Trial #43: Paging OData with PowerShell
Problem: If you want to explore or utilise an OData API in PowerShell without any extra dependencies it is quite easy using just Invoke-WebRequest to acquire...
Trials
This blog hopes to share some of the solutions I land on in the course of my work as Developer and previously as a Systems Administrator.
My primary focus will not be tutorials or best practice, just short and simple posts of the form “error message -> solution -> reflection”.
Recent posts
Trial #42: Saving Sensitive Data to SecureStore with PowerShell
Problem: This post generally supersedes the post Trial#41 - Saving Sensitive Data to File with PowerShell with a better solution to the same problem.
Trial #41: Saving Sensitive Data to File with PowerShell
Problem: You may want to store credentials on a computer for later use, either to save repeated entry or to allow for automation. However, this information ...
Trial #40: Populate Active Directory with iSAMS Pupil Data
Problem: If you work at a school using iSAMS, it is probably your trusted data source for pupil info such as preferred name. But who maintains AD to make su...
Trial #39: Making Class Teams with the MicrosoftTeams PowerShell Module
Problem: We have c. 500 different sets, each with at least one teacher and many pupils. This information is all available from our MIS but how can we automa...
Trial #38: Parsing and Transforming MidYIS grade export data
Problem: At the school at which I work, we had no way of importing our baseline MidYIS scores into our MIS and other custom reporting tools. At times this i...
Trial #37: Parsing and Transforming ALIS grade export data
Problem: At the school at which I work, we had no way of importing our baseline ALIS scores into our MIS and other custom reporting tools. At times this inf...
Trial #36: Making a PowerQuery (M) Http POST Request
Problem: PowerBi makes it very easy for you to make http GET requests, which can sometimes be done simply from navigating through a GUI.
Trial #35: Querying the gov.uk website for COVID-19 Tier by PostCode
Problem: The UK Government has a special COVID-19 Data Website.
Trial #34: AD User Account Status in PowerBI Model
Problem: I my previous posts I covered connecting PowerBI to AD and forming and returning user account data.
Trial #33: Querying AD Users Group Membership with PowerBI
Problem: Group membership can be found quite deep inside the securityPrincipal record of an AD user. There are two lists msds-tokenGroupNamesGlobalAndUniver...
Trial #32: Making OUs More Readable with a Related Table in PowerBI Model
Problem: I my previous posts I covered connecting PowerBI to AD and forming an custom “OU” column.
Trial #31: Transform Active Directory User CN to OU in PowerBI Model
Problem: One of the columns present in the Users table is distinguishedName. The OU of the user is not obviously available in the table or inside any of its...
Trial #30: Accessing Active Directory Users in PowerBI Model
Problem: PowerBI has supports connecting to Active Directory as standard. However, this is not as simple or as intuitive as either the popular Active Direct...
Trial #29: Iterating Over Multiple API Endpoints in a PowerBI Query
Problem: It is straight forward to source data from a web request in PowerBI. You can do so by selecting Get Data -> Web.
Trial #28: How To Debug Someone Else’s NuGet Package in VSCode
Problem: There may come a time when you want to investigate unexpected behaviour or even an exceptions while using a NuGet package.
Trial #27: Migrate Git LFS files from Netlify Large Media to another LFS provider
Problem: If you want to fork or even clone a repository that is using Netlify Large Media as it’s Git Large File Storage provider, the large files may not be...
Trial #26: Migrate DynamoDB Table Remote/Cloud
Problem: You may need a method to migrate in and out of AWS if you:
Trial #25: Invalid DynamoDB KeyConditionExpression “ValidationException”
Problem: If you attempt to use the DynamoDB KeyConditionExpression like you might a SQL query, and chain on several clauses with the and keyword, you may exp...
Trial #24: Lambda Local Invocation DynamoDB Request Hanging and Eventual “CLR/System.Net.Http.HttpRequestException”
Problem: When attempting to query or interact with a local DynamoDB instance from a local invocation of a Lambda Function, the request hangs for a considerab...
Trial #23: Amplify Build Errors (Jekyll Static Site)
Problem: If you have been developing against up-to-date versions of Jekyll, Ruby or Bundle, you may get some version issues when you first add a site to AWS ...
