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Mike Evans-Larah - Software Engineer III

Mike Evans-Larah

Software Engineer III

Mike was the first graduate of endjin's apprenticeship scheme.

Meet Mike

Mike Evans-Larah

Mike is a Software Engineer at endjin with over a decade of experience in solving business problems with technology. He has worked on a wide range of projects for clients across industries such as financial services, recruitment, and retail, with a strong focus on Azure technologies.

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Mike’s blog

Power Query - Where can you use it? - Power BI

Power Query - Where can you use it? - Power BI

Mike Evans-Larah

In this series of posts, we look at all the places where you can integrate Power Query as part of your data solutions. Here we look at Power BI.
Power Query - Where can you use it? - Microsoft 365

Power Query - Where can you use it? - Microsoft 365

Mike Evans-Larah

In this series of posts, we look at all the places where you can integrate Power Query as part of your data solutions. Here we look at Microsoft 365.
5 lessons learnt from using Power Automate

5 lessons learnt from using Power Automate

Mike Evans-Larah

In this post, we look at 5 lessons that we learnt from a recently completed Power Automate project that helped us to get the best out of the platform.
Setting up multiple WSL distribution instances

Setting up multiple WSL distribution instances

Mike Evans-Larah

This blog post explains how to set up multiple instances of a Linux distribution in the Windows Subsystem for Linux.
Installing Mattermost using the Azure CNAB Quickstart Library

Installing Mattermost using the Azure CNAB Quickstart Library

Mike Evans-Larah

Get started with Mattermost on Azure using the Mattermost on AKS quickstart from the Azure CNAB Quickstart Library.
The importance of specific & immutable dependency versions

The importance of specific & immutable dependency versions

Mike Evans-Larah

This post describes the reasons for choosing specific & immutable dependency versions in your software.
Debugging web apps in Visual Studio with custom browser configurations

Debugging web apps in Visual Studio with custom browser configurations

Mike Evans-Larah

Discover how to auto-open browsers in private mode or with custom profiles for web app debugging in Visual Studio.
5 tips for an awesome Windows Terminal experience

5 tips for an awesome Windows Terminal experience

Mike Evans-Larah

Improve the already-great Windows Terminal experience by following these tips for customizing the application to work best for you.
Setting up Porter on Windows

Setting up Porter on Windows

Mike Evans-Larah

Porter: a CNAB-based tool for building, managing, and installing app bundles. Learn to set up Porter on Windows with this guide.
Setting up Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL) 2 for Windows 10 & Docker

Setting up Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL) 2 for Windows 10 & Docker

Mike Evans-Larah

Learn how to enable WSL 2 on Windows 10 and use its features with Docker for Windows.
Introducing the Azure CNAB Quickstarts Library

Introducing the Azure CNAB Quickstarts Library

Mike Evans-Larah

In partnership with Microsoft, we have released Azure CNAB Quickstarts Library on GitHub. CNAB (Cloud-Native Application Bundle) is a new specification designed for facilitating the packaging, installation, upgrading and uninstallation of cloud-native solutions in the cloud, on-premise or on the edge. We've created a number of quickstarts covering Apache Airflow, Azure Kubernetes Service, Ghost, Kubeflow, SQL Server Always On and Wordpress to help demonstrate the power of CNAB and Porter.
A brief introduction to GTD (Getting Things Done)

A brief introduction to GTD (Getting Things Done)

Mike Evans-Larah

Boost productivity & reduce stress with GTD workflow. Mike Larah shares insights from a recent course on this effective time management method.
Comparing GitHub Actions and Azure Pipelines: High-level concepts

Comparing GitHub Actions and Azure Pipelines: High-level concepts

Mike Evans-Larah

GitHub Actions is GitHub's new CI/CD platform. It is comparable with Azure Pipelines, which forms part of the Azure DevOps suite. In this post, Mike Larah looks at the similarities and differences in the high-level concepts and terminology between the two platforms.
Passwordless SSH from Windows 10 to Raspberry Pi

Passwordless SSH from Windows 10 to Raspberry Pi

Mike Evans-Larah

A guide to enabling SSH on Raspberry Pi, accessing it via Windows 10, and setting up passwordless SSH access.
Enforce resource tagging with Azure Policy

Enforce resource tagging with Azure Policy

Mike Evans-Larah

Explore Azure Policy for proper tagging on resources and enabling tag inheritance from parent resource groups.
How to run a script on an existing Azure Virtual Machine

How to run a script on an existing Azure Virtual Machine

Mike Evans-Larah

Using PowerShell and the VM Custom Script Extension to download and execute scripts on existing Azure VMs
How we set up daily Azure spending alerts and saved $10k

How we set up daily Azure spending alerts and saved $10k

Mike Evans-Larah

Read how we set up Azure spending alerts and saved over $10k
Automating office security with Synology, Surveillance Station, OneDrive and Power Automate

Automating office security with Synology, Surveillance Station, OneDrive and Power Automate

Mike Evans-Larah

Read about how we set up automated backups of our office security camera footage and used Power Automate to alert us if anything went wrong
My Apprenticeship Retrospective

My Apprenticeship Retrospective

Mike Evans-Larah

In this post, Mike Larah reflects on his experiences going through the endjin three-year apprenticeship scheme

