How To Link your Microsoft Account to Azure Powershell

Today I was trying to get the WadConfig.xsd file via the Azure Powershell window with this command:

1. (Get-AzureServiceAvailableExtension -ExtensionName 'PaaSDiagnostics' 

2. -ProviderNamespace 'Microsoft.Azure.Diagnostics').PublicConfigurationSchema | 

3. Out-File -Encoding utf8 -FilePath 'WadConfig.xsd' 

But, I received this error (shown below):  No current subscription has been designated.  Use Select-AzureSubscription -Current <subscriptionname> to set the current subscription.

 

I tried to execute Select-AzureSubscription, but no dice there, it wouldn't recognize that I had any Azure subscriptions. 

 

[insert frustration and thirty minutes of searching for a solution]

 

I finally found a hint in Powershell.  I was trying many different commands that I found, and I stumbled across this command:

 

Add-AzureAccount

 

I had, wrongly, assumed that Powershell would "just know" who I am based on the Microsoft Account with which I had logged in.  But, nope.  It turns out that my Microsoft Account has both an "organizational" and "personal" aspect.  I logged into my machine with the "personal" aspect account, and my Azure subscriptions are linked to my "organization" aspect.  Grrr.

 

So, after running the Add-AzureAccount command, I was prompted for my Microsoft Account credentials, entered my "organization" credentials and then voila my Azure subscriptions showed up!!!

 

Now that my Microsoft Account was associated with Powershell, I was able to run:

Set-AzureSubscription -SubscriptionId '{My Subscription Id from the list above}'

 

And then when I ran the command to get the WadConfig.xsd, it worked!

 

 

Browser Link and VS 2013 slowness

I recently updated my version of Visual Studio 2013 to include Update 2, and I noticed that the IDE was extremely slow when debugging web applications.  It was also extremely slow just trying to run the website from Visual Studio.  It was taking around 30 seconds to one minute to go from one line in the source code to the next.  Visual Studio was freezing almost every time that I would debug anything.

It turns out that a new, very cool feature in Visual Studio was also killing my development performance.  This new feature is Browser Link.  I noticed that a SignalR script was running whenever VS seemed frozen while debugging.  It turns out that Browser Link uses a SignalR channel for the IDE to communicate to your browser window while debugging. 

Anyway, disabling this feature cured the sluggishness in Visual Studio 2013.  To disable Browser Link, uncheck "Enable Browser Link" via the menu item with the refresh icon in Visual Studio, shown below:

I hope this helps someone, because it was driving me nuts until I found the culprit.

Windows Phone GDDR3 - no data connection!!!

I recently upgraded my Nokia Lumia 1020 to the GDDR3 update that was made available to developers (Link to the GDDR3 install), and noticed that I no longer had a data connection when not on WiFi.  It took me a little while to notice since I work out of my house 99% of the time.  My first thought was that there was something incompatible with my carrier's network and the GDDR3 update, and was not happy.  But, that thought passed quickly and I set out looking through my phone's settings to see what new feature may have turned off my data connection. 

Eventually I found the problem and wanted to share this with everyone else, just in case you installed GDDR3 and ran into the same issue. 

• On your phone, go into Settings
• Access Point
• On this screen I noticed that the access point on my phone was changed to AT&T 3G.  I changed this setting to AT&T - LTE - Lumia, and I was now able to use my data connection again.

I hope this helps anyone else that may have run into this same issue.

Windows 8.1 BSOD while connected to my Nokia Lumia 1020 on internet sharing

A few weeks ago I was still running the Windows 8.1 Preview and my laptop would BSOD (blue screen of death) within a few minutes after connecting to my Nokia Lumia 1020 in internet sharing mode.  I thought that maybe it was due to the Windows 8.1 Preview bits, so I just stopped tethering until I installed the release version of Windows 8.1. 

I upgraded to the full release version of Windows 8.1 last week and decided to see if the tethering was still an issue.  I connected to the Nokia Lumia 1020, and within a few minutes BAM!  BSOD.  So, it was definitely not an issue with the preview.  I started doing some research and found that the issue resided within the Network Connection properties of my tethered session with the Lumia. 

The short fix is that you need to enable FIPS (Federal Information Processing Standards) on the Wireless Properties of the connection to the Lumia.  The only problem is that the only way to set this property is to actually connect to your Lumia, which can be an issue when your machine will BSOD when you connect to you Lumia.  So, after a few crashes, the machine stayed connected just long enough to allow me to get to the settings. 

