Verify Your PowerShell Skills

A long time ago… about a year, in fact… Jason Helmick and I started talking about a community-owned PowerShell “certification.” It went nowhere. Well, not very far.
Some background on exams: Microsoft, in my opinion, will never do a PowerShell cert. I say this having been part owner of a company that did outsourced exam development for the company. The deal is that Microsoft tries to certify _job tasks, _not _tools. _Nobody (well, maybe me) wakes up thinking, “gonna do me some PowerShell today.” No, PowerShell is the means to an end: “gonna automate me some user creation today” is more likely. And Microsoft tries to certify that end. PowerShell’s an important tool, and it already shows up on certification exams here and there.
For the most part, I agree with Microsoft’s reasoning, there. The argument can be summarized as saying “bosses don’t hire IT pros based on their ability to operate a low-level tool, they hire them to perform job tasks, which encompasses the tool.” Except that, in the case of PowerShell, I think it’d be tremendously useful for an employer to use PowerShell expertise as a discriminating factor in hiring. I mean, “someone who can automate stuff” is more valuable than “someone who can only do stuff manually,” in any situation.
So “PowerShell Verified” was intended to be a way for someone to prove - at least to themselves - that they’ve taken their PowerShell skills _to the minimum level necessary to be an effective automator. _Not a guru. Not an expert. Not Poshoholic. _Minimally effective, _who could then grow from there with experience.
So that’s what I’m going to put together.
I want to explain why I’m not using the word “Certification,” though. In my mind, certifications come from, mainly, first-parties like Microsoft. Microsoft has to jump through a lot of hoops to make sure their exam content is accurate, legally defensible, blah blah blah. They worry about security, brain dumps, and other stuff that diminishes the value of the certification. I don’t have that kind of bandwidth or their resources, so in many ways my little program will be less effective than a “real” certification. Plus, few bosses will give a rat’s patooty what that Don Jones guy said about your skillz (I can’t even convince bosses to buy you guys 12-core 64GB workstations for your desk). So my “Verified” program is going to be _low stakes, _meaning you take it to prove something to _ yourself _.
Here’s how this is going to go.

Special PowerShell Team Workshop to be Held at PowerShell Summit N.A. 2013

To cap off the 2013 PowerShell Summit the PowerShell Team is going to host a half day Windows PowerShell scenario walkthrough. This is designed to not only familiarize folks with specific PowerShell features, but also to help the team see how you interact with these features.

The event will take place on April 24 from 1pm - 5pm.  During this time we will collectively solve a problem from the ground up using many of the new features in Windows PowerShell 3.0 and Windows Server 2012. Starting from base Windows Server 2012 images, we will walk you through:

Final Ticket Inventory for PowerShell Summit NA 2013 Released!

As we’ve been finalizing our speaker and session collection, we’ve been able to release a small block of Summit tickets into the general admission pool. Also, the end of October saw the expiration of a set-aside block for PowerShell MVPs, releasing that block’s unsold tickets back into the general admission pool as well.
As it stands, the G.A. pool now has 57 tickets, of which we’ve sold 24. That leaves 33 tickets left for the April 22-24 event at Microsoft’s corporate headquarters in Redmond, WA.
We currently have a total of 57 attendees, including speakers. That doesn’t include Microsoft team members who will be delivering sessions, nor does it include a small batch of tickets reserved for Microsoft staff who will be participating in the sessions for all three days.
If you’re thinking of coming to the Summit, **now is the time to register. **We’ll be releasing our session and speaker lineup within the next few days, and that usually triggers a big rush in registration as people get even more exciting about the upcoming event. If you do happen to miss one of these final 33 tickets, you’ll have the opportunity to go on a waitlist, where you’ll be notified if anyone cancels.
Don’t miss your chance to be a part of this first-ever community-owned and -operated event!

Idera's PowerShell Plus Editor Now Free for All

Idera’s gone and made PowerShell Plus free. Given that it’s been updated to support PowerShell v3, this will probably become many folks’ go-to editor (PowerGUI, the former champ, is more or less out of development and hasn’t been updated for v3).
Idera says:

“Idera is dedicated to providing products that help our customers and community members be successful in their jobs,” said Rick Pleczko, CEO of Idera. “PowerShell Plus is a proven and essential productivity tool so we wanted to get it into the hands of IT professionals everywhere. It also complements our sponsorship of the PowerShell.com community, which features forums and resources for novice to advanced PowerShell users.”

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PowerShell for Admins

One of the ballyhooed new features in PowerShell v3 is the new “simplified” syntax for Where-Object and ForEach-Object. I’m going to focus on the former for this article. In essence, instead of doing this:

Get-Service | Where-Object { $_.Status -eq 'Running' } You can now do this also:

Get-Service | Where Status -eq Running Last week, I had the opportunity to include this new syntax in a class I was teaching - mainly to beginners - and I came away with mixed feelings. Whereas once I’d felt awesome about the new syntax… now I’m conflicted.

