Kalle Marjokorpi

Kalle Marjokorpi

MarkItDown utility and LLMs are great match

MarkItDown utility and LLMs are great match

Microsoft released in the mid of December 2024 an open-source utility called MarkItDown. This utility converts files like PDF, JPG, JSON, XML, HTML, ZIP, and Office documents (PowerPoint, Word, Excel) into Markdown format. You can find a full list of supported file formats from here. Markdown itself is a lightweight

2024: A year in review

2024: A year in review

It's time to reflect on and revisit some highlights and lessons learned from 2024. As always, tech, and especially Generative AI, evolved a lot during the year. I learned much about LLM (Large Language Models), OpenAI, Semantic Kernel, and locally running SLM (Small Language Models). It's

How has .NET Aspire influenced my preferred technology choices?

How has .NET Aspire influenced my preferred technology choices?

This is a story about how the .NET Aspire influenced to my preferred technology stack when building native cloud applications to Azure Cloud. I have been working with Azure Cloud for almost 10 years, focusing on PaaS services. This story focuses on developing distributed applications in the Azure PaaS platform.

Chat with your data - Semantic Kernel-powered RAG application

Chat with your data - Semantic Kernel-powered RAG application

My previous blog post showed how to create a RAG application using .NET Aspire, Ollama, and Semantic Kernel. If you're interested in local small language models and .NET Aspire setup in general I recommend you to check that post first. This blog post continues the development of the

How to create a RAG application using .NET Aspire, Ollama, and Semantic Kernel?

How to create a RAG application using .NET Aspire, Ollama, and Semantic Kernel?

I have been planning this now for a while and now I had time to investigate and explore this topic a bit more. In this blog post, I'll show how to create a .NET Aspire-powered RAG application that hosts a chat user interface, API, and Ollama container with

How to implement multi-tenant platform with .NET Aspire and Azure Container Apps?

How to implement multi-tenant platform with .NET Aspire and Azure Container Apps?

We started to build a service totality for a specific domain area with a small team a while ago. The foundation of the solution was .NET Aspire and Azure Container Apps Environment. We saw the potential of this technology combination already soon. This then raised questions about how to scale

How to issue JWT Web tokens locally using dotnet user-jwts?

How to issue JWT Web tokens locally using dotnet user-jwts?

I recently got a task to implement standard OpenIdConnect/OAuth authentication/authorization with JWT Web tokens to a .NET 8-based API. It's been a while since when I last configured this, so I needed to check a few things first. While searching I spotted an article about generating

2023: Personal Reflections

2023: Personal Reflections

The year 2023 is ending and it's time to shortly reflect a bit on what has happened during the year. Growing as a software architect My role changed in the middle of the year, and I started acting as a Tribe Lead Architect. The Tribe Lead Architect role

.NET Aspire lessons learned so far

.NET Aspire lessons learned so far

.NET Aspire was published a couple of weeks ago and we started to utilize it immediately in one new project. We knew that there would be some hiccups because .NET Aspire is still in preview. The official release is planned for the first half of 2024. This blog post shares

My favorite libraries for a new Greenfield .NET project

My favorite libraries for a new Greenfield .NET project

I gathered to this blog post a list of external libraries that I usually add to a greenfield .NET API project. Most of these libraries can be used also in other project types as well. These libraries streamline the developer's work and make code more maintainable and easier

How to visualize Home Assistant events data with Azure Data Explorer?

How to visualize Home Assistant events data with Azure Data Explorer?

This post is related to the first Home Assistant post published earlier. I recommend you start reading the first part before this. This blog post covers, how to use Azure Data Explorer to visualize the event data provided by the Home Assistant. Querying the Azure Data Explorer data A query

How to stream all Home Assistant events to Azure?

How to stream all Home Assistant events to Azure?

I have been using and testing Home Assistant as a center of home automation for a while now. Currently, I have integrated some motion sensors, temperature sensors, and lights into my home automation hub. I'm in the early phase now with Home Assistant and willing to learn and

How to run scheduled processes in Azure?

How to run scheduled processes in Azure?

