Tag Archives: Training

PowerShell Books Rule

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021913_2047_WordTest1.pngPowerShell related titles continue to rule the roost, at least for Manning. Based on recent sales PowerShell titles occupy 40% of the top 10 list! I’m hoping this trend will continue later this spring with publication of the PowerShell Deep Dives book which is currently available as part of Manning’s MEAP.

As of March 14th here’s how PowerShell is dominating book sales:

Of course this doesn’t happen without you so a very big and sincere thank you. And if you are one of those people who like signed books, I think I can safely speak for all of my co-authors, that we’re happy to sign any of our books should paths cross at a conference, training session or user group meeting. If you are lucky enough to be going to the PowerShell Summit, this may be the only time this year where Don, Richard and myself will be in the same place at the same time.

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PowerShell in the Big O

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omahaI am speaking at SQL Saturday #197 in Omaha, NE on Saturday, April 6th. But even better, I will be doing a full day pre-conference session on Friday. The title of my session is Prof. PowerShell: or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love PowerShell. For those of you who don’t know, Omaha (ok, technically Bellevue I believe) is the home to the Strategic Air Command which was such a big part of the Cold War.

Here’s the abstract:

Windows PowerShell has as a special talent for simultaneously exciting and terrifying IT Pros. Many see it as just another scripting language or passing fad. Other’s see it as an essential technology for managing today’s Windows-based environments. Some IT Pros feel overwhelmed and don’t know where to start and others dive right into the deep end, sometimes with mixed results. In this one day session, PowerShell MVP, author and Prof. PowerShell will dispel fears, myths and misconceptions surrounding this must-know management tool. If you’ve been dabbling in PowerShell, wondering what all the fuss is about, or simply want to get a jump start, this is the session for you. After this crash course on PowerShell 3.0 you’ll realize you had nothing to worry about begin to feel the PowerShell love.

This isn’t a formal training course, but bring your laptop with PowerShell 3.0 and feel free to follow along.

atomic powershell

This should be a lot of fun and I’m looking forward to it. Omaha is a pretty easy city to fly into and very affordable. It is also an easy drive from Des Moines, Kansas City, Sioux Falls, and even Minneapolis. Even though this is a paid event, it is a great way to get a jump start on PowerShell 3.0. I hope you’ll join me. You can register here. And don’t worry, you’re precious bodily fluids will be safe.

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On the Road

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map After a long winter I think is time for a road trip. I will out and about over the next few months, hopefully speaking at an event near you. Many of the events are free or charge a small fee, but all I hope will be worth your time. These are the events I can tell you about now. As more come up, I’ll post them. For now, here is where I’ll be, what I’ll be speaking about and a link to more information and/or registration. Seating may be limited for some of these events so don’t wait too long to make your plans.

March 22, 2013 New York City, NY
Techstravaganza
“Creating Reports Managers Will Love to Read”

April 5, 2013 Omaha, NE
SQL Saturday #197 Pre-Conference workshop
Prof. PowerShell Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love PowerShell

April 6, 2013 Omaha, NE
SQL Saturday #197
Getting Started with PowerShell’s Job Infrastructure
Getting Started with PowerShell Workflows

April 17, 2013 Syracuse, NY
CNY .NET Developers Group
Advanced PowerShell Scripting

April 22-24, 2013 Redmond, WA
PowerShell Summit
Adding a GUI to PowerShell without Winforms
Get-Data | Out-Style Creating HTML Reports with Flair

May 2-3, 2013 San Francisco, CA Just Announced!
Tech Days
10 PowerShell Mistakes, Trips and Traps and How to Avoid Them
File and Folder Provisioning with PowerShell and Windows Server 2012
Troubleshooting Active Directory with Windows PowerShell
Building a Windows 8 Hyper-V Lab

I’m looking forward to getting out there and talking about PowerShell. If you are interested in having me speak at your event, or run a pre-conference say at a SQL Saturday event please feel free to contact me.

