Break Yourself off a Piece of Chocolatey

Chocolatey is a software management solution that puts a repository of over 8,000 packages at your fingertips. You're just a few keystrokes away from installing, or updating, many of your favourite apps.

Sounds sweet, right? But how do you get started?

Join me as we unwrap the basics of Chocolatey:

* How do we install it?
* How do we install other software using it?
* Beyond installation, how do we manage our software?
* Do we really have to use the command line to get value from it?
* What do I need to be aware of if I want to start using this at work?

Just Scrape off the Black Bits: Using BurntToast to Display Timely Notifications

Toasts are a notification scheme in most, if not all, modern Operating Systems. Microsoft makes heavy use of them in Windows 10, and so can you!

Come along for a crash course in what Toasts are, how they’re displayed, and how you can easily use them via the BurntToast PowerShell module.

This is a primer on Toast Notifications, think of it as a 101

Croque Monsieur: Step up Your Toast Notification Game

You know what toast notifications are, you know that you can generate them using the BurntToast PowerShell module. But now you're wanting to branch out a little and try some fancy toast. Maybe toast topped with avocado, hummus, or maybe Marmite?

Wait, wrong toast. It's an easy mistake!

Come along and see how you can make your toast notifications more visually appealing with GIFs and hero images. How you can dynamically update existing notifications with new information. And finally, how you can trigger certain actions directly from a notification.

This is a follow up to "Just Scrape off the Black Bits", think of it as a 201

High-Intensity Scripting: Revisiting Speed Optimizations with PowerShell 7

There’s a number of things the PowerShell community know speed up their scripts. These range from common sense to superstitious.

I’ve talked about optimizing PowerShell for Speed at the PowerShell + DevOps Global Summit 2018, but with the work that’s been put into PowerShell 7 and beyond it’s time to revisit the topic.

This is a demo heavy session checking to see if old truisms remain valid, and if you even need to make any changes to your existing scripts to leave Windows PowerShell in the dust once you’re behind the wheel of its opensource big brother.

Who knows, PowerShell 7 may just be a performance enhancing drug that should be banned from the Olympics.