azure - Expecting someone geekier

Jim Bennett

Senior Cloud Advocate at Microsoft, Xamarin Certified Developer, author of Xamarin In Action, blogger, speaker, father and lover of beer, whisky and Thai food. Opinions are my own.

Redmond, WA, USA
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Let your family know you are in meetings with an IoT Busy light

Featured Jim Bennett 19 Mar 2020 technology, IoT, azure, logic apps, iot central

Like a lot of folks at the moment, I'm working for home and my child is off school. For those reading this in the future and wondering why, I am currently living in the time of the COVID-19 pandemic and worldwide toilet paper shortages. One of the upsides of working from home, especially when my 7 year old is off school is that I am available mos…

Setting an Azure IoT Hub connection string in code on an MXChip

Featured Jim Bennett 12 Feb 2020 technology, mxchip, IoT, Iot Hub, azure

Learn how to set the Azure IoT Hub connection string on an MXChip board in code.…

Storing IoT Data in a database

Featured Jim Bennett 05 Dec 2019 technology, azure, IoT, Iot Hub, cosmos db, stream analytics

Learn how to use Stream Analytics to stream data from an IoT hub to a database such as Cosmos DB…

Connecting your Domain.com domain name to your web app during an MLH hackathon

Featured Jim Bennett 27 Nov 2019 technology, azure, app service, domain.com, dnsimple, domain, hackathon, mlh, prizes

You're at an MLH Hackathon and you decide you want to win the Domain.com prize for the best domain name registered at the event. You've decided on the ultimate name, and now you want to use it for your hack... Here's how to connect it to Azure app service.…

Visualizing locations and paths on a map with Azure Maps

Featured Jim Bennett 23 Sep 2019 technology, azure, Maps, javascript, Python

Learn how to show an Azure Maps control on a web page, and add pins and paths to the map…

Are you where you should be? Checking Geofences using Azure Maps

Featured Jim Bennett 10 Sep 2019 technology, Spatial, Maps, azure, REST

A Geofence is a virtual boundary defined using an area on a map. Azure Maps has tools for checking if a coordinate is inside that Geofence. This post looks at how to do these checks.…

Streaming Serial data using an MXChip

Featured Jim Bennett 04 Sep 2019 technology, IoT, mxchip, azure, gps, serial

The MXChip board has 2 serial ports - one using the USB which is great for debugging, and one you can use to stream data from third party modules. This article shows you how! TL;DR - connect the TXD on the module to 1 on the MXChip, RXD to 2, then create a new Serial using UARTClass Serial1(UART_1); You can then call this in the same way as the Ard…

Building a live caption tool - part 1

Featured Jim Bennett 02 Jul 2019 technology, Python, azure, cognitive services, speech

Learn how to build a live captioner using Python and the Azure Cognitive Services…

Connecting Pycom boards to Azure IoT Hub

Featured Jim Bennett 10 Apr 2019 technology, Pycom, Pymakr, WiPy, IoT, azure, Iot Hub, Visual Studio Code, vscode, Python

Learn how to connect a PyCom board to Azure IoT Hub…

Jim made some dumb mistakes when recording a video. You won't believe how he fixed it with Azure Media Services!

Featured Jim Bennett 02 Apr 2019 technology, meetup, video, azure, canon, mxf, encoding

Learn how Jim used Azure Media Services to fix his dumb mistakes when recording video!…

Controlling an IoT device from your phone

Featured Jim Bennett 19 Nov 2018 Technology, azure, azure free, functions, xamarin, xamarin.forms, IoT, GooGoo clusters

I've just finished watching the latest episode of Five Things, where Suz Hinton talks with Burke about Goo Goo Clusters and IoT devices. One of the devices Suz showed was the Azure IoT DevKit - an arduino compatible board made by MXChip that works beautifully with Azure, even down to having an Azure LED on board to show when it is connected. Thi…

Azure makers series

Featured Jim Bennett 14 Nov 2018 Technology, xamarin, azure, AI, cognitive services, azure free

I recently recorded a quick video to talk about an app I was building using the Azure free account. You can check it out here: If you want to see the code, it's in my GitHub repo here - https://github.com/jimbobbennett/AzurePhotoSharer…

Debugging multiple Azure Functions apps at the same time

Featured Jim Bennett 13 Nov 2018 Technology, azure, functions, Visual Studio, debugging

Dentists don't want you to know these 5 tips that show how easy it is to run multiple Azure Functions apps locally and debug them all at the same time! Number 3 will shock you! Enough ClickBait nonsense, on to the post. I recently built a demo app that has two Azure Functions projects in it - one using the new V2 Functions runtime and written…

What the @ - fixing weirdness in return JSON from Azure functions using F#

Featured Jim Bennett 19 Jun 2018 fsharp, f#, azure, functions, technology

I've been playing a lot with F# recently, both to build Xamarin apps using Elmish.XamarinForms and for some Azure Functions. Whilst building an HTTP trigger I came across some weirdness when serializing a record type to JSON. This is the relevant parts of my code: type Output = { TotalBalance : float } let Run(req: HttpRequestMessage, boundTable:…

Face identification with Azure Cognitive Services Face API

Featured Jim Bennett 02 Mar 2018 xamarin, AI, azure, cognitive services, xamarin.forms, nuget, technology, api, faceapi

Recently I've been playing with a lot AI and seeing how it can be used in mobile apps to enhance the experience offered to the user. Currently I am playing with facial recognition using the Azure Cognitive Services Face API. This is a stupidly powerful API that can do a LOT of different things: Detect faces in images Analyze those faces to detect…