Benchmark IT Consulting

The more I work with PowerShell the more I love it

So what do you do if you’re in a VM environment and you want/need to reboot your server but you can’t connect via RDP and you can’t connect to the console using the VM Infrastructure Client, and all other attempts to connect just don’t work.  I decided to go down the route of using PowerShell.

$ServerToRestart = Get-WMIObject win32_operatingsystem -computer <<Your Server Name Here>>
$ServerToRestart.reboot()

Get-WMIObject – Windows PowerShell: The WMI Connection

Simple, easy and very dangerous/powerful.  I’ll channel my inner “Uncle Ben” (see Spiderman quotes) and just leave this message as a closing thought:

“With Great Power Comes Great Responsibility”

Enjoy!!

On January 27th 2010 the Edmonton Chapter of PASS is having it’s next meeting. Details below:

http://www.eventbrite.com/event/503789849

Please be sure to not only click the “Add to my calendar” but also the “Register” button so that we can plan accordingly for food and drinks. 

Date:  Jan 27th 2010
Time: 5:00 pm – 7:00 pm
Location: Stanley A. Milner library
Map: 7 Sir Winston Churchill Square
Meeting Room: Centennial Room – Basement Level
Speaker: Buck Woody
Topic: Improvements in SQL Server 2008 and SQL Server 2008R2

Session Abstract:

“Come hear Buck Woody, Microsoft’s “Real World DBA”, explain the improvements in SQL Server 2008 and SQL Server 2008R2 over SQL Server 2000 and SQL Server 2005. He’ll show you what the new features are for developers and DBA’s and a quick overview of the new Business Intelligence features. He’ll show some practical examples of the new Transact-SQL statements, management features, and data types so that you can figure out where it fits in your organization.”
Presenter Information:  Buck Woody (http://blogs.msdn.com/buckwoody/)

Buck Woody has been working with Information Technology since 1981. He has worked for the U.S. Air Force, at an IBM reseller as technical support, and for NASA as well as U.S. Space Command as an IT contractor. He has worked in most all IT positions from computer repair technician to system and database administrator, and from network technician to IT Manager and with multiple platforms as a Data Professional. He has been a DBA and Database Developer on Oracle systems running on a VAX to SQL Server and DB2 installations. Buck has a business degree and several industry certifications, including MCSE, MCDBA and Brainbench DBA. He is the author of over 400 SQL Server articles and five published SQL Server books; he is the site personality on InformIT.com’s SQL web, and was the President of the Tampa SQL User’s Group for 5 years. He was awarded the Microsoft MVP Award in 2006 for SQL Server, and started work in the SQL Server Team at Microsoft a year later. He has over twenty years extensive professional and practical experience in computer networks and database design. He also teaches a Database Design course at the University of Washington. 

Agenda:
5:00 pm – Pizza and Socializing
5:30 pm – Sponsor Presentation
5:45 pm – Feature Presentation
7:00 pm – Wrap Up and Draws

If you haven’t signed up already at EDMPASS.com please do so now to receive meeting notifications, news, and updates from EDMPASS.

Hope to see you there.

Enjoy!!

First off I’d like to say Happy New Year to everyone and extend my congratulations again to all the new MVPs out there… well done and the community is a better place because of people like you.

January is going to be a VERY busy month for me both personally and professionally so I thought I would write a quick blog post just so people don’t think I’ve fallen off the face of the earth or something LOL   The biggest and challenging task at hand is I need to have the first draft of my final 2 chapters done by February 1st.  While I’m not concerned too much about making this deadline I’m doing my best to make sure I don’t make the same mistakes I made in my first chapter with these final 2 chapters.

The second thing on my “hit list” for January is the EDMPASS meeting on January 27th with Buck Woody.  This will be the first time that I’m going to make the meeting “public” via Live Meeting and also going to work with recording it and making it available after the fact as well.

