Jason Haley

Ramblings from an Independent Consultant

Boston Azure June 2024

Last night was the Season of AI presentation. We started with Bill Wilder presenting the fundamentals of Generative AI and quick introduction to Azure AI Studio, then I finished up with a .NET code walkthrough implement Retrieval Augmented Generation (RAG) using Semantic Kernel. It was nice to see a lot of regular faces and meet several new people. Demo Code The demo code is on my GitHub repo BostonAzure-June2024 under a subdirectory.

Demo Review: Chat Copilot

Demo Review: Chat Copilot This is the fifth C# demo in The RAG Demo Chronicles (Blog Series) and has the most extensive use of Semantic Kernel out of all the demos I’ve reviewed. The use of Retrieval Augmented Generation (RAG) is different with this project than the other demos I’ve reviewed - mainly because RAG is just one of its features. With this demo, I also took the time to configure the optional authentication so I could play with the MS Graph plugin … and WOW!

Memphis Azure User Group

Last Thursday night I spoke at the Memphis Azure User Group, it was nice to meet some people in person and see how excited others are about finding valuable ways to work GenAI into their applications. I also gave my slide deck a completely new look (Memphis themed via Bing/create): Talk: Getting Started with Retrieval Augmented Generation (RAG) The presentation pdf can be downloaded here. Since the presentation was hybrid, there were not as many questions as the other two times I’ve given the talk … or that is my guess at the reason why it was so quiet.

My Session at Boston Global Azure Bootcamp

This past weekend was Boston Azure’s Edition of the annual Global Azure Bootcamp. This year we focused on AI and hands-on-labs. The odd thing about when we scheduled the meetup was we had a lot of people sign up for the group just to rsvp - before most of the existing members had gotten around to rsvp’ing. We did not expect that. It is a mystery as how they heard about the event so quick.

Boston Code Camp 36 Sessions

Yesterday was Boston Code Camp 36 hard to believe it has been going on for 20+ years now. For me it is one of those regular events for the Boston tech community that is well worth spending a Saturday attending. It was nice to see a lot of regular faces and meet some new people. Talk: Getting Started with Retrieval Augmented Generation (RAG) I was surprise the room was full, it was good to see so many developers, students and architects - mostly with .

Demo Review: Azure Vector Search AI Assistant

Demo Review: Azure Vector Search AI Assistant This is the fourth C# demo in The RAG Demo Chronicles (Blog Series) and is the first demo so far that saves its history to a database. This Retrieval Augmented Generation (RAG) demo is a little different than the last three because it primarily uses data from a database as the content to search instead of documents. It also uses Semantic Kernel more than other demos have, which is neat to see too.

Demo Review: Azure Search OpenAI Demo (Python)

Demo Review: Azure Search OpenAI Demo (Python) This is the last in the family of Azure Search OpenAI demos that I’m covering (I’m not looking at the Java version). I reviewed the C# version and the Javascript/Typescript version earlier this month. Of the three I’m covering, this one seems to be the most active, popular and have the most documentation. At the beginning of this month, the Hack Together: The AI Chat App Hack used this demo at the sample repository, marking it as a solid reference implementation for RAG.

Demo Review: Azure Search OpenAI Javascript/Typescript

Demo Review: Azure Search OpenAI Javascript/Typescript This is the second in the family of Azure Search OpenAI demos that I’m reviewing. Last week I reviewed the C# version. As you’ll see below, the Javascript version is a bit different. The user interface (UI) functionality is provided by a set of web components that you can add to about any web application (ie. React, Angular, Vue, etc.) - in fact the web application in the demo is written in React.

Demo Review: Azure Search OpenAI Demo C#

Demo Review: Azure Search OpenAI Demo C# If you are looking for Retrieval Augmented Generation (RAG) demos that utilize Azure Search and Azure OpenAI (along with several other supporting Azure services), then there is a set of related demos that do just that in GitHub. This family of RAG demos consists of: azure-search-openai-demo-csharp - written in C#. azure-search-openai-demo - written in python. azure-search-openai-javascript - written in javascript/typescript. azure-search-openai-demo-java - written in java.

Demo Review: Simple RAG using SQL Server, OpenAI and Function Calling

Demo Review: Simple RAG using Blazor, SQL Server, Azure OpenAI and Function Calling If you are like me, a full stack C# developer who is attempting to get up to speed on how GenAI technologies are going to show up in our business applictions - then after you get the first demo up and running, this demo (also by Michael Washington) is a great next step. RAG (Retrieval Augmented Generation) applications typically have the following steps: