Book: "Shell of an Idea," the Untold History of PowerShell

I’ve launched a new book project, which I’m hoping you’ll support: Shell of an Idea, the Untold History of PowerShell is now available for pre-purchase at a $10 discount on Leanpub. You’ll get the initial introductory chapters right now, and when I start pumping out the main manuscript in April-May 2020, you’ll get that too. The price will rise to the final $30 after the first 100 preorders, so don’t delay too much if you want in on the deal.
This is a big project, and it’s involving a few flights up to Redmond for sit-down interviews with key folks - hence the pre-order, to help fund those trips. I’m going all the way back in time to the earliest days of PowerShell Monad Babylon Kermit, yeah it went through a lot of names and concepts! I plan to fill this not only with interesting facts, but also personal anecdotes from the folks who were there, and some back-of-house stories about the inevitable politics and challenges the shell saw on its path to life.
I’m also collecting personal anecdotes from people who’ve been impacted by PowerShell. I’d love to hear about life before PowerShell (how easy was automation back then, and how important was it to you?), how PowerShell changed your job or career, or anything like that. I’ll weave all of that into the book too, because the story of PowerShell is mainly the story of the people who made it and the people who adopted it.
Thanks for your support, and tell a friend!

“The DSC Book” now Open Source!

“The DSC Book” is now open source! It remains available at Leanpub, but the source is now at https://github.com/dsccommunity/TheDSCBook. Everyone is invited to contribute corrections and expansions, and the results will publish roughly monthly on Leanpub. In addition, the book is now $0 on Leanpub, although you may choose to pay whatever you like, with all proceeds going to The DevOps Collective’s scholarship programs.

A Farewell, and a Bunch of Hellos

As many of you know, The DevOps Collective recently concluded its 7th US event, PowerShell + DevOps Global Summit 2019 in Bellevue, WA. Head to the organization’s YouTube page for the breakout session recordings, which are live.

I mentioned going into it that this Summit would be bittersweet for me, as it’s the last one I’ll be directly involved with. My career’s simply taking me in a new direction, and it’s much less connected to the day-to-day of technology and more connected with business leadership and strategy. I’ll also be stepping back from my involvement with PowerShell.org, and I will not receive a Microsoft MVP Award for this cycle (I’m proud to be one of the few who earned 15 consecutive awards, so I’ve zero complaints, and this is entirely in line with my expectations). I’m stepping back from the “Month of Lunches” and other technical books as well, although I’ve still got plenty of writing in me (many of my Leanpub books are “pay what you think they’re worth and remember I’ve got a mortgage”). I’m going to remain titular President for the DevOps Collective for a year or so while we get all the legal stuff lined up, but I won’t be involved in day-to-day activities. I’ll drop a note later this week on DonJones.com about what’s happening with all “my” stuff.

IRON SCRIPTER 2019 BEGINS!

Go to https://ironscripter.us/iron-scripter-2019-is-coming/ right away!

Even if you’re not attending Summit, these challenges are a great thing to jump into. They’re a fun chance to flex your PowerShell sk1llz, and the official Iron Scripter competition permits remote assistance to each of our three factions - so you can get in on the action from afar!

We suggest using tags #battlefaction, #daybreakfaction, and #flawlessfaction, and #ironscripter2019 to hook up with fellow coders on social media. Visit the main Iron Scripter website to learn more.

PowerShell + DevOps Global Summit Cancellation and Waitlist Procedure

As Summit nears a record sellout (there are 30 tickets remaining as I write this) I want to review our cancellation and waitlist policies and procedures.
After we formally sell out, Eventbrite will start accepting waitlist entries. Use a personal email address that you check regularly; corporate email systems tend to eat the waitlist notifications as spam. If we’re able to offer a spot to the waitlist, it’ll happen during the week, usually in the morning (US time), and you’ll have 24 hours to respond by purchasing a ticket.
Anyone with a ticket can transfer it to someone else. Whoever did the registration needs to simply return to Eventbrite and edit the attendee information. So if you can’t go, but someone else in your company can, that’s how you do that. You can also email summit@ for assistance. We let this happen until roughly mid-April, at which point we need to order name badges and we stop all transfers. We don’t do anything with hotel rooms; that’s all on you.
If you need to cancel, e-mail summit@ with your name, email address, and Eventbrite order number. We will release a ticket to the waitlist. They will have 24 hours to complete the purchase of their ticket. If they don’t, we’ll release the next waitlist entry, and so on. If someone eventually buys a ticket, we’ll refund yours. Again, we don’t do anything with hotel rooms.
Sometime in mid-April, all of this stops, as we have to start ordering stuff based on current registrations.

