2007 November | Mind Of Root

Windows PowerShell Cookbook by Lee Holmes is the latest in the Cookbook series by O’Reilly Publishing. I have been a huge fan of the Cookbook series of books. The Cookbooks are set up in the Problem/Solution/Discussion format, where the author proposes a common problem, shows a code/configuration solution to that problem, and then discusses why/how this solves the problem.

The Cookbook series has covered many technical topics and, in my opinion, covered the topics quite well. My current favorite is the IOS Cookbook, which set the bar quite high for the level of content for this series.

When I heard that there was going to be a Cookbook focused on PowerShell, I eagerly watched for it to appear on the bookshelf at my local bookstore (and to be available online). My first impression was that, for an O’Reilly Cookbook, it was rather skinny (584 pages). Being skinny does not doom a book to being a poor resource, so I picked it up and began to read.

In scanning the table of contents, it appeared that the book covered a wide array of common, not-so-common, and quite interesting tasks. After five minutes of reviewing the enclosed scripts and instructions, I was extremely disappointed. While the problems covered a good amount of ground and the scripts to solve the problems were elegant (better than anything I could come up with), the discussion was lacking.

In the IOS Cookbook, one could gain a working understanding of many of the protocols, services, and features offered in Cisco devices through the discussion portion of the solutions. I did not see that same ability reflected in the Windows PowerShell Cookbook.

The most disappointing to me was the coverage of how to create a PowerShell Cmdlet and how to add PowerShell scripting to your own programs. While Mr. Holmes provides examples of how to do each of the tasks, the discussion could be summed up as “check out the SDK documentation”. The book would have been better if he had not broached these topics.

The Windows PowerShell Cookbook will stay on my shelf as a reference book (for the code samples), but I would look to other resources first (e.g. Windows PowerShell In Action by Bruce Payette), if you need a resource to help learn PowerShell.

If you have read this book, please let me know what you thought.

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Steve

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Episode 24- The Lone Podcaster

Podcast November 16th, 2007

Recorded: November 15, 2007
Your Hosts: Rich Niemeier
Show Length: 07:45

Links mentioned in this show:

View the full show notes here.

Website Picks:

Rich - Revision3

Virtual Ted - IntelliAdmin

Listen Now:

Download Here

Keith

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Episode 23 - Just the FACTA’s

Podcast November 8th, 2007

Recorded: November 6, 2007
Your Hosts: Keith Albright and Rich Niemeier
Show Length: 1:03:42

Links mentioned in this show:

View the full show notes here.

Website Picks:

Rich - Darwin Awards and Destroy A Printer

Keith - ObjectDock Toolbar

Listen Now:

Download Here

Keith

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Episode 22 - Leaping Leopards

Podcast November 3rd, 2007

Recorded: November 1, 2007
Your Hosts: Keith Albright and Steve Murawski
Show Length: 1:14:24

Just Steve and Keith this week. Sorry for the delay in getting this episode produced. Scheduling conflicts forced us to record later in the week. Thanks for listening and we hope you enjoy.

Links mentioned in this show: