The other day I was watching a good intro video from Shane Young on getting started with PowerShell profiles. I use profile scripts extensively, and they can be extremely useful in configuring your PowerShell experience. One element you could add to your profile is a customized PowerShell prompt. Microsoft provides one by default. It creates…
Tag: PowerShell
Who’s Driving this Shell?
Microsoft has been busy with the next iteration of PowerShell. As you should already know, this version will run cross-platform. The executable, or engine, is naturally different than what you are used to with Windows PowerShell. As I was trying out the latest PowerShell beta, I needed to identify the path to the current PowerShell…
Friday Fun: PowerShell Anagrams
Maybe it’s my liberal arts background but I love words and word games. I have a constant pile of crosswords and enjoy tormenting my kids (and wife) with puns. I am also fascinated with word hacks like palindromes and anagrams. An anagram is where you take a word like ‘pot’ and rearrange the letters to…
Your First Day with PowerShell
I’m happy to let everyone know that my latest Pluralsight course is now available. “Your First Day with PowerShell” is a short course targeted at the absolute PowerShell beginner. I wanted to be there as it were as you started your very first day learning and using PowerShell. My goal was to be with you…
Friday Fun: Listing WMI Namespaces
Welcome once again to the end of the week. Hopefully you spent some time in PowerShell. If not, perhaps this tidbit will be intriguing enough to give it a try. I always try to put the “fun” in function and today I have one that will enumerate all the WMI namespaces, but using Get-CimInstance, or…
PowerShell+DevOps Summit Reflections
I’ve recently returned from Bellevue, WA and the 5th annual PowerShell+DevOps Summit. Each year our event has grown and this year I think we’ve crossed over into being the PowerShell-related event you should attend. I spoke with many attendees who couldn’t stress enough how much they were getting out of the conference. For some, the…
Friday Fun: Crossing the Border with PowerShell
Today’s Friday Fun post, as most of these are, is a little silly and a little educational. Because I obviously am avoiding getting any real work accomplished, I worked on a little project that would add a border around a string of text. I often write formatted text to the screen to display information and…
More Fun with VSCode Snippets
A few days ago I posted an entry that explained how to create and use snippets in Visual Studio Code. As mentioned in that article I’m attempting to make the transition to VSCode for all my PowerShell work. Being able to use snippets is just one feature that I rely on. And as a number…
Adding PowerShell Snippets to Visual Studio Code
So I’ve recently moved my daily work to a different laptop, a Yoga 900 with 16GB of RAM to be exact. I had been running Windows 8.1 but decided to jump in completely to a Windows 10 environment. As part of the process I’ve also made it a goal to begin using Visual Studio Code…
PowerShell Scripting and Toolmaking – The Last Book You Will Ever Need
At long last it is finished! Don Jones and I have recently published the first iteration of The PowerShell Scripting and Toolmaking Book. This project was first announced in January 2017 with an early release program. The first edition was finished and in reader’s hands by the end of February 2017. We appreciate all of…
Check for Module Updates
It seems to me that the topic of finding or detecting module updates on the PowerShell Gallery has gotten a lot of interest over the last few days. So I thought I’d contribute my bit of code to check currently installed modules against their online versions in the PowerShell Gallery.
NIC 2017 Slides and Demos
Earlier this month I had the pleasure of presenting at the Nordic Infrastructure Conference (NIC). This is still a relatively young conference as these things go, but you couldn’t tell based on my experiences. Given the demise of TechEd Europe, conferences like this are filling the void, and doing a fantastic job. The conference draws…
Creating a Github Gist with PowerShell
Recently I posted a PowerShell tool for creating a GitHub repository. In continuing my exploration of the GitHub API I wrote another PowerShell tool to create a GitHub gist. A gist is simple way to store and share snippets or code samples. I use them to share simple PowerShell scripts or other works that aren’t…
Storing PowerShell Credentials in JSON
Sometimes I do things in PowerShell just to see what happens. This is a great way to learn about new cmdlets and techniques. Sometimes these experiments lead to useful results. Other times they may end up as teaching devices. Of course the result could serve both purposes and you may have to decide that today…
Creating a GitHub Repository from PowerShell
I’ve been continuing to work with the GitHub API in PowerShell. Today I have a function you can use to create a new GitHub repository. Of course you will need to have a GitHub account and another piece of critical information, but after that it is quite easy to create new repositories. This makes it…