This category contains posts pertaining to PowerShell. On this blog, this will be the vast majority of the posts.
I mentioned earlier that there is a PowerGUI contest going on this summer called the PowerPack Challenge. Well as of July 1st (Happy Canada Day everyone!), this contest is officially open and participants can start submitting their entries!
Interested in the details? Read all about it here!
I look forward to seeing your contest entries!
Kirk out.
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While attending the IT Pro week of 
TechEd 2008, I won my pick of a book from a table of 30 or so to choose from. I noticed a few copies of Lee Holmes‘ new PowerShell book called ‘Windows PowerShell Pocket Reference‘ tucked in the middle and decided to pick one up. Sure, it would only have cost me $12.99 Cdn to buy it and the other books I had to choose from were a $60 value or more, but I’m a Poshoholic, what else can I say?
To put it simply, I’m thrilled that I decided to pick up this book off the table. Good things come in small packages. I’ve only had Lee’s book for a little over a week and it has already provided me with enough value that I would even be satisfied if I had paid more than two times the list price. Here are a few key reasons why I just love this book:
I should note that you shouldn’t look to this book to give you all the help you need on every cmdlet. There’s no need for that because the PowerShell documentation already has lots of information on that front, and there are already a number of books that cover most cmdlets in detail. But if you’re like me you don’t want that information in a book like this anyway, because that would make it too heavy and reduce its usefulness as a quick reference. If you are looking for fast access to cool things like PowerShell regular expression syntax, statements, operators, .NET string formatting options, variables, and details on certain really useful cmdlets like Add-Member and the Format-* cmdlets and useful .NET and WMI classes, then this book is for you.
Right now this is absolutely my favorite book format. I don’t have time to do very much reading these days, and this book is great in that regard because it cuts right to the chase and gives me what I want in very little time, which fits my schedule quite nicely. I’d love to have a book in a similar format for using PowerShell to manage and automate Exchange 2007, System Center Operations Manager 2007, System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2007/8, SQL Server 2008, or any other platform that has PowerShell support. Skip the introductory portion (or minimize it), throw out all of the unnecessary details, and give me the meat in a small package that I can carry with me. Modularity in books like you can find in well written software. Sure, you won’t cover everything, but it should cover enough so that I’ll get valuable information that I can use in the little time that I have, and it should be portable. That’s what I’m after
Aside: Ever see Japanese technical books? They are much smaller than what we find here in North America. Everything is still made too big over here, books included.
If you’re in the market for a new PowerShell book and you already use PowerShell, I seriously recommend you take a look at this book. If you’re new to PowerShell and plan to use it a lot I think it’s worthwhile for you too, but if you like to learn directly from books with lots of details and descriptive examples you may want another book as well. Then you can keep this book with you and leave the heavier one in your office.
Kirk out.
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Andy Schneider called me out on the Scripting/Sysadmin meme that is circulating right now. The questions are interesting and worth sharing to readers who want to get to know me better, so count me in!
How old were you when you started using computers?
9
What was your first machine?
A TRS-80. Oh how I long for the days of fast-forwarding the tape drive until the analog counter reached the position of the program (game) I wanted to run. The only game that I still remember is Scarfman. After that it was an IBM PCjr, where I discovered King’s Quest (on a cartridge even, before it was labelled King’s Quest I).
What was the first real script you wrote?
I started learning Basic by writing one-liners that I would learn about in magazines like Compute! These weren’t quite the same as PowerShell one-liners you find today though. Then I would evolve those one-liners into more complex scripts as I expanded my knowledge of Basic. If I recall correctly I think my first real Basic script beyond the one-liner (or several-liner) was one that displayed a menu with a list of song titles and it would play the song you selected (that I had encoded into script by hand), while changing background colors as the song played.
What languages have you used?
Basic, C, Pascal, SmallTalk, Lisp, C++, Delphi, Fortran, Visual Basic, C#, java, VBScript and PowerShell.
What was your first professional Sysadmin gig?
Well, technically I’ve never been hired as a Sysadmin. My first related full-time job was while I finished University. I started working at FastLane Technologies Inc., where I worked on FINAL, a scripting language for Sysadmins. You can read more about that here.
If you knew then what you know now, would you have started in IT?
Honestly it’s hard to say. Over the past 10 years while working in IT I’ve developed a strong passion for the environment, so while I love PowerShell I’d definitely be investigating both IT and environmentally friendly career alternatives. Plus I love presenting, so maybe I’d be going after some combination of the three: presenting green IT solutions to sysadmins and showing them how to automate them using PowerShell. Actually, I did that a presentation about that last week as part of the Speaker Idol competition at the TechEd IT Pro week (minus the PowerShell part…it was a 5 minute presentation after all). I’ll blog more about that soon.
If there is one thing you learned along the way that you would tell new Sysadmins, what would it be?
Participate in the community! Kai Axford and I talked about this to attendees of the EnergizeIT Certification Bootcamp User Group Tour last month…if you’re not participating in the community online and offline, attending your local user group meetings, and meeting other like-minded individuals around you, then you’re missing out on a huge opportunity.
What’s the most fun you’ve ever had scripting?
I’d have to say teaching myself PowerShell was by far the most fun I’ve ever had scripting. There is just so much you can do with PowerShell, every day I was encountering multiple “Wow” moments as I grew my knowledge of PowerShell.
