I recently became aware of a site called HaveIBeenPwnd - https://haveibeenpwned.com - run by @troyhunt and wanted to create a simple PowerShell Function for being able to check against this Database on whether your Email address (or like me addresses) has been likely to have been Pwnd! The function is in a Module called Check-HaveIBeenPwndStatus & the current function is called Check-HaveIBeenPwndStatus with only the 1 parameter –Account in which you pass your email account across

This may become a bit of a controversial post and that in some parts in fully intentional! This really should be giving PowerShell Users (looking at the admins of us all that just use PowerShell as if it were VBScript with no real community or practices) the opportunity to understand the problems with what they are outputting to “get it done” at this current time. My issue is that over the last 9 years PowerShell has become a crucial tool to be able to manage at scale (and also singular machines too) and yet there are still some truly awful examples being posted each day on how to solve what is most times a simple issue which has already been resolved by others

This is a very very quick post about the latest feature being made available downlevel from Powershell v5. As Microsoft have released PackageManagement (formally OneGet) that is now available for PowerShell v3 & v4 as detailed in this link http://blogs.msdn.com/b/powershell/archive/2015/10/09/package-management-preview-for-powershell-4-amp-3-is-now-available.aspx That’s right the ability to pull directly from the PowerShell Gallery but you need to install the Package Management release which I’ve Scripted for you here. And what better way than a simple 1 liner to grab and run the script

So this post is a fair bit overdue and that’s because I’ve been far far too busy as of late. However let’s get right into it! #PSConfAsia was an important event for me mainly because it was my first venture out of the UK in 20 years – yes 20 – which meant that I needed to sort out my passport – something that had been on my to-do list for about 6 years and it was my first real holiday EVER!

​Well this weekend was an interesting one in which I was able to partake in some really great sibling events to the main day which was just utterly fantastic to be a part of. The SPSCambridge/SQLSatCambs event has to be one of my favourite one to have attended recently due to the bringing together of both SharePoint Content and SQL Content under the single roof - and let me tell you it worked fantastically - Kudos to Mark Broadbent for the Ochestration of the whole event as events of this size arent easy to organise and co-ordinate.

So to set the scene a little there has been some discussions between some of the Speakers about what PSConf will be like for them and I’ve been revisiting the schedule to determine which areas are of the most interests in my opinion to the following categories of attendees Beginner Possibly new to IT and looking at understanding what has in the last 2+ years become a much more critical component in IT systems administration

I’ve been pondering for some time about getting a Manchester PowerShell User Group up and running and about a month ago I said to myself - Why not just do it. So I did !!! The first Manchester PowerShell User Group - which in keeping with the existing UK PowerShell Get-PSUGUK - is being called Get-PSUGUKMan and although I’m in the very basic stages of getting this sorted I do have a venue sorted and also 1 of 2 sessions already put together with hopefully a second to get confirmed in the upcoming weeks.

​So in just under 5 weeks we will have upon us a great event. The combination of a SQLSaturday and a SharePoint Saturday all under the 1 roof at The Moller Centre, Churchill College, Cambridge. This isn’t the first time an event like this has happened and it is unlikely to be the last time it happens either - but for me this is a first. Its a first for a number of reasons - not only is it the first joint SQL & SharePoint event I’ve been to but it will be the first that I’m presenting at!

I’m gonna try and keep this one short - the main reason is that there is a lot of pain points within this post that I could delve into some very deep detail and this could easily end up being long enough to be a book. So to cut it short but to set the scene this post has to look back 13 years ago - to when I was only 12 and even back then I was a highly optimistic person about what I could achieve and have believed that holding back opportunity to those with potential

If anyone reads my blog that knows me quite well and has spent some considerable amount of time interacting with me then you will probably know that I have preferred methods of contact - and with good reason too. Now I have a few rules that I stick to meticulously because of previous annoyances i have had with Telemarketers etc and these include Not answering “Unknown” or “Blocked” callers Google Searching numbers that I do not have stored in contacts and then deciding if I am to answer the call Typically not answering between 9-5 as that is my employers time and it is distracting Not answering if I’m not expecting a call Expecting a Clear and Concise reason for the call with a Name and contact number or better still and email address Now I don’t feel that I’m being unreasonable in the last one - After all we are all busy with many different priorities and lets face it unless its an absolute emergency then is mobile contact the best first initial port of call.

This week has seen me attend the SharePoint User Group in Leeds on Tuesday in which there were presentations by Hugh Wood from Rencore and Garry Trinder from ID and then the LeanAgile Meetup in Manchester. But firstly before I go into detail about the events lets take a step back and set the scenes leading up to them both. For me any community event whether it be SharePoint User Groups or the LeanAgile meetup or the bigger events like SharePoint Saturday’s & SQL Saturday’s the main aspect for attending these events for me is that you gain an insight to how others in other organisations are working due to the inherent knowledge sharing that occurs at these types of events and I do my best to try and drag others along where possible.

So this Saturday saw SPSLondon come upon us and like any other event like this it brings with it some very interesting and difficult decisions on which sessions to attend. As an attendee I would have found it very difficult to decide on which sessions that I would have attended - but to then add to that as a presenter and you​ can imagine some of the additional headaches that can and in my case did happen.

Monday was a pretty eventful day for me - and certainly the most eventful Monday I’ve had in a number of years. It all started with up very early, like 3am early, getting ready for the day ahead and then realising I had managed to loose my house keys. So after a frantic half hour of searching for them - I gave up and left the house to go catch the 06:22 from Macclesfield to Manchester so that I could get into work super early and get cracking on with some of the help for the PowerShell functions of SPCSPS.

​If your coming across to this blog then hopefully you are aware of the new features coming to SharePoint 2016 and in this case I’ll be looking at the new Min Role feature. Now in essance this is a good thing however there is the seen arguement that this really will be for the Large Scale farms of anywhere between 10 - 100 SharePoint Servers. The ease of being able to configure a New farm server - perhaps to replace another failing server or just to provide that additional capacity - and to from configuration tell it what role to perform has been available by utilising PowerShell Desired State Configuration or even using AutoSPInstaller and although this seems to have a similar purpose there are some fundamental differences

Well it had been an interesting few weeks and in my current house we have just had a new housemate move in who fits in really well with the rest of us. We discussed in the initial few weeks what we all did and naturally it brought up that I work within IT and enjoy (when I can) to have a few games on the 360 - Mainly Call Of Duty and a few others (Guitar Hero is another favourite)