Ok

You get one “bonus” song (and one of the few times I will be letting loose my voice on the world)

There is a Podcast hosted weekly by two of the most talented and passionate individuals I have gotten the opportunity to have met (Virtually) over the past year since “Highway to Powershell” was turned loose.

Their Podcast is hosted weekly.  Every Thursday, there is a live Video portion where the audience can listen and interact live (via chat room).  You will a lot of the industry biggies getting interviewed here.  Guys like Jeffrey Snover and Bruce Payette, the very HEART of Powershell have been on this show (quite a few times)

It’s worth a listen.  It’s a freely downloadable sponsored podcast with REAL sponsors!

And they’ve earned themselves an unofficial theme song from me. 

Enjoy – Click below for Podcast link

POWERSCRIPTING TIME

Sung to “Promises in the Dark” by Pat Benatar (80’s tune, really cool)

Just in case anybody thought my “Funny bits” have disappeared, NO they haven’t.  They’re going to take a back seat but will not disappear.  Because that’s me.

i love Technology.   But I love to sit back and have a smile because sometimes you just NEED that :)

Enjoy

For all the techs out there who have ever had to do wiring in “Sub light conditions”

Rewritten Lyrics by Sean Kearney / ye110wbeard / Friday Funny Guy

“Crimping in the Dark”

Crimping in the Dark

Stumbling around
Going 'right round the bend
Tripping around and you're falling
You curse at your friend

Timers

Automatically kicked in

While all the patch panels and demarcs lay about end to end
You call security to get the lights
They don't hear, they're sleeping nights

So you start
crimping
In the

Dark

I'm trying to get these terminations done by morning light
By laptop, matches, glowworm or Flashlight
Can't tell the colors or see 568A
But the boss doesn't care he says "Hay what the hey!"

Just when you think you've done it all
You stare at blackness down the hall
As you start crimping

In The

Dark

The lighter is low, the batteries are out What were you thinking there is no way out
These ends aren't cheap, and you've to avoid

Recrimping again

But you’ve already wasted TEN!

In deep desperation, you hotwire all of the lights.
To the ADT Alarm system running through the night
Police and Fire sirens scream all around
You drop to the floor amidst all the lights and the sound

With their lights you see the wires
Amidst the sparks amongst the fires
You're no longer crimping

In the

(Duck bullets, duck water, crimp cables test test)

Dark

Some of you may (or May not) have noticed a little map on the Blog.  

That little map is a free service I noticed the people at the CANITPRO blog at Microsoft Technet were using called  “ClustrMaps”

What the service is, is a free, easy to use tracking service that maps out just WHERE (or at least ROUGHLY where) in the world people are accessing your sight from.

You don’t have to know how to edit HTML or JAVA to use it.  (But you do have to know how to copy / paste text into your website into a spot for placing that code)

But it works very well, doesn’t cost a thing (there are some mildly higher end features you CAN pay for) but it’s not a nightmare to get going and try.

What does it require to setup?

An email address and a few minutes of time (or longer if your website source is a spaghetti code nightmare)

Check it out and see what you think.  It does change your view of the world when you start seeing just how common our problems are or what makes us all laugh.

www.clustermaps.com

I had been banging my head against a wall.

One printer.

One STUPID printer.

One BIG HONKING GIANT EXPENSIVE stupid printer.

Wouldn’t print.

I had replaced drivers, updated drivers, reset network settings. tested for connectivity, Rebuilt it, tried it on a different box, rebooted the controller.

I believe I even pulled out a Voodoo doll in desperation.

But no matter what I did.  It wouldn’t print.

Now here’s the kicker.   The PRINT server would send the job every time.  And it would report as if it just printed happily.

The printer showed NO ERRORS!

So thousands of pages would just end up on Rod Serlings desk in the Twilight Zone.

No rhyme or reason.

So I started digging in the features of the unit, looking for something to show me what happened or why at least.   Noticed a small piece.

“Installed language – PCL 5e”

Hmmm that’s funny.  I’d a sworn that printer a big expensive beast from a certain company that starts with “X” and almost always ends in an “X”.  I was almost certain it HAD Postscript.

That’s why I CHOSE a Postscript driver.

Now HERE’s the odd and interesting part.  NORMALLY (LET me stress this 1000' times over, this is NOT the first or the last printer I have ever set up) *N*O*R*M*A*L*LY* if you print Postscript to a NON Postscript enabled printer, you DO get output but it is the postscript language (PURE TEXT).  In which case you say “Oh Gee, guess Postscript didn’t come with this.”

