A quick update - all numbers as of 23-January-2018, 12:23pm Pacific time.
91 seats remaining. We are on track to sell out in approximately 45 days. Unlike previous years where we’ve scrounged some spare seats at the last minute, **please don’t expect that this year, **as I think I’ve gotten better at math and have not been rounding as much.
Hotel situation:
- Marriott, we have 6 rooms left. This is our “official” hotel, with the largest number of Summiteers on site.
- Courtyard, we have 9 rooms left. This is a quick walk to the Meydenbauer, with about half as many Summiteers as the Marriott.
- Hotel 116, we have 34 rooms left. This also has about half as many Summiteers as the Marriott, and is our lowest price point hotel. This is still a quick walk to the Meydenbauer.
After the rooms above are exhausted, you’re on to “rack rate,” which, sadly, can be ridonkulous as it’s a popular time of year to be in Bellevue and they’ve gotten used to our crowd coming in. We do ask that you choose one of the above hotels if humanly possible so that we’re not stuck paying for this reserved space regardless. If we have to do so, prices for Summit will assuredly rise in 2019.
Can’t make it? We’re often asked about session recordings. We’re not prepared to commit to anything for 2018, although we’re working hard with a partner to try and make something happen. There’s no need whatsoever to “+1” this; we’re well aware that everyone asks for recordings (despite fairly low actual view numbers for them), and we’re working on it. Last year’s attempt was massively disruptful and unsuccessful, so we can’t have that again.
That’s it! Hit us up on Twitter @PSHSummit if you have questions!
A discussion and possible solution to puzzle 1 is now available at Iron Scripter Prequel Puzzle 1 - A solution
Remember this isn’t presented as a definitive solution. It’s my view of the solution. Please also note that the faction specific parts are indicative and not prescriptive - they are my view of how the different factions would approach solving the puzzle.
You’ve survived the first challenge. A new challenge in the shape of Iron Scripter Prequel Puzzle 2 is now available.
Take note of the faction based instructions.
Please remember that we’re not grading submissions for these puzzles.
You can comment, and discuss the puzzle on the Iron Scripter Prequel forum
Stay true to your faction and victory will be yours.
Microsoft recently announced the General Availability (that is, a non-beta release) of PowerShell Core 6.0. A companion document detailing breaking changes, along with some of the language in the announcement, has led to more than a few inquiries in my mailbox. Most take the tone of, “have I been wasting my time learning PowerShell?!?!?” because, at first glance, PowerShell Core looks deeply less functional than its predecessor. Let me tell you what I think.
Greetings Iron Scripters
The first puzzle in the Iron Scripter 2018 Prequel series is available:
Iron Scripter Prequel Puzzle 1
Take note of the faction based instructions.
Please remember that we’re not grading submissions for these puzzles.
You can comment, and discuss the puzzle on the Iron Scripter Prequel forum
Stay true to your faction and victory will be yours.
PowerShell Core 6 is scheduled for General Availability release tomorrow (10th January). As such Jeffrey Snover and the PowerShell Team are hosting an AMA (Ask Me Anything) event on the 11th January from 9am - 10am PT.
“This is going to be a historical week for PowerShell Core 6 🙂 …Join the PowerShell team and @jsnover{.twitter-atreply.pretty-link.js-nav} this Thursday for the PowerShell AMA”
Add it to your calendar here.
Due to the timing I expect that the team are mostly hoping for questions related to the release of PS Core, although in the spirit of an AMA anything goes :).
If you haven’t yet checked out PowerShell Core 6, you can grab the RC release today and install it side-by-side with Windows PowerShell.
I have also written a blog post that explains what PowerShell Core is, why it exists and how it compares which I hope you find informative.
Registrations are going very quickly. We’ve sold nearly half the available places. Historically, registrations accelerate in the first half of January so don’t wait too long before booking or you may be disappointed.
Another tranche of alumni discount places were made available at the beginning of January but there are only 25 of them so if you want one book your place very soon.
One new feature of Summit for 2018 is Iron Scripter - http://ironscripter.us/. Three factions will battle it out on Thursday 12 April 2018 for the title of Iron Scripter. If you haven’t chosen your faction it’s time to start thinking about it:
Daybreak Faction - beautiful code
Flawless Faction - flawless code
Battle Faction - good enough to get the job done
Choose your faction based on your approach to coding.
The run up to Iron Scripter starts soon.
We’ll be running a series of prequel events - think of them as the successor to the “Scripting Games” of the past. We’ll publish a puzzle on powershell.org every week on this schedule:
January 14 puzzle 1
January 21 puzzle 2
January 28 puzzle 3
February 4 puzzle 4
February 11 puzzle 5
February 18 puzzle 6
February 25 puzzle 7
March 4 puzzle 8
March 11 puzzle 9
March 18 puzzle 10
March 25 puzzle 11
A solution will be published the following week. The puzzle for March 25 will have a solution posted on 1 April.
