Did you know that PowerShell.org has, for more than a year now, offered a mostly-monthly TechLetter e-mail newsletter? It’s stuffed with community news, announcements (like our free webinar schedule), feature articles on PowerShell, and much more. It’s a great way to learn a little bit at a time, and it’s truly awesome content. And we keep back issues for your perusal! You can find the back issues online. We post all but the most recent 2-3 issues, but of course you can subscribe and have them delivered right to your inbox around the middle of most months. We’re always on the lookout for new content, too - and if you’re thinking, “oh, I have nothing really to share,” you’re wrong! It can be as simple as an article about something you figured out. With more than 5,000 subscribers, someone’s sure to appreciate your perspective! Contact our Editors at PowerShell.org via e-mail to submit your article, or to suggest an article idea. And please - tell a friend!
As we approach our annual shareholder meeting for PowerShell.org, Inc., I wanted to take a moment and share some details about our 2014-2015 operating budget. First, you can always review the budget spreadsheet in our OneDrive account. This is updated as our plans change, prices rise, and so on; you’re welcome to check back whenever you like. Now, let’s talk about some of our organizational goals, and what some of the items in the spreadsheet mean. As you know, we’ve been fortunate to have the support of several corporate sponsors since our invention. MVP Systems, Interface Technical Training, CBT Nuggets, and SAPIEN Technologies have been amongst those helping us out; Interface and SAPIEN both signed on for a generous three-year commitment right when we launched, and we couldn’t have gotten to this point without them. However, we know that companies’ goals and positions change over time, so we’ve been trying to drive to a point where we didn’t need to rely on corporate sponsorship. We now believe that the PowerShell Summit is stable enough that, with a conservative budget, we can meet our operational needs out of the profits from the North America and Europe events. As a note, PowerShell.org isn’t classified as a _nonprofit; _we’re a _not-for-profit. _We’re legally allowed to make a profit; it just isn’t a goal. The corporation pays Federal income tax on any profits, although most of our income is spent on expenses, which end up being deductions. As you’ll notice in the spreadsheet, we believe we can meet our annual operating budget by applying a $175 overhead charge to each attendee of the Summit, assuming we get 100 attendees between the two events annually. That’s _conservative; _the N.A. show has done 100 and 150, in its two years. So in reality the number can probably be much smaller. Our $750 annual AWPP fee includes Summit admission, VERIFIED EFFECTIVE exams, and other benefits; our operating budget reflects the costs for these items (including virtual machine hosting for the examination program). So $175 of that $750 is earmarked for PowerShell.org; that leaves $575 to cover actual Summit expenses. Due to the exchange rate, Europe is our worst-case show for expenses, with a $330/person overhead for food and beverage. The remaining $245 goes to cover speaker overhead: speaker food and beverage (we admit them to the event for free, but they still eat), and some speaker travel reimbursement. With 50 paid attendees, that’s $12,250 in overhead income. Subtract $3300 for 10 speakers’ F&B, and we have about $9000 left to cover other expenses, including some speaker travel reimbursement. The US shows do somewhat better; in reality; we probably will take less than the $175 per person from the Europe show, to allow for more speaker travel expenses, and take a bit more from the US show where our expenses are lower and attendance is known to be higher. Most of the budget line items should be fairly self-explanatory. In some cases, we’re receiving some of the services for free at present; we’ve budgeted to pays for them should our free ride ever end. You’re welcome to ask about anything that seems unclear, too. But you’ll notice that there’s no budget for salaries: nobody associated with PowerShell.org, Inc. is paid for their efforts. We’re run by volunteers. So what happens when we get 200 global Summit attendees instead of the 100 we budget for? That’ll give us an operational pad. In most cases, it means we’ll be able to be a bit more elaborate with the Summit itself, buying some food for an evening event, for example. As I mentioned, it’ll also allow us to better reimburse speakers for their out-of-pocket travel expenses, which is definitely a goal. In fact, one reason we’ve tried to pay the operational budget from just half our expected attendance is specifically so we’ll have extra funds so that speakers don’t have to be entirely out-of-pocket to present at the Summits. I hope this is helpful. As always, feel free to post your questions.
