I have start guest blogging on PowerShell on the The Lazy Admin website. I introduce myself, talk about the top 5 questions asked at TechEd last June in Orlando, and talk about how great PowerShell is.
I'll be blogging more on that site, and starting a screencast series on PowerShell and related products.
I'm a bit late blogging on this (the product is now out!), but I wanted to make sure this was recorded online.
I was part of a restricted beta test of PrimalScript 2007 for Sapien Technologies. I specifically tested their product for PowerShell support, and had found a few things that I quickly reported, and were quickly addressed by Sapien.
If you're an IT student or teacher at Universite de Moncton, UNB Fredericton or Mount Allison, I have tried to contact your IT department with a free offer: To run a Windows PowerShell information/training session.
If you are from one of these institutions and are reading this blog, and think this is a good idea, leave me a comment with a contact (I won't post the comment, but will just get the contact info, then reject the comment).
[Edit: August 31st, 2007: I have been in brief contact with the IT department head at Universite de Moncton. Nothing to report yet.]
I'm planning a 60 minute virtual PowerShell user group meeting.
It would be possibly either Wednesday, October 10th or 17th at noon EST (New York time). Would you attend?
Near the top right of this blog, I have a poll setup. Please take the time to enter your vote!
Spread the word!
I blog this week on www.powergadgets.com about creating a flashing display with out-gauge.
I've started doing some guest blog entries on PowerGadgets. I talk about how to create a scrolling stock ticker with out-gauge.
I'll be blogging soon, about adding something like a flashing notification to out-gauge. I'll also tie the two together, and also talk about drilldown support.
I also created a traffic light gadget that I'll blog about soon also.
I have an article or "hack" that will appear O'Reilly's upcoming Big Book of Windows Hacks due October 2007.
My hack is tentatively named: “Create Custom RSS Feeds from Newsgroups and Online Forums”. I use PowerShell and RSSBus to create some customized RSS feeds to the official PowerShell newsgroup and also the PowerGadgets forums.
Along this previous blog entry, I've created 2 new googlegroups.com groups:
1. powershell-developers
Description:
This group is meant for individuals who do development with or for
PowerShell. It is intended to be a list for advanced PowerShell
users.
* Group name: powershell-developers
* Group home page: http://groups.google.com/group/powershell-developers?hl=en
* Group email address powershell-developers@googlegroups.com
2. powershell-announcements
Description: PowerShell related announcements go here: new books, new
forums/blogs, new user groups or an upcoming meeting, new products,
new/upcoming training. One time announcements go here.
* Group name: powershell-announcements
* Group home page: http://groups.google.com/group/powershell-announcements?hl=en
* Group email address powershell-announcements@googlegroups.com
CyberSocial.ca is a social gathering for IT professionals in the Moncton (New Brunswick, Canada) area.
I have been in touch with one of the organizers, and I would like to share more knowledge of Windows PowerShell with other local IT people.
At one of the next get-together's (possibly mid-September), I will try to get on the "soapbox" for 2 minutes where I can talk to all of the attendees.
During those 2 minutes, I plan to give a very general introduction to Windows PowerShell, and try to gather some feedback on whether the group would be interested in a 2 hour (possibly 2.5 or even 3 hours) workshop on Windows PowerShell.
If you've come here specifically to read this blog post, and have attended the previous cybersocials, please leave a comment here on my blog. Whatever you say won't be posted. I will just get an email with whatever comments you may have added, then I'll delete your comments once I read them.
Hopefully, PowerShell is something of interest to everyone that uses a Microsoft operating system, especially their server products.
I've just created a 'powershell-users' group within Googlegroups.
What this gives the PowerShell community is a general mailing list for everyone to join. Google account required, but hopefully that won't be much of an issue.
I've considered creating a 'powershell-nntp' or such group, but with RSS being what it is today, that is likely a much better solution (having an RSS reader to take care of such things).
I am hoping this mailing list will be useful to users in general.
Group name: powershell-users
Description: Windows PowerShell users. This is mainly a group for Windows PowerShell users such as system administrators, database administrators, and anyone else interested in PowerShell.
Group/web address:
http://groups.google.com/group/powershell-users
Current email address:
powershell-users@googlegroups.com
I noticed this blog entry providing an example of using LINQ to read an RSS feed. Having come across LINQ before, and being curious, I had to give it a try.
You need the .NET 3.5 framework, currently at beta 2, which installed nicely.
I don't foresee the latest framework causing any issues with PowerShell, as I believe 3.5 is similar to 3.0, and is only seen as extensions added to the 2.0 framework for the most part.
3.5 does seem to come with new C# and VB.NET compilers though.
Have you had the chance to try out PowerGadgets, which are cmdlets that can be used to create rich graphical representations of data? You can use it to create charts, gauges and even maps. They also provide some other useful cmdlets to send mail, connect to an SQL data source and connect to a web service.
Think about it... A simple gauge style gadget in your Vista sidebar that gives you utilization of a remote server and/or application. If you're wanting to watch something remotely, and now that you can get the information you want via WMI. To keep an eye on a WMI value, for example, you can pipe that to a PowerGadgets cmdlet and have that available in your sidebar with Vista.
Check out this cool example of using PowerGadgets and Operations Manager 2007 to create a sidebar showing the alerts within OpsMgr.
Check out their 60-day trial.
If there's anything you ever wanted to try with PowerGadgets, but either weren't sure if it was possible or how you would proceed, drop me a comment here, and I'll make sure to answer any questions or pass them along to PowerGadgets.
I've previously mentioned their PowerGadgets MVP program that people may qualify for.
/n software has released beta 2 of their PowerShell Remoting product. What this gives you is full access to remote PowerShell sessions. I'm not just talking about the remoting capabilities that using WMI via PowerShell can give you, but complete *objects* that are passed along remotely.