ICYMI: PowerShell Week of 17-August-2018

Topics include PowerBI cmdlets, auditing group changes, exporting module functions, and PowerShell phishing.

Help us Run PowerShell.org!

We’re looking for a few good PowerShellers to help us keep the community on track!

The Summit 2019 Call for Topics: Some Ideas

As you hopefully know, we’ve opened the Call for Topics for PowerShell + DevOps Global Summit 2019. I know sometimes people struggle with ideas, and so I wanted to offer a few.

What You Missed This Week in PowerShell! – August 10th, 2018

Topics include Module Worst Practices, InjectionHunter, and The PowerShell Standard Library.

Thank You, Richard, and Fare Well!

Richard Siddaway has decided to step away from PowerShell.org and The DevOps Collective. Most recently, Richard has been known for his management of content at PowerShell Summit North America, PowerShell Summit Europe, and later, PowerShell + DevOps Global Summit. Before that, however, Richard was one of the founders of PowerShell.org way back in 2011-2012, along with myself, Jason Helmick, Kirk Munro, and Jeffrey Hicks. It’s quite fair to say that we all needed one another’s support and expertise very much in those early days, and Richard was particularly key in helping us put together the two European Summit events. Richard’s very much entitled to one of our Community Hero Challenge Coins, which have been awarded to only a small handful of people who have made sustained, long-term community contributions: Jeffrey Snover, Jason Helmick, Angel Calvo, and Kenneth Hansen. Richard’s definitely in rarified company, and it’s well-earned.

Welcome to the new PowerShell.org

I want to introduce you to the new PowerShell.org!
While we’re still doing a little test-and-adjust work, I’m pretty confident that everything in the new theme is working. I’d also like to point out some hopefully useful new things we’ve done with the site.
First, we’ve still got pretty much everything you’ve been used to - our friendly and helpful Q&A forums, our community-authored articles, and more. Incidentally, if you’d like to be a writer here at PowerShell.org, we welcome you. Let us help you get some eyes on whatever it is you’re creating, whether it’s a short tutorial, an article about an open source project you contribute to, or whatever. Drop a line to our webmaster@ email alias and we’ll hook you up with authoring rights.
I’ll note that our Events Calendar is currently offline; the old plugin was antiquated, and we need to find something more suitable. That’s ongoing.
We do have some new stuff, though. You’ll find **Groups **right at the top of every page, and that takes you into our new discussion groups. These are designed to foster open-ended, freeform discussion threads, unlike our more problem/solution, issue-oriented Q&A forums.
Click on your avatar at the top of the page, and you’ll switch into your new profile (incidentally, if you don’t like your avatar, you’ll need to register your email address with Gravatar.com - that’s who we pull images from). You can leave a quick Twitter- or Facebook-style status update, letting everyone know what you’ve been up to in the PowerShell world. We hope it’ll be a great way for you to update the community on your activities. Along those lines, you can specifically follow whomever you like in the community, so that their updates will bubble up to your feed. Again, your profile page is the key to accessing all that new functionality.
Once you’ve friended someone, we also now have private direct messages. From your profile, click Messages and then Compose to start creating a new message.
It’s worth spending some time poking around and see what else is available - there’s quite a bit of functionality. For example, from your profile page, choose Settings and then Email - there are quite a few email notification options that you can opt into, if you want to keep up without having to visit the site continually.
I’ll note that photo uploading from your profile page is a little touch-and-go - that’s one of the things we’re still figuring out.
**Let me give you a reason to really populate your profile: **We’re working to make this a central location for you to showcase everything you’ve accomplished in the community. Kind of like a very specialized LinkedIn profile, your PowerShell.org profile will eventually include recognitions for contributions, achievements, and more. It’ll be something you can show to colleagues, hiring managers, and peers to help show the positive impact you’re making and the milestones you’re reaching. Now’s the time to start!
We’re working hard to bring more functionality to PowerShell.org that can help you keep up with our fast-moving world, and we hope you’ll find it all useful. There’s still more to come, and we always welcome your suggestions in the Web Site Feedback forum!

What You Missed This Week in PowerShell!

Blogs

Using VSTS for Your Company’s Private PowerShell Library

by Justin Rice on July 28th
Interested in sharing your collection of PowerShell tools for your team to use? First-time blogger Justin Rice walks you through publishing a PowerShell module to an internal PSRepository using VSTS.

Creating a Function or Script with PowerShell Dynamic Parameters

By Aaron Guilmette on July 30th
Learn how to create parameters with validation data that you can tab-complete prior to runtime. In this example Aaron uses a set of Skype numbers as potential values for a parameter to his function.

PowerShell + DevOps Summit 2019 – Call for Speakers

The PowerShell and DevOps Global Summit 2019 will be returning to the Meydenbauer Center in Bellevue, WA from Monday, April 29 to Thursday, May 2, 2019. Since 2013, PowerShell and DevOps experts from around the world , will once again collaborate and learn how to maximize PowerShell in the workplace through fast-paced, knowledge-packed presentations. The Global Summit is the place for innovators to explore and further their knowledge of DevOps principles and practices in a Windows environment, make new connections, learn new techniques, and offer something to your peers and colleagues back at the office. Ready to share your PowerShell or DevOps know-how? This is your official call to submit presentation ideas for selection! What we are looking for? The majority of our sessions will now follow a traditional 45-minute format. These sessions cover a wide variety of PowerShell and DevOps expertise. We have a number of agenda slots available for double length sessions. These sessions delve into the depths of a topic covering areas that need more than 45 minutes. Your proposed session should fit into one of the following areas:

PowerHour: Community Lightning Demos!

One of my favorite events at the PowerShell + DevOps Global Summit is the community lightning demos. It’s a fun format:
For the audience:

• Fast paced (max 10 minutes)
• Many speakers
• Topic or speaker not what you’re looking for? They’ll change in a few minutes
• Demos offer enough material to give you ideas and point out where to learn more
• Content is more likely to have a high signal-to-noise ratio given the time constraints

For the speakers:

What You Missed This Week in PowerShell!

Blogs

PowerShell Core Now Available as a Snap Package

by The PowerShell Team on July 20th
Oh, Snap! Core’s support matrix on Linux grows broader with the inclusion of a Snap Package to the line-up. Check out the PS team’s blog for details on what this means and how you can try it out.

PowerShell Modules in Azure Functions

by Axel Bøg Andersen on July 22nd
Hit a snag taking your modules to Azure Functions? Eliminate the hassle of using extra tools and learn how to load your modules directly to Azure Functions.