We’ll be going live with the PowerShell Toolmaker program very soon. Wave 1 will permit our PowerShell Summit N.A. 2014 alumni who registered early and were given a free exam. If you’re one of those folks, and if you would like to be an early registrant, please contact exams at PowerShell.org. You will need to have your Summit confirmation code (it was e-mailed to you when you registered, and was printed on your badge; we cannot provide it to you if you’ve lost it). We’re looking for a small handful of early registrants to take the exam and help us test the grading systems. If you pass, it’s “real,” and you’ll get an e-certificate like the one shown here! How do you know if you got a free exam? There was a slip included with your badge at the Summit. If you weren’t paying attention, we’ll allow you to try entering your Summit confirmation code as an exam voucher to see if it works. If you can’t find your confirmation code, you’re out of luck. Wave 1 is designed to let us test the system and make sure everything is working well, in a small enough scale to manage any problems that arise.
The PowerShell Summit is the number one place where PowerShell enthusiasts gather and learn from each other in fast-paced, knowledge packed presentations. Experts from all over the world including MVP’s, Guru’s, and PowerShell team members, join together for a few days to discuss and learn how to maximize using PowerShell in the workplace. And now the PowerShell Summit is coming to Europe. PowerShell Summit Europe 2014 will be held September 29, 30, and October 1 at the Hotel Park in Amsterdam, Holland. https://powershell.org/community-events/summit/powershell-summit-europe/ If you want to share your PowerShell expertise, then this is your official call to submit presentations for selection! **Topic Areas – What we are looking for ** We are looking for 45-minute presentations covering a wide aspect of PowerShell expertise. We have three main topic areas that may assist you in building an abstract. • PowerShell Internals – A deep look into the inside workings of PowerShell and practical solutions that are built from them. These presentations are more focused on the PowerShell development community that is building extensions and solutions relating to PowerShell. • PowerShell in Production – These presentations are focused on domain specific PowerShell solutions for IT Pro’s such as managing Exchange, System Center, IIS, SharePoint, VMware and more. • PowerShell Features Deep Dive – These presentations are a deep look into configuring and working with PowerShell features and capabilities such as PowerShell Remoting, PowerShell Web Access, Reporting and more. We are open to presentations across the entire ecosystem that has been built around PowerShell; so don’t hesitate to send an abstract for your particular area of expertise. And don’t think, “oh, I can’t do a presentation!” We aren’t looking for Toastmasters winners – we’re looking for folks to be a part of the community! Take the leap and present! Each session is only 35 minutes, with 10 minutes for Q&A! Presentation submissions – What you should send to us Presentations will be 45-minutes in length (planning for 30-40 minutes of material and 5-15 minutes of Q&A) and the submission should include the following: • Presentation Title • Presentation abstract – a description of the presentation and the topics covered. 100 words or less and suitable for marketing. • 50 word biography You can submit multiple presentations in the same topic area or for different ones. What you get if you present The European Summit is working to a very tight budget as this is the first time we are running it. Compensation for speakers will be free admission (not free Association for Windows PowerShell Professionals membership, https://powershell.org/association-for-windows-powershell-professionals, just free admission, which includes food). We will not reimburse hotel, expenses, or travel. It’s important that speakers not register for the conference, because we will not be refunding you if you do that. The financial situation may change to a certain degree if the event sells out but we can’t cover all of your expenses as a speaker and we can’t make any guarantees at this stage. We also ask that you help publicize the event. Presentation submission deadline – When you should send it by Start sending your presentation submissions immediately! The selection committee will start selecting presentations as soon as they arrive so you don’t want to miss out. The last day we will accept presentation submissions will be May 23, 2014. Send your proposals to cft2014eu@powershell.org. Please either put multiple proposals in a Word doc, or send just one proposal in the body of an email, so that we can track these more easily. When you will know you’ve been selected The selection committee will start reviewing submissions immediately and begin the selection process. You will be informed if one or more of your presentations have been selected and sent a contract on or before June 14, 2014. You will need to return the signed contract by June 21, 2014. The final agenda will be announced early July and posted on PowerShell.Org. We look forward to your submissions and your help in making PowerShell Summit Europe 2014 your most valuable IT/Dev conference of the year!
