https://toastit.dev/ Recent content in Home of ToastIT on ToastIT Hugo -- gohugo.io Sat, 18 Jun 2022 00:00:00 +0000 https://toastit.dev/2025/11/24/ha-occupancy-indicator/ Mon, 24 Nov 2025 07:30:00 +0000 https://toastit.dev/2025/11/24/ha-occupancy-indicator/ Expanding on existing automation with a bathroom occupancy light. https://toastit.dev/2025/07/22/burnttoast-v1/ Tue, 22 Jul 2025 10:30:00 +0000 https://toastit.dev/2025/07/22/burnttoast-v1/ It’s been a long, eventful, decade. The perfect amount of time to burn some toast! https://toastit.dev/2023/05/07/burnttoast-v1-preview2/ Sun, 07 May 2023 01:30:00 +0000 https://toastit.dev/2023/05/07/burnttoast-v1-preview2/ If the wait for Preview1 felt long, the wait for Preview2 was even longer. https://toastit.dev/2022/02/12/finally-introducing-the-first-preview-of-burnttoast-v1/ Sat, 12 Feb 2022 08:00:00 +0000 https://toastit.dev/2022/02/12/finally-introducing-the-first-preview-of-burnttoast-v1/ It may have taken 10 months, but preview releases are finally coming for BurntToast v1. https://toastit.dev/2021/05/07/my-learning-story-from-timber-to-chocolatey/ Fri, 07 May 2021 05:42:32 +0000 https://toastit.dev/2021/05/07/my-learning-story-from-timber-to-chocolatey/ This post is part of #TheMVPChallenge. It’s not exactly what was on the brief… but I think it’s a story worth telling! https://toastit.dev/2021/04/20/road-to-burnttoast-v1-1/ Tue, 20 Apr 2021 22:03:29 +0000 https://toastit.dev/2021/04/20/road-to-burnttoast-v1-1/ BurntToast is finally growing up. It’s going through puberty and will see a v1 release when it gets to the other side… but it’ll be a journey. https://toastit.dev/2021/01/31/crouton-15-you-cant-silence-toast/ Sun, 31 Jan 2021 21:08:16 +0000 https://toastit.dev/2021/01/31/crouton-15-you-cant-silence-toast/ Focus assist is a favoured tool of practiced speakers and presenters on Windows. It does put you in a bit of a bind if the thing you’re presenting requires notifications though. https://toastit.dev/2020/09/05/review-powershell-sysadmins/ Sat, 05 Sep 2020 15:33:46 +0000 https://toastit.dev/2020/09/05/review-powershell-sysadmins/ Are you a sysadmin? Looking to stop wearing out your mouse? Could this be the book for you? https://toastit.dev/2020/08/07/actionable/ Fri, 07 Aug 2020 17:54:01 +0000 https://toastit.dev/2020/08/07/actionable/ I don’t know how to express a happy dance with text. If I could that’s what would be here because I’ve finally removed a thorn from my side that’s been there for five years. https://toastit.dev/2020/07/28/anatomy-of-toast/ Tue, 28 Jul 2020 14:05:26 +0000 https://toastit.dev/2020/07/28/anatomy-of-toast/ BurntToast just turned five, and I’ve only now realized that I’ve never written about how all the module’s “advanced” functions work together to create a toast notification. https://toastit.dev/2020/07/18/synology-active-backup-suite-review/ Sat, 18 Jul 2020 01:16:38 +0000 https://toastit.dev/2020/07/18/synology-active-backup-suite-review/ Have you ever come face to face with something that shines a spotlight on a gap in your knowledge of a subject? This happened to me recently when I was asked to review Synology’s Active Backup Suite. https://toastit.dev/2020/06/20/azure-key-vault-2/ Sat, 20 Jun 2020 15:58:22 +0000 https://toastit.dev/2020/06/20/azure-key-vault-2/ Now that we have our credentials stored in an Azure Key Vault, how do we go about using them in other Azure services? https://toastit.dev/2020/05/27/what-outbuffer-is-for/ Wed, 27 May 2020 06:30:00 +0000 https://toastit.dev/2020/05/27/what-outbuffer-is-for/ OutBuffer has been lurking in amongst the common parameters on most cmdlets for years, but I’ve never taken the time to ask what it’s for. https://toastit.dev/2020/05/21/azure-key-vault-1/ Thu, 21 May 