Upstate NY PowerShell Users Group

Communication Change

Jeffery Hicks — Thu, 21 Jan 2010 16:06:54 +0000

We’ve started using a new source for communicating with members of the Upstate NY PowerShell Users Group in Syracuse, Rochester and beyond. From now on we’ll be using http://PowerShellGroup.org as our online and virtual office. There are links for Rochester and Syracuse, but you are always welcome to go to any meeting. The site is also hosting other user groups from around the country.

We hope you take a moment to sign up on the site. It will make it easier for you to subscribe to announcements and RSVP for meetings. The site can even send out email reminders. This WordPress site will remain up and running for a while but all new content, news and announcements will be on the new site. Come join us.

January 20th in Rochester — Introductory PowerShell

jaykul — Thu, 07 Jan 2010 01:59:12 +0000

It’s a new year, and a new opportunity to get started with PowerShell. With the new year, we’re going to put a renewed focus on trying to make our meetings valuable to everyone. With that in mind, the first Rochester meeting of the upstate New York PowerShell users group in 2010 will feature two separate presentations:

Getting Started: The PowerShell Pipeline (100 Level)

Different types of commands in PowerShell
Variable assignment and Pipeline arguments
Understanding the Pipe
Why PowerShell’s pipeline is different
Exploiting pipelines for fun and profit

Creating PowerShell script Modules (300 Level)

Turning your script or function into a module
What makes a function an “advanced function”
Providing in-line help for functions
Controlling what functions and variables your module exports
Why you should use Module Metadata files

Everyone is welcome, from beginners to pros! Bring a friend and introduce them to PowerShell. As always, our meeting will be at New Horizons’ in Henrietta, 50 Methodist Hill Drive, Suite 50 (click here for directions).

In order to keep things on time, we’ll be starting our presentations at 6:30 exactly, after a short pizza, wings, and networking time starting at 6pm. We only ask that if you can come early for the food you let us know ahead of time, and come ready to pitch in a few dollars to help cover the cost.

Syracuse Meeting Jan. 13, 2010

Jeffery Hicks — Tue, 05 Jan 2010 18:30:46 +0000

We’ll be starting up meetings in Syracuse again beginning on Wed. January 13, 2010. We’ll be meeting at New Horizons in DeWitt (6711 Towpath Road, Suite 100, East Syracuse, NY 13057 (directions). We’ll start at 6:00PM sharp so please try to arrive a little early. The building locks at 6:00PM so try to arrive before then. If you come late and make enough noise, I think someone will let you in. I hope. I’ll figure out something PowerShell-y to talk about or we might simply have a Script Club if people are interested so bring your PowerShell projects and questions.

Please RSVP to upnypug@gmail.com if you will be attending and feel free to bring your boss or a friend.

December is Script Club month

jaykul — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 22:24:38 +0000

Our December meeting will be our first Script Club meeting, where instead of our usual illuminating presentations, we will be having pizza and script club!

What is Script Club?

Script clubs are like a hands on lab with no set topic or teacher.

You bring an idea for a script, and ask your fellow PowerShell users for help getting the script written. Pretty much anything goes — just bear in mind that it may be hard to test things like Exchange scripts or Active Directory management scripts unless you have a nice virtual lab on your laptop

Tell your friends! Script Club is a great way to learn PowerShell.

Please join our PowerShell Script Club. Beginners through advanced users are equally welcome, but please bring your laptop if you have one, because I’m not 100% sure we’ll have PowerShell available on the lab PCs yet.

What are the Rules of Script Club?

You always talk about script club
You always talk about script club
If someone asks for help, and you can help, you help
Two people help one person at one time
One module per person per night
All scripts, all PowerShell
Scripts will be as short as they can be
If this is your first time at Script Club, You have to script!

Please RSVP so we can get a head count (especially if you want Pizza)!

As usual, our meeting will be on the Third Wednesday of the month, with Pizza at 6pm, followed by Script Club at 6:30. And of course, we’ll be meeting at the New Horizon’s training center at 50 Methodist Hill Drive, Suite 50, Rochester, NY. Click here for directions and a map.

PowerShell and WMI will be on LiveMeeting tonight

jaykul — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 06:41:10 +0000

The upstate New York PowerShell user group will be meeting live at New Horizons tonight (the program starts at 6:30pm EST).

However, our speaker, Thomas Lee (a longtime Microsoft MVP who’s most recent award is for PowerShell) will be giving his presentation via LiveMeeting, so we’re opening up attendance to anyone who wishes to join us.

This talk will look at the basics of using WMI with PowerShell. We’ll cover the Get-WMI cmdlet and it’s use, along with details on the wmi type accelerators. I’ll try to add a few slides on what’s new in V2.

To join us via LiveMeeting you’ll need to use LiveMeeting.com/cc/mvp and meeting id: UPNYPUG.