Trial #22: DynamoDB Reserved Keyword “ValidationException”
Problem: If you follow AWS’s executive summary regarding the naming of keys, particularly primary keys , as of date of publishing (11th Sept. 2020) you may n...
Trial #21: DynamoDB database not found “Amazon.DynamoDBv2.Model.ResourceNotFoundException”
Problem: Following a basic AWS SDK for .NET setup as per Matthew Harper ‘s helpful beginner tutorial My program was throwing an “Amazon.DynamoDBv2.Model.Reso...
Trial #20: Passing a Scriptblock with Arguments to a New Powershell Instance
Problem: Its quite hard to Pass a Scriptblock with Arguments to a new powershell instance.
Trial #19: Installing Microsoft User Experience Virtualization (UE-V) 2.1 SP1
Problem: Microsoft User Experience Virtualization or UE-V has largely replaced more traditional roaming profiles. I’m currently rolling this out on Windows ...
Trial #17: Set PowerShell as Default Shell for Server Core
Problem: When you log onto a server Core instance. CMD.exe is the default shell. It can get quite frustrating launching PowerShell on every login if this is...
Trial #18: Installing PowerShell 5.1
Problem: PowerShell 5.1 is available. To standardise the version of PowerShell on the network to the level of newer Server 2016 and Windows 10 machines I wan...
Trial #16: Task Scheduler Custom Event Trigger with XML Filter and Parameter Output
Problem: I want to archive user files to a secure location on their logout. I could probably do this with a logout script but I don’t want the user to have ...
Trial #15: Wake on Lan Utility with PDQ Query and DHCP Option
Problem: Wake on LAN for client machines on a domain with c.400 computers using a database of MAC addresses.
Trial #14: Netsh for Windows Network Problems
Problem: You have a network adapter that is not working. You’ve tried everything you can think of under change adapter settings - No unwanted IP address, Pro...
Trial #13: Why is Write-Verbose not Doing Anything?
Problem: I made a script with some functions in it and the built in PowerShell verbose switch is doing absolutely nothing. ./MyScript.ps1 -verbose #I'm ...
Trial #12: Enable Wake on a Windows Client
Problem: I found a lot of posts suggesting to enable WOL from a windows GUI and maybe others offering a registry modification. I had no luck with either on o...
Trial #11: Does C# have something like php’s isset()?
Problem: I’ve been making a dogs ear of an if statement in PowerShell but what I need is an isset like method. if($var1 -eq $null -or $var1 -eq ""){ "There ...
Trial #10: Wake on Lan Utility with DHCP Query
Problem: Wake on LAN for client machines on a domain with c.400 computers using a database of MAC addresses.
Trial #9: Filter Unique Elements in A Set
Problem Using Powershell, find and count the unique entries in a set $set containing unsorted, repeated characters.
Trial #8: Lego Mindstorm & WeDo
Problem Create a Silent Installer for Mindstorm EV3 Edu & WeDo. These packages seem to contain development platforms, drivers and configuration upload u...
Trial #7: Launching an MDT build from Litetouch.vbs while logged into Windows
Problem: I want to be able to rebuild computers using MDT without turning up physically to PXE boot them.
Trial #6: Relative Paths in Scripts
Problem: I want to put a batch file in with a load of installation media on a server share, access it from a UNC path, and have it install a list of programs...
Trial #5: Packaging Sibelius 7.1 Installer
Problem The Sibelius installer doesn’t initially seem to have a silent install option. The usual /s & /q switches have no effect. There is also no supp...
Trial #4: SolidWorks 2016 Silent Install
Problem: The silent installer doesn’t work from command line.
Trial #3: KeyShot
Problem: KeyShot is installed as part of ArtCam 2015 R2 at our school. I found that users were being prompted for a license/product activation even though t...
Trial #2: ArtCAM 2015 R2 - JewelSmith Deployment
Problem: ArtCAM 2015 R2 - JewelSmith is used by DT at our school. It has no silent install option, a very long installation process and lots of manual user ...
Trial #1: Office 2013 Rearm
Error: Microsoft Office 2013 (or Higher) is failing to activate via KMS on machines built from MDT with Office pre-installed on the wim image.