Speaker

Thorsten Butz

Thorsten Butz

Natural born trainer

Natural born trainer

Duisburg, Germany

Thorsten Butz is a distinguished "Microsoft Certified Trainer" (MCT), consultant, book author and podcaster. He started his career in the late 1990s as a networking specialist and Unix enthusiast. He conducts Microsoft's server technologies since 2000. His desire for scripting and automation brought him at an early stage to his current focal point: the Windows PowerShell
Thorsten is the host of the "Sliding Windows" (sllidingwindows.de) podcast.

Thorsten Butz ist langjähriger Microsoft Certified Trainer (MCT), Consultant, Buchautor und Podcaster. Er begann seine Karriere als Netzwerkspezialist und Unix-Enthusiast beim Deutschen Provider Network. Seit Windows 2000 begleitet er intensiv Microsofts Server-Technologien. Seine ausgeprägte Leidenschaft für das Scripting führte ihn schon früh zu einem aktuellen Schwerpunkt seiner Arbeit: der Windows PowerShell
Thorsten Butz ist Gastgeber des "Sliding Windows"-Podcasts (slidingwindows.de).

Area of Expertise

  • Information & Communications Technology
  • Government, Social Sector & Education

Topics

  • PowerShell
  • Automation with PowerShell
  • PowerShell DSC
  • Windows Server
  • UNIX/Linux
  • Networking
  • Systems & Network Administration
  • cloud networking
  • Microsoft (Azure) Network Services
  • Security
  • Data Security

The "Sliding Windows" podcast live on stage

"Sliding Windows" (https://www.slidingwindows.de) is the IT pro podcast hosted by Thorsten Butz, featuring guests with a distinct expertise and - a voice. Celebritites joined the show such as Bruce Payette, Jeffrey Snover and Steve Lee, to name just a few particularly well-known players in PowerShell history.

This year we will broadcast live on stage from the PSConfEU 2024 in Antwerp. Be surprised who will be my guest!

Broadcast yourself

It's never been more important to be visible on social media and on the notable platforms, and it's rarely been so hard to keep up with ever-increasing quality standards and expectations.
Then you've given a great talk at an important conference and, of all things, your recording has failed yet again.

I started recording my own talks years ago, started my own podcast and I am taking care of the AV related matters of the PSConfEU today.

In this session, I will show how you can record your own presentations, lecutres and related topics with very simple means, edit them automatically and put them online with transcriptions and translations. Affordable and feasible for everyone. And of course with lots of demo material. It's time to broadcast yourselfs!

Live from the MCT Summit 2024 in Rijswijk/NL
https://vimeo.com/thorstenbutz/byourself

Slides and Notes:
https://github.com/thorstenbutz/conferences/tree/master/2024.MCTSummitNL
https://www.thorsten-butz.de/mctsummit2024/

about Epochs (a PeachaKucha)

What do you think when you read the numbers 1, 1601 or 1970?
Have you ever thougth it would simplify your life if 2 seconds made a minute, 2 minutes made an hour and 2 hours made a day?
Time formats are one of the trickiest and most error-prone things in the life of a computer scientist. So it's no wonder that PowerShell and the operating systems on which it runs are full of turbulences and steep drop-offs.
Fancy some nerdy PowerShell knowledge at warp speed?

Querying Wikidata with a glimpse of SPARQL

Wikidata represents the underlying basement of Wikipedia, it's the collaboratively edited knowledge base filling up Wikipedia with data. Querying Wikidata enables you to gain access to to a universe of information, just in case you know how to answer the right questions.

This session provides an insight to wikidata/wikimedia queries by SPARQL, the semantic query language from W3C.

Live from the balkony/PSConfEU 2020:
Vimeo URL
https://vimeo.com/423297546
Youtube URL
https://youtu.be/b7erBmbaVR4

PS Enigma

The Enigma is a myth. Used as a cipher device during World War, it was strongly belived that the use of the Enigma machine enabled NAZI Germany to communicate securely. The Enigma is also closely connected with the history of information technology: Alan Turing, who cracked the Enigma's encryption, was highly influential in the development of theoretical computer science.

How hard will it be to rebuild the encryption of the Enigma in PowerShell? Can we still learn something about cryptography from this - I bet so!

Live from Prague/PSConfEU 2023:
https://vimeo.com/843587626

PSEnigma is a powershell implementation of the cipher device that was used during WW II and cracked by the british intelligence in Bletchley Park.

Eine Paketverwaltung für Windows (Eine Geschichte voller Missverständnisse)

Mit der AppInstaller CLI (aka WinGet) hat Microsoft die Tor zu einer Paketverwaltung für Windows aufgestoßen. Schon der eigentümliche Name scheint ein Signal zu sein, wie schwer sich Microsoft tut, seine Plattform für eine zeitgerechte Form der Softwareverwaltung neu aufzustellen. Und über der Frage des Paketmanagements schwebt die noch grundsätzlichere Frage des Paketformats: MSIX und artverwandte "modern apps" tun sich schwer, die angestaubten Klassiker wie MSI vom Thron zu stoßen.

Wir lernen mit Scott Hanselman, Keivan Beigi und Demitrius Nelon die Protagonisten eines langjährigen Feldversuchs kennen, fremde Welten zu entdecken, neue Formate und neue Plattformen zu etablieren und Wege zu beschreiten, die nie ein Admin mitgegangen ist.

Andreas Nick und Thorsten Butz werfen einen launigen Insider-Blick auf Microsofts Ringen um eine Paketverwaltung und deren langen Weg vom Nano-Server (!) über Argument Completer hin zu nativen PowerShell-Cmdlets.

Live vom PSSat 2023 in Hannover:
https://vimeo.com/thorstenbutz/pssat2023

Folien und Co:
https://www.thorsten-butz.de/pssat2023/

Chasing the seconds 2.0: Functions done right

The processing of quantities (arrays, lists, collections ..) is in the DNA of the powershell. But many CmdLets only support the processing of arrays very poorly.

Are you aware of how to handle begin/process/end blocks properly? How do you build a script that supports pipelining as well as the direct passing of arrays without waisting time?
And what about remoting - PSSession, CIMSessions etc?

Øyvind Kallstad gave a presentation worth seeing at an earlier PSConf. This is as much a tribute as a follow-up.

Live from Vienna/PSConfEU 2022:
https://vimeo.com/732187919/d1ada65883

Thorsten Butz

Natural born trainer

Duisburg, Germany