The PowerShell Podcast

PowerShell & Global DevOps Summit. The Bar Sessions.

This episode features several conversations we captured while at the Global Summit. Ryan Richter talked to us about his experiences attending the OnRamp. Steven Judd talked about helping to run the remote summit, dad jokes, and music. Lastly, we talk with Harjit and Mick from the PowerShell news podcast, where we talk about how our podcasts came about and things we have learned and improved on since we started.

 

Guest Bio and links:

Ryan Twitter - https://twitter.com/ryanrichter94

Ryan Git - https://github.com/ryanrichter94

Steven Twitter - https://twitter.com/stevenjudd

Steven Git - https://github.com/stevenjudd

PowerShell News Podcast - https://powershellnews.podbean.com/

Mick Twitter - https://twitter.com/mick_pletcher

Mick Blog - https://mickitblog.blogspot.com/

Harjit Twitter - https://twitter.com/Hoorge

Harjit Blog - http://harjit.us/

Drinking From The Firehose Of Knowledge With Justin Grote

Episode Summary:

In this episode, we got to become familiar with a couple of Justin's favorite things: deep dives into subjects and axioms. Justin has a lot of experience and insight into the "why" behind things, and he doesn't hold back from sharing his wisdom with others. We covered human topics, like how Justin has dealt with imposter syndrome and developed his social skills over the years. We also covered technical topics like VS Code, the latest PowerShell extension release, PowerShell's sacred promise, and more. For each subject, he has a surprising depth of knowledge. This is an episode worth taking notes on.

 

Guest Bio and links:

Justin Grote has a passion for PowerShell. More than that, he has a passion for making sure everyone gets the best experience possible with PowerShell. He is happy to share what he has learned and how he has improved his life with it. From speaking at Summits and User Groups to creating the PowerShell Extension Pack in VS Code. His fingerprints are all over PowerShell, and the community is better for it.

 

Blog - https://justingrote.github.io/posts/

Git - https://github.com/JustinGrote

Twitter - https://twitter.com/JustinWGrote

MVP Profile - https://mvp.microsoft.com/en-us/PublicProfile/5003933?fullName=Justin%20Grote

PowerShell Extension Pack - https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=justin-grote.powershell-extension-pack

Edit Excel in vscode - https://twitter.com/JustinWGrote/status/1502374413596909568

Patrick Meinecke twitter - https://twitter.com/SeeminglyScienc

Talking Crescendo and Documentation with Stevie Coaster

Episode Summary:

In this episode, we talk about Crescendo, a development accelerator that can help rapidly build PowerShell cmdlets around existing command-line tools. We also discuss coding on twitch, writing with the customer in mind, and proper documentation practices.

 

Guest Bio and links:

Steve Valdinger is a Support Manager at Chocolatey Software with a passion for PowerShell and automation. He has given several talks at User Groups and The PowerShell Summit that have helped people elevate their scripts. His talk about writing for user experience is a must-watch. You can also catch him coding live on twitch at https://www.twitch.tv/steviecoaster.

 

Steve Website: https://steviecoaster.dev/

Steve Twitter: https://twitter.com/steviecoaster

Steve Github: https://github.com/steviecoaster

Steve UX talk: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9XnBFpdYcX8

Stevie Twitch: https://www.twitch.tv/steviecoaster

Crescendo Github Repo: https://github.com/PowerShell/Crescendo

Community Blog: https://devblogs.microsoft.com/powershell-community/tag/crescendo/

Crescendo GA Release:https://devblogs.microsoft.com/powershell/announcing-powershell-crescendo-general-availability-ga/

Docs: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/powershell/utility-modules/crescendo/overview?view=ps-modules

 

The Value of Mentorship with Jeff Hicks

Episode Summary:

We caught up with Jeff Hicks at the PowerShell and Global DevOps summit. He talks about how he always wanted to be a teacher and how PowerShell has helped him achieve that. We also discuss the holy trinity of PowerShell Cmdlet: Get-Help, Get-Command, and Get-Member, which will help you find the command you need, learn how to use it, and give you everything you would want to know about the objects it returns. Those commands can help you move through almost any roadblock while learning PowerShell. We end with a general discussion about PowerShell, and what we love most about it.

 

Guest Bio and links:

Jeffery Hicks is an IT veteran with over 30 years of experience, much of it spent as an IT infrastructure consultant specializing in Microsoft server technologies with an emphasis on automation and efficiency. He is a multi-year recipient of the Microsoft MVP Award. He works today as an independent author, teacher, and consultant. Jeff has taught and presented on PowerShell and the benefits of automation to IT Pros worldwide. Jeff has authored and co-authored a number of books, writes for numerous online sites and print publications, a Pluralsight author, and a frequent speaker at technology conferences and user groups. You can keep up with Jeff on Twitter (https://twitter.com/JeffHicks) and on his blog (https://blog.jdhitsolutions.com).