Our IndieGoGo Campaign is off to an amazing start, raising over $6,300 (including some offline donations) toward our ultimate $9,000 goal. So far, we’ve raised enough to ensure we can record two tracks of Summit content - enabling us to record speakers’ laptops and voice, and to post the videos on YouTube, for free. Meeting our full $9,000 goal will enable three tracks of recordings, which is what the North American show currently produces. The equipment we’re investing in will also support, should we choose to add it, an analog camera input and automatic picture-in-picture, meaning we can later add-on to include video of the speaker(s) as well as what’s on their laptop. This equipment also meets an important set of goals for us: It requires no software on speaker laptops (often problematic), and it’s operated - literally - by a single big, red, lighted button. Meaning, it’s easy to use and shouldn’t interfere with the live audience’s experience. I’m personally humbled by the generosity of our community. While larger donations are being considered “share purchases” in PowerShell.org, Inc., these contributors are essentially getting nothing in return for their money - but they’re making something possible that will benefit _everyone. _Making this content permanently available, for free, will become a treasure trove of valuable information _forever. _I can’t express my gratitude enough. Tell a colleague, tell a friend: Every donation helps, no matter how small. And thank you, thank you, thank you.
We’re often asked if the PowerShell Summit sessions will be recorded or live-streamed. The answer, so far, has been “no,” because the equipment needed to do so gets expensive. But we’re willing to give it a go - with crowd funding. Check out our IndieGoGo campaign, where you can contribute to making session recordings a reality - forever. We’ve got about 30 days to reach our goal. So if recorded sessions are important to you - now’s the time to put your money where you mouth is!! Fingers crossed!
Told you this would eventually start happening ;). Matt Sullivan of Strategic Staffing contacted me with the following job posting; if you’re interested, reply to him directly at 781-347-5220. … My name is Matt Sullivan and I am a member of the Strategic Staffing Division at NTT DATA Inc., the sixth largest global IT integrator. We have more than 75,000 employees worldwide, offices in 40 different countires, and we are owned by Nippon Telegraph and Telephone, the largest telecommunications company in the world. I am currently seeking a Scripting Engineer - PowerShell to join our team in Burlington, VT. The job description can be found below for your review. Please note that your resume will not be submitted to the client until we have discussed your background. Title: PowerShell Scripter Location: Burlington, VT Duration: 1 year Our Client has a number of projects in flight that require scripting (PowerShell) as part of their automation solution in our Windows environment. This position would require that the contractor meet with other project members, to gather requirements, build, test and document the scripts. He/she will then hand this work off to another vendor to be implemented on the scheduling platform (BMC’s Control-M, a SaaS hosted by Client). As a second priority, the contractor will work with various departments, to examine an existing body of scripts/jobs which also in our Windows environment. These jobs, having been prioritized by the client, will be converted, if necessary, to PowerShell, tested and documented before being turned over to Client. This body of work is not expected to be completed in the time allotted as it is very large. Our goal is to address as many as possible working from the highest priority down. PowerShell is the scripting language of choice. A few years at a minimum is required including experience with .NET remoting. Expert level in Powershell 3+ years experience Powershell V2 and/or V3 Solid understanding of Powershell Remoting Business Analyst skills Experience in requirements gathering Testing methodologies, test plan development Strong documentation skills We are dedicated to working with a wide range of IT consultants, as an example corp to corp and W-2 hourly contractors; and we offer competitive benefits for candidates applying as W-2 contractors. Benefits available for W-2 contractors only: Medical Dental Vision Caremark Prescription 401(k) W-2 Employee Assistance Program Accident Insurance- Workers’ Compensation Insurance and Business Travel Insurance COBRA Healthcare Reimbursement Account Programs Credit Union Corporate Mortgage Program
