All the votes are in!
And below are the results for the TechNet Guru Awards, January 2015 !!!!
The TechNet Guru Awards celebrate the technical articles on TechNet, contributed from valued wiki authors like YOU!
Each month, the contributions are scored by a panel of judges (5 per category, 2-3 in each are MS experts), and the winners of each category are showered with love and attention from all corners of TechNet.
See the links at the bottom, to find out more about the competition and how to enter.
We have picked the top three highest scored contributions for each category to bestow our awards upon.
The awards are in gold, silver and bronze, the gold obviously being the top winner of the category.
The last column is just a few of the comments judges made during the judging process.
In some cases, we have not obtained permission to use the judges names, so they have been reduced to initials.
My fellow wiki ninjas will be digging deeper into some of these articles in this blog series, so watch out for those.
Starting this month you will notice some articles are marked as failing to meet our minimum bar for quality or content.
Any of our judges can exercise their right to veto an article, if they do not feel it meets minimum requirements for a medal.
When this is the case, we will at least give an indication of the reason, so you understand why.
A big thank you also to the other authors who did not make the top three of each category.
Some articles only just missed out, so we may be returning to discuss those too, in future blogs.
 | BizTalk Technical Guru - January 2015 |
| Steef-Jan Wiggers | BizTalk Server 2013 R2 JSON support and integration with Cloud API's | Ed Price: "I love this walkthrough and this topic of JSON support! The images, descriptions, and code are great. The diagrams are amazing! Great job!" |
| Lex Hegt | BizTalk: How to (un)deploy T-SQL scripts with BTDF | Ed Price: "Fantastic How To! Great formatting on the code. Great topic. Very clear and easy to follow!" |
| Lex Hegt | BizTalk: How to (un)deploy Oracle PL/SQL scripts with BTDF | Ed Price: "Great job on the depth of this article and on the formatting! Ends well with the Summary and See Also." |
Also worth a mention were the other entries this month:
- BizTalk Server 2013 R2 Beginners Guide by Steef-Jan Wiggers
Ed Price: "I love beginner material! Technically, beginners are the largest audience, right? Fantastic job on this one!" - BizTalk Server 2013 - Perform a Function in Oracle 11g XE using the BizTalk Adapter Pack by Steef-Jan Wiggers
Ed Price: "The Introduction and Prerequisite sections are very detailed and helpful!"
| Forefront Identity Manager Technical Guru - January 2015 |
| Borys Majewski | How to keep previous attribute value(s) in Metaverse | Søren Granfeldt: "Very nice article: though very specific has very good instructions" Ed Price: "Simple but important topic with a thorough deep dive! Great job with the code, image, Reference and details. Could benefit from a TOC. Fantastic article!" |
| Wim Beck | FIM 2010: SSPR with one-way trust | Søren Granfeldt: "Maybe a little more deep but nice article" Ed Price: "Great topic. Good detail. Love the robust References section!" |
| Microsoft Azure Technical Guru - January 2015 |
| Alex Mang | Secure Your Network Connection By Using Your Own Private VPNs Hosted In Azure | Alan Carlos: "Great article! This issue is of much doubt the community." Peter Laker: "Very useful article! Thanks Alex!" JH: "A well-written article tackling a real problem. Will try this one the next time I'm on the road. Seems to be promising." |
| Chervine | Using Microsoft Azure DocumentDB in an ASP.NET MVC Application | JM: "End to end, well paced and educational" JH: "Love this article and especially the technologies used by it. Would be cool to see more articles realted to DocumentDB and perhaps a complete demo application." Peter Laker: "Great read. Lots to take from this, thanks Chervine!" |
| saramgsilva | Avoid nightmares updating Azure Mobile Services projects | JH: "Everybody, who has used NuGet for a while, knows that problem. Love it how this problem is tackled." Alan Carlos: "Great tip! " Peter Laker: "Just what I needed to read, thanks Sara!" |
Also worth a mention were the other entries this month:
- Migrate Microsoft Excel worksheets to Azure Table Storage by IshamMohamed
JM: "I like the use case, I just wished the GitHub repo had the code..."
Peter Laker: "Top tip from Isham! Keep 'em coming!"
JH: "Hope that this article will help some companies moving away from managing everything in Excel." - An-Azure Application-architecture-for-security-scalability-performance-redundancy-and-reliability by Frank Chiang
JM: "Enjoyed the discussion, I think it's worth emphasizing why cloud architecture is different and what are performance implications of selected architectures"
JH: "A good start. I'm curious how this article will evolve over time."
