ML
    • Recent
    • Categories
    • Tags
    • Popular
    • Users
    • Groups
    • Register
    • Login
    1. Topics
    2. Rob Dunn
    3. Posts
    • Profile
    • Following 3
    • Followers 5
    • Topics 19
    • Posts 215
    • Groups 1

    Posts

    Recent Best Controversial
    • RE: Understanding $args in PowerShell

      Think of it like this:

      You buy cars over the course of your lifetime. We are going to mentally think of all the cars you've ever bought as an array called $CarsIveHad

      $CarsIveHad has no items inside. It is a null array. You can't do much with it at this point. This would be like me saying $PorschesIveHad. I'm fairly certain this will remain null for the rest of my life, but that's not what we're talking about.

      ---Setting up your array:---

      You buy your first car, it's a Yugo.

      Now $CarsIveHad has 1 item inside. We start at number 0, because that's what we do in programming/scripting/computer stuff.

      $CarsIveHad[0] = Yugo
      

      You buy your next car 3 months later, because Yugos suck. You buy a Chevrolet Cavalier.

      Now $CarsIveHad has 2 items inside.

      $CarsIveHad[1] = Cavalier
      

      5 years later, you upgrade to a GMC Terrain.

      $CarsIveHad now has 3 items inside.

      $CarsIveHad[2] = Terrain
      

      Or, a family:

      $BradyFamily[0] = Mike
      $BradyFamily[1] = Carol
      $BradyFamily[2] = Greg
      $BradyFamily[3] = Marsha
      $BradyFamily[4] = Peter
      $BradyFamily[5] = Jan
      $BradyFamily[6] = Bobby
      $BradyFamily[7] = Cindy

      All together, they are $BradyFamily

      posted in Developer Discussion
      Rob DunnR
      Rob Dunn
    • RE: Understanding $args in PowerShell

      I'm trying to start to use the term 'item' or 'element' when referring to the things contained in an array (in general). In Powershell, you can start to refer to these things as 'objects,' but within the terminology of array, I'm going to try to use 'item' or 'element' for the sake of consistency.

      ...in short, lots of terms get thrown around interchangeably.

      Single dimensional arrays are a grouping of single elements - like an egg carton, each spot in the array can hold one thing. This is what $args is.
      Multi dimensional arrays are a grouping of groupings of items - like a shipping container. A large box that contains smaller boxes of things.

      Watch this video up to 2:05 to get a basic understanding of arrays - - it sounds like you don't grasp this concept at all 😞

      Youtube Video – [01:26..]

      posted in Developer Discussion
      Rob DunnR
      Rob Dunn
    • RE: Install Software via GPO - Computer Configuration vs User Configuration

      @IRJ That's why this is a community and not email 😉

      Good luck with your deployment!

      posted in IT Discussion
      Rob DunnR
      Rob Dunn
    • RE: Install Software via GPO - Computer Configuration vs User Configuration

      @thanksaj BOOYA!

      posted in IT Discussion
      Rob DunnR
      Rob Dunn
    • RE: Install Software via GPO - Computer Configuration vs User Configuration

      @thanksaj

      Yep, so the domain group 'authenticated users' contains both user objects and computer objects since both authenticate using their own passwords (computers just have their own passwords that they change automatically). So long as 'authenticated users' is set as a group that is allowed access to a network resource, your scripts configured under the computer configuration GPO settings should be able to reference and use those domain folders and files.

      Does that help?

      posted in IT Discussion
      Rob DunnR
      Rob Dunn
    • RE: Install Software via GPO - Computer Configuration vs User Configuration

      @thanksaj

      Using the local admin account is not the same as the computer using the computer account - these are two different things. The local administrator account will access the files in the context of a user object (albeit a local user), whereas the computer will access them as the computer object (a domain computer object). Kind of an odd concept to grasp, but the computer has it's own identity when it accesses network resources.

      posted in IT Discussion
      Rob DunnR
      Rob Dunn
    • RE: Install Software via GPO - Computer Configuration vs User Configuration

      @thanksaj this should work just fine. If you want to exclude other accounts like 'guest' and 'local service' - i.e. non-passworded accounts, use 'authenticated users' instead.

      If there is ever any need for anyone (and I mean anyone) to write anything to this share, you're going to want to change 'everyone' to 'full control' on the share, and then set the permissions on the folder for read only for that group. That way, administrators can still mount the share and write/edit files there.

      posted in IT Discussion
      Rob DunnR
      Rob Dunn
    • RE: Install Software via GPO - Computer Configuration vs User Configuration

      It is actually the system account, not local administrator since we are talking about an computer object and actual users do not come into play here. If the share and subsequent files don't have 'authenticated users' or that computer name somehow (either by group or by name) specified with permissions, then you are correct, the computer's system account won't be able to access those files and your installation will fail.

      posted in IT Discussion
      Rob DunnR
      Rob Dunn
    • RE: Install Software via GPO - Computer Configuration vs User Configuration

      Does the 'authenticated users' group have permissions to the folder where your files are located?

      I personally don't like messing with security filtering until AFTER everything else tests OK. This is one place where most people muck it up and change all sorts of other things when it's this aspect that is incorrect.

      posted in IT Discussion
      Rob DunnR
      Rob Dunn
    • RE: Understanding $args in PowerShell

      Youtube Video

      posted in Developer Discussion
      Rob DunnR
      Rob Dunn
    • RE: Understanding $args in PowerShell

      I was on my phone; Martin sent me a PM over at SW 🙂

      I had responded to this question over there in the Powershell forum, but chutestrate's account is in moderation for some reason.