I know we’re currently seeing folks having a problem logging into the site by means of Windows Live accounts. Unfortunately, the problem is on Microsoft’s end - we’ve submitted a ticket. In the meantime, I want to point out a neat feature that can help: You can log in using a different social account, and if it or you provides the same e-mail address that you use with your Live account, our site will link the two. From then on you can log into the same profile on our site using either social account. Makes a nice backup. For this linking to work, you (a) need to know the e-mail address that you use to log into Windows Live. You then need to (b1) log in using a social account that has the same e-mail address for you, or (b2) log in using a social account that doesn’t provide an e-mail to us. In the case of (b2), we’ll then prompt you for an e-mail address, and you provide the same one you use to log into Windows Live. That’s how we link your profile to the new social account. Social accounts that fall into the (b2) category include BlogSpot.com, Twitter, and LiveJournal. We very much want to get Windows Live working again. We’re working on it, and you can contact our admin@ email alias if you think you have any clues for helping.
PowerShell Summit North America Registration is in full swing, and we’ve got about 50 more spots to reach our break-even goal. Hopefully, those of you that have been holding off for budgetary reasons are now “weapons free” and can plan to join us in April 2014!
Confirmed PowerShell Product Team Presenters
We’ve confirmed a great set of speakers from the team itself, including Jason Shirk, Lee Holmes, Kenneth Hanson, and Hemant Manhawar. Of course, Shell Father Jeffrey Snover will also be presenting a couple of sessions! This helps really round out our agenda, along with several special events that we’ve got planned. You’ll participate in a large-scale Iron Scripter event, mix and mingle with team members in Microsoft’s “top of the world” cafe in downtown Bellevue, and rub elbows with PowerShell experts from all over the world during our pre-event mixer.
I wanted to take a moment and wish everyone a very happy new year, and to do a sort of wrap-up of 2013 from PowerShell.org’s perspective. We started 2013 with a bang, including our first-ever PowerShell Summit North America, held on-campus at Microsoft in Redmond. We’ll be returning to the Seattle area in April 2014 for PowerShell Summit North America 2014, and are planning the first PowerShell Summit Europe 2014 in Amsterdam in September. For the N.A. show, we need about 50 more Summit attendees to break even, and can accommodate about 100 more than we’ve currently got registered. We ran a very successful Scripting Games that kicked off just as the Summit was ending. Thousands participated, tens of thousands of dollars in prizes were handed out, and most importantly the Games made the transition from being a much-loved child of the Microsoft Scripting Guys to being a community-owned event that can hopefully continue forever. We’ve got the first Winter Scripting Games in a loooong time starting in just a few days, in fact. In the wake of The Scripting Games, we ran a summer-long series of Great Debates, and your comments on those informed the first-ever Community Book of PowerShell Practices, now offered as a free ebook. PowerShell.org, Inc. closed its first fiscal year at the end of June 2013, and financially we lost just a bit of money. Don’t worry - that was always more or less the intent; we’re not running the corporation to make a buck, but rather to more-or-less break even. At the moment, we have $29,988.25 in our checking account, most of which is earmarked for Summit 2014 expenses. We’re now providing hosting services for about 17 local and regional user groups, giving them a spot to post upcoming meeting dates, post-meeting file attachments, and other details. We’re hoping this helps raise awareness of the efforts they’re all making to have a strong local PowerShell support system in place. 