 

Links to resources mentioned:

Twitter: @JeffHicks

Blog: https://jdhitsolutions.com/blog

GitHub: https://github.com/jdhitsolutions

Behind the PowerShell Pipeline: https://jeffhicks.substack.com

The PowerShell Practice Primer: https://leanpub.com/psprimer

The PowerShell Scripting and Toolmaking Book: https://leanpub.com/powershell-scripting-toolmaking

Contributing to PowerShell Made Easy with Sean Wheeler

We caught up with Sean Wheeler at the PowerShell + DevOps Global Summit to discuss all things documentation. We discuss why open source is an open discussion and how documentation moving to open source makes for a lot of opportunities to help contribute to the PowerShell community. We discuss the value of the PowerShell blog, and how contributing to the blog can help you practice and improve your writing skills, get your blogs published, and provides an opportunity to plug your own site at the same time.

Guest Bio and links:

Sean has spent over 22 years at Microsoft and is now the Lead technical writer for PowerShell. He is extremely active in the PowerShell community, helping those looking to contribute with their writing. He also created the Microsoft Product Support Reporting, which collects valuable data to help troubleshoot issues in complex systems.

Resource links:

https://docs.microsoft.com/powershell/scripting/community/contributing/overview

Blog https://devblogs.microsoft.com/powershell-community/

Blog repo https://github.com/PowerShell/Community-Blog

How to contribute https://github.com/PowerShell/Community-Blog/wiki

PowerShell & DevOps Global Summit (PowerShell After Dark)

Jordan and Andrew are attending the PowerShell & Global DevOps Summit in Bellevue, Washington. This summit brings together some of the most influential names in PowerShell and is a gathering place for the PowerShell community. In this episode, Jordan and Andrew give a behind-the-scenes look at the summit after hours. They chat with summit attendees Nick and Chris, who share their insights and experiences with the summit, PowerShell, and the PowerShell community. It's PowerShell after dark.

Securing PowerShell with Fred Weinmann

I hope you are ready to learn because Fred hits the ground running with information and never lets up. We cover a lot of ground on security and PowerShell, covering topics like: Constrained Language Mode (CLM), script block logging, Anti-Malware Scan Interface (AMSI) and why you should be using it, and more. We finish things up with one of Fred's favorite topics: his amazing PowerShell modules like PSFramework, PSUtil, and PSAzureMigrationAdvisor.

Friedrich Weinmann Bio:

Friedrich Weinmann might be the most enthusiastic advocate of PowerShell I have ever met, and coming from a community where enthusiasm is the norm, that is a bold claim. He is a fantastic teacher and has helped many PowerShellers get started, including Andrew Pla. He is a Premier Field Engineer at Microsoft. Most importantly to him, he creates modules to simplify daily PowerShell. From his Magnum Opus PSFramework to PSAzureModuleAdvisor, which will help you convert your scripts in Azure as AzureAD and MsOnline become unsupported at the end of 2022.

Quote from Fred:

"Execution policy has never prevented a single attacker from running PowerShell if they really wanted to. It’s like you’re trying to protect your home and prevent burglars from coming in by putting a stone on your lawn. That’s the effect of the execution policy. They might miss the stone, they might break a leg, that just might save your day."

Resource links:

Freidrich's GitHub - https://github.com/FriedrichWeinmann

Friedrich's Website - https://allthingspowershell.blogspot.com/

Twitter! - https://twitter.com/fredweinmann

CLM - https://devblogs.microsoft.com/powershell/powershell-constrained-language-mode/

Freidrich on the value of teaching - https://allthingspowershell.blogspot.com/2018/12/the-roi-of-teaching-others.html

Ashley Mcglone labs - https://github.com/GoateePFE/PowerShellSummit2019/tree/master

Why Execution Policy is not security - https://www.netspi.com/blog/technical/network-penetration-testing/15-ways-to-bypass-the-powershell-execution-policy/

AaronLocker - https://devblogs.microsoft.com/powershell/powershell-constrained-language-mode/

 

This title is not psremotely clever

This episode highlights Matthew Dowst and his excellent PowerShell Weekly blogs on Dowst.dev. Then we talk about running PowerShell on remote machines and using Invoke-Command vs. Enter-PsSession. We spend a small amount of time on Just Enough Administration, allowing you to move some of your tasks to be handled by others. I finally make an error so bad that when I say, "Kelly can Edit that out," he is not able to! Not seen in the podcast was Kelly yelling at me in my office.

Resource Links:

Matthew Dowst website - https://www.dowst.dev/

Matthew Dowst Twitter - https://twitter.com/MDowst

Practical Automation with PowerShell - https://www.manning.com/books/practical-automation-with-powershell

Secrets of PowerShell Remoting - https://leanpub.com/secretsofpowershellremoting

Microsoft Docs on PS remoting - https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/powershell/scripting/learn/ps101/08-powershell-remoting?view=powershell-7.2