Brad Calder, from the Microsoft Azure Storage Team, posted a blog entry on the Azure Storage Team Blog describing the cost structure for the Azure Storage in great detail. This is a great reference that shows just how the storage space is calculated, explains what a transaction is and when you will and will not be charged for bandwidth. If you are looking to use Azure Storage you should definitely check this post out: “Understanding Windows Azure Storage Billing – Bandwidth, Transactions, and Capacity ”.

The Give Camp (which I blogged about previously) has now posted it’s volunteer form for anyone interested in helping out. Check out their web site for more details. If you have that weekend free and you want to help, get involved!

As most developers know, a context switch is when a processor changes out the thread it is working on for another. Usually this is in response to the fact that the thread they were working is waiting on something, so it can switch off to a thread that has some immediate work. By doing this we can greatly increase the throughput of a system. But what happens if we have tons of threads and constantly have to switch?