These are the folks who do the best overall. This prize will be awarded in mid-June. The overall winners from both the Advanced and Beginner events will win a free pass (travel expenses not included) to TechEd North America 2014 or TechEd Europe 2013 - your choice. We realize the TechEd Europe dates are pretty close to when this prize will be awarded… so we’ll try and intervene and make it a 2014 pass, if we can. Second place overall winners will receive a SAPIEN Software Suite 2012, valued at $699, from SAPIEN Technologies. Third place overall winners will receive 5 ebooks (per person) from Manning.
If you’ve been on the site today, you’ve doubtless noticed some of the visual changes. In addition to providing a simpler theme that - over time - will be more mobile-friendly, we’re also lining up for a major move of our discussion forums. That’ll probably happen after TechEd, but we may be able to squeeze it in prior.
The existing forums are fine, but they’re a bit heavy in the code department, and hard to maintain. We’ve also gotten a bit bloated with the categories. Sorry about that. Anyway, the plan is to move to an integrated forums, a simpler hierarchy, and better notification options. It’ll make it a lot easier for us moderators to help answer questions. We’ll be archiving the old content, so it’ll still be accessible and searchable. However… and here’s the rub… we’re gonna ditch your user accounts. We have to. The old database is cloggy with spambots, and we just need to get away from it. We’re going to offer integrated login (Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, a bunch others), so you won’t have to entrust your password to us any longer if you don’t want to. We are not linking the old forums to this WordPress site. You’ll be creating a NEW login here, and it can use those external authentication systems. The NEW login you create HERE will be completely separate from any login you have in the existing, old forums. You don’t need to create a new account now - you can wait until the new forums go live. Anyway… that’s all ahead. Love to hear your thoughts as we continue planning. There’s another thing: The PowerShell People site. To be honest, that was created as a kind of… game/toy. Something to see if I could do. We’ve gotten a few people using it but not many, and it just kind of sits there on its own. We’re probably going to be spinning that down, but we’re going to take what we learned from it and try and incorporate something into this main site. No firm ideas, yet, and we’d appreciate any you may have. In the meantime, we’ve already implemented a few changes. The new site theme is perhaps the most obvious; you’ll notice that we’ve also moved a lot of static pages - like the newsletter, Scripting Games, and Summit pages - into the new theme. We’ve also enabled single sign-on to the site, using Facebook, Twitter, Google, OpenID, WordPress.com, and Live ID (or whatever Microsoft is calling it this week). Thanks!
I’ve posted an instruction booklet for the 2013 Scripting Games. Although you can’t register until April 22nd, you can get a sneak peek at what the new Games Web site looks like, and start preparing yourself to compete. READ THE FRIENDLY MANUAL. There are some one-time decisions you’ll have to make, and some “if you mess this up, you’re screwed” moments (like forgetting your password). It’s all on you - so familiarize yourself with the potential “gotchas” right away. You’re welcome to leave a comment on this post if you have any questions, or ask in the forums. Note that the forums may not be used to ask for feedback on your entry from judges - they won’t be monitoring the forum. It should also not be used for technical support questions about the Web site; the site will have a “feedback” link on the bottom of every page for that purpose.
Believe it or not, we are coming up on our one year anniversary, and will be winding down our capital campaign. If you’d like to become a stockholder in PowerShell.org, you will have until June 1st May 15 to do so. Read the details at https://powershell.org/discuss/viewtopic.php?f=26&t=239 if you’re interested! Updated to show May 15 as the cutoff date. Our shareholder meeting notices and ballots will go out on May 16, so we can’t accept new stock purchases after that date.
As described in the 2013 Scripting Games Competitors’ Guide, our expert judges this year will not be awarded numeric scores. Frankly, folks seem more interested in having their entries peer-reviewed than just getting a number - and why not? Expert review is a great way to learn! Unfortunately, there aren’t enough judges in the world to review all the entries we’ll receive, so our judges will be picking their own “best and worst” lists, and commenting on those (taking care to not reveal authors’ names, as much as possible).
As revealed in the 2013 Scripting Games Competitors’ Guide, the 2013 Games will invite the community in general to award numeric votes for entries. Our expert judges will instead focus on commentary, helping make the Games into an even better learning experience. They’ll be commenting without revealing competitors’ names, and even if you don’t recognize your entry in their comments, you’ll hopefully find plenty to learn from.
Our top prizes, however, will be awarded by a Mighty Panel of Celebrity Judges. They’ll review all the other judges’ top picks, stack-rank them, and through some Ingenious Number Crunchingâ„¢ award the top prizes. Bet you’d like to meet the judges.
In preparation for the upcoming Scripting Games, the April 2013 issue of the free PowerShell.org TechLetter will feature tips, examples, and advice for helping you do the best in the Games! Remember that the Competitor Guide is now available, so you can start reviewing how the Games will be graded (by the community) and judged this year. If you’re not already receiving the TechLetter, [subscribe by April 15th][3] to receive the April issue in your Inbox!
Registration for the 2013 Scripting Games will begin April 22nd (check this post in case we need to make a change to that). You will register for either the Beginner or Advanced track.
Each event will kick off on a Thursday, which is when you will be able to download the event details in a PDF file. You will have until the end of the following Monday to upload your one and only entry. Please pay attention to the time zone information displayed on the Web site so that you don’t misunderstand when the event starts and stops! The dates in this schedule refer to 00:00 hours, GMT, on the date given. So “April 25” means “00:00 hours on April 25, GMT,” or just as the clock ticks from April 24 to April 25 GMT. This is especially important for the end time - “April 30” means “as soon as it stops being April 29, GMT.”
Our Competitor Guide is now online - you can download it here: 2013 Competitor Guide We’re doing things a bit differently this year. We’ll be engaging the overall PowerShell community for numeric grades - and those doing the grading have an awesome chance to win some great prizes! Our expert Judges will be focused on commentary, making this even more of a learning event. Download the Guide and see what’s in store - the Games are scheduled to start the week of April 22nd. As a note, you should get used to checking our Scripting Games Announcements thread (https://powershell.org/category/announcements/scripting-games/) so that you don’t miss any goodies.
I know, this took forever. Mea culpa. I’ve been working my shell off, and finally got around to pulling the info.
Beginner Track
Wouter Beens (4.667)
Laurel Raven (4.5)
Chris Davis (4.5)
Advanced Track
Alexander Kuzin (4.5)
Lido Paglia (4.5)
(anonymous) (4)
Those are the average scores from those entries, and in case of a tie we broke it by submission timestamp. Things will be working a bit differently in the actual Games, coming your way in April, so stay tuned. In fact, you can subscribe to a specific topic for Scripting Games announcements, if you like.
