Dmitry Sotnikov’s view on PowerShell, PowerGUI and everything he sees around
If you are considering participating in the PowerPack Challenge contest (which you should 
) this quick video by Darin will help you get started:
Darin walks you through the process of customizing PowerGUI admin console, exporting the new functionality as a PowerPack, and sharing it on the web.
Call any user in Active Directory or Exchange right from your administrative console, with a single click dial into any conference call (with participant passcode dialed for you ) – all of that is possible with the latest extension for PowerGUI.
PowerGUI Skype PowerPack adds Call buttons for all user accounts and mailboxes, as well as people in your corporate organizational chart. In addition to this you can obviously call any of your Skype contacts or any conference call appointments listed in your Outlook.
Check out this 7-minute demo here (highly recommended to watch in HD and full screen):
As always, all the code behind any nodes and actions can be found in their properties, so you can learn how this actually works, modify the pack to suite your needs or extend it to add calling capabilities to whichever other systems you are managing!
This blog post by Shafqat Ahmed helped me a lot when I started working on the PowerPack. My scripts in the pack are basically enhancements built on top of his excellent post.
Download Skype PowerPack here and let us know what you think.
Tags: AD, Active Directory, Demo, Exchange, PowerGUI, PowerPack, PowerShell, Skype
Check out this video to learn how to start using the most important new features of PowerShell 2.0 including background jobs, modules, advanced functions, and function help (HQ and full screen recommended):
Great job by Kirk Munro! I know I will be now using these features a lot more.
Tags: Demo, PowerGUI, PowerShell, PowerShell v2, Tutorial, Webcast, video
Here’s a new quick tip from Darin on AD exports and imports from within PowerGUI:
As usual, short and to the point.
Using CSV and text files in PowerGUI when managing AD is quite common. For example, I have seen people adding script node like:
Get-Content '\\server\share\users.txt' | Get-QADUser
If users.txt has a bunch of usernames (one per line) this outputs actual user accounts to the PowerGUI grid, which you can then manage with all the actions (disable, reset passwords, and so on.)
Alternatively, some customers are just using
Import-Csv
in a node and then define some actions to perform various activities based on the fields in the grid.
Also, although Darin did not show that, you can create your own export to CSV and use something like
Select Name, samAccountName | Export-Csv
to pick specific columns to be exported.
And there’s whole update from CSV scenario… Man, I could go on and on with these!
Tags: AD, Active Directory, Demo, PowerGUI, PowerShell, Webcast, video
Kirk has recently published his Org Chart PowerPack which frankly I myself have been using a lot lately.
For anyone working in a medium to large size of company this is just a great tool to navigate your organization and even produce html and Visio reports about it:
Does your HR have anything like that? Send them the link to the demo and get them addicted to PowerShell!
Read more about the PowerPack in Kirk’s blog.
Tags: Active Directory, Demo, PowerGUI, PowerPack, PowerShell, Reporting, Visio, Webcast
Folks at PowerWF are building a design tool which lets you drag-and-drop PowerShell activities into a workflow. What makes their tool even more cool is the ability to run the workflows which you create right from the PowerGUI admin console specifically for the objects you select in the console grid.
Check out this demo:
And obviously visit the PowerWF site to download the beta and provide your feedback.
Tags: Demo, PowerGUI, PowerShell, PowerWF, Webcast, video, workflow
For PowerShell fans who could not make it to the TechEd this year TechEd Online lets you get some of the action from the comfort of you office (or home).
Hal and Kirk sat together and did an online demo of PowerGUI as well as had a general discussion of PowerGUI and PowerShell. Check it out here:
Creating the Customized Administrative Console Using PowerShell: A How-To Guide
(If the link does not work, log into TechEd Online and try the link again.)
Tags: Conferences, Demo, PowerGUI, PowerShell, TechEd, Webcast
Suppose you have already customized the PowerGUI admin console for specific delegated admin role in your organization (e.g. AD helpdesk), rebranded and locked-down the console, the final step you probably want to have is actually pushing this customized tool to all helpdesk people in your company.
Fear not, PowerGUI 1.7 makes this very easy. Here’s the wiki page explaining centralized PowerGUI console distribution, and below is a video quick tip which Darin shot on this exact topic:
Tags: Demo, PowerGUI, PowerShell, Tutorial
Just noticed another Darin’s “Quick Tip” – this time on changing PowerGUI console’s welcome page:
This functionality comes handy if are in artistic mood or creating a custom console for other administrators in your office.
See also my previous blog posts on changing the PowerGUI welcome screen to a custom page and on resetting it to default.
YouTube has a bunch of other PowerGUI quick tips by Darin as well.
Tags: Demo, PowerGUI, PowerShell, Tutorial
Darin has just posted another PowerGUI quick tip video – this time about locking down PowerGUI admin console to hide features from the console operator:
This lockdown functionality is key in delegated administration scenarios, when you want to create a customized administrative consoles for others (e.g. for your helpdesk) and then lock it down so delegated administrators cannot change the actual console (or even see the PowerShell code behind it). This way you significantly reduce your risks and make the systems easier to maintain.
To access all PowerGUI videos on YouTube simply go to this playlist.
Tags: Demo, PowerGUI, PowerShell
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