If you haven't *watched* the PowerScripting Podcast…

For more than 200 weeks now (there’s an episode a week), Jon Walz and Hal Rottenberg have been bringing us the PowerScripting Podcast. It’s become an almost official “voice” of and for the PowerShell community. In it, the two don’t focus much on technical tips or anything like that. Instead, the highlight is a weekly interview with a mover and shaker in the PowerShell community. For me, they put a face on the community. One week you’re talking to the inventor of PowerShell, the next to a local user group leader who’s helping educate folks in his area, and the next an ISV who’s building PowerShell into their products. It’s Larry King Does PowerShell.
If you’ve listened to the podcast, you know what I’m talking about here. But, if you’ve only listened to the podcast, you’re missing half the show. Maybe more. You see, on most Thursday nights at 9:30pm (US Eastern), Hal and Jon record the show live. With webcams. And a chat room.
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This is where the podcast goes from being a hobby and into being a truly vital piece of community connective tissue. Pop into the chatroom and regulars, like the Scripting Wife, offer a “hello!” It’s a weekly clubhouse of sorts, where the chatroom conversations parallel the webcast, but also diverge onto tangents. It’s where you can offer up questions for the current speaker. It’s where you play drinking games (anytime Snover says “ecosystem,” drink!). And, when I’m the featured speaker, as I’m privileged to be a couple of times a year, it’s where you egg me on in my rant-of-the-season.

I’m going to share a little secret that most software developers already know: _Community counts. _It isn’t just a word, or some marketing slogan. The ability to make connections with people in a similar boat - via Twitter, e-mail, forums, or a podcast recording - is important. For many IT pros, IT per se isn’t our personal passion. It’s a job. And so it’s easy, at the end of the workday, to go home and do our real passion - be with family, play Xbox, or whatever. So IT pro communities have traditionally never been as robust as developer communities. But _make the effort. _Community is how you’ll meet the guy (or gal) who has the solution to your next problem, and will share it free for the asking. Community is where your next job will probably come from. Community is, in fact, your _meta-career, _spanning employers and projects and giving you a foundation to really succeed in this business. The colleagues you meet through community will become, over time, more important to your personal success than your direct coworkers.
In fact, PowerShell.org itself wouldn’t exist without the strong community connections Kirk Munro and I have made over the years.
Giving up an evening with the family to go to a local user group meeting can be tough, if there’s even one in your area. You should do it anyway. But if you can’t, Hal and Jon have created a sort of virtual user group where you can connect with _people, _not just learn about technology. Trust me, the first time someone like Jeffrey Snover recognized me in-person and said “hi,” I got a little thrill - and it was because of opportunities like the PowerScripting Podcast that he got to know me. Much of my success in the IT field has some through community and connectedness, and I heartily recommend it to anyone.
Hope to see you in the chatroom!

Free eBook: Creating HTML Reports in PowerShell

I’ve written a new, short, totally free eBook that explains how to build multi-sectional HTML reports in Windows PowerShell. This is something I’ll be building on in the future, as I have time, to add additional formatting capabilities, and even interactivity. But what’s there now should be a great start! Check it out and let me know what you think.
It’s on the free ebook list at https://powershell.org/ebooks.

"Secrets of PowerShell Remoting" Updated – Help Check the Beta!

I’ve finished updating a new revision of _Secrets of PowerShell Remoting; _you’ll find PDF and EPUB versions attached to this post in a ZIP file. Note that these are “check builds,” meaning I’m putting these out there in the hopes folks can run through them on their computers and e-readers to let me know if anything looks weird. You can just drop a comment right here if you find anything.
[The book is now live on http://PowerShellBooks.com.]

Session Voting for the PowerShell Summit North America 2013

Voting is open!
As you know, the PowerShell Summit North America 2013 is coming in April 2013, and we’re relying on you to tell us what sessions you’d like to see there. We’ve already accepted dozens of proposed sessions, and we’re ready for you to vote.
Go ahead and take the survey now. (opens in a new window/tab)
While voting, you can technically choose as many sessions as you want - but remember that we can’t present them all, so try to pick no more than 20 sessions as your “favorites.” Also note that the Summit will include additional, to-be-announced sessions presented by Microsoft employees and PowerShell product team members.
You can read the session proposals’ descriptions in our forums; we suggest having that open in another window right next to the survey itself. That way, you can read through the abstracts, decide if you like a session, and vote on it in the survey. Sorry for having the information in two places - we’re gonna work on something cleaner for 2014 ;).
**You have until midnight October 28th, 2012, to vote. **And if you’re asking, “midnight in what time zone,” then we suggest you stop procrastinating and vote already!!!

PowerShell Summit: Best Conference Deal Ever!

What’s the average tech conference cost these days? $1500? $2000? And that’s just to get in, to say nothing of hotel, air, food, and whatnot.
The PowerShell Summit North America 2013 has an idea. Lets do a community-owned event, with a goal of breaking even and supporting an annual event, but not worry about a profit.
Lets say you live in the US. A ticket to Seattle in April will run you $500-700 after taxes. Maybe less if you can get on a discount carrier like Southwest - they fly to SEA. Hotel will run you under $450 for three nights. Say you decide to splurge on a car for four days, probably for under $200 (including all the ridiculous taxes on rental cars). Toss in another $250 for food? That takes you to under $1600. PowerShell Summit only costs $550 - less if you register during one of the Early Bird tiers; as low us $450, in fact. That’s $2100-2200 total, or just a bit over what some conferences charge for their registration fee alone!
What about quality? Well, you’ll get the same food Microsoft employees get. So that can’t be all bad. You’ll attend sessions delivered by Microsoft product team members, along with independent experts. You’ll interact directly with PowerShell team managers, too, in a small-event format that lets you provide product feedback directly to them. Heck, with under 100 fellow attendees, you’ll get plenty of face time with everyone.
It’s going to be a great event, and it will definitely be affordable. It’s being run by members of the community, not a conference company. This will hopefully become OUR event, an annual gathering of PowerShell enthusiasts, experts, and team members. A chance to network, to learn, to share, and to grow.
I hope you’ll be able to join us!