platforms. The list below is generated live from my Sessionize profile.

Private endpoints when using Azure Service Bus geo-replication

Wed, 08 Jul 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Connectivity gotcha when using private endpoints with Azure Service Bus georeplication

Microsoft Copilot in Azure - Review

Sat, 03 Jan 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Reviewing David Rendón and Steve Miles’ book Microsoft Copliot in Azure: AI-powered cloud automation and optimization

Azure for Developers - Review

Thu, 01 Jan 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Reviewing Kamil Mrzygłód’s book Azure for Developers

The Azure Cloud Native Architecture Mapbook - Review

Mon, 08 Dec 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Reviewing Stéphane Eyskens book The Azure Cloud Native Architecture Mapbook

Using PagerDuty Orchestration with Azure Alerts

Sat, 22 Mar 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Configuring Azure alert action groups with the PagerDuty v2 api

Configuring diagnostic settings for Azure services using bicep

Fri, 17 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000

If you’re hosting your application infrastructure in Azure and consolidate the diagnostic and audit information from your services into Log Analytics or elsewhere, it’s pretty easy to do using Bicep. It’s not very well documented, however, which is the reason for this post.

Deploying an Azure Container App Environment within a virtual network using bicep

Fri, 17 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000

When working on a project recently I needed to deploy a Container App Environment within a virtual network in Azure. Thanks to the joys of internet search, I started off reading the wrong bits of the official documention and got incredibly confused, and much of the community content about this uses out of date schemas and code. This article is so I don’t need to go through that again, and hopefully it will help others, too.

Using bicep to define Service Bus scaling rules for Azure Container Apps

Fri, 17 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000

I recently needed to set KEDA scaling rules on an Azure Container app that used the number of messages in a Service Bus queue. There’s plenty of info out there on the internet about scaling rules, but not when it comes to Service Bus, so I’m writing up what I learned here.

Accessing a local Hyper-V environment from the Android emulator

Sat, 17 Feb 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Not every project can host services in the cloud. If you have a local environment running on virtual machines, connecting to that from the Android emulator running on the same host can be tricky. This post details the solution I use and the tools needed to enable it.

Importing bicep lint output as test results in Azure DevOps pipelines

Mon, 05 Feb 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Bicep is a great improvement over ARM Templates but doesn’t remove the need to validate our code at build time. I could continue to use the ARM-TTK and validate the generated template, but bicep has it’s own built in rules. Getting build errors in a way that can provide meaningful information in my CI/CD tooling is an interesting challenge.

Calling Application Insights API using Powershell

Sat, 06 Aug 2022 00:00:00 +0000

If you have an application, instrumenting it with something like Application Insights to emit useful data is something I cannot espouse the benefits of enough. As a service, however, Application Insights can offer other benefits, such as Availability Tests to tell you if the application is accessible to your users.

Configuring BizTalk 2020 Application Insights telemetry behind a firewall

Sat, 06 Aug 2022 00:00:00 +0000

BizTalk 2020 allows you to connect it to an Application Insights instance, where it will send tracking data as customEvents so you see what’s going on. However, getting it working in an environment where security is important and the network team want to open the fewest paths through the firewall as possible is an exercise in patience. This blog post is as much aide memoire for me as an information post for you.

Deploying the ASDK for effective development use

Sat, 22 Sep 2018 00:00:00 +0000

Microsoft Azure Stack is a truly unique beast in terms of the capabilities it can bring to an organisation, and the efficiencies it can bring to a project that spans Public Cloud and on-premises infrastructure through it’s consistency with public Azure.

Configure Server 2016 ADFS and WAP with custom ports using Powershell

Fri, 24 Aug 2018 00:00:00 +0000

A pull request for Chris Gardner’s WebApplicationProxyDSC is now inbound after a frustrating week of trying to automate the configuration of ADFS and WAP on a Server 2016 lab.

With Server 2016, the PowerShell commands to configure the ADFS and WAP servers include switches to specify a non-default port. I need to do this because the servers are behind a NetNat on a server hosting several labs, so port 443 is not available to me and I must use a different port.

Define Once, Deploy Everywhere (Sort of...)

Thu, 02 Mar 2017 00:00:00 +0000

Using Lability, DSC and ARM to define and deploy multi-VM environments
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Configuration as code crops up a lot in conversation these days. We are searching for that DevOps Nirvana of a single definition of our environment that we can deploy anywhere.

Setting Enroll Permissions on ADCS Certificate Template using DSC

Thu, 02 Mar 2017 00:00:00 +0000

As part of the work I have been doing around generating and managing lab environments using Lability and DSC, one of the things I needed to do was change the permissions on a certificate template within a DSC configuration. Previously, when deploying to Azure, I used the PSPKI PowerShell modules within code executed by the Custom Script extension. I was very focused on sticking with DSC this time, which ruled out PSPKI. Whilst there is a DSC module available to configure Certificate Services itself, this does not extend to managing Certificate Templates.

Creating Website Slots and SQL Elastic Pools using Azure Resource Templates

Wed, 18 Jan 2017 00:00:00 +0000

Recently I have been helping a number of organisations automate the deployment of their applications to Azure and came across a couple of scenarios that were not documented: Deploying an App Services web site with slots and SQL connection string settings, and the creation of a SQL Elastic Pool. Of those, the SQL Elastic Pool I found to be written up already by Vincent-Philipe Lauzon and all credit to him - my template draws on his excellent article.

Notes from the field: Using Hyper-V Nat Switch in Windows 10

Fri, 08 Apr 2016 00:00:00 +0000

The new NAT virtual switch that can be created on Windows 10 for Hyper-V virtual machines is a wonderful thing if you’re an on-the-go evangelist like myself. For more information on how to create one, see Thomas Maurer’s post on the subject.

Unblocking a stuck Lab Manager Environment (the hard way)

Thu, 17 Mar 2016 00:00:00 +0000

This is a post so I don’t forget how I fixed access to one of our environments yesterday, and hopefully it will be useful to some of you.

