Live PowerShell With Karl Prosser

A picture says a thousand words

Search results from the PowerShell Code Repository right there on your desktop in windows 7 thanks to federated search and Jaykul adding OpenSearch support to PoshCode. YAY

So how do you get this. Simply download this link  and save it as fileextention .OSDX to your windows 7 machine. Then Run it. 

That is a simple OSDX file that is just an XML file describing the OpenSearch interface. the full text is here. and it comes from PoshCode itself.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" ?>
<OpenSearchDescription xmlns="http://a9.com/-/spec/opensearch/1.1/" xmlns:moz="http://www.mozilla.org/2006/browser/search/">
  <ShortName>PoshCode</ShortName>
  <Description>PowerShell script repository search interface</Description>
  <Tags>PowerShell Scripts Scripting Code Modules</Tags>
  <Contact>feedback@poshcode.org</Contact>
  <Url type="text/html" template="http://poshcode.org/search/{searchTerms}" />
  <Url type="application/rss+xml" template="http://poshcode.org/api/{searchTerms}" />
  <Image height="16" width="16" type="image/vnd.microsoft.icon">http://poshcode.org/favicon.ico</Image>
<!–   <Url type="application/x-suggestions+json" template="http://localhost:7402/content/notes.opensearchsuggestions.json?qt={searchTerms}"/>

  –>
  </OpenSearchDescription>

So I came home and wanted to make sure that everything would go smooth for ringing into the PowerScripting Podcast.

1) The first thing I did was go to plug in my cell phone charger, however I plugged it into a dodgy outlet that the landlord was meant to have replaced months ago. We’ll I haven’t been electrocuted that bad since the time in China when I jumped out of the bath, and came in contact with live wires. Thankfully i’m all ok, but half of metal of charger plug is gone. It was quite odd, it looked like a spark that flew out, but stayed bright for like 10 seconds. It must have been heated up melted metal.

2) Second thing i managed to do was lock myself in a room, with little kids in the other part of the house, while my wife was out. Anyhow during the podcast (after i managed to get on it since i had given the hosts the wrong area code of my phone number) I managed to pick my way out with a sewing measuring tape. But maybe i should have just stayed there because the third thing takes the cake.

3)So it was time to go and pick my daughter up from “Daisies”. I got in our minivan , pulled a perfect u turn off at the end of the street, then I saw our cat run up a tree and wanted to grab it. So I pulled up abruptly put the van in park, then jumped out quickly with the engine still running, HOWEVER IT WASN’T IN PARK BUT IN REVERSE So there was my van driving itself backwards down the street. I had to run after it, and after a brief attempt to stop it with my brute force, i jumped in and put the break on.

Finally i read a comment on the podcast ustream chat that the hosts may have lost the whole interview. Sounds like a true Wacky Wednesday .

I just thank God that i’m alive, and not hurt, and that i still have a complete car and our neighbours still have complete houses.

-Karl

A while back I threw together a few scripts to enhance PowerShell V2 ISE experience that added some PowerShell Analyzer like features . They were a natural fit as ISE (Intergrated Scripting Environment) is like a WPF-based stripped PowerShell Analyzer like with its multiple runspaces, editors, and immediate command area.

The extensibility model of ISE has caught on, and many people have been writing some great scripts adding hotkeys to do every what not you could imagine, so I’ve decided to start a codeplex project with the punny name “PowerShell ISE-Cream” . The Goal of this project is first to gather a huge variety of functionality that various people are willing to share, refactor it into production quality functions, with extensive error handling, and packaged in V2 Modules, and finally incorporate it in a way that users can easily turn on and off different features through a consistent configuration.

Right now however we are just going to gather whatever scraps there are, whether they conflict with each other or not, and anybody passionate about this can join the project, as we sculpt it hopefully into something both useful and beautiful.

Doug Finke has already joined the club with his Expand-Alias and Expand-CurrentAlias functions, and there are quite a few other functions that people i know are willing to share, so it should be good.

We’ll be brainstorming and deciding on a bunch of design issue, you can join the conversation on the first one in this discussion thread.

The PowerScripting Podcast tonight (Thursday 5th Feb 2009) will be talking about ISE. There should be a number of MVPs (including myself) and some PowerShell Team staff calling in. It Should be fun.

-Karl

Well its been six months or more since our baby PowerShell Plus grew up, left home and moved in with Idera. Well its been progressing nicely, and we are happy to see the vision being fulfilled,nd even expanded, with a successful commercial product. Go Tobias – Go Idera.

Anyhow, I’m pretty much going to reblog the content from Tobias’s blog entry below. If you haven’t tried PS+ yet. I recommend wholeheartedly that you do. It really is about 3 generations and a couple of years ahead of anything else out there. Other vendors have only recently implemented “borrowed” features that have been in PowerShell Analyzer and PowerShell Plus since 2006.

http://powershell.com/cs/blogs/news/archive/2009/02/02/powershellplus-v2-1-beta-is-live.aspx

———————————————————

Exciting news! Effective immediately, PowerShellPlus v2.1 Beta is live and publicly available! Below you will find exciting information about an early look at what the PowerShellPlus team has been working on.