But for some LAME BRAIN reason (save paper maybe?) some Wingnut designer decided to go against the flow against EVERY OTHER PRINTER MANUFACTURER and have it accept and drop the Postscript jobs and NOT SAY ANYTHING!

Every other model (including I might add, EARLIER and LATER versions) would normally a) print the Postscript text or b) spit out an Error indicating no Postscript.

But Nooooooooooooo……. some rocket scientist had to get fancy on this model.

So I flipped the server driver to PCL5e and it just started working.  Fine.  On that level I am happy.   But if you are designing a printer, for Christsake, IF THERE IS AN ERROR WITH THE LANGUAGE OR PROTOCOL OR ANYTHING – LOG IT!!!!

First time I’ve ever encountered such idiocy on a $50,000 All in One printer.

Cheers all.   Sometimes the answer isn’t obvious because sometimes no wrong answers come back LIKE they SHOULD.

Sean
The Energized Tech

Like many IT Pros at home, my resources are limited.   But I have kids and they have needs too.

So the challenge here.  I have a great Pentium 4 with 2 gb of ram.  I have a WONDERFUL DuoCore with 8gb of ram.  I want home Server (for the usuals and of course to play) The Pentium 4 box is great to play with and perfect for Home Server.   I NEED to be working with Server 2008 R2 (since I need to be constantly working with new Technology)

My eldest daughter wants / needs (or thinks she does) to be playing the Sim’s as often as she can'.

My teenage son would love to pop in on something fast and current.

The Youngest wouldn’t mind accessing the computer either.

So my quest.  Having a system I can do MY work on but allow the family to share resources (possibly off lesser systems) and STILL get the benefits of Windows Home Server (automated backup from the physical machines) and try passing a USB physical drive to a Hyper-V box.

So created a Virtual machine on a VHD and installed the O/S.  This is NOT a recommended approach on any level.   The file system used for Windows Home System has not been tested under a VHD.  It is recommended by many if you are to do this to use the “Passthru” option in Hyper-v to grant direct access to a drive that way.

But I’m a) curious, b) a complete nerd and c) just LOVE a challenge.

So I granted 2 gigs of ram to my virtual machine in Hyper-V and installed away.

Well there were no shockers on the install other that having to install the Integration services into the Virtual Windows Home Server.  It rebooted naturally no shocker there too.

So I had a virtual home server.  Now I glanced over.  I have a 320 gb USB drive sitting on the desk.  I was wondering if this USB device would passthru into Hyper-V.  Hyper-V not wanting to normally talk to USB devices.

I went to add in the second drive.   Only one complaint.

“Devices must be offline to add in to pass thru”

Ok

This seemed too easy.

Diskmgmt.msc (Disk Management)

USB Drive in question, right click.  Selected “Offline”

Went back to Hyper-V and add IDE device.  The 320 gb USB WAS accessible by Hyper-v.  Added it in.  Looked at my Home Server. 

Under Storage was the USB external hard drive attached to the Hyper-V host computer.   It happily added it.

Now my quest over the next week (and a follow up post) is to see just how the Windows Home Server runs on a pure Dynamic VHD.

Why Dynamic?

Dynamic takes only what it needs for space.  I can resize it later.  If my needs grow, I can now buy a 1 terabyte drive (cheap) and drop the Entire Windows Home Server hosting environment on that and resize as I need (something I can’t do with a physical drive).  And although I can very easily add storage to Windows Home Server, my limitation on share storage is based upon the original drive the box runs off of.  So if I start from a 160gb drive, I am finding the total share storage won’t break that barrier.  I can utilize additional storage for backup.   I can utilize it for data mirroring.  But I cannot seem to extend the storage for my data.

In theory (key word folks, THEORY, this is bleeding cutting edge not recommended by Microsoft for a setup) I could resize my source drive and not affect the system other than it see more space)f

Check back in a few weeks for the results as I dump data on it and start using Windows Home Server for what it is.   And then on the same core server running Server 2008 R2, I intend to use Server 2008 R2 (virtualized) as a Terminal Server and see what I can do with it (even in a recreational mode for games)

Cheers all

Sean
The Energized Tech

You know, listening to Twitter for me pays off.

A little birdie mentioned “DirectAccess” as a means to eliminating VPN and my first words were “What’s DirectAccess”

DirectAccess is a new secure method to connect users to a server Environment vs VPN.  Utilizing IPSec and IPV6, there is now a new, better and more seamless way to connect to the server environment.

Forget VPN.  Forget multiple ID’s passwords, reconnects, additional management.

Throw that headache to the past.

I’ll try to go quickly into what it is but I’m reading THIS WHITEPAPER from Microsoft as a type.