      Anyway - I'll try to take a stab at this.

      As mentioned, when you run a script or a function, powershell has a built-in mechanism that will interpret anything passed after that script or function (that are not named parameters) and places them into an $arg *object.' It's kind of like a basket that catches the other stuff passed that hasn't been explicitly handled in the script/function. Since someone could feasibly pass more than one argument to the script, Powershell needs to have a way to handle more than one argument...just in case. With that being said, there's always an $arg object, whether you've passed arguments or not. It's just there to handle anything that fall outside named parameters during execution.

      Remember, everything is an object in Powershell. It can represent one thing or many things. In this case, $arg is an object that represents many things; i.e an array. $arg is a representation of that array.

      So, you might run a script like this:

      test.ps1 -ComputerName <COMPUTER_NAME> -ProcessName <PROCESS_NAME> more arguments
      

      or even like this:

      test.ps1 -ComputerName <COMPUTER_NAME> -ProcessName  more <PROCESS_NAME> arguments
      

      Since we've specified -ComputerName and -ProcessName, those are named parameters (as denoted by the dash '-' followed by the name of the parameter you are passing.), so anything that is passed outside of those named parameters will be placed into the $arg object. In either of the above examples, $arg[0] would be 'more' and $arg[1] would be 'arguments.' Like Scott and Martin said, $arg is an array, and in the script/function, the [0] and [1] just helps identify which item in the array we want to return.

      posted in Developer Discussion
      Rob DunnR
      Rob Dunn
    • RE: So, working on a little Node.js project...anyone have any experiences to share?

      Whoa, those are some good deals!

      I paid around $40 for a jQuery book about a month back...

      posted in IT Discussion
      Rob DunnR
      Rob Dunn
    • RE: So, working on a little Node.js project...anyone have any experiences to share?

      Yeah - it does some otherwise complex things very quickly and with little coding - heck, the dynamic updating is very cool - but you know, maybe this is amazing to me because I'm just now getting into this kind of thing.

      Anyway, here's what I have so far - I have some additional stuff to do, but this is the gist:
      Chat link at the navbar will open up a popup window prepopulating the name field with your Spiceworks username. If the window is already open, the link will bring it back into focus.

      Things to work on:

      • visual notification of chat message if windows is blurred
      • log/persistence if browser is refereshed
      • keep only history of x amount of entries for better performance

      2014-12-09 15_54_36-Spiceworks - Dashboard - Opera.png

      And yes, I'm using Opera as a test browser (doing work in Firefox, authenticating as a different user in Opera) - but it actually has some nice dev tools built in.

      posted in IT Discussion
      Rob DunnR
      Rob Dunn
    • So, working on a little Node.js project...anyone have any experiences to share?

      I'm essentially putting together a poor-man chat service. Mostly for use in Spiceworks so techs can chat back and forth with each other...

      Now, I'm using some demos that I found online and I have to say, Node.js is pretty friggin' cool.

      The end goal is to have a pop-out window that appears when a person logs into the help desk. Technician's name would automatically connect to the chat (no passwords as of yet). Also, shouldn't t really make it a widget since it would live at the dashboard, but feasibly, you could use something like this on the user portal.

      It's extremely lightweight and requires no client - just a web browser.

      What do you guys think? Has anyone else here worked with Node.js?

      posted in IT Discussion
      Rob DunnR
      Rob Dunn
    • RE: What are you listening to? What would you recommend?

      @Joyfano said:

      @thanksaj said:

      @scottalanmiller said:

      Joy was born two decades too late.

      Something like that...LOL

      haha but admit it guys
      Michael Bolton
      Steve Perry
      Byan Adams

      are great 🙂 😛

      Youtube Video

      posted in Water Closet
      Rob DunnR
      Rob Dunn
    • RE: Setting Permissions on Shared Calendar in Exchange 2010

      11 hours too late, but it sounds like you guys had it sussed back @nadnerB called it as a public folder + calendar. It probably would have taken me a little while to get to that point as well, since I don't do a lot with PS in Exchange (we have a very low volatility environment here) lately.

      posted in IT Discussion
      Rob DunnR
      Rob Dunn
    • RE: Snow

      Youtube Video

      posted in Water Closet
      Rob DunnR
      Rob Dunn
    • RE: Barbie Books Promote that Girls Can Do Design But Need Boys for the "Real" Work

      Here too:
      http://faildesk.net/2014/11/20/barbie-gets-a-job-as-a-computer-engineer-cant-avoid-malware-takes-credit-for-game-design/

      posted in News
      Rob DunnR
      Rob Dunn
    • RE: What are you listening to? What would you recommend?

      I ride between electronic/trip-hop and metal. Lately it's been more of the former

      Getting into Jon Kennedy:

      Youtube Video

      posted in Water Closet
      Rob DunnR
      Rob Dunn
    • RE: User asked me about their "lab top computer" the other day...

      @g.jacobse said:

      @scottalanmiller
      I'm not sure I do...since letting it loose would mean a wet muddy mess and my house cleaner doesn't seem to do windows.

      Or anything above eye level..

      That's what CrapCleaner is for!

      posted in Water Closet
      Rob DunnR
      Rob Dunn
    • 1 / 1