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New PowerShell 3.0 Video Training Course

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I am very pleased to announce that my latest course from Trainsignal is now available. PowerShell v3 New Features is a course aimed at those of you who have experience with PowerShell v2. I wanted to create something that you could use as a jump-start into PowerShell v3 so the course focuses on what’s new, different and exciting.

As with my other PowerShell courses you can expect a lot of demos. Sure, I have slides because they make good references, but I think the best way to learn about these new features, such as scheduled jobs, is to see them in action. Here’s a short list of what I cover:

  • shell improvements
  • the new ISE
  • Scheduled jobs
  • web cmdlets
  • updateable help
  • PowerShell workflows
  • constrained endpoint configuration

While I developed this course with the assumption you have previous PowerShell experience, you could use it as a complete novice if you are willing to invest some time in reading help or have access to other reference material like PowerShell in Depth. But in any event, this course is not a complete language reference. I focused on the v3 elements I thought most IT Pros would want to take advantage of immediately.

I hope you find the course worth your investment of time and money.

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Introducing the ScriptingHelp PowerShell Module

Over the last few weeks I’ve posted articles on the different parameter validation options in Windows PowerShell. More than one person suggested consolidating the articles. That seemed like a good idea. There were a variety of ways to handle this but I wanted something more PowerShell-oriented. Then I realized, why not produce PowerShell About topics? I could create a module that primarily was a collection of about topics on scripting in PowerShell. Import the module and you get the documentation.

In fact, this is a slick idea you might want to take advantage of: create a PowerShell module with nothing but documentation delivered via About_* files. If you are spending a lot of time in the shell, stay there! But before I get sidetracked, let’s look at the module I’m calling ScriptingHelp.

As I said the module is mostly a collection of About_* topics based on some of my blog articles. Then I realized I wanted to make it easier to expose them so I threw together a brief function called Get-ScriptingHelp.

The About topics are edited and revised versions of material previously posted on my blog.

I plan on contributing additional content over time based on previous blog articles, suggestions or anything that comes to mind that I think can help you write more effective PowerShell scripts and functions.

To that end, I have also included a function to help you start scripting even faster. It is a new function wizard called Invoke-FunctionWizard. When you run the wizard, you will be prompted for information about your new function such as its name and parameter information. The wizard will then write a string object with the skeletal outline of your new function, complete with comment-based help. If you run the wizard in the ISE it will automatically insert the text into the currently open file.

But perhaps you’d like to see all of this in action.

I hope you’ll let me know what you think and if you find this useful or worthy of continued development. You can download a zip file of ScriptingHelp_0_9. Extract the folder as a subfolder under C:\Users\\Documents\WindowsPowerShell\Modules. Then import the ScriptingHelp module. This should work in both the console and the PowerShell ISE. Enjoy!

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Training Down Under

I will be doing a private #PowerShell training class in Canberra, Australia in March. Since it is a long trek I’d love to add a second week of work, either training or speaking. I had a second training gig lined up but it fell through. I realize it might be short notice but I’d love to find someone who would like 3-5 days of training the week of March 26, 2012. I’m also open to speaking engagements if I can at least get my expenses covered. I’m willing to travel anywhere in the region: Australia, New Zealand, Indonesia or even Singapore.

If you are interested contact me. I need to make final travel plans in the next few weeks so please don’t wait. This is more or less first come, first served, but I will try to accommodate people as much as I can.

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PowerShell in a Nutshell

This past weekend I did an online presentation for a friend of mine who teaches for ITT in Omaha, Nebraska. He wanted me to do a brief talk about what PowerShell is and show how to use it, especially for managing Active Directory. I probably went much longer than I needed but everyone seemed to get a lot out of it. The session was recorded via WebEx. I then transcoded the recording so I could get it up on YouTube. That’s why the screen layout is a little funky and the audio is far from perfect. Still, I hope you find it useful. The presentation has a some slides but is primarily demo, including using the Microsoft Active Directory cmdlets.

You can also download my presentation and a zip filewith my demo scripts.

If you are ready to learn more check out some of the books and training videos in the side bar. Or bring me in to run a private PowerShell class for your organization. Good Luck and Enjoy!

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