Chapter 24 Additional tips, tricks, and techniques
This is just one of those all-around chapters. It talks about profiles, customizing the console, a little bit of regex stufff, and some working with dates.
This isn’t one of those big “learning” chapters, however it is a great reference chapter that I know I will return to from time to time!
Chapter 25 Final exam: tackling an administrative task from scratch
Pretty to the point chapter title. It is what it says. You are given a task, with a few hints, and asked to write a function which will meet the requirements of that task.
This is a chapter where you will find out very quickly if you have been learning and following along with the labs. Fortunately the book is one big reference guide.
If you could only do one lab in this book(and you really should do all of them) it should be this lab. I say that because being the “final exam” you have to combine all or atleast most of the skills this book has taught you in order to complete the assignment.
Great Exam!
Chapter 26 Beyond the operating system, taking powershell further
This was a very different chapter than the others, as Don walks us through how he would learn a new snappin or module on the fly.
All of us have our comfort zone and area where we are the experts, but a very important part about being an IT professional is being able to adapt and to learn quickly. Being able to quickly assess and adapt to new powershell cmdlets and modules is a skill I consciously try to work on personally, so this both a fun and a learning chapter for me.
Don also only uses techniques in this chapter which he has taught in this book. As he references in this chapter, you can give a man a fish, or teach him how to fish. He, I thought, was definitely able to demonstrate that he has taught how me to fish in this book!!
Chapter 27 and Chapter 28
Chapter 27: Never the end deals with, “K, I am done with the book, what now?”. This short chapter briefly describes some common tasks the reader can start on to get their powershell life started! Even better in this chapter is a great resource list of where one can find additional powershell related resources and training. I, for one, am always looking for more powershell knowledge so this was awesome for me.
Chapter 28: Powershell cheat sheet is a bit more than a glossary of a ton of common things in powershell. Listed here is common logic operators like -gt -le as well as how and when to use $_ and a ton of other just great reference material. Definitely worth a look, but will more than likely be used mostly as a reference chapter.
Final Thoughts
It is slightly difficult to give a review on a whole book, when I have essentially been giving my thoughts on every individual chapter.
Overall I thought this was an awesome book, no questions asked. Yes there were a couple things I would have liked to be slightly different but that’s me. I am sure others found those sections perfect. No book can be perfect for everyone, however I definitely think this has the widest range of use for the most people. Which, in all honesty, might be the best thing one can say about a book for learning a technology.
There are definitely two things personally took away from this book. The first is just how to figure powershell out on my own. I no longer immediately go to google every time I need to accomplish a new posh task, I still might end up there, but I am far more independent and likely to figure it out on my own….WHICH IS AWESOME! It is such a great feeling knowing you were completely new at something not too long ago, and then feeling that you can handle your own with it. This book with Don is a Huge help in that.
The second thing I will take away from this book is hashtables. Previously, any time I would need to do a hashtable I would have to do a couple searches to find the syntax, because I could never remember it. Now I am a hashtable Machine! Hashtables, in my opinion, are used as much or more than just about anything else in powershell. So for me immediately know how to construct them is a big time saver, and allows me to do more with my scripts!
Finally, I thought this book is pretty much necessary for anyone who wants to learn powershell. It has step by step directions that take you through each part of the process, and doesn’t assume you already know how to do anything, which is great 🙂 ! The short chapters are perfect to keep some from getting discouraged at the thought of starting a really long chapter…none of that here!
The short chapters also provide another important function. Because the chapters are short, it also makes referencing much easier than it would be in most technical books. This also makes the book relevant to those who are already knowledgeable with powershell as it provides both a great and quick reference source.
So seriously, just go buy the book. You will love it and find it useful!!!! To check out all my experiences check here
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