We have a good many pretty complex environments deployed to our lab hyper-V servers, controlled by Lab manager. Operations such as starting, stopping or repairing those environments can take a long, long time, but this time we had one that was quite definitely stuck. The lab view showed the many servers in the lab with green progress bars about halfway across but after many hours we saw no progress. The trouble is, at this point you can’t issue any other commands to the environment from within the Lab Manager console – it’s impossible to cancel the operation and regain access to the environment.

Net Writer: A great UWP blog editor

Sun, 13 Mar 2016 00:00:00 +0000

I came across Net Writer some months ago, when it’s creator, Ed Anderson blogged about how he’d taken the newly-released Open Live Writer code and used it in his just-started Universal Windows Platform (UWP) app for Windows 10. In January it only supported blogger accounts, which meant that I was unable to use it. However, I checked again this weekend and discovered that it now supports a wide range of blog software including BlogEngine.net that powers blogs.blackmarble.co.uk.

My Resource Templates from demos are now on GitHub

Fri, 26 Feb 2016 00:00:00 +0000

I’ve had a number of people ask me if I can share the templates I use in my Resource Template sessions at conferences. It’s taken me a while to find the time, but I have created a repo on GitHub and there is a new Visual Studio solution and deployment project with my code.

Installing Windows 10 RSAT Tools on EN-GB Media-Installed Systems

Fri, 13 Nov 2015 00:00:00 +0000

This post is an aide memoir so I don’t have to suffer the same annoyance and frustration at what should be an easy task.

I’ve now switched to my Surface Pro 3 as my only system, thanks to the lovely new Pro 4 Type Cover and Surface Dock. That meant that I needed the Remote Server Administration Tools installing. Doing that turned out to be much more of an odyssey that it should have been and I’m writing this in the hope that it will allow others to quickly find the information I struggled to.

Convert new VM’s dynamic IP address to static with Azure Resource Templates

Sun, 01 Nov 2015 00:00:00 +0000

Over the past few posts on this blog I’ve been documenting the templates I have been working on for Black Marble. In a previous sequence I showed how you can use nested deployments to keep your templates simple and still push out complex environments. The problem with those examples is that they are very fixed in what they do. The templates create a number of virtual machines on a virtual network, with static IP addresses for each machine.

Optimising IaaS deployments in Azure Resource Templates

Sun, 01 Nov 2015 00:00:00 +0000

Unlike most of my recent posts this one won’t have code in it. Instead I want to talk about concepts and how you should look long and hard at your templates to optimise deployment.

Useful links from The ART of Modern Azure Deployments

Sun, 01 Nov 2015 00:00:00 +0000

Within a few days of each other I spoke about Azure Resource Templates at both DDDNorth 2015 and Integration Mondays run by the Integration User Group. I’d like to thank all of you who attended both and have been very kind in your feedback afterwards.

Using Objects in Azure Resource Templates

Sun, 01 Nov 2015 00:00:00 +0000

Over the past few weeks I’ve been refactoring and improving the templates that I have been creating for Black Marble to deploy environments in Azure. This is the first post of a few talking about some of the more advanced stuff I’m now doing.

Using References and Outputs in Azure Resource Templates

Sun, 01 Nov 2015 00:00:00 +0000

As you work more with Azure Resource Templates you will find that you need to pass information from one resource you have created into another. This is fine if you had the information to begin with within your variables and parameters, but what if it’s something you cannot know before deploy, such as the dynamic IP address of your new VM, or the FQDN of your new public IP address for your service?

Complex Azure Odyssey Part Four: WAP Server

Sun, 30 Aug 2015 00:00:00 +0000

Part One of this series covered the project itself and the overall template structure. Part Two went through how I deploy the Domain Controller in depth. Part Three talks about deploying my ADFS server and in this final part I will show you how to configure the WAP server that faces the outside world.

Complex Azure Template Odyssey Part Three: ADFS Server

Sun, 30 Aug 2015 00:00:00 +0000

Part One of this series covered the project itself and the overall template structure. Part Two went through how I deploy the Domain Controller in depth. This post will focus on the next server in the chain: The ADFS server that is required to enable authentication in the application which will eventually be installed on this environment.

Complex Azure Template Odyssey Part Two: Domain Controller

Sun, 30 Aug 2015 00:00:00 +0000

In part one of this series of posts I talked about the project driving my creation of these Azure Resource Templates, the structure of the template and what resource I was deploying. This post will go through the deployment and configuration of the first VM which will become my domain controller and certificate server. In order to achieve my goals I need to deploy the VM, the DSC extension and finally the custom script extension to perform actions that current DSC modules can’t. I’ll show you the template code, the DSC code and the final scripts and talk about the gotchas I encountered on the way.

An Introduction To Azure Resource Templates

Sun, 23 Aug 2015 00:00:00 +0000

I have spent a good deal of time over the last month or two building an Azure Resource Template to deploy a relatively complicated IaaS environment. In doing so I’ve hit a variety of problems along the way and I though that a number of blog posts were in order to share what I’ve learned. I will write a detailed post on certain specific servers within the environment shortly. This post will describe Azure Resource Template basics, problems I hit and some decisions I made to overcome issues. Further posts will detail my environment and specific solutions to creating my configuration.

Complex Azure Template Odyssey Part One: The Environment

Sun, 23 Aug 2015 00:00:00 +0000

Part Two | Part Three | Part Four

Over the past month or two I’ve been creating an Azure Resource Template to deploy and environment which, previously, we’d created old-style PowerShell scripts to deploy. In theory, the Resource Template approach would make the deployment quicker, easier to trigger from tooling like Release Manager and make the code easier to read.

Speaking at CloudBurst in September

Sun, 23 Aug 2015 00:00:00 +0000

I’ve never been to Sweden, so I’m really looking forward to September, when I’ll be speaking at CloudBurst. Organised by the Swedish Azure User Group (SWAG – love it!), this conference is also streamed and recorded and the sessions will be available on Channel 9. The list of speakers and topics promise some high-quality and interesting sessions and I urge you to attend if you can, and tune in to the live stream if you can’t.

Using the customScriptExtension in Azure Resource Templates

Sun, 23 Aug 2015 00:00:00 +0000

Documentation for using the customScriptExtension for Virtual Machines in Azure through Resource Templates is pretty much non-existent at time of writing, and the articles on using it through PowerShell are just plain wrong when it comes to templates. This post is accurate at time of writing and will show you how to deploy PowerShell scripts and resources to an Azure Virtual Machine through a Resource Template.