Improve your Windows Command Prompt and PowerShell experience with ConEmu

Mike Evans-Larah

Mike Larah shares his tips for how to best customize ConEmu to improve your terminal experience for Windows Command Prompy and PowerShell
Using Lazy and ConcurrentDictionary to ensure a thread-safe, run-once, lazy-loaded collection

Using Lazy and ConcurrentDictionary to ensure a thread-safe, run-once, lazy-loaded collection

Mike Evans-Larah

In this post, Mike Larah discusses how to ensure your C# collections are thread-safe, only run-once, and are lazy-loaded.
Improve your SpecFlow scenarios with custom step argument transformations

Improve your SpecFlow scenarios with custom step argument transformations

Mike Evans-Larah

Explore how to use SpecFlow for human-readable specs and create reusable step argument transformations for easy readability.
Unit testing AngularJS with Visual Studio, ReSharper and TeamCity

Unit testing AngularJS with Visual Studio, ReSharper and TeamCity

Mike Evans-Larah

In this post, Mike demonstrates how you can test AngularJS with Visual Studio, ReSharper and TeamCity for the full local and CI/CD DevOps experience.
Restrict access to Azure Websites by accept-listing

Restrict access to Azure Websites by accept-listing

Mike Evans-Larah

By utilising the IP and Domain Restrictions feature in IIS, it is possible to lock down your Azure Website to only allow access to IP addresses and domains that you have specified in a accept list. Learn how in this post.
Azure From The Trenches: Updating Service Configuration Whilst Running In The Emulator

Azure From The Trenches: Updating Service Configuration Whilst Running In The Emulator

Mike Evans-Larah

A quick tip for updating your Azure cloud service configuration while running in the emulator
Introducing endjin composition framework 2.0 : Part 5 - Debugging

Introducing endjin composition framework 2.0 : Part 5 - Debugging

Mike Evans-Larah

Learn how to debug the endjin composition framework.
Introducing endjin composition framework 2.0 : Part 4 - ASP.NET MVC/WebAPI

Introducing endjin composition framework 2.0 : Part 4 - ASP.NET MVC/WebAPI

Mike Evans-Larah

Learn how to use the endjin composition framework inside ASP.NET MVC or Web API
Introducing endjin composition framework 2.0 : Part 3 - Using the content factory

Introducing endjin composition framework 2.0 : Part 3 - Using the content factory

Mike Evans-Larah

Learn how to use the endjin composition framework content factory
Introducing endjin composition framework 2.0 : Part 2 - Getting Started

Introducing endjin composition framework 2.0 : Part 2 - Getting Started

Mike Evans-Larah

Learn how to use the endjin composition framework for dependency injection.
Introducing endjin composition framework 2.0 : Part 1

Introducing endjin composition framework 2.0 : Part 1

Mike Evans-Larah

Learn why we created the endjin composition framework for dependency injection.
A step by step guide to building a Twilio voice app with Web API

A step by step guide to building a Twilio voice app with Web API

Mike Evans-Larah

Discover how to build Twilio voice apps using asp.net MVC and debug it using port forwarding tools.
Integration testing with Web API

Integration testing with Web API

Mike Evans-Larah

A quick example of how to set up integration testing for HttpClient and HttpServer

DDD10 Conference

Mike Evans-Larah

Reviewing the Developer Developer Developer conference held at Microsoft HQ in Reading
Using the endjin composition framework in an MVC application

Using the endjin composition framework in an MVC application

Mike Evans-Larah

A quick guide to using the endjin composition framework with ASP.NET MVC Applications.

Windows 8 Development Camp

Mike Evans-Larah

A review of the Windows 8 App bootcamp help at Microsoft.
Apprenticeship Week 2

Apprenticeship Week 2

Mike Evans-Larah

In his second week as an Apprentice, Mike covers writing functional tests, automation scripts, working on a pet project, creating mindmaps and UX mockups and attending Microsoft TechDays.
End of the first week

End of the first week

Mike Evans-Larah

Mike reflects over his first week as and apprentice and gets to grip with using tools to diagnose problems with his code.
Day 3: Client meeting

Day 3: Client meeting

Mike Evans-Larah

On his third day Mike gets to meet a customer and understand more about the commerical nature of the company.
Day 2: Errors and Debugging

Day 2: Errors and Debugging

Mike Evans-Larah

On his second day, Mike gets introduced to debugging errors in the PowerShell scripts he wrote on day 1, and is introduced to Visual Studio and C#
Day 1: PowerShell, BDD and Git

Day 1: PowerShell, BDD and Git

Mike Evans-Larah

Mike starts his first day as an Apprentice with an introduction to PowerShell and being onboarded to endjin's various tools and platforms, while attempting to automate the entire process.
Mike Larah is an Apprentice Endjineer

Mike Larah is an Apprentice Endjineer

Mike Evans-Larah

Mike is a mechanical engineering graduate, who has become endjin's first apprentice.

Mike’s Talks

CNAB packages to deploy applications from Azure to anywhere at all

CNAB packages to deploy applications from Azure to anywhere at all

Mike Evans-Larah
Introduction to Azure CNAB Quickstarts

Introduction to Azure CNAB Quickstarts

Mike Evans-Larah