What are the requirements?  Rather than retyping and messing up, I’m going to take the EXACT text from the Whitepaper.

----------------------------------------

DirectAccess Requirements

DirectAccess requires the following:

· One or more DirectAccess servers running Windows Server 2008 R2 with two network adapters: one that is connected directly to the Internet, and a second that is connected to the intranet.

· On the DirectAccess server, at least two consecutive, public IPv4 addresses assigned to the network adapter that is connected to the Internet.

· DirectAccess clients running Windows 7.

· At least one domain controller and Domain Name System (DNS) server running Windows Server 2008 or Windows Server 2008 R2. When smart card-based authentication is required for end-to-end protection, you must use Active Directory Domain Services (AD DS) in Windows Server 2008 R2.

· A public key infrastructure (PKI) to issue computer certificates, smart card certificates, and, for NAP, health certificates. For more information, see http://www.microsoft.com/pki.

· IPsec policies to specify protection for traffic. For more information, see http://www.microsoft.com/ipsec.

· IPv6 transition technologies available for use on the DirectAccess server: ISATAP, Teredo, and 6to4.

· Optionally, a third-party NAT-PT device to provide access to IPv4-only resources for DirectAccess clients.

---------------------------------------------------------

As you can tell, this is a new technology, Native to Windows 7 and Server 2008 R2.  My only comments to Microsoft would be that Vista is a currrent operating system too.  It should be provided via a service pack or hotfix, this same connectivity

To the user the connection seems to almost happen,   There is definitely preparation involved from the Administration side.   But the immense advantage is that users can’t just somehow “guess the VPN” gateway and pop it onto a new system.  Certificates are involved, domain credentials, Active Directory and your Server 2008 R2 infrastructure are what control this.  You’re not knocking on a single Cisco VPN box or a Remote Access Server.   You’re banging on a big beefy security team that’ll knock you flat down if you trip on the way in.

THAT’S secure.   

But I’m reading how it’s setup, it’s far superior to VPN.  One of the biggest headaches I had as a user with VPN was the fact my Internet traffic would route to the office whenever I was connected.   This mean if I wanted to download anything off the internet it would automatically route to the office’s slower internet connection as opposed to my nice fast Cable highspeed at home.  

And an added bonus to this setup it is seamless AND secure.  By establishing (via certificates) a direct trust involving both the machine AND the user, it keeps it smooth.    It keeps it secure.

The more seamless it is to the user, the better their experience (and by proxy, the fewer headaches I get).  

Read up the Whitepaper.  You’ll see why I’m truly impressed.  And looking forward to it.

It’s truly rare when you hear the word “Free” and don’t associate it 70 popups, and pile of spam in your mailbox the next day and phone calls from Telemarketers.

But today is different.  I was pouring through my morning “Tweets” in my feed from “Twitter” when I saw one posted by Will Craddock, working in Microsoft Ireland.

I saw my two favourite words side by side.

FREE

and

POWERSHELL

Before you lose this opportunity download your free PDF copy of Effective Powershell : the Free eBook.

There’s no catch22.   Just like Powershell.  It’s there to use.   And just to show you I wasn’t fibbing about the legitimate and Microsoft part, here’s Mr. Craddock’s original posting.

So there you have it.

It’s a quick 1 meg download.  Even if you have DIALup you can get it in a reasonable about of time.

Cheers and get your copy now.

Every so often, Free doesn’t mean a bad thing. :)

Sean
The Energized Tech

SK:  Top 'o the morning.  This is Sean Kearney here sittin' in th' hall havin' a Guiness on St. Patricks' Day.  And here, yer friendly neighbourhood Friday Funny Guy has managed to nail one of most exclusive interviews of all.  Back from Heaven itself.  The man.  The one the only.  The Patron Saint of Ireland. Heeeeeeeeeeeerrre's SAINT PATRICK!

SP: Good day my son.   Glad t' be here.  Glad to be' sittin' down on this glorius spring day.

SK:  Ah.. well .... t'is actually Canada your holiness, errrr... yer Saintiness....eerr uh... Paddy?  So it's about 53 below Zero outside.

SP: Canada? Oh my.  Must have made a wrong turn somewhere.   Ah well me lad.  Only here on Earth once in blue moon, or when an honest politician is voted in, or when the Leafs win a game.  Y'know me lad.  The usual.

SK: Aye.  Pretty common ordinary events.  So how we shall call ye?  St. Patrick.  Paddy?  MR. Green?  The Snakinator?

SP: Th' what?  Now where'd that lot of nonsense come from? Paddy 'd be fine.  What's this whole "Snakinator" bit?