My Future Decoded session is now online

Tue, 27 Jan 2015 00:00:00 +0000

Susan Smith has posted an interesting DevOps article on the TechNet UK blog. Hidden away in a footnote is a link to recordings and slide decks for the DevOps track at Future Decoded, including my own session. Both the video and my deck are available for you to view online or download.

Speaking at Techorama 2015

Tue, 27 Jan 2015 00:00:00 +0000

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I’m excited to be speaking at the Techorama conference in Belgium this May. Richard spoke last year (and is doing so again) and came back raving about the great time he had, so I’m really looking forward to it. Go on, take a look at the site (the agenda is steadily filling out) and register!

Get informed with TechDays Online 2015

Tue, 20 Jan 2015 00:00:00 +0000

Block out your diary from February 3rd until February 5th. The great guys at Microsoft DX are running another TechDays Online event and it’s absolutely worth your time. I had the absolute pleasure to be involved last year and will again this year, both in front of and behind the camera.

Speaking at SQLBits 2015

Tue, 20 Jan 2015 00:00:00 +0000

We’re only half way through January and this year is already busy. I am really excited to be speaking at SQLBits this year!

SQLBits is a conference that various members of the Black Marble team attend regularly and rave about. It’s the event if you want to gain knowledge and insight into all aspects of databases and data management, reporting, BI and more. Microsoft are a platinum sponsor of the event this year and a whole heap of big names are flying in to present.

Want to know what’s going on? Come to the Black Marble Tech Update

Tue, 20 Jan 2015 00:00:00 +0000

It’s January, which can only mean one thing. It’s time for the annual Black Marble Tech Update. If you’re an IT or development manager, come along to hear the stuff you need to know about Microsoft’s releases and updates last year and what we know so far about what is coming this year.

Why you should attend a Microsoft IT Camp

Tue, 20 Jan 2015 00:00:00 +0000

I’ve posted before about helping out at the IT Camps run by the Microsoft DX team. I’m a fervent supporter of them – they are hands-on days of technical content run by great people who know their stuff and, importantly, they are run around the country.

Speaking on DevOps at Future Decoded

Thu, 06 Nov 2014 00:00:00 +0000

I am now going to speaking on the DevOps track at Future Decoded. I’ll be channelling Richard to talk about how our dev-release pipeline is constructed at Black Marble and how the various Microsoft tools that we use could be swapped out for alternatives in a heterogeneous environment.

A week with the Surface Pro 3

Sat, 26 Jul 2014 00:00:00 +0000

Robert unexpectedly (gotta love him!) gave me a surprise present in the form of a Microsoft Surface Pro 3. I’ve now been using it for a week and I thought it was time to put my thoughts into words.

Automating TFS Build Server deployment with SCVMM and PowerShell

Thu, 17 Jul 2014 00:00:00 +0000

Richard and I have been busy this week. It started with a conversation about automating the installation of new build servers. Richard was looking at writing PowerShell to install and configure the TFS build agent, along with all the various SDKs that we use across all out projects. Our current array of build servers have all been built by hand and each has a different set of SDKs to build specific project types. Richard’s aim is to make a single, homogenous build server configuration so we can then scale out for capacity much more quickly than before.

SharePoint 2013: Creating Managed Metadata Columns that allow Fill-In Choices

Thu, 17 Jul 2014 00:00:00 +0000

This is a relatively quick post. There’s a fair bunch of stuff written about creating columns in SharePoint 2013 that use Managed Metadata termsets. However, some of it is a pain to find and then some. I have had to deal with two frustrating issues lately, both of which boil down to poor sharepoint documentation.

Safely modify SharePoint 2013 Web.Config files using PowerShell

Tue, 01 Jul 2014 00:00:00 +0000

One of the things we learn early in our SharePoint careers was not to manually edit the web.config files of a web application. SharePoint involves multiple servers and has its own mechanisms for managing web.config updates.

Adding USB 3 to my Lenovo X220 Tablet

Sun, 08 Jun 2014 00:00:00 +0000

My X220 is a stalwart machine. It’s built like a tank and can be upgraded in a numb of ways. Mine now has 16Gb of RAM and two SSDs which allow me to run multi-VM environments for development and demo. Unfortunately, however, there is no USB 3 on the laptop. That’s a pain if I need to copy stuff on and off via USB, or run VMs from a USB 3 pod.

Enabling Data Deduplication on my Windows 8.1 Laptop

Sun, 08 Jun 2014 00:00:00 +0000

Lets get the disclaimer out of the way first: What I’ve done is absolutely unsupported by Microsoft. Just because it works for me does not guarantee it will work for you and I am not in any way recommending that you follow my lead!

Microsoft People-centric IT Roadshow

Sun, 08 Jun 2014 00:00:00 +0000

Microsoft UK have been running technical events around the UK for a couple of years now, and it’s a great thing. Too many events are focused in the south of England and there are lots of IT pros north of the M25!

Our TFS Lab Management Infrastructure

Sun, 08 Jun 2014 00:00:00 +0000

Richard and I spend a good deal of time talking about Lab Manager and our environments. I’ve written here before about our migration to the latest versions of the various components of Lab and both Richard and I have delivered sessions at user groups and conferences.

Getting ready for Global Windows Azure Bootcamp 2

Wed, 26 Mar 2014 00:00:00 +0000

It’s a busy week. I’m speaking at the [Black Marble-hosted GWAB2 event](http://www.blackmarble.co.uk/events.aspx?event= Global Windows Azure Bootcamp 2) this Saturday, along with Steve Spencer and Andy Westgarth. Richard and Robert will also be on hand which means between us we should be able to cover questions on much of the newly re-monikered Microsoft Azure.

Migrating to SCVMM 2012 R2 in a TFS Lab Scenario

Thu, 20 Mar 2014 00:00:00 +0000

Last week I moved our SCVMM from 2012 with service pack 1 to 2012 R2. Whilst the actual process was much simpler than I expected, we had a pretty big constraint imposed upon us by Lab Manager that largely dictated our approach.

