Articles from April 2014 on PowerShell.org - Welcome Automaters!

PowerShell Summit Europe 2014 – Call for Topics

Wed, 30 Apr 2014 18:31:01 +0000

The PowerShell Summit is the number one place where PowerShell enthusiasts gather and learn from each other in fast-paced, knowledge packed presentations. Experts from all over the world including MVP’s, Guru’s, and PowerShell team members, join together for a few days to discuss and learn how to maximize using PowerShell in the workplace.
And now the PowerShell Summit is coming to Europe. PowerShell Summit Europe 2014 will be held September 29, 30, and October 1 at the Hotel Park in Amsterdam, Holland. https://powershell.org/community-events/summit/powershell-summit-europe/
If you want to share your PowerShell expertise, then this is your official call to submit presentations for selection!
**Topic Areas – What we are looking for
** We are looking for 45-minute presentations covering a wide aspect of PowerShell expertise. We have three main topic areas that may assist you in building an abstract.
• PowerShell Internals – A deep look into the inside workings of PowerShell and practical solutions that are built from them. These presentations are more focused on the PowerShell development community that is building extensions and solutions relating to PowerShell.
• PowerShell in Production – These presentations are focused on domain specific PowerShell solutions for IT Pro’s such as managing Exchange, System Center, IIS, SharePoint, VMware and more.
• PowerShell Features Deep Dive – These presentations are a deep look into configuring and working with PowerShell features and capabilities such as PowerShell Remoting, PowerShell Web Access, Reporting and more.
We are open to presentations across the entire ecosystem that has been built around PowerShell; so don’t hesitate to send an abstract for your particular area of expertise. And don’t think, “oh, I can’t do a presentation!” We aren’t looking for Toastmasters winners – we’re looking for folks to be a part of the community! Take the leap and present! Each session is only 35 minutes, with 10 minutes for Q&A!
Presentation submissions – What you should send to us
Presentations will be 45-minutes in length (planning for 30-40 minutes of material and 5-15 minutes of Q&A) and the submission should include the following:
• Presentation Title
• Presentation abstract – a description of the presentation and the topics covered. 100 words or less and suitable for marketing.
• 50 word biography
You can submit multiple presentations in the same topic area or for different ones.
What you get if you present
The European Summit is working to a very tight budget as this is the first time we are running it. Compensation for speakers will be free admission (not free Association for Windows PowerShell Professionals membership, https://powershell.org/association-for-windows-powershell-professionals, just free admission, which includes food). We will not reimburse hotel, expenses, or travel. It’s important that speakers not register for the conference, because we will not be refunding you if you do that.
The financial situation may change to a certain degree if the event sells out but we can’t cover all of your expenses as a speaker and we can’t make any guarantees at this stage.
We also ask that you help publicize the event.
Presentation submission deadline – When you should send it by
Start sending your presentation submissions immediately! The selection committee will start selecting presentations as soon as they arrive so you don’t want to miss out. The last day we will accept presentation submissions will be May 23, 2014.
Send your proposals to cft2014eu@powershell.org. Please either put multiple proposals in a Word doc, or send just one proposal in the body of an email, so that we can track these more easily.
When you will know you’ve been selected
The selection committee will start reviewing submissions immediately and begin the selection process. You will be informed if one or more of your presentations have been selected and sent a contract on or before June 14, 2014. You will need to return the signed contract by June 21, 2014.
The final agenda will be announced early July and posted on PowerShell.Org.
We look forward to your submissions and your help in making PowerShell Summit Europe 2014 your most valuable IT/Dev conference of the year!

Fundraising: PowerShell People Kick Butt, Take Names

Tue, 29 Apr 2014 15:21:06 +0000

Our IndieGoGo Campaign is off to an amazing start, raising over $6,300 (including some offline donations) toward our ultimate $9,000 goal. So far, we’ve raised enough to ensure we can record two tracks of Summit content - enabling us to record speakers’ laptops and voice, and to post the videos on YouTube, for free. Meeting our full $9,000 goal will enable three tracks of recordings, which is what the North American show currently produces.
The equipment we’re investing in will also support, should we choose to add it, an analog camera input and automatic picture-in-picture, meaning we can later add-on to include video of the speaker(s) as well as what’s on their laptop.
This equipment also meets an important set of goals for us: It requires no software on speaker laptops (often problematic), and it’s operated - literally - by a single big, red, lighted button. Meaning, it’s easy to use and shouldn’t interfere with the live audience’s experience.
I’m personally humbled by the generosity of our community. While larger donations are being considered “share purchases” in PowerShell.org, Inc., these contributors are essentially getting nothing in return for their money - but they’re making something possible that will benefit _everyone. _Making this content permanently available, for free, will become a treasure trove of valuable information _forever. _I can’t express my gratitude enough.
Tell a colleague, tell a friend: Every donation helps, no matter how small. And thank you, thank you, thank you.

