I'm slowly trying to revise my main web site. The original site had a script library page where all of my old Mr. Roboto scripts resided for download. Unfortunately, in many of the online Mr. Roboto articles the link they provided doesn't work now. So if you are looking for my old scripts, use this…
Tag: MrRoboto
Absolute Beginning PowerShell
I was looking at my current Mr. Roboto column “Polish Your Shell” on learning PowerShell by starting with 3 basic commands and noticed a lengthy and serious comment. I’ve always felt PowerShell is easy to use and learn, which was the point of my column. However, the comments paint a different story and one that I feel is more pervasive.
I’m afraid the comment is representative of how PowerShell is perceived by many IT admins. They don’t have time to learn anything new or their hair is constantly on fire (to borrow a favorite Jeffrey Snover phrase). Even though the concepts of cmdlets, parameters and a pipeline seem easy and practically self-apparent, they are not. Especially for an administrator who has never had to open a command window before. Granted GUI-based admin tools might have been cumbersome, but at least you could make some educated guesses about how to use it. A command line is very different.
New Blog in development
I know I haven’t posted much this month. I’m trying to get a new blog setup where I can offer more value and especially an easy way for you to download script and code samples. In the mean time you can find me on “InterTubes” at Mr. Roboto, Prof. PowerShell and The Lonely AD Administrator….
Updated Domain Password Script
This month’s Mr. Roboto column offers a script you can use with PowerShell to build a domain password report. There were few issues that came up which have since been resolved. You can download the latest version, currently 1.2 at www.jdhitsolutions.com/scripts in the Mr. Roboto section.
Updated Domain Password Report
My September Mr. Roboto column covers a PowerShell script you can use to create a domain password report. I also demo’d the script at the NYC Techmentor conference this past week. Since then I realized a mistake in the way that I laid out the script. I had nested a function within another function which…
Techmentor Just Around the Corner
The registration deadline for the first Techmentor conference of the year is almost upon us. I’ll be doing sessions on using Powershell to manage Active Directory, PowerShell and WMI, Logon Scripts and more. Plus, I’m always happy to hang out and chat. I always have a great time. Hope to see you there. If you…
Updated Group Reporter
A few of my recent Mr. Roboto columns have been about group auditing. I first published an HTA that would report on group membership last December. Astute reader Matt V. found a bug with the way nested group memberships were being reported. Or in this case, not being reported. It turns out that if a…
Techmentor San Francisco 2008
I finished up my slide decks last week for the first Techmentor conference of the year in San Francisco (March 30 -April 3). If you’ve never been to a Techmentor conference you’re missing a great opportunity to hear and see your favorite IT speakers. Plus it’s a lot of fun to meet your peers, swap…
Conference Samples Available
The demos, updated slide decks and other stuff for the Fall Techmentor conference, as well as the 2 day PowerShell pre-conference event before WinConnections last week, are now available for download at http://www.scriptinganswers.com/essentials.asp. I think I spent half of November in Las Vegas (not that its a bad thing). Thanks to all of you who…
PWDMan Update
I’ve updated my Password Manager utility. If you haven’t seen this, I wrote about it in my Mr. Roboto column. This tool will scan computers and report the age of the local administrator password. If you’ve renamed the account you can change the account name to check. When finished, you’ll have a nice report showing…
NT Servers and WMI
My Mr. Roboto tools and scripts often need WMI. If your servers and desktops are running Windows 2000 or later this is no big deal. However, if you are still running Windows NT4.0 servers, these scripts and tools will fail. However all is not lost. You can download and install the WMI core for NT4.0…
Updated Logon Script Generator
Last fall I demonstrated an HTA I had developed to rapidly develop a user logon script with practically no scripting. You could map drives and printers based on group membership simply be selecting a group from a pre-populated drop down list. You could display a message to the user with information just as a summary…
Password Reset Manager 1.3
My first Mr.Roboto column for Redmond Magazine is now online. In the article I talk about my free password reset tool, PWDMan. I demo’ed it at Techmentor last fall and it seemed pretty popular. I’ve made some improvements since then such as adding Printing and Exporting capabilities. I’ve also added a logging feature so you…
Mr. Roboto is coming
I will be taking over the Mr. Roboto column for REDMOND Magazine. If you’ve seen the column, I don’t know if I’ll be wearing the shiny Borg suit that Don Jones used to wear. It chafes a little but nothing that a little oil won’t cure. If you haven’t read the column, its goal is…