Creating Azure Virtual Networks using Powershell and XML Part 4: Local networks and site-site connectivity

Sun, 09 Mar 2014 00:00:00 +0000

This is part 4 of a series of posts building powershell functions to create and modify Azure Virtual Networks. Previous posts have covered functions to create virtual networks and then delete them. In this part, I’m going to show you functions that will define local networks and configure site-site VPN connectivity between a local and virtual network.

Gary Lapointe to the rescue: Using his Office 365 powershell tools to recover from a corrupted masterpage

Fri, 07 Mar 2014 00:00:00 +0000

I also need to give credit to the Office 365 support team over this. They were very quick in their response to my support incident, but I was quicker!

Whilst working on an Office 365 site for a customer today I had a moment of blind panic. The site is using custom branding and I was uploading a new version of the master page to the site when things went badly wrong. The upload appeared to finish OK but the dialog that was shown post upload was not the usual content type/fill in the fields form, but a plain white box. I left it for a few minutes but nothing changed. Unperturbed, I returned to the mater page gallery… Except I couldn’t. All I got was a white page. No errors, nothing. No pages worked at all – no settings pages, no content pages, nothing at all.

Creating Azure Virtual Networks using Powershell and XML Part 2: Powershell functions

Tue, 04 Mar 2014 00:00:00 +0000

In my previous post I talked about what was involved in creating an Azure network configuration using Powershell. In this post I’ll cover where I’ve got so so far, which is a series of functions that do the following:

Creating Azure Virtual Networks using Powershell and XML Part 3: Powershell functions for deletion

Tue, 04 Mar 2014 00:00:00 +0000

This is part three of a series of posts about using powershell to script the creation, deletion and (hopefully) modification of Azure Virtual Networks. In part 1 I went through the key steps with some rough code. Part 2 showed the much tidier functions I’ve now written to create virtual network elements. This is part 3, and I will present functions to remove elements. Hopefully I will manage to get the modification functions to work which be a fourth installment!

Creating Azure Virtual Networks using Powershell and XML

Mon, 03 Mar 2014 00:00:00 +0000

I’ll be honest, I expected this task to be easier than it is. What I’m working on is some powershell that we might use as part of automated build processes that will create a new Virtual Network in an Azure subscription. What I’m after is to add a new network to the existing configuration.

Declaratively create Composed Looks in SharePoint 2013 with elements.xml

Fri, 28 Feb 2014 00:00:00 +0000

This is really a follow-up to my earlier post about tips with SharePoint publishing customisations. Composed looks have been a part of a couple of projects recently. In the first, a solution for on-premise, we used code in a feature receiver to add a number of items to the Composed Looks list. In the second, for Office 365, a bit of research offered an alternative approach with no code.

Speaking at NEBytes on February 19th

Sat, 08 Feb 2014 00:00:00 +0000

I’m pleased to have been asked to speak at NEBytes again – a great user group that meets in Newcastle. I’ll be speaking about customising SharePoint 2013 using master pages, themes and search templates, along the same lines as my recent blog post.

Using the Dell Venue 8 Pro Stylus

Wed, 05 Feb 2014 00:00:00 +0000

You will recall from my earlier post how much I like my Dell Venue 8 Pro and how disappointed I was that the stylus was on back-order until March.

Imagine my surprise, then, when a package arrived at the beginning of this week with a shiny new stylus in it!

Six tips when deploying SharePoint 2013 masterpages, page layouts and display templates

Mon, 03 Feb 2014 00:00:00 +0000

I’ve been hat-swapping again since just before christmas (which explains the lack of Azure IaaS posts I’m afraid). I’ve been working on a large SharePoint 2013 project, most lately on customising a number of elements around publishing. Getting those custom elements into SharePoint from my solution raised a number of little snags, most of which were solved by the great internet hive mind. It took me a long time to find some of those fixes, however, so I thought I’d collect them here and reference the original posts where appropriate.

BlogEngine.Net automatically tweeting on new posts

Mon, 27 Jan 2014 00:00:00 +0000

I sadly miss Twitter Notify, the plugin for Windows Live Writer that would tweet when I published a new post. Fortunately, there are a couple of plugins for BlogEngine.Net that purport to do the same thing. I’ve just deployed SocialPublish to our server. Configuration is a bit fiddly, and I’m not sure yet how well it will work with our multi-tennant structure. This is my first post after activation so I’m keen to see if it tweets when I publish!

Living with the Dell Venue 8 Pro

Sun, 26 Jan 2014 00:00:00 +0000

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Some time ago I wrote about how disappointed I was with the Acer W3 tablet. I really wanted that small form factor device, but the Acer fell short in pretty much every regard. Late last year Dell launched the Venue 8 Pro – the first of the new generation of 8” Windows tablets out of the gate. I sat on the fence for a while, looking at community comments on the the device, then finally ordered one after speaking to Simon May about his impressions of it.

Dealing with AD sync issues in an Azure hybrid deployment

Tue, 05 Nov 2013 00:00:00 +0000

I’ve been building demo environments for Tech.Days Online for the past few days. I had been blogging as I built, but then I hit problems and time pressure meant I had to pause my series on building the hybrid network. I will pick up the remainder of those posts in the near future but in the meantime, I want to give you all the heads up on one of my problems.

Building an Azure IaaS and on-premise hybrid environment Part 2: DC and servers in the cloud

Mon, 04 Nov 2013 00:00:00 +0000

This is part 2 of a series of posts bout building a hybrid network connecting Windows Azure and on-premise. For more background on what the goals are, and for information on how to create the Azure Network and connect the VPN tunnel between on-premise and cloud see part 1.

Building an Azure IaaS and on-premise hybrid environment Part 1: The plan and Azure Network Connection

Sun, 03 Nov 2013 00:00:00 +0000

I’ve been meaning to build a test lab to kick the tyres of Windows Azure Networks for a while. Two things combined together to make me get it done, however: First was the need to build exactly that for a customer as part of proof-of-concepts; the second was an invitation to present at Tech.Days Online on the subject.

