Time to get back to the to blog. I’ve been working through my backlog of projects. These are things that I started writing or updating but then got pushed to the back of the line. One of these projects is a PowerShell module I wrote as a teaching tool. The idea was to create short…
Category: Friday Fun
Fun ways to use PowerShell yet still learn a thing or two.
Friday Fun – Painting a Pretty Picture with PowerShell
A few months ago, I wrote about my PSClock module. This is a set of PowerShell commands for creating a digital clock using a transparent WPF form. You can install the module from the PowerShell Gallery. The repository can be found at https://github.com/jdhitsolutions/PSClock. Because my Windows wallpaper changes throughout the day, sometimes I need to…
Friday Fun: A PowerShell Welcome
I realized it had been a while since I wrote a Friday Fun post. These posts are intended to demonstrate PowerShell in a fun and often non-practical way. The end result is generally irrelevant. The PowerShell scripting techniques and concepts I use are the real takeaways. The task is nothing more than a means to…
Friday Fun – Custom Grouping with PowerShell
The other day I was answering a question in the PowerShell Facebook group. This person was getting data from Active Directory and trying to organize the results in a way that met his business requirements. My suggestion was to use Group-Object and a custom grouping property. I am assuming you are familiar with Group-Object. You…
Friday Fun: Counting Down Events with PowerShell
We just finished a very successful virtual edition of the PowerShell+DevOps Global Summit. We lost our 2020 event to the pandemic but fortunately, the people at The DevOps Collective were able to pull together a fantastic virtual event. There were as many virtual attendees as we normally have at the in person event. But of…
Friday Fun – A PowerShell Christmas Prompt
Time for a new Friday Fun article. These articles use “fun” ways to teach you how to use PowerShell. The end goal may be silly, but hopefully the techniques and concepts are useful. Today I have an updated prompt function. You can customize your PowerShell prompt by creating a function called prompt and loading it…
Friday Fun: Back to School with PowerShell
For today’s fun with PowerShell, I thought I’d share my solutions for a recent Iron Scripter challenge. If you aren’t familiar with these challenges, and you should be, they are designed to test your PowerShell skills and hopefully help you learn something new. There are challenges for all skill levels and you can tackle them…
Friday Fun PowerShell ASCII Art
Today’s post is definitely on the fun side. In fact, I apologize in advance for the afternoon you are about to blow playing with this code. Those of you of a certain age will recall dial up modems and bulletin boards. Part of the experience was visual. Board operators often displayed the name of their…
Friday Fun: Thank God It’s a PowerShell Friday
Well here we are at the last Friday of the year. In fact , the last Friday of the decade! On this auspicious occasion, let’s have some PowerShell fun and celebrate Friday. No matter what you call it, I’m assuming Friday is your last typical workday and something we look forward to. However, the name…
Friday Fun: Getting Ahead with Windows Terminal
I’ve been using the new Windows Terminal from Microsoft for quite while. In fact, it has become my standard command line interface for PowerShell and more. I’m not sure at what point some of these features were added, but I can now set a background image and specify where to display it in the terminal….
Revised Everything PowerShell Prompt
Since it is Friday and time for some more PowerShell fun, and I’ve been sharing some of my prompt functions, I thought I’d re-share my kitchen sink prompt. This PowerShell prompt function does *a lot* to things and gives you a snapshot view of your system everytime you press enter. It will work cross-platform, but…
Friday Fun with Timely PowerShell Prompts
If PowerShell is a part of your daily routine, you most likely have a console window open all day. In addition to using PowerShell to get stuff done, you can use PowerShell to keep you on track. I’ve written before and talked about how I use PowerShell to manage my day. You may not need…
More Fun with PowerShell Thrillers
Last week I posted a Friday Fun article about using PowerShell to create a synopsis for a hypothetical thriller novel. Naturally I wasn’t satisfied to leave it at that. Don’t get me wrong, it was a good start. But I needed to take the next logical step. I had a script, but that meant having…
Friday Fun: PowerShell Thriller Revisited
A number of years ago I shared a fun PowerShell script that generated a description of a new thriller you might find in the action thriller section of your local book store. I modeled it after the works of authors like Vince Flynn, Ben Coes and James Rollins. I’m a big fan and of these…
Friday Fun: Perk Up Your PowerShell Prompt
I haven’t written a Friday Fun post in quite a while. Often these posts don’t have much practical value but hopefully illustrate a concept or technique. Although what I have today is something you could use immediately. I have a version of a PowerShell prompt function that will color code your location based on the…