A couple personal items are next for me as I’m leaving on a jet plane on January 20th to go to Las Vegas to play in a Ball Hockey tournament called “The Sin City Shootout”.  I didn’t take any time off during the holidays as I was covering for alot of people that did so this will be a nice little break and alot of fun if only for 5 days.  From my previous trips to Vegas 5 days is pretty well the max for me cause (for me anyways) Vegas after 5 days is just annoying.

And finally I hope to make a trip somewhere in there for the weekend up to Cold Lake (about 3 hours NE of Edmonton) to see my sister, brother-in-law, niece, and new baby niece Ella.  I’ve seen pictures and videos but I can’t wait to get up there and spend some QT with the new little addition to my sister’s family.

I hope everyone is doing well and sorry for being a bit out of touch (via MSN, Twitter, etc)

Enjoy!!

I’ve seen a few of these types of posts over the last week or so and I figured I should publish something on the intertubes that would be something to look back on come next year at this time.  Tom LaRock had a very interesting spin on things (as he always does) and added a ThemeWord into the mix.

Colin’s 2010 Themeword is……… FOCUS

No not that kind of focus….

More like this kind of focus:

In the past year I feel like I took on ALOT of new challenges:

• Started the Edmonton PASS Chapter ( EDMPASS.com )
• Served on the Abstract Selection Committee for the PASS Summit
• Started seriously blogging here at BenchmarkITConsulting.com
• Started another service offering business called SQL Wingmen ( SQLWingmen.com )
• Accepted an offer to co-author a book on Policy Based Management ( Apress.com )

all the while having a full time job and doing my best to balance work time with quality time with my family who give me nothing but support and smiles

2010 for me is going to be about focussing on everything new that I took on in 2009 and moving all of those initiatives forward.  Now that doesn’t really sound like SMART objectives so let me try and clarify.

EDMPASS

• I want to have all the EDMPASS meetings recorded via LiveMeeting and made available to everyone.
• I want an average of 40 physical attendees per meeting by this time next year
• I want to speak at 3 EDMPASS meetings before the next Summit

Abstract Selection Committee for the PASS Summit

• This one is a bit tricky as I’ve said before that if I wanted to speak at the Summit that I wouldn’t feel right being on the committee so I’ll leave this one as “undecided” for now

BenchmarkITConsulting.com

• My current unique visitors per month is anywhere from 6500 – 8000.  I’d like to maintain a constant 8000+ unique visitors a month
• I’ll continue to blog frequently (at least twice a week) and add more new content to help increase my traffic.

SQL Wingmen

• I want to increase my customer volume by at least 200% by this time next year

Policy Based Management Book

• I want to finish this book and learn everything I can from the process
• I will try to not make the editors go “comment crazy” with their nasty red font color

So there you have it… nothing really new because I think if I added anything new (from a professional point of view) to this already pretty full plate I think my lovely wife would shoot me, that and adding new things at this point would take away from the positive direction and momentum that these tasks currently have.

Happy New Year Everyone!!

Tag Time… I’m tagging the first 3 people who tweeted something….

• @SQLChicken – Jorge Segarra
• @AndyLeonard – Andy Leonard
• @SQLFool – Michelle Ufford

Enjoy!!

Here is to hoping that everyone finds some time to spend with loved ones this holiday season.  It has been a crazy busy year for me in 2009 with so much going on it’s been hard to step back and enjoy it.  That being said I plan on spending as much time with my family as possible in the next couple weeks and living vicareously through my 2 beautiful children as the Christmas excitement builds.

My wife Heather has taken on the role of Christmas Cheermeister (see Jim Carrey in The Grinch That Stole Christmas) and she’s done an amazing job on helping build the excitement for our kids as well as myself.  I’ve never really been a fan of Christmas itself but I’ll gladly take as much quality time with my family as I can get.

So Merry Christmas and God bless you and your families this holiday season and throughout the coming year.

Enjoy!!