Cloud Drops - Using Microsoft Learn to get started with Azure
Microsoft Learn at docs.microsoft.com is a free, gamified education hub covering Azure, GitHub, Microsoft 365, Dynamics 365, and more. Modules and learning paths award XP that accumulates across levels, letting you track progress toward specific roles and certifications. The platform also surfaces official certification exam pages alongside their mapped learning paths, and offers a renewal-assessment path so recertification no longer requires retaking the full exam. LearnTV rounds out the experience with a schedule-driven video broadcast channel for learners who prefer watching over reading.
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V008 - Weekly Technology Vlog #8 (Changing Role, Guest Appearances, LOTS of Azure News)
Chris marks two months of weekly vlogging with a big career update: leaving FastTrack for Azure to become a Cloud Solution Architect in Microsoft's UK Customer Success Unit, focusing on the Manufacturing & Resources industry. The cloudwithchris.com site is also refreshed with a PodScribe-powered interactive transcript player that highlights spoken words in real time and enables crowd-sourced corrections — a meaningful accessibility improvement. Azure news is substantial this week, headlined by Azure RBAC for Key Vault data plane reaching GA (enabling secret- and certificate-level access control) and Azure Front Door Standard & Premium entering preview with private origin support via Private Link.
V014 - Tech Roundup #14 Azure, DevOps & GitHub Blogs, Azure Updates & New CloudWithChris content
In this Easter Sunday livestream, Chris covers Microsoft's Forrester Wave leader recognition for Azure Functions (FaaS), a wave of AKS updates including the new run command feature and Open Service Mesh add-on, and the GitHub Advanced Security security overview beta plus GA of secret scanning for private repositories. Delivery Plans 2.0 in Azure DevOps approaches GA with card styling and dependency visualisation, while GitHub Desktop gains cherry-pick support and GitHub Mobile adds working-hours notification controls. Cloud with Chris highlights include a beginner Git 101 Cloud Drop, a community blogging panel, the External Configuration and Claim Check architecture pattern episode with Peter Piper, and a preview of the upcoming Northern Azure User Group talk alongside Scott Hanselman.
V011 - Weekly Technology Vlog #11
Vlog #11 debuts a refreshed brand and on-screen layout, then covers a busy week: the third instalment of Chris's GPG commit-signing series (linking keys to Git and GitHub), the Cache Aside cloud design pattern episode, and a preview of the upcoming YubiKey-focused Part 4. Azure news centres on the preview of Trusted Launch VMs (defending against bootkits and rootkits), Azure Defender for Storage's new malware-upload detection, and Naraya — the ML system Microsoft uses to predict and proactively mitigate infrastructure failures at scale. On the security operations side, GitHub and Azure DevOps announce automated token revocation for leaked PATs found on public GitHub repositories.