2020 23:40:03 +0000 https://toastit.dev/2020/05/21/azure-key-vault-1/ I’m so used to storing fully formed credentials in the local Windows Credential Manager. How do I transition that into the “secrets” centric world that is the cloud? https://toastit.dev/2020/04/12/how-i-work-lockdown/ Sun, 12 Apr 2020 21:40:52 +0000 https://toastit.dev/2020/04/12/how-i-work-lockdown/ My last “How I Work” post was over three years ago and I’ve been considering an update for a while. What better time to do that than during the COVID-19 lockdown? https://toastit.dev/2020/03/12/ps7now-update-notifications/ Thu, 12 Mar 2020 20:47:55 +0000 https://toastit.dev/2020/03/12/ps7now-update-notifications/ If you’re not stalking the PowerShell team on Twitter, or obsessively refreshing the PowerShell repo on GitHub, how are you meant to be aware of new releases? https://toastit.dev/2020/03/10/ps7now-null-conditional/ Tue, 10 Mar 2020 22:00:00 +0000 https://toastit.dev/2020/03/10/ps7now-null-conditional/ How do you deal with potentially getting nothing back from a cmdlet or function? PowerShell 7 introduced a set of new operators to make working with null values easier. https://toastit.dev/2020/03/07/ps7now-installing/ Sat, 07 Mar 2020 23:00:00 +0000 https://toastit.dev/2020/03/07/ps7now-installing/ PowerShell 7 is out now! The first step in being able to add it to our toolbox is to install it so let’s check out our options. https://toastit.dev/2020/02/28/living-in-a-pssession/ Fri, 28 Feb 2020 20:04:08 +0000 https://toastit.dev/2020/02/28/living-in-a-pssession/ PowerShell remoting is a truly powerful tool, but sometimes your scripts need a little help finding their way. How can you tell when you’re in a PSSession and what info is available about the session itself? https://toastit.dev/2020/01/22/crouton-14-buttons/ Wed, 22 Jan 2020 21:50:06 +0000 https://toastit.dev/2020/01/22/crouton-14-buttons/ It’s all well and good putting buttons all over your toast notification, but text is a little plain. Let’s see how we can dress out buttons up a little bit! https://toastit.dev/2020/01/15/universal-automation-early-look/ Wed, 15 Jan 2020 22:21:38 +0000 https://toastit.dev/2020/01/15/universal-automation-early-look/ I had the pleasure of testing Universal Automation while it was in private beta. Now the beta is open to all and I’m really excited for it to be in more hands because it’s a very interesting project! https://toastit.dev/2020/01/08/powershells-secret-wildcard/ Wed, 08 Jan 2020 21:07:33 +0000 https://toastit.dev/2020/01/08/powershells-secret-wildcard/ It’s funny how you can be a daily PowerShell user for years and completely miss something about a feature you regularly use… such as the “like” operators accepting more than two different wildcards. https://toastit.dev/2020/01/01/resolutions-2020/ Wed, 01 Jan 2020 13:48:30 +0000 https://toastit.dev/2020/01/01/resolutions-2020/ Apparently I forgot to do one of these posts last year. I like having these posts to look back on, so let’s get back on track! https://toastit.dev/2019/12/14/azure-devops-for-powershell-azureadventcalendar-2019-day-15/ Sat, 14 Dec 2019 11:21:22 +0000 https://toastit.dev/2019/12/14/azure-devops-for-powershell-azureadventcalendar-2019-day-15/ It’s long past time to wrap some modern smarts around KovertKringle, a PowerShell module for managing Secret Santa events. https://toastit.dev/2019/12/10/making-sense-of-data/ Tue, 10 Dec 2019 20:39:17 +0000 https://toastit.dev/2019/12/10/making-sense-of-data/ “There’s way too much information to decode the Matrix. You get used to it, though. Your brain does the translating. I don’t even see the code.” https://toastit.dev/2019/11/27/like-operator-chains/ Wed, 27 Nov 2019 20:18:22 +0000 https://toastit.dev/2019/11/27/like-operator-chains/ RegEx continue to prove itself as a valuable tool in my tool belt when scripting. Sometimes it can save you a lot of time and many lines of code. https://toastit.dev/2019/11/20/crouton-13-hitting-snooze/ Wed, 20 Nov 2019 20:09:45 +0000 https://toastit.dev/2019/11/20/crouton-13-hitting-snooze/ Hitting snooze on your alarm clock is probably rather common. Let’s take a look at how you can do the same thing with your Toast Notifications. https://toastit.dev/2019/10/04/quick-ternary-operator-revisit/ Fri, 04 Oct 2019 15:41:49 +0000 https://toastit.dev/2019/10/04/quick-ternary-operator-revisit/ I was thinking about the new Ternary Operator and had a random thought… can it handle elseif logic? https://toastit.dev/2019/09/29/hacktoberfest-2019/ Sun, 29 Sep 2019 21:37:45 +0000 https://toastit.dev/2019/09/29/hacktoberfest-2019/ I’m gearing up for my fourth Hacktoberfest event, and so should you. You could even come away from this month with a fancy new t-shirt! https://toastit.dev/2019/09/24/ternary-operator-powershell-7/ Tue, 24 Sep 2019 21:17:30 +0000 https://toastit.dev/2019/09/24/ternary-operator-powershell-7/ What the heck is a “ternary” and what’s it doing in my PowerShell?! https://toastit.dev/2019/09/20/azure-pipelines-tune-up/ Fri, 20 Sep 2019 10:04:57 +0000 https://toastit.dev/2019/09/20/azure-pipelines-tune-up/ After reading some awesome posts on the topic, I’ve been shamed into making my pipelines a little more efficient. https://toastit.dev/2019/09/09/powershell7-foreach-parallel/ Mon, 09 Sep 2019 21:38:52 +0000 https://toastit.dev/2019/09/09/powershell7-foreach-parallel/ PoshRSJob has been my go to module for Parallelization for years… let’s see if a head to head test with the new PowerShell 7 feature will change that. https://toastit.dev/2019/09/01/mvp-omg/ Sun, 01 Sep 2019 06:52:59 +0000 https://toastit.dev/2019/09/01/mvp-omg/ Today I’m humbled, shocked, and proud to announce that I’m now a Microsoft MVP. https://toastit.dev/2019/07/30/crouton-12/ Tue, 30 Jul 2019 23:09:29 +0000 https://toastit.dev/2019/07/30/crouton-12/ Toast notification data bindings have a number of uses. We’ve already covered updating toasts, now let’s teach our notifications a second language. https://toastit.dev/2019/07/24/normalizing-phone-numbers-easier-with-regex/ Wed, 24 Jul 2019 23:16:12 +0000 https://toastit.dev/2019/07/24/normalizing-phone-numbers-easier-with-regex/ After years of staring at it confused, I’ve finally given into the dark side and started to learn RegEx. https://toastit.dev/2019/07/16/crouton-11/ Tue, 16 Jul 2019 22:20:04 +0000 https://toastit.dev/2019/07/16/crouton-11/ Following the release of BurntToast v0.7.0 there were a couple of headline features that needed to be written about. Shoulder Taps had their time in the spotlight and now it’s the turn of Updatable Toasts. https://toastit.dev/2019/05/04/veeam-onedrive-selective/ Sat, 04 May 2019 20:38:35 +0000 https://toastit.dev/2019/05/04/veeam-onedrive-selective/ I’ve been wanting to get this out for a while, but couldn’t find the right way to present it… rather than stressing, here’s a brain dump on VBO v3. https://toastit.dev/2019/04/01/crouton-10/ Mon, 01 Apr 2019 20:49:54 +0000 https://toastit.dev/2019/04/01/crouton-10/ If you can forgive incomplete help, the latest update of BurntToast has some cool new features. First one we’ll be covering is Shoulder Taps! https://toastit.dev/2019/02/25/veeam-365-selective/ Mon, 25 Feb 2019 21:08:57 +0000 https://toastit.dev/2019/02/25/veeam-365-selective/ I can’t stand “expected warnings,” but getting selective in my VBO jobs got me back to my happy place. https://toastit.dev/2019/02/23/blog-archive-to-azure-function/ Sat, 23 Feb 2019 08:08:50 +0000 https://toastit.dev/2019/02/23/blog-archive-to-azure-function/ A few scripts run on my home server, but can happily run in a serverless environment. Time to give that poor server a rest, I think. https://toastit.dev/2019/02/18/veeam-backup-for-microsoft-office-365-v3/ Mon, 18 Feb 2019 21:29:41 +0000 https://toastit.dev/2019/02/18/veeam-backup-for-microsoft-office-365-v3/ I’ve been testing a beta of Veeam Backup for Microsoft Office 365 v3. It ticked some boxes of mine (spoiler alert.) https://toastit.dev/2019/02/16/how-i-failed-my-way-to-success-with-azure-pipelines-part-2-release/ Sat, 16 Feb 2019 20:08:32 +0000 https://toastit.dev/2019/02/16/how-i-failed-my-way-to-success-with-azure-pipelines-part-2-release/ What good is a nicely built PowerShell module if no one can use it? Time to release it into the wild! https://toastit.dev/2019/02/13/rsat-as-a-feature-i-thought-i-was-going-to-love-it-until-i-saw-it-in-action/ Wed, 13 Feb 2019 19:56:39 +0000 https://toastit.dev/2019/02/13/rsat-as-a-feature-i-thought-i-was-going-to-love-it-until-i-saw-it-in-action/ I’m a little late to this particular party, but I only just had the 1809 update on my workstation today. https://toastit.dev/2019/02/08/everything-is-better-with-toast-getting-build-notifications/ Fri, 08 Feb 2019 22:51:33 +0000 https://toastit.dev/2019/02/08/everything-is-better-with-toast-getting-build-notifications/ When you want to keep an eye on build results, but don’t want to dedicate a screen to the web page, toast is the answer! https://toastit.dev/2019/02/05/how-i-failed-my-way-to-success-with-azure-pipelines/ Tue, 05 Feb 2019 22:38:49 +0000 https://toastit.dev/2019/02/05/how-i-failed-my-way-to-success-with-azure-pipelines/ Some people learn by writing. Some by watching videos. Apparently I learn by failing and head-desking. https://toastit.dev/2019/01/09/crouton-8-redux/ Wed, 09 Jan 2019 16:37:08 +0000 https://toastit.dev/2019/01/09/crouton-8-redux/ I didn’t do the best job of the examples in my original post on this topic. Let’s put that right. https://toastit.dev/2018/12/30/a-toast-to-2018/ Sun, 30 Dec 2018 19:20:59 +0000 https://toastit.dev/2018/12/30/a-toast-to-2018/ The community, in and of itself, made 2018 for me. If you haven’t already gotten engaged in it… put it on your list for 2019. You wont regret it. https://toastit.dev/2018/12/18/powershell-flavoured-github-actions/ Tue, 18 Dec 2018 22:46:50 +0000 https://toastit.dev/2018/12/18/powershell-flavoured-github-actions/ Carrying out PowerShell based GitHub Actions in less than a minute? Colour me impressed! https://toastit.dev/2018/10/09/my-wish-list-vbo365/ Tue, 09 Oct 2018 19:47:26 +0000 https://toastit.dev/2018/10/09/my-wish-list-vbo365/ I heard a rumor that v3 is already well into development… hopeful it’s not too late to register my feature wish list! https://toastit.dev/2018/10/04/crouton-9-attribution/ Thu, 04 Oct 2018 02:07:00 +0000 https://toastit.dev/2018/10/04/crouton-9-attribution/ Where did that toast come from? Who cooked it?! If only it was attributed to someone… https://toastit.dev/2018/10/01/hacktoberfest-2018/ Mon, 01 Oct 2018 18:42:53 +0000 https://toastit.dev/2018/10/01/hacktoberfest-2018/ This is my third Hacktoberfest, the event that made October one of my favorite months of the year! https://toastit.dev/2018/08/23/orphaned-shared-mailboxes/ Thu, 23 Aug 2018 22:22:00 +0000 https://toastit.dev/2018/08/23/orphaned-shared-mailboxes/ Time for a bit of Exchange flavoured spring cleaning? Let’s find some un-needed shared mailboxes! https://toastit.dev/2018/08/20/crouton-8-i-like-your-code-but-i-dont-want-it-on-all-my-computers/ Mon, 20 Aug 2018 17:18:00 +0000 https://toastit.dev/2018/08/20/crouton-8-i-like-your-code-but-i-dont-want-it-on-all-my-computers/ I get you; you like toast, but you don’t want to put a toaster