Who are you calling out?
Thanks Andy for calling me out on this. It was fun.
Kirk out.
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Well color me a happy camper! Windows IT Pro just announced that PowerGUI has won the Best of Tech Ed 2008 IT Professional Breakthrough Product award! Breakthrough Product is described by Windows IT Pro as the best single product of the Tech Ed 2008 IT Professionals conference, and could be from any IT Pro award sub-category. Do yourself a favor and download PowerGUI today! Even better, use PowerGUI to enter the PowerPack Challenge contest!
Kirk out.
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I’m absolutely thrilled at the presence that PowerShell has had at the IT Pro week of TechEd 2008. There have been a huge number of breakout sessions and interactive theatres talking about PowerShell and showing how to use it to manage your environment, many of which have been full or close too it (especially the interactive theatres — they were jam packed, standing room only in the back). There’s also a PowerShell demo pod in the Management (blue) area and many vendors who have products in the PowerShell space ready to answer questions, show off demos, and in some cases give away free products too! I’m sure Jeffrey Snover must be really happy (probably an understatement) with the well deserved interest and attention that PowerShell is getting. This is such a fun space to work in, and PowerShell is absolutely the best technology I have ever worked with!
Kirk out.
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Windows IT Pro magazine recently launched their new IT TV website, a community site that hosts videos relevant to today’s IT professional. One video that caught my interest today is an interview with Dmitry Sotnikov discussing PowerShell and PowerGUI. Curious about what PowerGUI is and how it might help you? Check out the interview to learn more about it!
Kirk out.
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Ok, I’m really excited about this one. Quest Software (my employer and sponsor of all PowerGUI development) has created a PowerGUI contest! Whether you are a newcomer to PowerShell, a seasoned PowerShell scripter or somewhere in between, why not experiment with all of the creative things you can do with PowerGUI and PowerShell and enter the PowerPack Challenge! All you need to do to enter is create and/or update one or more PowerPacks during the contest period (between July 1, 2008 and September 30, 2008). There are some great prizes to be won, as described on the PowerPack Challenge contest page!
So now that you know about the contest, what should you do next? Since the contest period doesn’t start until July 1, 2008, you have some time to prepare yourself for the contest. if you aren’t totally familiar with PowerPacks or how to create them, you can learn how to do that by watching the flash demo I created here. If you want to browse existing PowerPacks to get an idea what is already available, you can look in the PowerPack library here. Or if you are attending the IT Pro week of TechEd 2008, there are a lot of sessions, hands on labs, instructor led labs, and more with PowerShell content and you can learn more about PowerShell and PowerGUI by visiting the demo station in booth 1101.
And please, just like anything else I post on this blog, if you have questions don’t hesitate to ask.
Thanks and good luck with your contest entries!
Kirk out.
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Are you interested in PowerShell? Would you like to see a demo of some cool free tools that can help you use PowerShell more easily today? Visit the PowerShell demo station in booth 1101 at TechEd 2008 and learn how PowerShell and PowerGUI can help you manage your IT environment more easily!
Kirk out.
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Whether you attended the EnergizeIT Certification Bootcamp 2008 National User Group Tour or not, you might want to check out the slide decks that were presented. Kai Axford and I presented a ton of content over a 2½ to 3 hour period. There were three sessions presented, as follows:
Session 1: Security in a Virtual World
Session 2: Windows Server 2008 & Virtualization
Session 3: Making Security a Career
I should note that the session order changed slightly and the content was tweaked after the first few stops on the tour. Also as Kai and I mentioned during the tour there are additional slides included in these slide decks that were hidden during the tour, so now you can get access to those slides in addition to those we presented as well.
There is a lot of great material in these slide decks, so you should take a look. I’ve linked the session names to the slide decks, but you can also find them on the official bootcamp website in the sidebar on the right-hand side near the bottom.
Do you use virtualization in your environment? Are you sure you’re thinking about everything you need to with respect to virtualization security? Check out the slide deck for session 1. There may be some things you haven’t considered that you should definitely look at. Or maybe you just want to learn more about Hyper-V and System Center Virtual Machine Manager — that’s in there too.
Windows Server 2008 brings a lot of new features and usage scenarios to the table. Server Manager, Server Core and my personal favorite, PowerShell were demoed, and many other features were discussed. Check out the session 2 slide deck for more information (including the PowerShell resources I talked about during the demos).
Are you doing the job today that you want to be doing 10 years from now? Do you want to be telling your manager in 2018 that you just finished the automated rollout of Windows Server 2018 using PowerShell? That might sound pretty cool today (it sounds pretty cool to me today), but you might want to be the manager being told that the rollout is complete instead of the one doing the rollout by then, or maybe you have something completely different in mind for your future career. The session 3 slide deck has some great content about career management. The emphasis is on making a security career, but the content is very generic and can be applied to making many changes in your career. Personally, I love the slides that talk about the three rules for recession proofing and have been following those for a while now. I used these rules last year to redirected my career towards PowerShell and that lead to me joining the PowerGUI team where I continue to work happily today. The rules are great for recession proofing, general career management and redirection as well. If you are considering a career change in the future, internal to your current company or external, you should seriously check the session 3 slide deck out.
If you have problems accessing any of these slide decks, let me know and I’ll try to help work it out for you.
Kirk out.
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Poshoholic 