Peter Laker: "Thanks Frank! Well thought through article."
| Miscellaneous Technical Guru - January 2015 |
| Ed Price - MSFT | Skype: Messaging Features | Richard Mueller: "A great overview, with features I need to try myself." Durval Ramos: "Good article, interesting and useful content. I lack images or maybe a video demonstrating some actions" |
| Chervine | Visual Studio Tools for Bootstrap | Alan Carlos: "Great article!" Richard Mueller: "Great tutorial for a new tool. Good images and code examples." Durval Ramos: "Very interesting and detailed with pictures and codes, but I believe it would be better if "Bootstrap Snippet Pack" model was fully isolated from other models: "Bootstrap Bundle" and "SideWaffle Template Pack"" |
| Shanky | Ways of improving user experience with MSDN forums | Richard Mueller: "This article has great formatting (TOC, See Also, headings). I disagree with some of the points made." Durval Ramos: "I liked this article, it has important tips for those using the TechNet and MSDN forums, but part of the article opens up space for discussions that are more appropriate to be made on Forums" |
| SharePoint 2010 / 2013 Technical Guru - January 2015 |
| Geetanjali Arora | SharePoint 2013 : An Introduction to JSLink | TN: "Great article covering JSLink that really helps SharePoint developer" Benoît Jester: "Not just an introduction! A very good explanation of JSLink!" Ed Price: "Powerful content with deep explanations and valuable Conclusion and References sections! Fantastic article!" |
| Vivek Jagga | Understand _spPageContextInfo object in SharePoint | TN: "Great tip" Ed Price: "Short and sweet. This is a good resource to come back to! Could benefit from a See Also section. Great contribution!" Benoît Jester: "Good article!" |
| Kashif Pervaiz Butt | Working with version history of Multiple Lines of Text column in SharePoint Hosted Apps | Benoît Jester: "Thanks for highlighting SPServices, a very useful library!" Ed Price: "Great topic. It could benefit from more of a 3rd person "wiki like" voice than a 1st person "blog like" voice. Helpful solution with great Reference links and code formatting!" |
| Small Basic Technical Guru - January 2015 |
| Nonki Takahashi | Small Basic: Errors | Michiel Van Hoorn: "Great article when the Small Basic IDE throws you an error. Great explainaion on the type of errors" Ed Price: "This is incredibly helpful. I love the robust explanations and images for every error!" |
| Nonki Takahashi | Small Basic: Pixel | Michiel Van Hoorn: "Practical artical on the Pixel function. Also explains what to expect and when it does to work." Ed Price: "This is a great dive into pixels! Great job explaining the pixel operations!" |
| SQL BI and Power BI Technical Guru - January 2015 |
| Dan Christian | BI Step-by-step: Excel 2013, Azure SQL and O365 | PT: "Excellent expose of several BI features for Excel 2013 & Power BI. Nicely done." RB: "great walkthrough, very explicative !!" |
| Suhas Kudekar | SQL + MDX an Hybrid Query in one Apartment. | RB: "interesting tip. Linked server to the rescue !!" PT: "Thank you for sharing this interesting approach. This may be a valid approach in very rare cases but I think it's important to explain, especially to newer users, that using a linked server in this manner has severe performance implications and is not a recommended practice when there are other options; such as integrating additional data sources into the SSAS project or using a report to drill-through to details." |
| DIEGOCTN | Set SSIS alert if a group of database is getting over size | PT: "This is an interesting approach for managing administrative alerts. Thanks for sharing this technique." RB: "will never use SSIS to achieve that myself, but interesting walkthrough" |
| SQL Server General and Database Engine Technical Guru - January 2015 |
| Uwe Ricken | SQL Server: Internals of a change of the size of a fixed data type | AM: "Nice walk through the internals." Durval Ramos: "This is a detailed solution, that is easy to understand and execute all T-SQL scripts, highlighting the results with images. Great article!" |
| System Center Technical Guru - January 2015 |
| Mr X | How to create an SCCM Capture Media | Ed Price: "Fantastic use of images! This is a great scenario! Could be improved with a See Also section." Peter Laker: "Very interesting read! Thanks Mr X!" |
| Mike Marable | Using Collection Variables to Make System Account Management Simpler with OS Deployment in SCCM 2012 | Ed Price: "An important topic, but it could be improved with sections, some code formatting, and a See Also section to tie in to other Wiki articles. Still, it's very useful! Thanks!" Peter Laker: "Needs a little work, but thanks for the tip!" |