PowerShellPlus version 2.1 introduces several new and cool features focused on reducing the PowerShell learning curve, increasing the productivity of PowerShell development and exercising the capabilities of PowerShell 2.0. The new features include:

• Code sharing – Enables you to leverage the wealth of scripts that reside in the PowerShell.com and PoshCode.org libraries. Increase your productivity by quickly and easily searching and grabbing the scripts from those libraries. You can also submit your own scripts to the PowerShell.com library directly from PowerShell Plus Editor
• Visual Basic support – The PowerShell Plus Editor can now edit and run Visual Basic scripts
• STA mode support – Enables you to produce pretty cool looking GUI’s with Windows Presentation Framework (WPF) using PowerShell 2.0.
• PowerShell Assembly Detection – Gives the Learning Center an auto-upgrade path if PowerShell v2 CTP3 is detected and then displays the most up-to-date information
• Learning Center Auto-Load – Makes searching for a request with a single match much easier to use since the topic will load automatically, saving extra keystrokes
• Cmdlet parameter position – Shows you additional information in the code completion popup window about parameters including position and type
• Console size overlay – Shows you the height and width of the Console when you resize it
• Additional Sample Scripts - Active Directory, IIS 7.0 and MySQL
• PowerShell v2 CTP3 Support – Including Block Comments and the $Profile variable

How to get the New Version

Use the link at the bottom of this page to download the installation package, but before you do please read the following disclaimers, warnings and other general portents of doom.

• This software is a pre-release version and should not be deployed in a production environment. It will not work the way a final version of the software does. Features will change before the final release
• If you already have a PowerShellPlus license we recommend that you install this version on another machine, but we do support an upgrade in place your production version.
• If you upgrade your production version of 2.0 we will not overwrite any user customizations that have been made to PowerShellPlus but we do recommend you make a copy of the Sample scripts if you have modified them.
• A list of the changes is provided in the Release Notes in the Installation Package.
• This release is designed to provide the PowerShellPlus community with a preview of key features coming in 2.1 and to solicit feedback about them. This Technical Beta is not supported by the Idera Technical Support Team. Please visit the Beta Place: http://powershell.com/cs/forums/93.aspx

System Requirements

• Microsoft Windows PowerShell Version 1 or Version 2 CTP2 or CTP3
• Windows XP, Server 2003, Windows Vista, Server 2008, Windows 7

Installation Instructions

To install PowerShellPlus:

1. Click the link at the bottom of this page and complete the download form
2. An email will be sent with instructions on how to download the Beta.
3. After downloading the Beta, unzip the contents of the Installer package.
4. Read the Release Notes for late breaking information about the Beta.
5. If you are upgrading from PowerShellPlus 2.0 make that you copy the Sample Scripts to another location, if you have modified them.
6. Run the Setup.exe program to install PowerShellPlus 2.1.

Grab your copy now:

Download Here

For feedback, bug reports, suggestions and discussions regarding this beta release, please visit and use our Beta Place:

http://powershell.com/cs/forums/93.aspx

Enjoy!

-Tobias

I want to make a asp.net MVC twittercentric web app in 24 hours. I had initially thought that I’d do 24 hours in a stretch, but as an aging (31) family man I don’t think I will be able to pull that off, so its going to be stints.

So my starting point:

WHAT HAVE I GOT SO FAR?
    -I’ve decided on the platform
    -the idea and name of the app
    -written a few thoughts, notes down,
    -registered the twitter account that its going to be based around.
    -I am a proficient DOTNET developer, but a fair bit of asp.net experience, but I wouldn’t say an ASP.NET expert, and I haven’t touched ASP.NET MVC. I have however been reading about it during its development, and grok the concepts.
   – I’ve brainstormed many aspects of the features, design and architecture probably for more than a couple of hours in the background whilst doing real life.

WHAT HAVEN’T I DONE YET?
   -I don’t even have it installed in my development environment (which will be my first task).

WHAT I DON’T THINK WILL BE IN THE SCOPE OF THIS ALPHA?
   -Allowing the user to pass in their twitter credentials. I’m going to force any account related stuff to be sent via tweets from their account. I don’t want to even temporarily have twitter credentials pass through my server, until an app is fleshed out, tested, and secured.
   -Won’t be on the public internet – it will be running on localhost on my dev box.
   -Making it look pretty – I’ll just choose some basic ASP.NET MVP template to start with, and even "borrow" images from http://image.google.com while I flesh out the app. Of course once the first round of code is done, I’ll work on themeing it myself.
   -Won’t have any web based jobs updating my database with twitter responses. I’ll probably just have a build that part of it out in a powershell script on a recurring job for the first alpha.
   – Won’t have any ajaxy behavior. Jquery will be there, and may be used for a few visual things if it takes a short period of time, but this is pretty much just simple page requests showing data. However of course the 2nd alpha should be in more depth.
  – Will keep basic views, won’t use master pages or anything else.

WHAT I PLAY TO BE IN THE SCOPE OF THIS ALPHA.
-Allowing the user to issue commands through twitter ( with replies or direct message).
-Allowing the user to issue and record a few different types of information.
-Have a web page that displays the data related to this app, that includes graphs and charts
-Data will be retrieved by LINQ2SQL, but that LINQ2SQL will probably be simple, and for complicated queries will just call stored procedures.
-

FIRST STEPS. (some of these can be done concurrently )
-Download ASP.NET MVC and get a build in test project running.
-Choose an ASP.NET MVC template to start with
-Start the first ASP.NET MVC proof of concept. Basically get full round trip. From request->routing->controller->model (which will get data from DB) and back to view sort of thing.
-Start database and model design
-Start building powershell scripts to query twitter, and update the database.
-Fleshing out command syntax and scope limiting features.

I know I haven’t even said what this application will do, but that will come in time. I don’t plan on spamming by blog with lots of updates on this so I’ll be running a tubmlr blog for that. http://geekkarl.tumblr.com/ and will also be doing small summaries on twitter http://twitter.com/karlprosser . I’ll also be hanging out as usual in the #powershell IRC room on freenode.com and hopefully not getting too distracted there

-Karl