Welcome, New and Returning @PSHSummit Summiteers!

The following was recently posted in the Slack team for PowerShell + DevOps Global Summit 2018. Yesterday, we invited all current registered Summiteers into the Slack team; if you missed your invitation, please email summit@ (this website’s domain name) with your email address (ideally a personal one, not work) and your Eventbrite order number. We’ll be happy to re-send the invite.
Another reminder for all @here - please go to http://leanpub.com/summiteermanual/ and “buy” the book (for $0, of course), and enable the option to have Leanpub notify you via email of updates. That’s The Summiteer Manual, and it’s our best way to provide a consolidated view of everything that happens at Summit. From understanding how we handle special dietary requests, to understanding what “Iron Scripter” is all about, it’s the best way to take advantage of all that goes on. Summit is a **lot** more than just great breakout sessions, but it’s very easy to “miss out” on things if you don’t know they’re available. We update this a lot as we get closer, and will even be including information (and possible discounts) on stuff around the Puget Sound area for early/late arrivals who want to see some sights. A week or two out, it’s not even a bad idea to make sure your phone/tablet/laptop has a copy to refer to (Leanpub offers PDF/MOBI/EPUB formats), and some folks even print a copy to bring along.

Ticket Sales Update for PowerShell + DevOps Global Summit 2019

Wanted to offer a brief update on ticket sales for those who may not have purchased already - I know a lot of folks have to wait until 2019.

The New PowerShell.org Logo (and eBooks! and Swag!)

If you check out our free eBook, PowerShell.org: History of a Community, you’ll see both the original PowerShell.org logo and our second, “Metro-fied” take on it. The first one is probably easy to make sense of, with the PowerShell logo superimposed over the Earth, suggesting a global community. The “Metro” version go a bit abstract, since the Earth became just a simple round circle.
What both logos lacked was a clear commitment to a diverse community of _people. _Part of the recent re-launch of PowerShell.org included our Community Member Directory, with specific rules of inclusion that are designed to emphasize the people in our community, and to highlight their contributions and accomplishments.
With that in mind, today we’re launching a new logo for PowerShell.org. It’s designed to clearly communicate “people working together around PowerShell,” and it stands as a more unique identifier for this website and the community it supports. We’re also launching a page to help people understand how they can contribute to the broader community, using PowerShell.org as a platform for their efforts.
In celebration of our new logo, we’re offering an exclusive, limited-time selection of cool merchandise. All proceeds benefit our nonprofit programs, and be aware that these items will only be available for a few months. You can visit our Zazzle Store now to start selecting your items. Pay close attention, because many of them offer customization options for style, color, size, and so on. We’re aware that a few of the prices are a bit on the higher side, but that’s the nature of these one-of-a-kind, print-on-demand items, as we can’t financially or logistically bulk-order, warehouse, and fulfill items ourselves. Keep in mind that Zazzle routinely offers significant discount codes, too - watch their site for those. And yes, some of the items are a little silly, but we couldn’t resist putting the logo on stuff like Oreo cookies, cake pops, and wrapping paper.
We’re also re-branding our library of free eBooks with all-new covers featuring the new logo. If you’ve not checked them out, this is a great time to download the entire collection (any money you choose to pay supports our nonprofit programs, and you’re welcome to pay nothing). If you’ve already got them, go ahead and re-download these great new covers. Don’t forget to let Leanpub notify you via email of updates, as these are “living books,” open-source hosted in GitHub, and we do periodically make corrections and updates.
We hope you’ll join us in spreading the word, and welcome to the new PowerShell.org!

PowerShell.org Site Status Update

This post will be periodically updated as needed, so feel free to check back.
Our site upgrade and re-theme is going well, and I wanted to outline some of the major changes and current issues. If you’re encountering any lingering issues, please drop a comment; rather than replying, I’ll update the main article.

PowerShell.org Site Maintenance Today

PowerShell.org will be undergoing upgrading and maintenance on Friday and Saturday. We’ll leave the site open, as Articles and Forums should remain accessible, but the site may look a little rough around the edges at times.
The site does use some pretty aggressive caching, so if you’re visiting throughout the day, use a force-reload (Shift+Refresh or whatever in your browser) to pull a fresh set of pages as we work.
We hope to have everything done by Sunday morning.