Help us Record the PowerShell Summit Sessions

Mon, 28 Apr 2014 17:27:23 +0000

We’re often asked if the PowerShell Summit sessions will be recorded or live-streamed. The answer, so far, has been “no,” because the equipment needed to do so gets expensive.
But we’re willing to give it a go - with crowd funding. Check out our IndieGoGo campaign, where you can contribute to making session recordings a reality - forever. We’ve got about 30 days to reach our goal. So if recorded sessions are important to you - now’s the time to put your money where you mouth is!!
Fingers crossed!

Charlotte 5/1/2014 Meeting update

Wed, 23 Apr 2014 15:59:00 +0000

The regularly scheduled meeting for the group will not be held due to overlap with the PowerShell Summit and travel related to it for some of our members. If there is interest in scheduling a side meeting, we can do that to accommodate those of us that are not attending the Summit.

If not, we will be back on track and ready for YASG! (Yet Another Scripting Game) on 6/5/2014. Looks like it is going to be a good one.

SAPIEN's new WMI Explorer Released

Mon, 21 Apr 2014 22:59:41 +0000

We all know that working with WMI/CIM can be frustrating. So little of it is documented, and it can be tough to find the class that has the exact info you need.
A long time ago, SAPIEN released a very nice WMI Explorer tool that, recently, was taken offline. The reason is that the company was producing an all-new, from-scratch replacement - and it’s now available.
Their new approach is pretty interesting. Rather than just live-browsing the local WMI repository or a remote computer’s repository, the tool can now go through the repo and actually create a local cache. That cache is optimized for searching, making it a ton easier to search not only for class names, but also for property names and more. Even property values! So if you know (for example) that “Windows 8.1” is part of some property of some class, this tool can help you find where it is. It also provides in-product links to what online WMI documentation exists, making it quicker to get to that stuff.
Although the old tool was a freebie, this new one will set you back $40, and I imagine it’s included with the $789 kitchen-sink bundle the company sells. While I miss the free tool, this new one is significant enough that I’d pay for it. After all, money is what keeps the programmers at SAPIEN employed, so we can’t expect great tools for zero money. Frankly, this new WMI Explorer is one of the very, very, very, very few tools that’s going to earn a place in my base VM images that I use in classes - simply because it’s so useful. The ability to search for property values gives me a whole new approach to finding the exact WMI class I need.
It’s a well thought-out tool. Now, it’s not “zero footprint” like the old one - but the old one didn’t do nearly as much, like creating a local, searchable cache of the repo. Also, this isn’t something I’d install on all my servers. There’s no need - you install it on your computer, and let it reach out to key servers to discover their repositories. So it’s “zero footprint” on the server, which is all I care about. That cache means I can even browse a remote machine’s repo when I’m completely offline, like on an airplane working on a book. That’s a huge deal for me.
SAPIEN’s blog article on the software release includes another interesting fact: They plan to release a new line of smaller tools like WMI Explorer, and either sell them separately or as a community package. Cool! But what’s even cooler is this: _“The proceeds from these tools will go towards supporting user groups and non-profit organizations.” _Well, damn. So that $40 isn’t even funding the development of the tool per se, it’s funding (in part) your local user group. That’s awesome, and makes it well worth the standalone purchase if you don’t own the whole Software Suite already.
As usual, SAPIEN offers a free trial. Give it a whirl.