2013 also saw the PowerScripting Podcast become a welcome part of PowerShell.org. Host Jon Walz also got his first MVP Award, a long-awaited and well-deserved honor that he now shares with co-host Hal Rottenberg. Everyone appreciates the hard work they do, and we at PowerShell.org wanted to make sure they had the resources to keep doing it (equipment ain’t free), so we offered to help out when they needed, and they graciously accepted. We’re delighted to be working with them. PowerShell.org played an important role in developing Microsoft’s official entry-level PowerShell training, course 10961, by giving the authors (e.g., me) a place to survey folks about topic, level of coverage, and more, and to solicit feedback on the “A” and “B” revs while updating the course for PowerShell v4. This site (and all of you) also played an important role in selecting topics for the advanced-level training, course 10962, which will be developed in 2014. Finally, you all helped provide feedback for Microsoft Courseware Marketplace course 55039, which covers PowerShell scripting and toolmaking. When you see a survey posted here, jump in - it makes a very real difference in some very important projects! 2013 was also the year we Moved to Azure, spinning up an Azure-hosted CentOS VM that’s now running the site. It’s gotten faster, is a bit easier to maintain, and is a heck of a lot more highly available thanks to Microsoft’s cloud hosting. I’m extremely proud to have had so many folks jump in and help out this year. Dave Wyatt, Matt Penny, Matt Johnson, Mike Shepard, and Nicholas Getchell have all taken on curator roles for the free ebooks we offer on PowerShell.org. They’re doing a wonderful job in making sure those titles stay updated - so much so, that we’re now just linking to the books’ GitHub repository, where you can download the DOC files directly. Dave Wyatt has also been posting some incredibly detailed and informative blog posts that I hope you’re reading - I really appreciate his contributions here. I also want to thank Matt Tilford, Chris Hunt, and Mark Keisling, who have taken on editorial duties for the TechLetter newsletter. Our aim is to put out a solid, informative, technically deep monthly offering and these guys are absolutely on the job. I hope you’re subscribed, because if you aren’t, you’re missing out. Finally, MVP Steven Murawski has made PowerShell.org his home for Desired State Configuration (DSC) blogs and code, and he’s been prolific. His employer, StackExchange, has been an early adopter of the DSC technology, and Steven’s been sharing pretty much everything he’s learned. We’ve had some transitions in 2013. Board member and co-founder Kirk Munro has had to step away from day-to-day duties with PowerShell.org, although he remains a member of the board. Board member Jason Helmick has stepped into a second-in-command position, and is more or less running the North America Summit from an operational perspective. Jason earned his first MVP Award this year, giving us an all-MVP Board that also includes myself, Jeffery Hicks, and Richard Siddaway. I’m extremely proud of everything we’ve accomplished. I’m delighted that so many folks are jumping into the forums and offering answers to questions - it’s a massive relief on my own workload, and there are some damn smart folks offering their help to the community for free. In fact, we plan to recognize some of them in our first-ever PowerShell Heroes award, scheduled for January 2014. We’re also going to make good on a promise I made when we started this site: our above-and-beyond contributors are going to become part-owners of this community with an award of stock in PowerShell.org, Inc. That’ll give them some concrete control over the community they’re helping to build. Look for that mid-2014, when we near the end of our fiscal year. For 2014, I’d like to thank our returning sponsors, SAPIEN Technologies and Interface Technical Training. These folks give a lot, financially, to help make this site work. Please show them your appreciation in every way you can. In 2014, my company, Concentrated Tech, is also coming aboard as a sponsor, and I’ll be offering my first-ever public PowerShell training. I think 2014 should be a great year, both for PowerShell.org and for the broader PowerShell community that we’re trying to serve. If you’re new here, or you’ve just been lurking, please jump in and help. Write an article about something you learned, answer a question in the forums, or volunteer to help out. We’re all in this together, and the stronger a community we all make _together, _the more we’ll be able to support each other when needs arise. I look forward to serving you in 2014! Don Jones President and CEO