Here are the steps for enabling FIPS:

• Enable Internet Sharing on your Lumia
• Settings
• System
• Internet Sharing
• Toggle the sharing option to ON.
• Remember your Broadcast name and Password on this screen as you'll need it when connecting on your machine
• Tethering to your Lumia on your Windows 8 / 8.1 machine:
• Left click on the network icon in the system tray, and the list of available connections are shown on the right side of your screen.  Click on the network connection with your Nokia Lumia broadcast name, and then click connect.  You will need to enter the password for your phone's tethering (if you haven't done this previously)
• At this point your machine is connected, and it may or may not BSOD immediately or it may BSOD within a few minutes.  The point is to not waste any time with the next set of instructions, it's now a race against time.  :)
• Setting the FIPS property:
• Left click on the network icon in the system tray and select:  Open Network and Sharing Center.  You will see your network connection on this screen.  Shown below is the network information for my internet connection with my Lumia:

• You will now want to left click on the blue text (shown above as Wi-Fi (Nokia XXXXXXX), this opens the Wi-Fi Status screen shown below, click on Wireless Properties

• On the Wireless Network Properties screen, click on the Security tab (shown below), and then click the Advanced Settings button.

• Finally, this is the screen that allows you to enable FIPS on your network connection.  Hopefully you were able to get to this screen on the first try before your machine BSOD a few times.  :)

• Simply check the Enable Federal Information Processing Standards (FIPS) compliance for the network, and you should never see the BSOD again when tethered to your Nokia Lumia.

How to factory reset a Nokia Lumia 920

I recently upgraded from my Nokia Lumia 920 to the amazing Nokia Lumia 1020 and wanted to reset the 920 to factory settings so I could give it to a friend.  I went through the recommended approach:  Settings - About - Reset to Factory Settings.  The phone rebooted and then got stuck in the "spinning gears" for a very long time.  I thought that I bricked the phone. 

I searched high and low and it seemed that everyone else that tried to reset their phone had this same issue.  Ugh.  Many people posted different key combinations, power cord plugged in / unplugged, shake it twice and do a break dancing spin on your head.  At some point one of the combinations worked and I was able to complete the factory reset.  So, to help out anyone else that is having this issue in the future, I figured I would approach this scientifically and provide the steps needed to successfully reset the 920 to factory settings.  So, I hope that this helps someone, and more importantly will help me again in the future when I want to reset another Lumia and need to remember the steps.  :)

Without further ado, here are the steps, please feel free to share with others:

1.  On your phone, go into Settings - About
2.  Select "reset your phone"
3.  Select "yes" on both Warning message.
4.  Your phone will restart and when it comes back on, the gears will be a spinning.
5.  Let your phone run until the battery completely drains.  This is the only way that I found to actually turn off the phone.
6.  Remove the SIM card.
7.  Plug the phone into the charger to power it back on, and also press and hold the Volume Down button immediately after plugging in the charger.
8. The phone will turn on and will go to the Nokia screen and then turn off.  All attempts to turn the phone on will result in the Nokia screen displayed, or the "charging" image, or the spinning gears. 
9.  Press and hold the Camera, Volume Down, and Power buttons until the phone vibrates.  When the phone vibrates, release the Power button only.  Keep pressing the Camera and Volume Down buttons for the entire reboot cycle until you see the spinning gears again.  This time, the spinning gears should only last a few minutes and then go into the normal reset, and you should have your phone working again.

I was able to factory reset two Lumia 920's with these steps.  A black 920 and a white 920.  It was not a very straight forward process, and took quite a while each time, but in the end, this is what worked.

I hope it helps.

Tough Mudder Philadelphia 2013

Although it's not technology related, it was a great team building time at Tough Mudder Philadelphia 2013.  Team Misery Loves Company - Part Deaux completed the course in less than record time, but we completed it.  :)

Sorting by date (not alphabetically by month name) in SSRS 2008 R2

We've all created reports in SSRS 2008 R2 that have date values in them.  And by default, the sorting is alphabetically by month name, like this:

This is obviously not what I wanted when I created my report to sort by date.  So, with a couple changes, and a new calculated field, we can fix this. 

Go into the Report Builder Design view.  Right click on your dataset name in the Report Data pane, and choose:  Add Calculated Field. 

In the Dataset Properties window, select the Fields section.  Then click the Add - Calculated Field button.  Type in a name for our date sort field.  I usually use:  MonthSort for the name.  If you are sorting on a different date part, then name the new field accordingly.

In the Expression field, type in the following:

This tells SSRS to format our Month field as:  yyyyMM.  So, April 15, 2012, would be formatted to:  201204.  So, now that we created the field, we need to have our report use it.  Click Ok to close the Expression window, and Dataset Properties window.

My particular date field happens to be a Row Group named:  Month.  So, I need to update the sort on this grouping to sort by date value, and not alphabetically on the month name.  So, I will right-click on the month grouping in the Row Groups:

Click on Group Properties.  Then click on the Sorting section, and change the Column to Sort by to our newly created MonthSort field.

Click Ok to close this window.  And run your report.  You will now see the month values sorted by month value, and not alphabetically.