[UPDATED] Review: SAPIEN VersionRecall

Tue, 15 Apr 2014 19:44:42 +0000

I recently played around withSAPIEN’s VersionRecall, and thought I’d share a bit about the experience. As a note, SAPIEN provided me with a license key to use. VersionRecall is advertised as a simple, single-user version control system “for the rest of us.” There are no servers, no databases, and nothing complex, according to the marketing copy.
Setup is quick - a 3-screen wizard and you’re done. Installation took under a minute. When you first launch the product, it attempts to find all the places on your computer where you might store scripts, so that it can connect those to a version-control repository. You can skip that bit, but it only took a few moments on my virtual machine. It found my DSC scripts, my PowerShell modules, and several other places I’d dropped scripts. You then indicate where you’d like your version-control repository - this is where old versions of files will be saved. You can also pick a certificate, to have the software automatically sign scripts each time you make a new version. That’s a subtle and very cool feature - and it’s a way to make AllSigned a more convenient execution policy.
I selected an option to have my version control repository updated every day at 4:30pm. That seems to let the software capture a snapshot of any changed files at that time every day; it was clear that you could also manually submit an update to the repository using VersionRecall or Windows’ own File Explorer.
From there, you’re in an Explorer-like view. It includes a tab for each folder where you store scripts. I find that I like that approach a lot - I tend to organize my scripts that way. I’ve got my modules in one spot, some sample scripts in another, stuff I’m playing with in a third, and so on - so the tabbed approach fits my organizational style. You can open files for editing right there. I don’t have PrimalScript installed on this test machine, but files opened in the ISE just fine. Ribbon buttons let you open the shell, the ISE, or SAPIEN’s PrimalScript or PowerShell Studio products.

Here’s how this works: You have to manually submit changed files to the version-control repository, or wait for the daily check-in (remember, I set mine to 4:30pm). This doesn’t magically capture changes throughout the day. But, you can always manually submit an update if you’ve been making significant edits. That’s how most “big boy” source control systems work - only they don’t usually have an automatic daily-check in as a backup plan. VersionRecall does.
You can always compare the current version against a repository version - and it’s a very slick comparison view.

Once you’ve checked in a few versions, you can easily see the complete list, quickly see what each file contains, and either restore a previous version or copy it to a different location. You can also compare two versions to see what’s different.

Notably, VersionRecall doesn’t stick your files into a database or some proprietary storage. Your check-in files stay files, in their original formats. That means, if you ever need to do so, you can simply go to the folder where VersionRecall’s repository is, and grab the files yourself. It should also allow files to be indexed by Windows (for filetypes where it does that), found by Windows search, and so on.
Unfortunately, PowerShell Studio doesn’t seem to recognize VersionRecall as a source control provider (at least, it didn’t show up when I tried to configure source control in PowerShell Studio). That means you can’t use the integrated check-in/out controls in PowerShell Studio. Instead, you almost want to open files by using VersionRecall’s Explorer, save them in PowerShell Studio, and then submit them to the repository back in VersionRecall. That’s a shame; the automatic check-in/out in PowerShell Studio would make it all a bit simpler.
VersionControl uses a “Modern” user interface scheme for the most part. Its ribbon is pretty clean and well-organized, and the icons were meaningful. As with most recent SAPIEN products, you can change the theme to one of almost a dozen different styles, so you should be able to find something you like. Icons remain the same either way; all you’re changing is the “chrome” of the UI.
Not much else to say. For a product that bills itself as simple and easy, VersionControl certainly delivers. It does one thing, and it does it pretty well. It’s definitely easy - and there’s less excuse than ever for not using some kind of version control for your scripts.A FAQ on SAPIEN’s blog answers questions like why VersionRecall doesn’t check-in files automagically each time they change, how it compares to something like Git, and more.
[Update: I’ve removed the section on the license key and activation; SAPIEN’s Alex Riedel pointed out that I had some factual errors, because my observations were based on my use of a “real” license key that was issued for my particular use, not a “trial” key. I admit that I find software licensing uninteresting, and none of it has any impact on the usefulness of the software, which is what the article was meant to cover.]
VersionRecall sells for $179 as a standalone product, which includes a year of updates. I think that price might be a bit high, given what the product does. I expect, however, that most people are getting VersionRecall as part of a SAPIEN software bundle. For $789, for example, you get everything they make. For me, the perfect combo is PowerShell Studio and VersionRecall, which retails for $568.

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PowerShell Summit N.A. 2014 – Budget

Tue, 15 Apr 2014 15:56:49 +0000

As part of our commitment to being a transparent, community-owned organization, I wanted to share the basic budget for the upcoming Summit. Now that registration is cut off, we have most of our final numbers. Keep in mind that, at live events, things “on the ground” can change quickly - so these are, at present, only our expectations “going in.”

