Friday, February 20, 2015

MCSE Studying - Week 36

Overview
Week 36 of my MCSE studies was another step towards my goal of becoming an MCSE. I knew going into the week that it would be tough to top last week, and I was correct. It was difficult to maintain that laser focus that is required to exceed 30 hours of studying in a week. It was not a bad week by any stretch, just not as productive as the previous week. It was a quite simply, a week full of review work as I prepare for the 70-410 exam.

Cool Stuff
As last week was a review week, there wasn't anything that stands out as being particularly cool or interesting.

PowerShell cmdlet of the Week
This week, I picked a cmdlet that I learned about some time ago, but forgot just how useful it really is.

Show-Command

This cmdlet will allow you to pop open a dialog box that gives you a handy form to fill out the parameters, parameter switches, and other information for a given cmdlet.

In this example, I used the following command to bring up the dialog for Get-Service

Get-Command Get-Service

I then filled out the ComputerName and Name fields as show below:


At this time, I can choose to either run the command, or copy it to the console. In my case, I simply chose to run the command. This returned the status of the DHCP Client on the server PS-MEMBER01.

For those of you wondering about the tabs along the top, those allow you to select from the various parameter sets available in the cmdlet.

Stats
Total time studying: 26 hrs. 50 min.
  • 70-410: 11 hrs. 45 min.
  • 70-411: 6 hrs. 10 min.
  • 70-413: 6 hrs.
  • PowerShell: 2 hrs. 35 min.
  • General: 20 min.
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Monday, February 9, 2015

MCSE Studying - Week 35

Overview
Week 35 of my MCSE studies was quite possibly the best week I have had since I started my studies. My focus has been extremely high, and I have studied more, and learned more than I though was possible. I also exceeded the previous record for number of study hours per week by almost 12 hours. This is the level of focus that I have been trying to achieve for months.

To summarize last week's activities: I started the KnowledgeNet Live Learning courses for both 70-411 and 70-413, Mapped out the exam objectives for 70-411, started a review of "Learn PowerShell 3 in a Month of Lunches", started into the Sybex Complete MCSA Study Guide, watched a Channel 9 video, listened to the PowerScripting podcast, and completed three more chapters in the 70-410 Study Guide. I'm going to call that a very successful week.

Cool Stuff
Wow! I scarcely  know where to begin. There was so much cool stuff learned last week . I think the best part of the week was finally being able to put together a PowerShell script that will setup and configure a new Gen 2. virtual machine in Hyper-V. The only thing I have to enter now, is the server name. The script takes the name and proceeds to setup the virtual machine with all of the settings just the way I like them. PowerShell has saved me some more time. Thank you PowerShell!

PowerShell cmdlet of the Week
This week, I am going to use four cmdlets to demonstrate how to customize the boot order in a Gen. 2 virtual machine in Hyper-V.

Get-VMDvdDrive
Get-VMNetworkAdapter
Get-VMHardDiskDrive
Set-VMFirmware

The scenario is that we want to configure the boot order on a virtual machine called "Ceres" to boot first from the DVD Drive, then from the Hard Drive, and lastly from the Network Adapter.

Step 1: Assign each of the boot device properties to a variable. We do this because the Set-VMFirmware cmdlet will not accept data type <string[]> as input for the -BootOrder parameter. It expects to be given the list of objects as type <VMComponentObject[]>

$vmdvd = Get-VMDvdDrive
$vmvhd = Get-VMHardDiskDrive
$vmnic = Get-VMNetworkAdapter

Step 2: Change the boot order on the server named 'Ceres'.

Set-VMFirmware `
    -VMName Ceres `
    -BootOrder $vmdvd,$vmvhd,$vmnic

You can confirm the boot order either by using the Get-VMFirmware cmdlet, or by checking the virtual machine settings in Hyper-V manager.

Simple and effective.

Stats
Total time studying: 37 hrs. 45 min.
  • 70-410: 16 hrs. 20 min.
  • 70-411: 10 hrs. 20 min.
  • 70-413: 6 hrs.
  • PowerShell: 4 hrs. 30 min.
  • General: 35 min.
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Sunday, February 1, 2015

MCSE Studying - Week 34

Overview
Unfortunately, I spent most of week 34 with a head cold that then decided to move down into my chest (I assume it moved because the rent was cheaper). I listened to the PowerScripting Podcast, trying to get caught up on some back episodes. I also spent about an hour jotting down some notes for doing a domain controller setup using media as a replication source vs. the normal method of replicating over the network from another DC. I plan to do a post on this topic over on  "The Frozen Geek" sometime next week. So, while I did not make much progress, I still managed to get some study time in.

Stats
Total time studying: 10 hrs. 5 min.
  • 70-410: 1 hr.
  • PowerShell: 9 hrs. 5 min.
Resources used:
PowerScripting Podcast - Episodes 217, 218, 220, 289, 290, 291, 292, & 293

In Closing
Well, I really need to get back to my studies next week. The plan is to continue the 70-410 exam preparation, take the 70-411 (and maybe 70-413) Live Learning courses from KnowledgeNet, and get back into some serious PowerShell training. I'm still not back to 100% health, but I am well enough now to continue with my studies.

Have a great week everyone!
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