on 100 desks. https://toastit.dev/2018/08/12/echo-echo/ Sun, 12 Aug 2018 22:21:01 +0000 https://toastit.dev/2018/08/12/echo-echo/ I don’t know if this will help anyone else, and it’s more for future me, but I hope it helps someone out there! https://toastit.dev/2018/07/28/how-to-techsnips/ Sat, 28 Jul 2018 17:13:05 +0000 https://toastit.dev/2018/07/28/how-to-techsnips/ On the fence about becoming a TechSnips contributor? Here’s some of my tips… hopefully they will help you hit record! https://toastit.dev/2018/07/23/copying-office-365-user-licensing/ Mon, 23 Jul 2018 17:06:00 +0000 https://toastit.dev/2018/07/23/copying-office-365-user-licensing/ Spoiler alert: this post didn’t end up the way I expected it to when I started writing… https://toastit.dev/2018/07/09/safe-credentials/ Mon, 09 Jul 2018 22:15:24 +0000 https://toastit.dev/2018/07/09/safe-credentials/ How do you deal with credentials in your scripts? Personally, I’m a Credential Manager kind of guy. https://toastit.dev/2018/06/29/exploring-your-options/ Fri, 29 Jun 2018 15:12:52 +0000 https://toastit.dev/2018/06/29/exploring-your-options/ We’ve been looking into PowerShell Scheduled Jobs lately, today let’s have a quick look at the “options” available to us. https://toastit.dev/2018/06/19/scheduled-job-qualified/ Tue, 19 Jun 2018 19:41:46 +0000 https://toastit.dev/2018/06/19/scheduled-job-qualified/ Much sooner than expected, let’s talk about Windows PowerShell scheduled jobs again. https://toastit.dev/2018/06/17/powershell-orchestration-with-scheduled-jobs-the-start-of-a-series/ Sun, 17 Jun 2018 22:12:00 +0000 https://toastit.dev/2018/06/17/powershell-orchestration-with-scheduled-jobs-the-start-of-a-series/ In an effort to spread my love of Windows PowerShell scheduled jobs, this is the start of series on the subject. https://toastit.dev/2018/06/15/codebug/ Fri, 15 Jun 2018 22:00:16 +0000 https://toastit.dev/2018/06/15/codebug/ One day my daughter will be putting my code to shame, and I can’t wait. https://toastit.dev/2018/06/01/a-graphical-example-of-the-value-of/ Fri, 01 Jun 2018 14:53:00 +0000 https://toastit.dev/2018/06/01/a-graphical-example-of-the-value-of/ If you have a PowerShell blog, I can’t overstate how valuable it is to get your feed hooked up to Planet PowerShell! https://toastit.dev/2018/05/29/automatic-blog-archive-tweets/ Tue, 29 May 2018 05:54:09 +0000 https://toastit.dev/2018/05/29/automatic-blog-archive-tweets/ This morning I was up at 4 AM, live streaming the creation of an auto-tweet script. https://toastit.dev/2018/05/27/downloading-an-image-for-local-use/ Sun, 27 May 2018 12:55:00 +0000 https://toastit.dev/2018/05/27/downloading-an-image-for-local-use/ This has been sitting as an open issue on the project for a long time and given how quick of a fix it was I’m disappointed that I didn’t get to it sooner. https://toastit.dev/2018/05/25/blog-makeover/ Fri, 25 May 2018 06:52:00 +0000 https://toastit.dev/2018/05/25/blog-makeover/ Didn’t I literally just post about my blogging workflow on GitHub Pages? Welp, I’m not there anymore! https://toastit.dev/2018/05/15/techsnips-intro/ Tue, 15 May 2018 13:30:00 +0000 https://toastit.dev/2018/05/15/techsnips-intro/ TechSnips is a new e-learning service and I’ve been recording content for it, along with many other contributors. https://toastit.dev/2018/05/12/crouton-heroimages/ Sat, 12 May 2018 14:45:00 +0000 https://toastit.dev/2018/05/12/crouton-heroimages/ Ever find yourself needing to get an image up on your screen in a timely manner? https://toastit.dev/2018/04/25/blog-workflow/ Wed, 25 Apr 2018 21:30:00 +0000 https://toastit.dev/2018/04/25/blog-workflow/ I’ve also noticed a number of people saying ‘I want to get into it… but need to figure out x and y first. https://toastit.dev/2018/04/18/ps-csv/ Wed, 18 Apr 2018 20:30:00 +0000 https://toastit.dev/2018/04/18/ps-csv/ CSVs are pretty handy, right? And there is a cmdlet that’ll handle this for you! https://toastit.dev/2018/04/16/summit2018-hindsight/ Mon, 16 Apr 2018 13:15:00 +0000 https://toastit.dev/2018/04/16/summit2018-hindsight/ After another three flights, and 16 hours in the air, I’m back home in New Zealand. I can certainly say that the change in time zones has hit me harder coming back. Going over to Bellevue, I got right into things and felt (for the most part) normal. Last week I did a blog post for each day of the PowerShell + DevOps Global Summit , going over what I took part in that day and what my main takeaways were. https://toastit.dev/2018/04/12/summit2018-day4/ Thu, 12 Apr 2018 17:00:00 +0000 https://toastit.dev/2018/04/12/summit2018-day4/ That’s it. It’s over. I’ve shaken many hand, met many people, and seen lots of PowerShell. https://toastit.dev/2018/04/11/summit2018-day3/ Wed, 11 Apr 2018 18:59:00 +0000 https://toastit.dev/2018/04/11/summit2018-day3/ Today was the reason I was able to be here at Summit. Today was the day I presented in front of about 100 people. https://toastit.dev/2018/04/10/summit2018-day2/ Tue, 10 Apr 2018 16:00:00 +0000 https://toastit.dev/2018/04/10/summit2018-day2/ No comments about the plumbing or anything today, having gotten over the initial shock. https://toastit.dev/2018/04/09/summit2018-day1/ Mon, 09 Apr 2018 18:50:00 +0000 https://toastit.dev/2018/04/09/summit2018-day1/ Why the hell are American toilets so full? https://toastit.dev/2018/04/01/crouton-sounds/ Sun, 01 Apr 2018 16:30:00 +0000 https://toastit.dev/2018/04/01/crouton-sounds/ It gives me a glimpse into how people are using the module and it also focuses my documentation efforts on something that might actually be useful. https://toastit.dev/2018/03/25/veeam-my-first-virtual-lab/ Sun, 25 Mar 2018 20:00:00 +0000 https://toastit.dev/2018/03/25/veeam-my-first-virtual-lab/ Over the last day or so I’ve been setting up a sandbox/virtual lab which leverages our Veeam backups. https://toastit.dev/2018/03/19/pshelp-twitter/ Mon, 19 Mar 2018 19:00:00 +0000 https://toastit.dev/2018/03/19/pshelp-twitter/ If you’re looking for some help, try #PSHelp. If you’ve got knowledge to share (and you do), make sure you jump in and get involved! https://toastit.dev/2018/03/11/where-are-you/ Sun, 11 Mar 2018 20:00:00 +0000 https://toastit.dev/2018/03/11/where-are-you/ This seems like a decent excuse for a ‘State of the Blog’ post. https://toastit.dev/2018/03/02/burnttoast-wix/ Fri, 02 Mar 2018 15:30:00 +0000 https://toastit.dev/2018/03/02/burnttoast-wix/ This time around, I’ll walk you through how to create your own installer. https://toastit.dev/2018/02/03/burnttoast-appid-installer/ Sat, 03 Feb 2018 18:45:00 +0000 https://toastit.dev/2018/02/03/burnttoast-appid-installer/ I can’t tell you how happy I am to be writing this post. https://toastit.dev/2018/01/24/crouton-password/ Wed, 24 Jan 2018 21:30:00 +0000 https://toastit.dev/2018/01/24/crouton-password/ How the heck did that happen, isn’t the system meant to give me some warning? https://toastit.dev/2018/01/15/wu-put-to-bed/ Mon, 15 Jan 2018 18:00:00 +0000 https://toastit.dev/2018/01/15/wu-put-to-bed/ There were, and still are, many people frustrated with the fact that Windows 10 would decide to forcibly reboot for updates. https://toastit.dev/2018/01/02/resolution-2018/ Tue, 02 Jan 2018 11:30:00 +0000 https://toastit.dev/2018/01/02/resolution-2018/ Woah, 2017 flew by. https://toastit.dev/2017/12/11/kovertkringle/ Mon, 11 Dec 2017 14:46:00 +0000 https://toastit.dev/2017/12/11/kovertkringle/ Given it’s the holiday season, I worked on a PowerShell based Secret Santa Organizer