SK: Oh sorry.  But Everybody, but everybody knows that you, you St. Patrick's with the Glorius power of God cast all the snakes from Ireland! Oh!  What a wonderful wonder.  Such a miracle.  Such majesty.  Such...

SP: Such a load of Malarky!  Who told ye such a thing!

SK: Why... Why Paddy... Why everybody!  Everybody knows that St. Patrick, through of the Lord himself and a wee bit O' magic, cast all the snakes from Ireland!  Such a wonder...

SP: Now cut that out.   The only snakes I know I got rid of, were a few wee garters roamin' the backyard.  Me wife looked at me and said "Paddy, dem snakes is buggin' me.  Thar roamin' under me legs and I d'na like it.   Would ye grab a broom please?"  So's I grabbed a broom and said "Shoo ye silly snakes." And course not bein' a cordial t' gettin' whacked wit' a broom, they obliged kindly.

SK: Paddy.  St. Paddy. Nay, ALL the snakes ye did it.

SP: What? No.  Must be me neighbour Brendan.   He was forever dippin' in the "Water of life".  He did tend stretch things a wee bit.  Three snakes scampered through his yard and he was screamin' "INVASION! INVASION! OH ANNIE RUN TO HILLS! GRAB TH' CHILDREN!  All 935 of them! RUN! PADDY'S CASTING THOUSANDS of SNAKES OUT!"  Yes his stories, now that I remember, did tend to stick in people's minds a wee bit.

SK: So ye didn'a cast out out all the snakes?  'Twas such a wonderful tale too.  *sniff*

SP: Actually between you an' me, thar wasn't that many snakes in Ireland t' start with.  If thar was, they were hidin' away.  Silly wee things they were.

SK: Fair enough.  Well then.   Let's move on to yer many many many wonderful religious deeds.  The establish of th' church in Ireland.  Spreadin' the good word!  Planting Four Leaf Clovers EVERYWHERE!  The glory...

SP: WHAT?!?! Just WHAT?!??! Look did you find Brendan's stash?  Where did ye come up with such nonsense? 

SK: But St. Patrick.  History has told of yer great deeds.  The wonderful works ye' did.   The clovers....

SP: Ach.  Look.  I went in th’ back yard.   Was too darn lazy to cut th' lawn.  All those shtupid shamrocks kept growin'.  Weeds they were y'know.  Irish weeds.   Couldn't cut the darn things down.  I planted 'em?  Why you couldn't stop the darn things growin.  I think it must have been all the snake droppings.  I had nothin' t' do wit' it.  Don't ye be blamin' it on me.

SK: Ah but errrr..... the church!

SP: Look.  I went to a wee school house.  Put a little cross on the window sill and told a few lovely stories from the Bible.  'tis full of wonderful stories.   And they called that silly school house.  "St. Patrick's Church".   I never got that.  I just thought it looked quite nice and the stories, ah well the children always love a good story.  

SK: I see.  So what' yer sayin' St. Paddy, is it's a just a big load of hooey.

SP: Yes.  Complete foolishness.

SK: So we should cancel it then?

SP: Cancel.  Cancel what?  What are ye talkin' about.

SK: The St. Patrick's day Parade.  Held every year in your honor m' fine sir.   Drinks toastin' yer great deeds.   Here let me call now.  I cancel all the  celebrations worldwide now that th’ tru…..

SP: Parade... well now that ye mention it, it might have been more than 3 snakes... yes yes... perhaps 3,000!  Oh oh! Of course... me mind... over 1500 years ye see... it acts up all th' time ye know.

SK: Grand.  So  would ye like t' tip a cheer with me?  To St. Patrick's and Ireland?

SP: Aye.  So t' all of ye.  Whether ye be Irish or not.  Does not matter at all.   Be well t' each other.   And may the Road rise up to meet ye, may the wind be always at yer back.  And may ye be in Heaven half an hour before th' devil knows yer dead.

SK: Aye cheers.   And from th' Friday Funny Guy.  A Happy St. Patrick's Day.  Bless y'all.

This is something I had to blog about.

Three weeks.

Three weeks in a row non stop working.

Involved in and honoured to have worked with some of the greatest people I have ever had the pleasure to have worked with in the most difficult tiring inspiring mind numbing foot killing smelly challenging projects in my entire life.

Have you ever wondered when you saw a project that both energized excited and terrified you if you would or could see it through?

Let me tell you now.  When you see that challenge, don’t run away.  Embrace it.  See it as a challenge to find out what you can and can’t do.  Find the lessons it teaches you. 

You will see it through to the end.

I discovered my limits still have not been reached, on some levels I am on par with my peers, and I still have a lot to learn.