$113,833.51 in net registration fees. This is after paying credit card transaction fees.
-$398.00 for event insurance (already paid)
-$76,466.04 for the venue, which includes A/V, F&B, room rental, etc. (already paid)
-$9,335.01 for speaker lodging (hotel)
-$3,000 for professional event management (including travel for the event manager)
-$1,490 for our registration web site (already paid)
-$1,710.51 for deposit on the European Summit
-$7,500 for speaker reimbursement

That last number is presently the big question; we have some speakers who paid for their registration, and we need to reimburse them. That’s probably about $4,000. We have another $2,500 in promised travel offset fees to speakers doing 3 sessions. We’re trying to reimburse additional travel expenses for other speakers so they’re not totally out of pocket; the final number may be more than $7,500.
Right now, that puts us at an event profit of roughly $13,933.95. Again, some of that may end up going to additional speaker reimbursement; the rest will help fund PowerShell.org ongoing activities (like Azure hosting and so forth; I’ll share a full annual operating budget in June, but it’s about $17,000 per year). We have about $20k in payments coming up for the European Summit.
We have approximately $92,000 on-hand; much of that will go to the expenses above that are still pending. We should end April with around $65,000 on-hand - a lot of that comes from earning back a $40,000 pre-payment for the N.A. Summit that we made in fiscal 2013-2014. We’ll use some of that $65k to cover the remaining $20k fees on the European Summit; the rest of our cash-on-hand will help provide deposits for the 2015 N.A. Summit, and to fund ongoing operations for 2014-2015. We’re in good financial shape - we’re making a bit more than we need, but not very much - which is right where we want to be.
The good news is that, between the Summits and our generous corporate sponsors, we’re on track to actually find the $17k wish-list budget we’ve put together (which we’re still researching and tweaking; as stated, I’ll share the full thing in June). That means we’ll be able to start spinning up services like the VERIFIED EFFECTIVE program, monthly TechSession webinars, and so on.

PowerShell Summit NA 2014 Shirts Available

Mon, 14 Apr 2014 16:50:18 +0000

If you’re attending PowerShell Summit NA 2014 (or wish you were), we have some new logo items for purchase! Buy ’em now and wear ’em to the Summit, including a baseball jersey and a polo shirt. Visit our Zazzle store to buy (or the Canadian store, to save a bit on shipping if you live up there).
Note that the items may take about 24 hours to become visible, so check on April 15th in the afternoon if you don’t see them immediately.
See you at the Summit!

Summit Session Change

Sun, 13 Apr 2014 23:21:08 +0000

Paul Higinbotham’s session on threading in PowerShell has been changed, because his content would have overlapped with other sessions. Instead, Paul will be presenting:
PowerShell Debugging Enhancements
A number of script debugging enhancements were added to PowerShell 4.0 and the WMF 5.0 preview release. In this talk I will discuss these new debugging features and demonstrate how they work. This will include the new support for remote debugging, debugging workflow scripts, debugging PowerShell jobs, ISE enhancements for remote debugging, and the new “Break All” command.
We’ll update the schedule grid and abstract document.

Massive Update to All Seven Free eBooks at PowerShell.org

Tue, 08 Apr 2014 00:13:10 +0000

We’ve just finished a massive re-do of all 7 PowerShell.org free ebooks.
First, they’re now hosted in a public OneDrive folder. This means you can quickly and easily view them online, download a DOCX, or download a PDF. Anytime, anywhere.
Second, we’ve had folks go through and make the formatting more consistent, using a more modern font and somewhat “airier” spacing. Hopefully that translates to “nicer to read.” All the original code is also accessible, and available for one-click downloading. Note that .PS1 files may open for viewing; you need to checkmark the file to download it.
Uploads are now proceeding, so depending on when you read this, some files might still be in progress. The GitHub versions (which were problematic for some folks to download) will be removed shortly. Please update your links; https://powershell.org/ebooks has already been updated.
Enjoy!

PhillyPoSH 04/04/2014 meeting summary and presentation materials

Mon, 07 Apr 2014 03:37:36 +0000

Ashley McGlone gave a presentation entitled “Demystifying The PowerShell Scripting Process”. During his talked Ashley broke down the script creation process by starting with a task and working through the cmdlet discovery process to build a repeatable task into a script. A copy of his presentation materials are available on his blog
- We then had a group discussion around:
  - DSC and how various group members are using/testing it
  - WMF 5.0’s OneGet
  - ConEmu a windows console emulator
- A recording of this meeting has been posted to our YouTube channel

Charlotte 4/3/2014 Meeting – Using PowerShell in Websites

Wed, 02 Apr 2014 18:32:43 +0000

The monthly Charlotte PowerShell Users Group meeting will be held tomorrow, April 3rd at 6PM EDT. The meeting is held at the Microsoft Charlotte Office (8055 Microsoft Way, Charlotte, NC).

This looks to be an awesome meeting with guest speaker Jason Walker. Jason will demonstrate running PowerShell scripts in a cool and novel way – from a website. If you would like to attend, please jump on over to the MeetUp page and let us know you are coming.