https://toastit.dev/2017/11/05/datetime-headache/ Sun, 05 Nov 2017 19:15:00 +0000 https://toastit.dev/2017/11/05/datetime-headache/ Sometimes PowerShell just throws the system culture out the window and assumes that you meant to supply the date in the American style. https://toastit.dev/2017/10/21/psblogweek-recap/ Sat, 21 Oct 2017 10:00:00 +0000 https://toastit.dev/2017/10/21/psblogweek-recap/ It was a great event, with five days worth of awesome PowerShell content coming out! https://toastit.dev/2017/10/16/powershell-storage-report/ Mon, 16 Oct 2017 10:00:00 +0000 https://toastit.dev/2017/10/16/powershell-storage-report/ Whether they’re nearly empty, nearly full, or somewhere in-between, it’s helpful to get a quick overview of all your servers' hard drives. https://toastit.dev/2017/10/08/burnttoast-no-appid/ Sun, 08 Oct 2017 10:00:00 +0000 https://toastit.dev/2017/10/08/burnttoast-no-appid/ I hate reducing customizability, just as much as I hate making breaking changes in my projects. https://toastit.dev/2017/10/01/oct-17/ Sun, 01 Oct 2017 10:00:00 +0000 https://toastit.dev/2017/10/01/oct-17/ Summits, Blogging, and Hacking make October the ‘hackiest’ month of the year. https://toastit.dev/2017/09/25/recurrence-pattern/ Mon, 25 Sep 2017 10:00:00 +0000 https://toastit.dev/2017/09/25/recurrence-pattern/ There’s one thing that bugs me when scheduling scripts from the prompt, however: Recurrence. https://toastit.dev/2017/08/28/war-on-passwords/ Mon, 28 Aug 2017 12:00:00 +0000 https://toastit.dev/2017/08/28/war-on-passwords/ The NIST guidelines struck a chord with me. It seemed to be something that our users would embrace while addressing potential issues within any given workplace https://toastit.dev/2017/08/16/wu-2017-revisit-setup/ Wed, 16 Aug 2017 12:00:00 +0000 https://toastit.dev/2017/08/16/wu-2017-revisit-setup/ It’s been nine months, time to revisit the prevention of Windows Update reboots. https://toastit.dev/2017/08/03/o365-all-the-things/ Thu, 03 Aug 2017 12:00:00 +0000 https://toastit.dev/2017/08/03/o365-all-the-things/ Now that we’ve figured out how to connect to each of the Office 365 services, it’s time to tie a pretty (PowerShell) blue bow on it. https://toastit.dev/2017/07/27/o365-connect/ Thu, 27 Jul 2017 12:00:00 +0000 https://toastit.dev/2017/07/27/o365-connect/ Just like their on-premises counterparts, each of these products has their own PowerShell interface for management. https://toastit.dev/2017/06/05/o365-training/ Mon, 05 Jun 2017 12:00:00 +0000 https://toastit.dev/2017/06/05/o365-training/ At first, I figured this wouldn’t cause me much of an issue. Information is information right? https://toastit.dev/2017/05/15/crouton-headers/ Mon, 15 May 2017 12:00:00 +0000 https://toastit.dev/2017/05/15/crouton-headers/ Headers, introduced in the Creators Update, can be used to organize you toasts. https://toastit.dev/2017/05/07/crouton-clickable/ Sun, 07 May 2017 12:00:00 +0000 https://toastit.dev/2017/05/07/crouton-clickable/ Buttons can look pretty ugly when only using one, so just click your Toast instead! https://toastit.dev/2017/04/29/crouton-progress-bars/ Sat, 29 Apr 2017 12:00:00 +0000 https://toastit.dev/2017/04/29/crouton-progress-bars/ April saw the release of the Creators Update for Windows 10 which brought with it a handful of new options for toast notifications. https://toastit.dev/2017/04/24/always-api/ Mon, 24 Apr 2017 12:00:00 +0000 https://toastit.dev/2017/04/24/always-api/ Your business uses two disparate cloud services and needs them to share data, but they don’t integrate natively. You really don’t need to make this harder than it needs to be. https://toastit.dev/2017/03/19/crouton-stackwatch/ Sun, 19 Mar 2017 10:00:00 +0000 https://toastit.dev/2017/03/19/crouton-stackwatch/ A crouton