And that no matter how difficult the days are… I LOVE BEING AN IT PROFESSIONAL!

It’s not just about technology.  It’s about people.  It’s about seeing what you do and how it affects others.  How you can HELP enable them.  How you CAN work with developers and HELP them try to get their applications to work successfully.  

It’s about staring and banging your head away at a problem, wondering if you can ever find the solution working with others and suddenly that little light pops up screaming “EUREKA!”

The elation is indescribable.

And thanks to this project I am seeing what parts of technology really are infusing me and Energizing me.

I would also like to publicly and personally send a thanks to Cameron McKay and Adam of Cole of McKesson Canada for allowing me this opportunity.  Especially Cameron McKay who designed this mammoth infrastructure project.

I would also like to tip a hat to our own Mitch Garvis for the opportunity to have worked by his side on this project.   A truer professional I have never met.

If you are wondering if you’ll ever hit your limits as a computer professional Let me tell you this.

If you truly love the job, whether you’re a developer, an IT Pro, CIO or even just a kid who runs back and forth dropping toner in a printer.

You’ll go far. 

My name is Sean Kearney.

The Friday Funny Guy.

And

I

Am

ENERGIZED!

Original song by “The Police” – “Message in the Bottle”

Rewritten lyrics by ye110wbeard, Sean Kearney, that “Friday Funny Guy”

“Twitters in the Cloud”

Just across the Net
I tried to find some people
Commonalities
Maybe some spoke Weeble

I sought them out
Seeking friends in kind
What do you think would happen
and what that I would find?

I’ll send an SMS to the world
I’ll send an SMS to the world

I hope that someone hears my
I hope that someone hears my
I hope that someone hears my

Twitter in the Cloud now
Twitter in the Cloud now

Two years have past since I sent it out
Tossed that message out to the cloud
Now I’m following over 10,000
Many more are following me
as I Twitter through the night.

I sent an SMS to the world
I sent an SMS to the world

I blinked and someone heard my
I blinked and someone heard my
I blinked and someone heard my

Twitter in the Cloud now
Twitter in the Cloud now
Twitter in the Cloud now
Twitter in the Cloud now

Looked at my followers
My eyes were opened up wide
Others listened and chatted
Through the great big world

Seems we’re not different right down in the end
People are basically just the same
Seeking out a friend

We sent our SMS to the world
We sent our SMS to the world

We’re glad we heard the voices
We’re glad we heard the voices
We’re glad we heard the voices

Twitters in the Cloud now
Twitters in the Cloud now
Twitters in the Cloud now
Twitters in the Cloud now

Sending out an SMS
Sending out an SMS
Sending out an SMS
Sending out an SMS

(repeat to fade)

Original song "I Love Rock and Roll" - Joan Jett and the Blackhearts

Original idea tossed out by some well meaning and anonymous people so they don't get blamed.  But those involved know who the culprits were behind this

Chorus by those troublemakers

Lyrics by ye110wbeard

This song composed by and dedicated to the Powershell Community

"I LOVE POWERSHELL"

I got into my server and looked up at the screen
A little box of power came out my machine
Within a line or two
I fell in awe what it could do
With an export-csv and import too
yeah for you
Maninpulatin' data was easy oh to do
yeah to do

Cuz Jeffrey

I LOVE POWERSHELL
So drop another process down the pipeline baby
I LOVE POWERSHELL
So won't you load it up and script with me!

It's so easy to use, and it's completely free
Single lines of power flowing out so easily
Now work doesn't take so long,
Even had time to write this song
I can even use it to manipulate my Mobile phone
and move stuff in and out of my trusted zone

Cuz Poshies

I LOVE POWERSHELL
So drop another process down the pipeline baby
I LOVE POWERSHELL
So won't you load it up and script with me!

I'm just itching away, to use it everyday.

Next revision is gonna be better than super glue
We're waitin and rocking away for version two
yeah version two

CUZ Stevie

I LOVE POWERSHELL
So drop another process down the pipeline baby
I LOVE POWERSHELL
So won't you load it up and script with me!

I LOVE POWERSHELL
So drop another process down the pipeline baby
I LOVE POWERSHELL
So won't you load it up and script with...

I LOVE POWERSHELL
So drop another process down the pipeline baby
I LOVE POWERSHELL
So won't you load it up and script with...

I LOVE POWERSHELL
So drop another process down the pipeline baby
I LOVE POWERSHELL
So won't you load it up and script with...

I LOVE POWERSHELL
So drop another process down the pipeline baby
I LOVE POWERSHELL
So won't you load it up and script with me!