I have about a year and half experience in C# (win forms, XNA, WP7) and I want to take my education to the next level.
I have an idea I want to make for the WP7 that uses Azure but I have very little knowledge in web based programming.
My question is, what would be a good learning path so I can get up to learning Azure? I have tried jumping right into Windows Azure but had a very difficult time understanding most of it and was jumping around researching various aspects of what I was originally trying to learn.
EDIT:
Wasn’t satisfied with my old answer, so I’d just suggest downloading the Azure Training Kit and practicing because experience is the best teacher.
Get yourself a copy of Windows Azure Platform too, it will give you a good general understanding of how Azure works and expose all the gotchas and limitations.
If you want to test your code in a real environment (you should, because it works differently locally) then you should sign-up for the free 3 month Azure trial.