is a small piece of toast for soup or salads. Or, a small piece of (burnt) toast https://toastit.dev/2017/03/05/trello-report/ Sun, 05 Mar 2017 12:54:00 +0000 https://toastit.dev/2017/03/05/trello-report/ Nothing distracts a room full of nerds faster than technology. https://toastit.dev/2017/01/29/dhcp-reservations/ Sun, 29 Jan 2017 12:50:00 +0000 https://toastit.dev/2017/01/29/dhcp-reservations/ Have multiple DHCP servers that aren’t in a cluster? Don’t worry! https://toastit.dev/2017/01/05/resolution-2017/ Thu, 05 Jan 2017 12:48:00 +0000 https://toastit.dev/2017/01/05/resolution-2017/ New Year’s Resolutions are the in thing, right? https://toastit.dev/2016/11/23/how-i-work/ Wed, 23 Nov 2016 10:00:00 +0000 https://toastit.dev/2016/11/23/how-i-work/ Consider this my ‘How I Work’ post, and if you’re interested in reading more posts from other bloggers make sure you check out the list of participants on GitHub https://toastit.dev/2016/11/21/old-posts/ Mon, 21 Nov 2016 10:00:00 +0000 https://toastit.dev/2016/11/21/old-posts/ I was recently looking through my Google Analytics and noticed there was an old blogspot address that I hadn’t seen in years. https://toastit.dev/2016/11/07/updatable-help-frustration/ Mon, 07 Nov 2016 10:00:00 +0000 https://toastit.dev/2016/11/07/updatable-help-frustration/ AAAAAAAAAAAAARRGH! https://toastit.dev/2016/11/06/win-10-update-up-time/ Sun, 06 Nov 2016 10:00:00 +0000 https://toastit.dev/2016/11/06/win-10-update-up-time/ Three weeks on, did Windows 10 decide to reboot? https://toastit.dev/2016/10/17/wu-windows-1607/ Mon, 17 Oct 2016 10:00:00 +0000 https://toastit.dev/2016/10/17/wu-windows-1607/ Over a year ago, I answered a question on Super User. The question was about stopping the very persistent Windows Update from rebooting without the users' consent, and wow was that ever a popular topic. https://toastit.dev/2016/07/03/home-server-shutdown/ Sun, 03 Jul 2016 12:00:00 +0000 https://toastit.dev/2016/07/03/home-server-shutdown/ My home server, nestled behind the TV, is an old HP workstation. It’s not exactly what I’d call… power efficient. https://toastit.dev/2015/10/15/u2f-key/ Thu, 15 Oct 2015 11:55:00 +0000 https://toastit.dev/2015/10/15/u2f-key/ GitHub now supports FIDO Universal 2nd Factor (U2F) as an option for two-factor authentication alongside their existing support for Google/Microsoft Authenticator Apps. https://toastit.dev/2015/07/22/ugly-validation/ Wed, 22 Jul 2015 12:00:00 +0000 https://toastit.dev/2015/07/22/ugly-validation/ Figure out what you did wrong and don’t do it again. Good luck! https://toastit.dev/2015/07/02/more-alerts/ Thu, 02 Jul 2015 12:00:00 +0000 https://toastit.dev/2015/07/02/more-alerts/ In this mini post I’ll list 20 more ideas for PowerShell fuelled Pulseway alerts. https://toastit.dev/2015/06/29/pulseway-all-the-alerts/ Mon, 29 Jun 2015 12:00:00 +0000 https://toastit.dev/2015/06/29/pulseway-all-the-alerts/ Need to know when your servers CPU is pegged at 100%? Check. Need to know when a disk simply isn’t present in the OS after booting up? Uhh… https://toastit.dev/2014/09/23/ps-splatting/ Tue, 23 Sep 2014 12:00:00 +0000 https://toastit.dev/2014/09/23/ps-splatting/ You create a hashtable of of the parameter names and their values, which you can format nicely, and pass the hashtable to the cmdlet. https://toastit.dev/2014/09/21/trust-no-reboot/ Sun, 21 Sep 2014 12:00:00 +0000 https://toastit.dev/2014/09/21/trust-no-reboot/ Perhaps it was a helpdesk technician powering up a cloned desktop while connected to the network. https://toastit.dev/2014/09/13/ps-important-resource/ Sat, 13 Sep 2014 12:00:00 +0000 https://toastit.dev/2014/09/13/ps-important-resource/ There is one thing I learnt to do early on and continue to do to this day: Ask for help.