Connecting Azure Network Site-Site VPN to a SonicWall Appliance

Mon, 28 Oct 2013 00:00:00 +0000

I am with a customer this week, building a test Azure Network+IaaS/Azure AD/Office 365 environment. We struggled to get the site-site VPN connection up for a while and there wasn’t a great deal on the greater internet to help, save for a couple of posts in a discussion forum by the marvellous Marcus Robinson. We finally got it working when we found a tech note from SonicWall, published just a few days ago on the 7th October.

Speaking at UK Tech.Days Online 2013

Sat, 26 Oct 2013 00:00:00 +0000

I’ve been supporting the great team of evangelists at Microsoft with their UK Tech.Days events for some time now. I am chuffed to bits that they have asked me to contribute to the fantastic UK Tech.Days Online event. If you haven’t heard about it, go look at the agenda right now! Three days of great content on the latest technologies covering client, server, cloud and dev. The whole thing will be streamed live thanks to the wonder of the internet and includes a live interview with Steve Ballmer.

Generation 2 Virtual Machines on Windows 8.1 and Server 2012 R2 plus other nice new features

Tue, 15 Oct 2013 00:00:00 +0000

DDD North 2013 was a fantastic community conference but sadly I didn’t get chance to deliver my grok talk on Generation 2 virtual machines. A few people came up to me beforehand to say they were interested in the topic, and a few more spoke to me afterwards to ask if I would blog. I had planned to write a post anyway, but when you know it’s something people want to read you get a bit more of a push.

Unexpectedly now doing a session at DDD North 2013

Thu, 10 Oct 2013 00:00:00 +0000

I had a surprise exchange of text messages last night with Andy Westgarth. Sadly, one of the people who was to speak in one of the first session slots has had to pull out. Andy did the thing all the best conference organisers do – he called his friends! As a result, Richard and myself will be presenting a session about our experience with Lab Manager on Saturday morning.

Grok talking at DDDNorth 2013

Tue, 08 Oct 2013 00:00:00 +0000

DDD North 2013 is almost upon us and I hope you’re all converging on Sunderland for what should be a great for devs. I’ll be helping out during the day, and I will also be doing a short Grok Talk on how Generation 2 Virtual Machines in Windows 8.1 and Server 2012 are new, different and cool. Come along and heckle, why don’t you?

Miracast with Surface Pro, Windows 8.1 release and Netgear Push2TV

Tue, 08 Oct 2013 00:00:00 +0000

One of the most useful features of Windows 8.1 for me is the native support for Miracast (which is compatible with Intel Widi) for connecting to a wireless projector or display. Being able to wander around with my tablet whilst speaking is really handy.

Take care installing firmware updates on your Surface Pro if it’s bitlocker encrypted

Sun, 06 Oct 2013 00:00:00 +0000

A quick tip, this one. I downloaded the latest firmware update to my Surface Pro this evening. It rebooted and promptly requested my bitlocker unlock code. I don’t keep those to hand – they’re stored in our Active Directory. Fortunately I had another laptop with DirectAccess so I could find the key. Be ready with your recovery key if you too have enabled bitlocker and perform firmware updates.

Being allowed out in public: Forthcoming events

Sun, 29 Sep 2013 00:00:00 +0000

It’s autumn again, and that means event season is upon us once more. In the next few months I’m getting around a bit, so this post is a plug for the events I’m either attending or speaking at.

Building environments for Lab Manager: Why bare metal scripting fails

Sun, 29 Sep 2013 00:00:00 +0000

In the world of DevOps it’s all about the scripts: I’ve seen some great work done by some clever people to create complex environments with multiple VMs all from scratch using PowerShell. That’s great, but unfortunately in the world of Lab Manager it just doesn’t work well at all.

Links from presentation on Server 2012 R2

Wed, 25 Sep 2013 00:00:00 +0000

Thanks to all who attended the ReBuild and TechEd revisited event today. I promised that I would post the links from the final slide to this blog so you can all start evaluating Server 2012 R2 and System Center 2012 R2.

I wouldn’t be where I am today… How encouraging kids in computing is important

Sat, 31 Aug 2013 00:00:00 +0000

I’ve been mulling this blog post for a while. Those of you who know Black Marble will have seen that we all believe very strongly in encouraging young people to take up computing and put time into sharing our knowledge and expertise. I thought it was worth sharing how I got to where I am today, which would not have been possible without the help and encouragement of three key people who worked with technology. There’s a message in the story though, about how we need to help the next generation of computing professionals in the same way.

Installing .Net 3.5 onto Windows 8 and 8.1 using DISM

Sat, 31 Aug 2013 00:00:00 +0000

This is one of those posts to save me searching the web every time I need to install .Net 3.5 on a Windows 8 (and now 8.1) system. If the automated installation via add/remove features fails then you need the correct DISM command.

Life with a Lenovo IdeaPad Yoga 13

Sat, 31 Aug 2013 00:00:00 +0000

yoga

My wife’s desktop computer is eight years old. In fairness, it was good kit at the time, and the dual core, 64-bit AMD CPU and it’s four gigabytes of RAM are still more than enough to run her apps today. But the disks are slow and, frankly, it’s just getting tired. Time to get a new one…

Editing Windows Server 2012 Group Policies for Direct Access with Windows 8.1 Enterprise Preview

Tue, 13 Aug 2013 00:00:00 +0000

I finally got time to upgrade my Surface Pro to Windows 8.1 Enterprise. One of the things I most want to test is DirectAccess, as I live and die by this on my main laptop. However, despite the computer object for my machine being in the group that the DA group policies are applied to, no DA settings appeared.

Installing Windows 8.1 Enterprise on Surface Pro

Tue, 13 Aug 2013 00:00:00 +0000

Windows 8.1 Enterprise preview was released a week or two ago. Being on holiday prevented me trying it out until I returned to the office. Everyone has different methods for installing Windows 8/8.1 on a Surface Pro. It’s actually pretty simple. Windows 8 can be done in the same way as I list here. However, you will need to download the Surface Pro Driver pack from Microsoft – Windows 8 doesn’t automatically find all the hardware; Windows 8.1 does.

The Acer Iconia W3: An object lesson in how NOT to design a tablet

Mon, 08 Jul 2013 00:00:00 +0000

As you may have seen from my recent tweets, I was fortunate enough to attend //Build again this year in lovely San Francisco. In what appears to be an emerging tradition, conference attendees received not one, but two Windows 8 tablets: A 128Gb Microsoft Surface Pro with Type Cover, and an Acer Iconia W3 with keyboard dock.

Tech Update for Public Sector

Tue, 14 May 2013 00:00:00 +0000

Right now I am putting the finishing touches to my deck for an event Black Marble are running at Cardinal Place next week. As many of you will know, for the past ten years we have run the annual Tech Update covering moves and changes across the entire Microsoft spectrum of products. Until now that has only taken place in Leeds but for the first time we are taking that show on the road.

Speaking at NEBytes about TFS 2012 Lab and SCVMM 2012

Wed, 08 May 2013 00:00:00 +0000

On Wednesday 15th May 2013, Black Marble travels north, as Steve Spencer and I will both present sessions for the great guys at NEBytes.

Whilst Steve covers fun hardware and software dev using Gadgeteer, I will be talking about our experiences with TFS 2012 Lab and SCVMM 2012.

Fixing a dodgy proximity sensor on my Nokia Lumia 920

Tue, 05 Mar 2013 00:00:00 +0000

I’ve just had a really infuriating half an hour trying to figure out why I couldn’t get the keypad to appear during a call on my Lumia 920. When I took my phone away form my ear the screen stayed black. Pushing the power button made the display switch on and then immediately switch off. Power cycling and even resetting made no difference.

Fixing Lab Manager environments with brute force

Tue, 05 Mar 2013 00:00:00 +0000

As you’ve probably seen, our Lab Manager/SCVMM 2008 R2 upgrade to SCVMM 2012 SP1 was not the smoothest in the world. The end result was a clean lab manager and SCVMM install, but a raft of virtual machines that had previously been part of environments.

Things to remember when building virtual machines for a lab manager environment

Tue, 05 Mar 2013 00:00:00 +0000

As you will have read on both mine and Richard’s blogs, we have recently upgraded our Lab environment and it wasn’t the smoothest of processes.

However, as always it has been a learning experience and this post is all about building VM environments that can be sucked into Lab and turned into a Lab environment that can be pushed out multiple times.

Notes from the field on our SCVMM/Lab Manager environment upgrade

Mon, 04 Mar 2013 00:00:00 +0000

Richard has posted a group effort article on his blog about our System Center 2008 R2/Lab Manager upgrade to System Center 2012 SP1/Lab Manager. All did not go swimmingly…

I have more helpful notes that I am writing up myself and will post over the next few days around the steps to fix virtual machines that are part of an environment and tips on building complex multi-machine rigs for lab manager.

Notes from the North East: Imagine Cup Hackathon 2012

Tue, 05 Feb 2013 00:00:00 +0000

We had a great time at the Imagine Cup North East Hackathon this weekend. Black Marble turned out in force with myself, Steve, Richard, Robert, Linda, Josh and Riccardo all helping out. Andy Westgarth and the guys at Sunderland Software City had done a solid job on the organisation and we were well looked after.

Looking forward to the Imagine Cup Hackathon

Sun, 27 Jan 2013 00:00:00 +0000

It’s a busy week this week and I’m really looking forward to being involved with the Imagine Cup Hackathon for the North East Region this Friday and Saturday (1st and 2nd February).

More UK TechDays on System Center 2012 and Windows 8

Sun, 27 Jan 2013 00:00:00 +0000

Our good friends in the UK TechDays team have announced another raft of events in their fantastic IT Camps series. I’m hoping to be there for at least on of them and if you’re at all interested in Windows 8 or System Center 2012 I cant recommend them highly enough.

Upcoming presentations

Mon, 14 Jan 2013 00:00:00 +0000

It’s the start of a new year and my engagement diary is filling rapidly. Once again I am covering a wide range of topics for an equally broad audience which is something I really enjoy.

User profile service failures caused by Distributed Cache on SharePoint 2013

Mon, 14 Jan 2013 00:00:00 +0000

This is a relatively quick post, largely because I was not able to record the details of the error messages we saw in the farm before we fixed them.

On a recent engagement we were investigating problems with a SharePoint 2013 farm that had been installed for our customer by a third party. There were a number of issues that we worked through but I wanted to record this one for the community.

Many upcoming speaking engagements

Mon, 22 Oct 2012 00:00:00 +0000

I seem to have been doing a lot of presenting lately, and the next few weeks are similarly busy. As a one-stop shop to plug them all, here is a list of upcoming events I will be presenting, co-presenting or supporting:

Speaking at Designing Beautiful Windows Apps in Dublin

Sat, 22 Sep 2012 00:00:00 +0000

I’m really excited to be presenting at a one day event on Windows 8 application design in Dublin on Wednesday 26th September. I’m excited because Bill Buxton is delivering the keynote at the event and I’m a big fan.

A Virtual Ice Cream Sandwich: Android 4 x86 in a Hyper-V VM

Mon, 18 Jun 2012 00:00:00 +0000

More and more of our projects include a stipulation from the client that any web sites must work on the tablet devices of senior management. Up until recently that was exclusively iPads, but we are now seeing more Android devices out there. I wanted to find a straightforward way for us to test on such devices, preferably without needing to build up a collection of expensive physical kit.

Adding DHCP Option 119 (Domain Search List) to Windows Server 2008 R2

Mon, 18 Jun 2012 00:00:00 +0000

If you’ve seen my recent blog post on making Android work in Hyper-V you will have seen my problems around DNS resolution when in the office. That turned out to be down to the DHCP options being handed back by our Server 2008 R2 box. Or rather, it was what wasn’t being handed back to the client that was the problem.

Tweaking my Lenovo x220 Tablet and running Windows 8

Tue, 12 Jun 2012 00:00:00 +0000

A short while ago I replaced my trusted by heavy Acer laptop with a Lenovo x220 tablet. After a couple of months running windows 8 I’m ready to put my thoughts into words.

