Precision Computing

There have been a handful of useful posts recently giving reviews across the spectrum of PowerShell books.

As I was going through some things, I realized that I have a handful of author copies of my PowerShell Cookbook remaining.

When we last left off, we discussed hash codes - a small unique identifier for an item based on its properties or features.

On Tuesday of last week, Ubisoft released Rocksmith: an XBOX / PS3 / PC guitar game with a twist.

Shay Levy, one of PowerShell’s great MVPs, has been crafting sweet PowerShell desktop backgrounds for years now.

One aspect of software development (scripting included) that burns every single developer is developing for an international audience.

I got a question today with an interesting request – “How do I ensure that only one user can access a machine via PowerShell Remoting at a time?”

One of the things that’s always unsettled me a bit in a big organization is keeping yourself informed about changes that you care about, even when those changes never end up making it through the grape vine.

Last week, a co-worker mentioned a event being offered again by WMRRA (Washington Motorcycle Road Racing Association) – the “Taste of Racing”.

If you’re interested in Morse Code as a hobby or just as a neat lo-fi communication mechanism, Morser will let you use your regular keyboard as a Morse keyer into any Windows application.

Every once in a while, we look to the PowerShell community for feedback on possible design directions on PowerShell.

For the next couple of posts, we’ll be talking about an important facet of computer security – hashing, hash codes, and especially what makes “cryptographically strong” hashes special.

The PowerShell community lost a great member last night.

I recently had a friend ask me how to set up a website.

When is the last time you gave the gift of appreciation?

When touch-typing, I just blasted this into my browser address bar: ysos,cin And then pressed enter before my brain could engage the brakes on my fingers.

If you’ve been looking for the sample scripts from the PowerShell Cookbook, you might have had trouble finding them on the book’s main landing page.

One thing you sometimes run into when it comes to some management tasks is the concept of ‘Token Privileges’.

Last week the fine PowerScripting Podcast had me on the show.

If you’ve been wondering why this blog has been flaky lately, perhaps this report explains a bit: DAILY UPTIME AND PERFORMANCE SUMMARY www.leeholmes.com ---------------------------------------------------------------------- date uptime dns connect reque…

I am a Partner Security Architect in Azure Security, an original developer on the PowerShell team, fanatical hobbyist, and author of the Windows PowerShell Cookbook.

For today only, O’Reilly is offering the electronic version of the Windows PowerShell Cookbook for only $9.99.

Update 1/22/2013: The much expanded third edition is now available.

Over the past few days, Astronomy resources have been making a big splash about a couple of coronal mass ejections (CME) primed to cause widespread visibility of the Aurora Borealis.

One instrument that’s got great allure is the PanArt Hang – a metallic drum-like form with great complexity and resonance: They are difficult to obtain, and expensive should you want to try.

An interesting question came up today about the Set-AuthenticodeSignature cmdlet.

With the first draft of the Windows PowerShell Cookbook complete, we’re running an open beta through a cutting-edge platform called the Open Feedback Publishing System: http://powershell.labs.oreilly.com.

I had to do some deep data extraction from a web page today, and naturally leaned on PowerShell for some assistance.

I recently got a cool USB MIDI keyboard (M-Audio Axiom 49) and software (Propellerhead Reason) combo that lets me play keyboard with all kinds of cool sounds effects and general fun.

I’ve got a neat application that I use to map keystrokes to background PowerShell functions / script blocks.

We’re getting close to “content complete” of the Windows PowerShell Cookbook, 2nd edition.

Here’s one that’s short and sweet.

In PowerShell V2, we added a bunch of computer management cmdlets: PS >Get-Command -Noun Computer | Format-Table -Auto CommandType Name Definition -———- —- ———- Cmdlet Add-Computer Add-Computer [-DomainName] <String> [-Credent Cmdlet Checkpoint-Computer C…

I don’t like to post line noise very often, but I did break that exception in the Holiday Wishes post a few weeks ago.

'(18029799997931744,139752119745773792|%{"{0,60}"-f [Convert]::ToString($_, 2).Replace("0"," ")})-split''(.{12}|Mh)''|?

Marcel has been posting some interesting articles on using PowerShell to generate the MD5 hashes of files.

When you’re writing a script that depends on PowerShell Remoting, it’s often helpful to know that the remoting channel is open and will support the activities of your script.

Over the past few years, Pumpkin carving in my family has somehow ended up focusing on two themes: Math, and Knitting.

One thing you might notice if you have an iPhone connecting to an Inbox via the IMAP protocol is that messages you delete tend to stick around when viewed from other devices (such as Outlook, Outlook Web Access, etc.)

[Edit: This function has been improved and added to the PowerShell Cookbook module.

When playing with cryptography challenges (don’t we all?

Adam Barr blogged bits and pieces of a PowerShell RPN calculator a few years ago: first the basics, and then some tweaks to clean it up.

Last week, I dropped by to be interviewed on the PowerScripting Podcast.

Call me as shocked as anybody, but the iPhone app store now has a new entry: Although I can’t find any official information about it on the rest of the internet, O’Reilly has teamed up with Lexcycle (authors of the Stanza iPhone book reading application)…

Sometimes, people ask, “What’s the equivalent of NET HELPMSG” in PowerShell?

I wanted to download a photo album from Facebook, but of course there’s no simple API or option to do that.

Despite being a fan of security, I’ve always run Windows Update in “Download and Notify” mode for all of my machines.

After working with PowerShell for awhile, then starting to write scripts, you quickly learn about PowerShell’s Execution Policy and other security features.

In CTP2 of PowerShell v2, we added a new parameter to Get-Help: Online.

There are a few.