I discussed with a colleague before the summer holiday about how to schedule background processes in Azure. There are a lot of options available for many use cases. This blog post introduces some Azure services that can be used to execute scheduled background processes. A scheduled background process refers to

Blazor Server App with Passwordless authentication

Blazor Server App with Passwordless authentication

I recently noticed that Bitwarden which is known for the Password Manager product has started to offer a passwordless authentication service called Bitwarden Passwordless.dev. Bitwarden Passwordless.dev provides the API framework that minimizes complexities associated with passkey development. Bitwarden says, that enabling FIDO2 WebAuthn passkey features to the application

Changed my blog commenting system

Changed my blog commenting system

Bye Bye Cusdis I have been using a commenting system called Cusdis in this blog for a year now. Cusdis is an open-source, lightweight, and created with a privacy focus. Now I started to consider other commenting systems because I have had random errors it and issues, especially with spamming.

Calculate your carbon emissions from Azure service usage

Calculate your carbon emissions from Azure service usage

I gathered this blog post information about Azure Cloud sustainability and how you can estimate the carbon emissions associated with your Azure services usage. About carbon dioxide CO2 emissions in general Carbon dioxide (CO2) is a greenhouse gas that heavily influences global warming and climate change. Burning fossil fuels and

How to create an Event Catalog?

How to create an Event Catalog?

I recently worked in a project where event-driven architecture was used to distribute different events to multiple consumers. During the project, we spend some time thinking about how to document events easily and how to create a centralized repository for event schemas. I share some thoughts about event catalog in

Deferring architecture decisions

Deferring architecture decisions

A couple of weeks ago I started to read a book called The Software Architect Elevator written by Gregor Hohpe. Gregor said in the book "The more uncertain about the future I am, the more value I derive from deferring a decision.". After reading that sentence I started

About software architecture and technical design tooling

About software architecture and technical design tooling

Typically when designing software you need a tool that can help you to create multiple types of diagrams for documenting purposes. As an architect or developer, you need to create typical diagrams for technical architecture, logical networks, database schema, sequence diagrams, etc. There are a lot of good diagramming and

How to create an infrastructure for EventGrid and Webhook event handler?

How to create an infrastructure for EventGrid and Webhook event handler?

I recently worked with an even-driven solution that used Azure Event Grid to route different events to the Webhook endpoint. This blog post shows how to configure and create Azure infrastructure for EventGrid and Webhook-based event handlers. Configuring a Webhook type of event handler (subscription) via Bicep is a pretty

A quick look at Azure Content Moderator and how it can be used to review blog comments

A quick look at Azure Content Moderator and how it can be used to review blog comments

This blog post introduces you to Azure Content Moderator and shows how to integrate it into the blog post commenting process as a text moderator. Azure Content Moderator gives recommendations during the process on whether comments should be reviewed or not. Review is recommended by Azure Content Moderator if the

How to model Azure infrastructure creation in a microservice environment with Bicep Modules?

How to model Azure infrastructure creation in a microservice environment with Bicep Modules?

Background Are you operating in a complex Azure environment that contains multiple independent microservices and you're wondering how to model the environment with infrastructure as a code? This blog post is for you. This blog post shows how to structure/model infrastructure creation effectively with Bicep Modules in

Importance of Azure Platform Governance

Importance of Azure Platform Governance

Azure Platform Governance is a strategic enabler that determines guidelines, processes, and technologies on how to build a secure Azure environment according to best practices and organization requirements. Azure Platform Governance document gathers all these requirements into a single document. Azure Platform Governance ensures that all services developed by multiple

How to model and organize Azure resource groups in a microservices environment?

How to model and organize Azure resource groups in a microservices environment?

This blog post introduces some principles to consider when modeling and organizing resource groups & resources in a microservices environment. Resource groups are one piece in the puzzle and you should also check Microsoft's great documentation (Cloud Adoption Framework) about how to model management groups and subscriptions. You

Privacy matters - Control your digital footprint

Privacy matters - Control your digital footprint

Data is the new oil. Like oil, data is valuable, but if unrefined it cannot really be used. It has to be changed into gas, plastic, chemicals, etc. to create a valuable entity that drives profitable activity. so, must data be broken down, analysed for it to have value. Mathematician