IT Camp Leeds Roundup

Wed, 29 Feb 2012 00:00:00 +0000

WP_000140

Yesterday was great fun and I was really pleased to see so many Black Marble event regulars at the IT Camp. It was great to hear so many requests for more events like it in Leeds. We’re all keen to run more, but we need people to attend and give us feedback in order to be able to do that.

My Boss has brought his iPad! Consumer devices in corporate networks

Wed, 29 Feb 2012 00:00:00 +0000

There’s a new term in town – Consumerisation of IT. All of us who work in IT should care about this because it’s going to have a deep impact on the approach many of us have taken when deploying services to our organisations.

Hands-on Microsoft IT Camps–we’ll be there and you should too!

Fri, 24 Feb 2012 00:00:00 +0000

Andy and I are really pleased to be able to help our friends at Microsoft with their latest idea for engaging with IT Professionals. Next week (Tuesday 28th February) sees the first in a series of new IT Camps taking place in Leeds. The idea is to run a full day event that is very light on PowerPoint and heavy on the hands-on, roll up your sleeves and install things as a group.

Living with the Nokia Lumia 800

Mon, 16 Jan 2012 00:00:00 +0000

If you call in at Black Marble you’ll see Nokia’s everywhere. They’re talking over the place. It takes me back… I remember when almost everybody I knew had some kind of Nokia or another. I started with the 5.1 on Orange, followed by a sequence of progressively smaller phones. Then came Series 60 and I walked away – I never liked the interface. I swapped to Sony Ericsson and the P800, P900 and P910. I moved to Windows Mobile for time, until I could stand it no more and swapped to an iPhone (much to the grumbling of folk round here!).

Fujitsu Stylistic Q550: A Tablet for the Enterprise

Wed, 14 Dec 2011 00:00:00 +0000

Every now and again, whilst I’m away from the office, the gadget pixies visit my desk and leave something interesting for me to play with. It’s a bit like Bagpuss, except stuff works when it arrives and I can never get the guys to wake up when I need them too.

Streaming video to XBOX 360 from Windows Home Server 2011

Fri, 09 Dec 2011 00:00:00 +0000

This one threw me for a while and I could find nothing specific on the web. I wanted to use my Xbox 360 to watch video streamed from my Windows Home Server. Streaming is switched on by default, I hear you say. Why, yes it is, but each time I tried to connect the Xbox I received an error.

Displaying a SharePoint 2010 library on a page in a different site within the same site collection

Wed, 07 Dec 2011 00:00:00 +0000

One of our customers contacted us the other day with a problem. They wanted to put a view of a document library that was located in the top level site of a site collection onto the landing pages of all the second level sites in that collection. The customer had consulted the internet hive mind and found a blog post with instructions which had been diligently followed and yet whenever a user clicked ‘New’ on the ribbon bar an error occurred.

Fundaments of planning your beautiful SharePoint web site

Wed, 07 Dec 2011 00:00:00 +0000

This article is all about preparation. It’s about the thinking and planning you need to do if you’re going to successfully build your wonderful, unique and striking website on the SharePoint platform.

Making SharePoint 2010 search pages work with a proper master page

Thu, 12 May 2011 00:00:00 +0000

If you talk to those who know me about my pet hates in SharePoint, the search pages will come up every time. It’s not that I hate search itself – that’s great, but the minimal.master is just plain annoying. It makes the search centre a black hole into which you can fall but not navigate out of – there’s no navigation and the portal site connection doesn’t work.

Content type replication not working on imported or migrated site collections

Mon, 04 Apr 2011 00:00:00 +0000

A while ago I posted about a hidden feature that was needed if you want to use Managed Metadata columns in your SharePoint 2010 sites. We were doing some 2007-2010 migration work for a client recently that also involved exporting and importing sites and site collections to rework the content structure. Once we’d got the new structure sorted we discovered that content type replication was not occurring on the site collections we had imported. Some comparison of working and non-working SPSite properties with PowerShell later, we discovered that the culprit was the same hidden TaxonomyFieldAdded (ID 73ef14b1-13a9-416b-a9b5-ececa2b0604c) feature as I noted earlier. See my earlier post for instructions on enabling the feature.

Content Types programmatically added to SharePoint libraries not appearing on New menu

Mon, 04 Apr 2011 00:00:00 +0000

This one caused some consternation, I can tell you. As usual, the solution could be found on the great wide web, but it took some digging, so as usual I am repeating it here.

Avviso Page Templates and Editing Video

Mon, 21 Feb 2011 00:00:00 +0000

We’ve just put a video of the page templates and editing process up on the AvvisoSharePoint YouTube channel. Our plan is to add more videos over time to show the different things Avviso can do. Enjoy!

Demonstrating Avviso at NEBytes on 23rd February 2011

Tue, 15 Feb 2011 00:00:00 +0000

avvisohead

I am really chuffed to have been invited back to NEBytes for a follow-up to my last session on content publishing with SharePoint 2010. This time I’ll be demonstrating Avviso and talking about the thought processes that lead to its development, the problems we are trying to solve and where we’d like to go next.

Errors with TMG + Exchange Edge Connector + FPE resulting in rejected emails

Wed, 26 Jan 2011 00:00:00 +0000

Frustrating errors with little or no explanation…
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Once again I find myself wiring a blog post in order to save people the time we spent figuring out what was going on and getting help with our fault.

Avviso: A Content Publishing Framework for SharePoint 2010

Tue, 21 Dec 2010 00:00:00 +0000

words and pictures logo

Last week was really exciting for me and my colleagues here at Black Marble as the work we’ve been doing with a partner came to fruition. Words and Pictures are a communications agency based not far from us, and we’ve been working together on a great product that builds upon SharePoint 2010 to greatly improve content publishing.

Server Core, Hyper-V and VLANs: An Odyssey

Mon, 06 Dec 2010 00:00:00 +0000

A sensible plan
#

This is a torrid tale of frustration and annoyance, tempered by the fun of digging through system commands and registry entries to try and get things working.

