Welcome to our first official newsletter.

This is a new idea we’re looking to develop further and welcome your feedback on what you think of the newsletter concept for our user group. We are planning to send out a monthly newsletter that talks about all things PowerShell in the community and the things we have planned for the near future as well as a discussion of the topics recently discussed at groups meetings. We hope you find the information in our newsletter helpful and insightful. We’re still figuring out the right length, so please let us know what you think!

RTPSUG Events in May:

PSKoans: Learn PowerShell concepts using Pester! (Joel Sallow)

Joel Sallow spent an hour with us earlier this month to show off his module called PSKoans. The concept of his tool is to help you learn the proper syntax of code through question and answer sessions. The questions (called koans) are actually Pester tests that you must solve and as you do you become more “enlightened”.

The koans start with simpler topics like basic string manipulation and grow more difficult by adding numbers and more complex strings. The questions move on to more advanced topics like Pipelines and Providers and other more difficult topics.

Just like any good teaching tool, Joel has built in a variety of areas to work on and lots of questions to reinforce ideas. Stop by our YouTube channel and watch the recording!

Chocolatey: From zero to hero in 60 minutes! (Stephen Valdinger)

Stephen Valdinger from Chocolatey will be giving a demonstration of the power and flexibility of Chocolatey for software deployment on May 15th. PowerShell has been responsible for introducing countless numbers of engineers to automation; Chocolatey does the same for software distribution. The days of building complex multi-step MSI’s and zip installs are gone and in its place is simple to build and simple to install packages that can be run from a PowerShell command prompt with ease.

Stephen is a great speaker and always has tons of awesome examples to share. He has a true passion for Chocolatey and PowerShell and it really comes out in his talks. We invite you to join us for what will be a fantastic session!

BONUS: Resume Workshop with TEKSystems

You often hear us talking about building a community to help each other out. This event we expand on that idea when we welcome TEKSystems to our May 15th meeting to give a 10-minute talk about the state of the job market and what PowerShell means to employers. TEKSystems has offered to review anyone’s resume during our regularly scheduled meeting and offer feedback and tips on how to make improvements before the meeting ends. They will not be holding onto anyone resumes. Instead, they will “red pen” your resume and then you can speak with them afterwards if you like.

Everyone is encouraged to bring their resumes with them to get a free evaluation and critique from TEK Systems. Do not miss out on this opportunity to have a recruiter review your resume and offer feedback on how to make yourself the most marketable!

RTPSUG Events in June:

Take Your PowerShell to New Places: PowerShell Pro Tools Walkthrough (Tim Warner)

We’re excited to have Microsoft MVP and Pluralsight author Tim Warner presenting for us once again on June 5th! You may remember Tim’s excellent discussion of how to get started with VSCODE and his personal tips for how to get going without much effort. Tim is back with us in June to talk about a tool he has been using for a while now: PowerShell Pro Tools.

The toolset is a suite of tools designed to help bring PowerShell language support to the development environment. You may not need to perform complex tasks such as convert C# to PowerShell, creating a GUI front-end for a PowerShell function or packaging your PowerShell module as an EXE or DLL very often. As a result, most people struggle when they need to do these types of tasks. Adam Driscoll’s PowerShell Pro Tools is here to do those tasks for you. Tim will be walking us through how to use PowerShell Pro Tools in three environments: Visual Studio, Visual Studio Code, and the PowerShell console.

Local Meeting (June 19th): Lightning Demos / Code Sharing

For the past year, we have been hosting in-depth sessions featuring one person talking about one subject, allowing them the time to go into great detail about their chosen topic. On June 19th, we’re going back to our roots with lightning demos of code sharing!

We’ll be spotlighting up to 10 different community members who will be graciously sharing small snippets of code they have written to solve problems in their everyday work environments. Each speaker will be given up to 10 minutes to quickly explain what they built, how it works and why they built it. The magic of this meeting will be that everyone should come away with lots of ideas that they can possibly use in their own environments and we’ll get to see many different styles of presenters. The short time frame forces people to stay on point and speak pretty casually.

We’re still accepting people who would like to to talk at this meeting, if you are interested please get in touch with Mike Kanakos or Phil Bossman. As a reminder, this is about sharing code and speakers should talk casually about their snippets. No slides are needed and speakers don’t need to have a formal presentation. All you need to do is explain what you did and show it off with a simple example. ANYONE CAN DO THIS and this a great way to get used to talking in front of a larger group of people!

RTPSUG is hosting a PowerShell Saturday!

PS-Saturday (Sept 21st, NC State)

We are super excited to be hosting our very first PowerShell Saturday this September 21st in Raleigh. An event specifically designed for the PowerShell community has never been given in the Raleigh area and we’re so proud to do this for our community! If you are unfamiliar with the PowerShell Saturday format, here’s a brief explainer. The event is a full day of learning with targeted sessions throughout the day on various topics related to PowerShell.

There will be 15 different sessions spread across three main ideas: “101”, PowerShell Tools and “The Cloud”. In addition, we’ll provide breakfast, lunche, snacks, drinks and some other stuff we can mention just yet! We also provide opportunities to network with fellow community members and meet some vendors who will be supporting us by helping offset some of the expenses for the day. We have plenty of more information to share on our website.

Tickets for this event will be going on sale in mid-June once we have announced our speakers for this event. We’ll also be bringing you monthly updates as we get closer to the event.

PowerShell Saturday Speaker Opportunities

We’re looking for speakers to present Powershell related talks at our event. There’s 15 slots available for speakers and we want to have a wide array of topics for our event related to the PowerShell language and usage. We would love to feature some speakers from the local community and help them get their start!

What’s it take to be a conference speaker? Most people think it requires super deep expertise in a particular area and some serious presenter skills. The truth is, that’s not true at all! So what does it take? Are you excited about PowerShell and want to share your knowledge with your peers? Great! You’re a qualified speaker!

This event is open to speakers of all skill levels and is an excellent opportunity to get experience in presenting content to an audience. We are very happy to work with first-time speakers as long as your topic is relevant to the information topics listed below. All you need is a passion for PowerShell and an interesting, relevant topic. If you are wondering if you can do this, you can!

All topics should be geared towards one of the three main topic areas we are following for this conference.

• PowerShell 101 (Intro and Fundamentals)
• PowerShell Tools (Scripting tools and DevOps)
• Manage the Cloud with PowerShell (Azure, AWS or GCP)

See the Speakers page of our website for more information on the kinds of topics we recommend and what materials you may want to consider for your talk. Most of all though, we want you to know that we’re here to help you be successful. YOU CAN DO THIS. It takes a bit of prep work, but the rewards afterward are great! But don’t drag your feet! You only have till June 2nd to get your topic in for review!

PowerShell Saturday Sponsorship Opportunities

We have a few choice opportunities for local businesses and vendors to sponsor our event and help us bring this event to the local community. All of our sponsors will be given recognition for their generous donations as well as some valuable placement in our literature for the day. We also have opportunities to have a booth set up at the event to interact with conference attendees. If you would like to sponsor us, please see the Sponsorship page our website for details or get in touch with Mike Kanakos.