A new release is up for GreyBox. A pretty small release that has only one additional feature: Manual Refresh! Now you can auto request a refresh of the deployments and not wait for the internal timer. Please give it a try and let me know what you think. Note that you do NOT have to change your config file, so download, unzip and just use your original GreyBox.exe.config file if you are “upgrading”.

One of the many options you have when deploying to Azure is what Azure OS version your Azure Service should run on. In Azure you have a choice between the OS Family (which currently means Windows Server 2008 SP2 or Windows Server 2008 R2) and the OS Version. I feel that this is slightly confusing because I’d normally say that the 2008 R2 was the version of the OS as compared to say, Windows Server 2003.

The great material from the Windows Azure Boot Camps is being offered as webcasts over the next few months. You can tune into any of the sessions that catches your interest or hit them all! 12/06: MSDN Webcast: Azure Boot Camp: Windows Azure and Web Roles 12/13: MSDN Webcast: Azure Boot Camp: Worker Roles 01/03: MSDN Webcast: Azure Boot Camp: Working with Messaging and Queues 01/10: MSDN Webcast: Azure Boot Camp: Using Windows Azure Table