I’m building a B2C website with Cosmos DB as the backend store. This site will have a number of different authentication mechanisms, but I’m newer to ASP.Net Core 2 and the authentication changes since the prior version so I’m going to start with a basic Cookie and Login authentication system.

This is the second post in a series documenting the creation of this project. If you haven’t worked with custom authentication in ASP.Net Core 2, are looking for more examples of interacting with Cosmos DB, or just trying to avoid the overkill of Identity and EntityFramework, I hope this is ...

I am building the basic foundation for a B2C web application, using ASP.Net Core 2 and Cosmos DB. Along the way I’m going to need authentication, source control, CI/CD, … but first I have to start learning what’s changed in ASP.Net Core 2 and how to use Cosmos DB beyond the 5-minute console application demo. There aren’t a lot of ASP.net Core 2 and Cosmos DB blog posts out there, so I thought we could do this together and hopefully my experiments and errors will help you get there faster.

I’m in the writers chair, though, so this will be ...

I built LaunchReady in my spare time, continuing to work fulltime during the day, spend time with the family in the evening, and jump online or hit the trails occasionally with friends. I also had a bunch of ideas, which served as interesting distractions from making it actually work. In this post I’ll share a few of the tactics I used to stay balanced, get past the distractions, and find motivation when things seemed impossible.

When I started LaunchReady, it didn’t even have a name. I had a general idea of what I wanted a system to do, but didn’t have a good handle on the target audience and what they would want. I had some general ideas on how to build the software affordably, but nothing with a total row at the bottom. I was excited to jump in and try to build some of the I personally wanted, but realized that led to a system that I could only describe to myself (and likely minus some very obvious features, as well).

Initially, I ...

Once upon a time, there was a growing organization that had the usual challenges as new folks came on board and started trying to learn a complex domain. At the time, I imagined a product that combined UI Automation and a focus on fast feedback to serve as a safety net for these folks, but couldn’t find what I was looking for in the market. Last summer I started to build it, but ultimately didn’t get it to market.

Before it gets lost in the mists of archive.org, I thought I would try to capture some of the ideas and ...