| Transact-SQL Technical Guru - January 2015 |
| Saeid Hasani | T-SQL: Delete All Rows From a Table Except Top(N) Rows | Durval Ramos: "Clean and easy to understand. A simple solution, but very useful!" Richard Mueller: "Good use of TOC, See Also, and links references." JS: "Good three samples, coming from easy one to new features. Through I am missing a conclusion at the end (maybe as summary in a table format with the time for 1000k rows of deleting compared in each of the ways and the adv / disadv briefly explained. WHat would you suggest in which situation Think about the situations people encounter deleting stuff, maybe a combination of all the solution is also helpful?" |
| Patrick Hurst | TSQL Calendar Functions and Tables | Durval Ramos: "Useful solution, but needs to more work to organize all content and better understanding to readers" Richard Mueller: "Useful functions/tables. We could use some links to references." JS: "I think in this international forum we should consier making it easier for people adapting this code to their needs. Having this implementing for Canada and USA is great but a good point would be to show people where to tweak the functions in order to make them work in other countries too (like DATEFIRST, WEEKDAY names, etc.) In addition it would be great to references the easter calculation and also maybe leverage this in your own function as Easter Monday is always +1 day of Sunday, makes the code much more readable." |
| Visual Basic Technical Guru - January 2015 |
| Emiliano Musso | Genetic algorithm for icon generation in Visual Basic | Richard Mueller: "I like the style of this article. Very creative, with a detailed explanation and references." MR: "Great buildup of the concept!" |
| Blackwood | Generating Combinations | MR: "Great article! Good introduction to iterators!" Richard Mueller: "Great explanation of the concept and instructive example." |
| .paul. | tictactoe | MR: "Always love me a game of tic tac toe!" Richard Mueller: "A fun exercise with good explanation." |
Also worth a mention were the other entries this month:
- Console BlackJack by .paul.
Richard Mueller: "A fun exercise with good explanation." - Using the BitArray to reduce the nesting of conditional branches by Paul Ishak
MR: "Thanks for the article! Using bitwise comparison instead of converting to an array would be better. Check that out!"
Richard Mueller: "Clever and interesting concept, with a great example."
| Visual C# Technical Guru - January 2015 |
| Jaliya Udagedara | Data Parallelism (Task Parallel Library) | Ed Price: "Amazing! This was very well written with deep explanations, links as you go, and great images and code blocks! It also has a download link to grab the code!" Peter Laker: "Excellent work here from Jaliya" |
| Joao Sousa | Contact List using MVC5, AngularJS and Redis - Part 1 - How to Setup MVC with WebApi | Ed Price: "Great start to the series with clear instructions!" Peter Laker: "The start of a fascinating series" |
| .paul. | Console BlackJack cs | Ed Price: "Fantastic sample! Great detail and the download link! " Peter Laker: "Loving this great way to get hooked on coding!" |
Also worth a mention were the other entries this month:
- Value type Broscience by Samir Hafez
Ed Price: "Good description on this topic. Could benefit from a See Also section."
Peter Laker: "Thank you Samir! Great little factoid" - [C#] Estructuras y Clases by Alexander Salazar
Peter Laker: "Buen trabajo! Good introduction."
Ed Price: "Great Spanish article! Could benefit from more detailed description and some code examples. But still this is important to have dev content like this for Spanish! Thanks for the contribution!" - tictactoe cs by .paul.
Ed Price: "Another good sample! Tic Tac Toe is a classic, and this one is well done! Love the download link and link to the VB version!"
Peter Laker: "Keep 'em coming .paul.! :D" - Contact List using MVC5, AngularJS and Redis - Part 2 - Install and Configure AutoFac by Joao Sousa
Ed Price: "The series continues! Great job!"
Peter Laker: "Great series continues!" - Contact List using MVC5, AngularJS and Redis - Part 3 - How to Setup AngularJS by Joao Sousa
Ed Price: "Great consistency and explanations!"
Peter Laker: "I'm hooked!" - Contact List using MVC5, AngularJS and Redis - Part 4 - How to Setup Redis by Joao Sousa
Ed Price: "Love the Resources sections on these articles! Great job!"
Peter Laker: "Another excellent drop Joao! Can't wait for the next! :D"
| Wiki and Portals Technical Guru - January 2015 |
We had one entry. It's good, but it needs to be completed:
- Command for Beginners - Serie by Mr X
Durval Ramos: "Certainly needs more work"
Richard Mueller: "Great idea, but we need more content."
