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[Keith] Welcome to A Couple Of Admins Podcasting. I'm Keith Albright

[Rich] and I'm Rich Niemeier.

[Steve] and I'm Steve Murawski.

[Keith] This is Episode 35 recorded on January 22, 2008.

Chit-Chat - What's going on with you?

[Steve]

  • I'd like to welcome Karl Prosser to the show. Karl is the architect of PowerShell Analyzer and developers behind PowerShell Plus. He is also a Microsoft MVP in Admin Frameworks.

[Rich]

[Keith]

Housekeeping Items

[Rich] Contest

  • We received our first entry for our "Name that Podcast" contest.. (Rich-feel free to modify as you want) Dears,
-'3 lines away form the users' or '3 lines away form the stupid users' or so.
-Will be a weird title for everyone who has no clue how IT works in a big company.
-But for us who do that is will be the greatest 'inside joke' possible.
-(Working on the service desk of a company with about 15000 users I know what I'm talking about)
-Greetings from Belgium,
-Samuel

[Steve]

-Three cmdlets announced on each show.
-Contest entries will be a PowerShell script using all six cmdlets.
-Entries can be submitted to contest@acoupleofadmins.com.
-Submissions will be taken until February 14th.
-Two winners will be drawn from the entries - one random, one for best script.
-Prize - commercial license for PowerShell Analyzer (donated by Shell Tools)
-Prize - commercial license for the NetCmdlets? (donated by /n Software)

[Keith]

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Steve's Topics

  • Q and A with Karl Prosser
-What is it about PowerShell that drew you?
-About a month ago, we had an opportunity to talk with Dean Wells and Brandon Shell about the Microsoft MVP program. They gave us a pretty good understanding of how the program works. What, in your experience, has been the benefit to being an MVP in Admin Frameworks?
-I've found PowerShell Plus to be a great program, could you briefly describe what PowerShell Plus is and what the roadmap for it is in the near future?
-There can often be some animosity between admins and developers, much of it due to a lack of familiarity with each others' jobs. .NET Rocks recently had a show with David Aiken on bridging the gap between Dev and IT, which was very interesting (and partly focused on Powershell). What has been your biggest challenge in writing software for an administrator focused audience? And do you receive an push-back from your administrator customer base?
-Do you have any experience with other scripting languages?
-What, in your opinion, sets PowerShell apart from other scripting languages in the Microsoft world?

Rich's Topics

  • interesting view on leaving wifi open at your house [Rich]
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-Link: http://www.wired.com/politics/security/commentary/securitymatters/2008/01/securitymatters_0110
-Link: http://shrinkster.com/u1u

Sun Microsystems Announces Agreement to Acquire MySQL?, Developer of the World's Most Popular Open Source Database'''

-Not something I work directly with, but definately have used in conjunction with an open source project
-How will this change it's license and use?
-Link: http://www.mysql.com/news-and-events/sun-to-acquire-mysql.html
-Link: http://shrinkster.com/u2a
  • Topic 3
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-Link: http://
  • Topic 4
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-Link: http://

Keith's Topics

Keith's Topics

  • Scheduled Task Trick
-I figured out this trick to remotely run a program or script years ago when I was in AD training. There I used it to run the MS 'Shutdown' utility on a co-workers box. We got into a war where we kept shutting down each other's workstations. You can stop the utility by running the command with a cancellation. We had defense scripts, then we hacked each others defense scripts. Jay modified my 'Defense' script to not cancel the job and just insult me.
-We moved on to running all kinds of stuff. Audio files, I launched 100 copies of notepad on his desktop. It was pretty fun.
-It has legitimate uses as well.....
-Our network is somewhat disjointed. When I added the WAN connectivity to the other sites, it was a second gateway so I need to add routes on servers to the WAN subnets. I hadn't done that yet to all the boxes and started working at remote site.
-Needed to add routes to some boxes but don't have remote access to them. Since I had access to at least one box via terminal services, I popped into that box and created a script in an easily accessible (via UNC) location to add the routes. Then I started the 'Task Scheduler' service on the target box and opened the box via UNC. Went into Scheduled Tasks and created a task to call the batch file. Saved it, right-click, and choose 'Run'. Now the box is accessible.
-Link: http://
  • Juniper Announcement on January 29th
-Project code-named 'Hurricane' and it is expected they will announce their entry into the LAN and data center switching market
-I mentioned this a while back and it finally looks like it will happen. I'm hoping they do it right and enter the market at the right price/feature point to be a viable alternative. I've really liked their other non-carrier class equipment, but that all came to them through acquisition. So, we'll see if they leverage the talent they acquired.
-Link: http://www.juniper.net
-Link: http://shrinkster.com/u1w
  • Topic 3
-Link: http://gigaom.com/2008/01/15/vmware-acquires-thinstall-to-take-virtualization-to-the-desktop/
-Link: http://shrinkster.com/u1v
  • Local SAM Administrator passwords - Setting via Group Policy
-I noticed recently that there is no consistent Local Admin password on my desktops. So, I set about trying to get them synchronized.
-Cannot be done in GP...Why not? Many scripting opportunities, but I don't think it should be done this way. It should be on-demand with logging.
-Ended up using CUSRMGR.EXE from Windows 2000 Resource Kit in login script. I know it makes the admin pw readable and it is using security through obscurity assuming no one can read the script file to find it.
-Have they addressed this in 2k8?
-Link: http://

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Listener Feedback

From listener.... Thank to to listener Dave Smith, who sent in some questions for the Active Directory Special Topics Show.

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Website Picks

Rich - http://makeuseof.com Just site that has various ideas on what applications can be used to get certain jobs or tasks done.

Steve - http://

Keith - http://

Last Call

Anyone....Anyone....Buehler.....Buehler....

Steve

-I just wanted to quickly announce the "soft open" of my new site - PowerShell-Basics.com; where I will host a series of screencasts on how to get started with PowerShell. Right now, there is a blog entry about some of the pre-requisites for PowerShell and some of free resources that make using PowerShell a bit easier. My first show should be out in about a week and will cover installing PowerShell and navigating this new shell environment.
-Link: http://powershell-basics.com

Closing

All right, well that is it for the show. For listener feedback; you can email us at Feedback [at] acoupleofadmins.com or post a comment on the main site at ACoupleOfAdmins.com. If you use iTunes, you could write a review. If you just want to show us your listening, drop a pin on the Frappr map...there's a link on the show site.

Lastly, you can drop any show ideas or topic requests on the wiki. There is a link to the wiki on the main show site. If you would like to participate in the show; either through an interview, a segment contribution, or any other way, please let us know. We are also a member of the Techpodcast and the Blubrry networks. Check out some other great shows by going to Techpodcast.com and Blubrry.com....That's Blubrry without the E's

Thanks everyone.