Published on 20 Apr 2016
Microsoft has decided to intertwine the PowerShell cmdlets for managing VHD(X) files and the Hyper-V role. As a consequence, you cannot create, inspect, configure, mount them etc. without the Hyper-V role. There is even an item in Microsoft Connect describing this issue for Convert-VHD. I will present two workarounds, one for environments already implementing Hyper-V as well as environments without using Hyper-V.
Published on 07 Apr 2016
Although hosting your blog in GitHub Pages is very easy to setup, it lacks several features provided by other hosting services like SSL certificates. I have decided to introduce Azure Websites as an alternative because it offers a wide range of hosting options including FTP uploads and server-side code. In addition, Azure Websites can be connected to a source control system to update the hosted content based on changes in the source. This post will demonstrate two important deployment methods.
Published on 21 Mar 2016
In the previous posts I have concentrated on generating a static site on your workstation and integrating your content from WordPress. Fortunately, the static content can be hosted anywhere but there are some publicly available services that offer a pipeline for continuous delivery like GitHub Pages.
Published on 18 Mar 2016
After having presented the arguments for a static blog as well as an introduction to Jekyll, this post will be more hands-on.
I will demonstrate how to export all your pages and posts from WordPress to markdown. Most of the work will be done by the WordPress plugin called Jekyll Exporter.
Published on 14 Mar 2016
After I have presented arguments for a static site in the first post in this series, I will provide you with an introduction to Jekyll, the static site generator which I am using for this site. Checkout StaticGen for more static site generators and the popularity of Jekyll.
Published on 10 Mar 2016
I have recently read about static website generators. This got me thinking about my blog which was then hosted on WordPress. I have been quite happy with WordPress but there are several aspects that need to be considered whether WordPress is the optimal platform. The following reasons are very subjective and apply to my situation.
Published on 04 Mar 2016
Since the announcement that Microsoft was planning to bring containers to Windows Server 2016, I have had many discussions about how Windows Containers impact end user computing. I have been asked whether containers are a replacement for App-V as well as Server App-V. It all boils down to the question whether Windows containers can be used to deploy end user applications. The short answer is “no” but let me explain in detail why this is the case.
Published on 04 Feb 2016
What do you expect to happend, when using return in advanced #PowerShell functions? I expected that execution would continue in the calling context. Let’s take a closer look to see why that is not the case.
Published on 25 Nov 2015
Recent examples of PowerShell Desired State Configuration (PSDSC) on the web are using configuration data to separate the configuration from environment data. The use of parameter for configurations is declining except for quick examples. Configuration data is using a data structure in PowerShell Object Notation (PSON) with only very few structural requirements. On one hand, this freedom is very welcome because the data structure can be designed to meet your personal needs. On the other hand, semantical errors cause configurations to fail because the data structure cannot be checked for errors by some predefined algorithm. Therefore, I will present how to check configuration data in #PSDSC using #Pester.
Published on 10 Nov 2015
Today I talked (in German) about automating #XenApp using #PowerShell at DCUG in Freiburg. I’d like to share the short slide deck as well as the code for my extensive demos. DCUG is a Citrix User Group event held in German and is organized by Roy Textor.