| Windows Phone and Windows Store Apps Technical Guru - January 2015 |
| Carmelo La Monica | Part two: the Nokia Maps on Windows Phone 8. | JH: "Wow, a lot of code in this one. Just waiting for the third article in this series (hope there's one)." Nicolas Bonnet: "Great content" Ed Price: "Another one with fantastic depth! The details and explanations really help this article come alive!" |
| Chervine | Microsoft OCR Library for Windows Runtime | Ed Price: " Great job with the steps, images, code formatting, code sample download, and list of Reference links! The Example code could use more of a breakdown and explanation. Great article!" JH: "Nice one, but I'm missing a little bit of background information about OCR. Nevertheless, a good starting point." |
| saramgsilva | How To Merge Source Code Generated by AppStudio | Ed Price: "Great introduction and conclusion. Could benefit from a See Also section that links to other Wiki articles. The instructions and images are incredibly well done (the red arrows are helpful). Great clarity on this article!" JH: "Good article with a lot of pictures. Definitely worth a look if you're working with App Studio." |
Also worth a mention were the other entries this month:
- Windows Store Apps: Invoke ScriptNotify event when we click a button inside a WebView by saramgsilva
JH: "Don't know if I would use the mechanism explained in this article, but it is good to know that you can do it ... and Sara shows how."
Ed Price: "Great solution!"
| Windows PowerShell Technical Guru - January 2015 |
| Chen V | CSOM SharePoint PowerShell Reference and Example Codes | Richard Mueller: "I like the links at the end (they could be in a See Also). The headings could be larger (like Heading 1)." Alan Carlos: "Excellent!The Powershell is really powerful!" |
| DexterPOSH | PowerShell + ConfigMgr Trick : Remove WMI Instances | Richard Mueller: "Good to reference a forum thread. Useful information (now I know what a UDA is)." |
| DexterPOSH | PowerShell Trick : Use AD PSProvider to enable inheritance | Alan Carlos: "Great tip! " Richard Mueller: "Great explanation of the method to enable inheritance." |
Also worth a mention were the other entries this month:
- Time Stamp Conversion Using PowerShell by Chen V
Richard Mueller: "I never know SharePoint represented dates as milliseconds since Jan. 1, 1970. A TOC could be added to this article."
| Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF) Technical Guru - January 2015 |
| Andy ONeill | WPF: Property List Editing | Ed Price: "Wow! Love the download and the resources at the end!" Peter Laker: "Great work Andy, keep it coming!" |
| Magnus (MM8) | Customizing The Creation And Initialization Of Content In The Modern UI For WPF | Peter Laker: "Very useful article Magnus, thanks" Ed Price: "What an amazing article! Fantastic formatting and great topic!" |
| Windows Server Technical Guru - January 2015 |
| Richard Mueller | Active Directory: Fun with Maximum Password Age | Mark Parris: "Very interesting article." Ed Price: "Strong topic! The sections are well formatted and covered thoroughly. Love the Return to Top links and the robust link sections at the end!" |
| Kelly Bush | Controlling Object Visibility - List Object Mode in Active Directory | Ed Price: "Wow! This is amazing! The Introduction builds a strong case and explains the importance well. I love how each section is clear, divided, in depth, with images and instrucitons! The Return to Top links are a nice bonus." Mark Parris: "Very interesting article." |
| Mr X | How to identify Performance issues on your domain-joined Windows computers | Mark Parris: "Interesting Arcticle." Ed Price: "Great formatting, descriptions, and conclusion! Could benefit from a See Also section at the end and more of a breakdown of the code blocks (explaining what and why). Great instructions, and it does a perfect job of digging down to the right level! Great artcile!" |
Also worth a mention were the other entries this month:
- Active Directory: Get-ADOptionalFeature Default and Extended Properties by Richard Mueller
Mark Parris: "Interesting tidbit."
Ed Price: "This is a very useful resource that you'd want to bookmark and come back to. Great list of Other Resources and See Also Wiki articles!" - Publish RDS Remoteapp installed on a network share using PowerShell on Windows Server 2012 by Lars Jørgensen
Mark Parris: "Interesting tidbit."
Ed Price: "Short and sweet. Useful, but it could benefit with a lot more explanation and contextual information. Good topic." - Install Active Directory Using Powershell by Darshana Jayathilake
Ed Price: "A nice set of instructions for this. Could benefit from Headers and a See Also section of links. Great topic choice!"
Mark Parris: "An insight to the new DCPROMO." - Copy Active Directory User Attributes to new user by Darshana Jayathilake
Ed Price: "A good topic and good use of images, but it seems incomplete. It just gets started. =^)"
Mark Parris: "Incomplete solution." - Active Directory User Group Membership by Darshana Jayathilake
Mark Parris: "Needs amending."
Ed Price: "Interesting scenarios and good use of diagrams. Please see Mark's comments about needing more explanation and context. "--------------------------------------- 8< -------------------------------
A huge thank you to EVERYONE who contributed an article to January's competition.
Hopefully we will see you ALL again in February's listings?
If you haven't contributed an article for this month, and you think you can create a more useful, clever and better presented wiki article than the winners above, here's your chance! :D
Best regards,
Pete Laker![]()
More about the TechNet Guru Awards:
Forum posts:Coming soon!