Notice we say “a solution”. Depending on your faction you may have a different view of how the puzzle should be solved. A forum will be available on PowerShell.org - https://powershell.org/forums/forum/iron-scripter/iron-scripter-prequel/ - for you to present and discuss possible solutions. Give your faction’s view of how to solve the puzzle. Use the forums and the answers posted there to identify potential members of your faction. You can use non-attendees during the main Iron Scripter event so this is your chance to identify potential remote collaborators.
We MUST stress a couple of things:
So you’re working for a company that’s going well (or not) and you start to hear rumours of parts of the business being sold off, the project you’re working on is being pulled or worse the business is closing down. Before you know it your x amount of years at said company have come to an end and you’re now redundant. The following Dilbert comic is a possible scenario you may have to deal with.
How you deal with this new found freedom is completely up to you? You can go on a big holiday, have some time off doing things around the house, buy that 2 seater car you’ve always dreamed of owning or go straight back into the workforce using the redundancy (if you got any) to pay off a chunk of your mortgage. Whatever you decide to do, at some point (unless you are retiring) you will need to go job hunting again.
In my situation I was being made redundant and leaving a company I had worked for, for the last 7 ½ years as a senior system engineer. I have a wife and 2 children so I really just wanted to get back in the workforce as soon as I could. The mortgage was not going to pay itself off.
As soon as I heard that I had a month left of work I took out my CV and had to try to remember each position I had occupied over the last 7 ½ years and what my achievements were. And you know what, that is not an easy task. When you’re working and you complete an achievement, you always think to yourself “If ever I have to update my CV ill add this to it”. Problem is 5 years down the line you won’t remember that “good piece of work” and you’ll struggle to put some of the great achievements down on paper for your future employer.
After several attempts at updating my CV, it was ready. Now time to start looking for work. My main skills are in Citrix technologies, PowerShell, Windows Server Operating Systems and my company’s proprietary cloud offering. In my job, I spent nearly every day learning something new and applying it to my job but I didn’t bother with getting certified. When job hunting, the first hurdle I came across was my lack of skills that the market place wanted. For nearly every senior engineer role out there, every man and his dog wanted Azure with 0365 and/or AWS. So any roles that looked good to me were out of my reach because I didn’t have those skills/qualifications.
I found a couple of roles I really liked the look of and naively sent off my CV to those 2 roles only. There were a few other jobs that looked good but I really wanted one of these 2 roles so didn’t apply for anymore. 2 weeks passed and nothing back so I chased them up and still nothing. Oh well guess they didn’t like my CV so I’ll start looking again. And again I repeated the same process. And again the same outcome. I then started do some reading on recruitment sites and how recruiters get so many CVs that on average they will look at yours for 6 second before choosing to read more or toss it.
By now I had finished work and a new job was not in sight, slightly panicking now. I revamped my CV a little, moving my core technical skills to the top of the front page (they were originally at the bottom of the back page) and applied for every job under the sun I liked the look of. I hit every job advertising site I could find and also sent my CV to every tech job agency I could find. If I really liked the look of a job I would follow the online application 30 minutes later with a phone call to get that connection with the job poster and to sell myself (which I hate doing). I updated my LinkedIn page and applied via LinkedIn to jobs on there. I started to use LinkedIn to make contact and catch up with people I knew to see if they had any positions in their companies. I actually found this to be the most successful way to get in to see companies.
Through my contacts I had some interviews and even had a job offer with one tech firm. Problem was they had come in with an offer that was 20% below my previous wage. Do I take it to tie me over the Christmas period and get the money coming in again or do I wait for a possible better job that might show up tomorrow? If I took the job and something better came along would I then rescind that offer and my name would then be mud at that company for anything in the future. I decided not to take the job as it would have meant a major financial shuffle for the family and big cutbacks.
That same afternoon I contacted another friend, as his company had quite a few positions open due to expansion. He put me in contact with their Talent Manger. The following day I had an interview and that evening I had a job offer which I took.
The main take away I hope you get from this is, if this ever happens is to ensure your CV is always up to date. Make sure if and when people leave your present company that you keep some sort of contact with them because you never know when you might need to call on them or you might be able to help them out one day. Keep an eye on the job market and what the market is looking for and get skilled up and/or certified in those areas. If you’re not on LinkedIn get a presence on there, those contacts can be invaluable too. When Job hunting don’t just apply for that one dream job (especially if you’re out of work) hit any one of them that takes your fancy, you are better off having 2 or 3 offers on the table than nothing at all. Last thing to only take the offer if you really want the job, listen to your gut instinct.
As it happens the new company I now work at is going to be one of the 1st in Australia to roll out Azure Stack. So I will be learning and get certified in Azure which better place me for my future.
Congratulations to Andrew Pla, winner of our PowerShell + DevOps Global Summit 2018 scholarship. Andrew submitted a stellar application to our review panel, and perfectly fit our profile for someone who’s just peeking out of the “beginner” realm, and who’s demonstrably used PowerShell to help bootstrap their IT career. If you’re attending Summit, be sure to keep an eye out for Andrew and say hi!