Powershell to find missing features in SharePoint 2010

Fri, 19 Nov 2010 00:00:00 +0000

When migrating from SharePoint 2007 to 2010, no matter how hard you try there’s always the chance the the content database upgrade process will throw out errors about features being referenced that are not present in the farm. We have used Stefan Goßner’s WssAnalyzeFeatures and WSSRemoveFeatureFromSite (see his original article) to track down the references and exterminate them. It’s not the fastest thing on two legs though, and I have a fondness for having my SharePoint 2010 tooling in PowerShell because of the flexibility it gives me.

Enabling the TaxonomyFieldAdded feature to fix ManagedMetadata Column errors

Thu, 11 Nov 2010 00:00:00 +0000

We’re working on a solution at the moment that uses a custom site definition. For various reasons we stated with the Blank Site definition and worked from there. Our customisations include content types using custom columns that link to managed metadata term sets. We create all those through features – great! The tricky bit came when after deployment our managed metadata columns were greyed out. Examining the column we say an error telling us that the feature supporting the functionality was not activated.

Speaking at NeBytes in November on SharePoint for Content Publishing

Tue, 02 Nov 2010 00:00:00 +0000

On the 17th of November I’ll be keeping Richard company on the drive up to Newcastle to speak at the NEBytes user group. My session will be a shortened version of the Using SharePoint for Content publishing I will deliver at the Black Marble event on November 3rd. I will be showing what can be done with SharePoint 2010 when the brief is for a content publishing site, be it internet- or intranet-facing and I will talk about the things we have learned along the way whilst delivering such projects – things to avoid as well as things that work well.

Living with the Acer Aspire 1420P

Fri, 22 Oct 2010 00:00:00 +0000

This blog has been a very quiet place for a long time now, reflecting somewhat how busy I have been elsewhere. During this period of heavy work I have found a new friend in my Aspire 1420P. In some ways it’s sad – my trusty and reliable Dell Mini 9 has been neglected in favour of a younger, sexier model.

Powershell script to rename files for use as SharePoint 2010 User Profile thumbnails

Thu, 29 Jul 2010 00:00:00 +0000

User profile photos have changed in SharePoint 2010 in that they are now stored in a single image library in the MySite Host root site collection. They have also changed in that when you change the profile photo, SharePoint takes the file and creates three new images at specific sizes, then discards the file you gave it. These files have specific names to link them to the user account and come in small, medium and large flavours.

Thoughts on the BCS EGM

Wed, 09 Jun 2010 00:00:00 +0000

Stepping along the path ploughed by Richard and Robert, I thought I’d try to order my thoughts on the BCS EGM through a blog post. Like Richard, I am (as I begin writing) uncertain as to my final leaning on this, although I have clear views on some of the issues.

It works! 8Gb RAM in my Acer TravelMate 6593

Tue, 08 Jun 2010 00:00:00 +0000

I thought I’d post this because so many like me might benefit from my experiment. We have a number of Acer TravelMate 6593 laptops here at Black Marble. They’re great machines – plenty of grunt, a lovely screen and most of the toys you could need in a laptop that’s used for a mix of IT admin, dev and technical sales (including demos). The only downside is that they only ship with up to 4Gb of memory, and Acer say it won’t take more.

Solving a mystery: Windows 7 games won’t work on HP TouchSmart TX2

Sat, 01 May 2010 00:00:00 +0000

This one has been nagging at me for a long time. My grandmother has an HP TouchSmart TX2 tablet. It was bought with Windows Vista, but as with her main computer, I upgraded it to Windows 7.

Unable to remote control Hyper-V VM after installing SharePoint 2010 on Windows 7

Fri, 30 Apr 2010 00:00:00 +0000

True to form, you only discover something isn’t working when you’re in a desperate hurry. We use lots of Hyper-V VMs here at Black Marble and they are mostly running on our four node cluster. I use Failover Cluster Manager and this morning I couldn’t connect remotely to any of the Hyper-V VMs. I kept getting an error:

Fixing SharePoint 2007 IIS WAMREG DCOM 10016 activation errors on Server 2008 R2

Mon, 08 Feb 2010 00:00:00 +0000

Anybody who works will SharePoint will grumble if you mention DCOM activation permissions. No matter how hard we try, how many patches we install (or how hard we try to ignore it), granting activation and launch permissions to the SharePoint service accounts is like plugging a dike with water-soluble filler.

Social Networking: The double-edged sword of maintaining an online presence

Sun, 31 Jan 2010 00:00:00 +0000

Exploring the new frontier
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I’m writing this post whilst watching my Windows Home Server slowly copy data onto an external drive. I mention that not because of its pertinence, but to indicate why I found myself having time to join Facebook.

New and coming Microsoft technologies you need to look at

Thu, 28 Jan 2010 00:00:00 +0000

Yesterday was the annual Black Marble Tech Update event, where we try to cover every product in the Microsoft arsenal in half a day, telling local businesses what’s coming and what deserves attention.

Remote working solutions (or how I learned to stop worrying and love the snow)

Sun, 24 Jan 2010 00:00:00 +0000

We lost remarkably few days of productivity to the bad weather at Black Marble. That wasn’t because we were all intrepid, hardy types and all made it into the office. Far from it – some of us live in areas where they don’t grit very often and can’t make it to the main roads.

Solve ‘pending reboot’ setup show stopper for CRM 4 Client (with Update Rollup 7)

Mon, 11 Jan 2010 00:00:00 +0000

I’ve been extremely busy over the past week creating demo systems and updating our own internal Black Marble systems. Part of that long list of tasks was to get around to testing the CRM 4 Outlook client with Outlook 2010.

Twitter clients: Twinbox and Tweetz

Mon, 11 Jan 2010 00:00:00 +0000

Anybody who follows me on twitter will know that @rikhepworth is by no means a prolific tweeter. However, I do follow a number of people around the planet, and in addition to the ubiquitous Tweetie2 on my iPhone, I have found two clients to be useful and reliable.

Reassigning the correct SSL certificate to SharePoint 2010 Web Services IIS Site

Thu, 07 Jan 2010 00:00:00 +0000

Prologue
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This post is about assigning an SSL certificate to an IIS 7.5-hosted website which is not located in the Personal Certificate store. The steps shown are not SharePoint-specific, however. Hopefully this post will save you the large amount of time I spent hunting down the information on how to do this.

Berlin: Four storeys of Windows 7 goodness