To join us live (and have a chance at wonderful swag), come to New Horizons, at 50 Methodist Hill Drive, Suite 50, Rochester, NY. Click here for directions and a map.

Syracuse Meetings on Hold

Jeffery Hicks — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 19:52:58 +0000

We’re going to hold off on any more Syracuse meetings until January. I’m hoping to build up some additional interest to make our meetings worthwhile. That makes the next Syracuse meeting January 13, 2010 at 6:00PM. I’m assuming we’ll still be meeting at New Horizons in DeWitt. Note the time. The office building locks up at 6:00 so we need everyone in in before then. We’ll have to work out an arrangement for latecomers.

In the meantime, meetings in Rochester continue as scheduled and EVERYONE is invited to attend. The next meeting is 11/18/2009 at New Horizons in Rochester. Pizza and socializing starts at 6:00PM and the meeting officially beginning at 6:30.

UPNYPUG Social Links

Jeffery Hicks — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 13:47:18 +0000

Our group, while still young, is an old hand at social media and we’d like you to join us. If you are on Facebook you can join our group by visiting http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=150694452703. Joel and I are also on Twitter. We are pretty active, usually on PowerShell-related topics. You can follow Joel (http://twitter.com/jaykul) or myself (http://twitter.com/jeffhicks) .

Syracuse Meeting Flyer

Jeffery Hicks — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 12:19:00 +0000

I’ve put together a flyer in PDF format for you to download and share. We’d greatly appreciate it if you could print and post a copy wherever you think PowerShell-minded folks will see it. I’m hoping for a nice turnout as I have some decent door prize goodies.

We encourage you to bring a friend to this, or any other meeting for that matter. If you can RSVP at upnypug@gmail.com, so much the better.

I look forward to seeing you all soon.

SyracuseFirstMeetingFlyer.pdf

Syracuse Organizational Meeting 10/14/2009

Jeffery Hicks — Mon, 14 Sep 2009 16:19:00 +0000

Joel and I still think there is plenty of untapped PowerShell interest in central and upstate NY. We also certainly understand the reluctance to drive between Rochester and Syracuse. To that end, I’m going to host a organizational meeting in Syracuse on October 14th, 2009 at 6:30PM. We will meet at New Horizons in Syracuse which is at 6711 Towpath Rd
East Syracuse, NY 13057. We should be finished by 8:00PM. The primary purpose of the meeting is to organize but time permitting I’ll answer questions on PowerShell v2.0.

It is very important that you attend this meeting or let us know if you are interested in this group. If there is enough interest to warrant, we might end up with Rochester and Syracuse chapters meeting on different weeks so you could go to both if you wanted. But we need to know what level of interest there is in the Syracuse area, and even regions further south.

I hope you’ll spread the word and join me. Please RSVP to upnypug@gmail.com

First Meeting Summary

jaykul — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 20:29:11 +0000

For last night’s first meeting of the upstate New York PowerShell user group in Rochester, we had a record turnout of 9 people: Joel Bennett (yeah, that’s me) plus four developers and four administrators (although to be fair, two of the administrator are also trainers). The astonishing balancing act carried through to skill levels as we had at least one person who’d never actually used PowerShell, a few who’ve barely tried it, a couple of trainers, and the “PowerShell experts” from three of the big Rochester corporations

The originally planned agenda was badly mangled by an extremely untimely Pizza delivery, but nonetheless we persevered!

What we now know:

Meetings will be held in Rochester on the 3rd Wednesday of each month, so our next meeting will be Wednesday, October 21st. In the meantime, Jeffery is going to schedule a similar planning meeting on Wednesday, October 14th in Syracuse to gauge interest in having some of our meetings there (or possibly even having meeting in both locations every month).

Meetings will be split between member-presentations and hands-on Script Club problem-solving times — facilitated by the fact that New Horizons has graciously arranged for us to have PowerShell available on PCs in our meeting area! The plan (so far) is to have members present on what they’re using PowerShell for (and allow occasional outside speakers/vendors) and mix in a Script Club at the end of each meeting, or on alternating weeks.

Of course, our meetings will continue to be held at the New Horizons location in Rochester (50 Methodist Hill, Suite 50), and will be starting at 6pm, and plan to last about 2 hours.

Jeffery Hicks will be presenting next month (October 21). Future presentations and challenge areas will include presentations on using PowerShell to manage IIS, Active Directory and Exchange, SCVMM, TFS, Sharepoint…

Thanks to everyone who showed up last night and helped us negotiate our way to these decisions, and stay tuned for more information about topics for upcoming meetings, plans for Syracuse and beyond, etc.

One last thing…

Despite the late hour, Joel presented last night on What’s new in PowerShell 2 and has made an annotated version of the slides from that talk available on his blog…

Jeffery