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James O'Neill's blog

Windows Platform, Virtualization and PowerShell with a little Photography for good measure.

Fighting talk from VMware.

There’s running joke on my team – if I want to drive my blog statistics up all I need to do is talk...

Author: James ONeill Date: 12/24/2009

Powershell Parameters 2: common parameters.

In the previous post I talked about the template I have for many of my PowerShell functions. And...

Author: James ONeill Date: 12/22/2009

Parameters in PowerShell functions: vague is good.

There is a theme which I’ve found has come up in several places with PowerShell. Giving flexibility...

Author: James ONeill Date: 12/22/2009

Drilling into ‘reasons for not switching to Hyper-V’

Information week published an article last week “9 Reasons why enterprises shouldn’t switch to...

Author: James ONeill Date: 12/21/2009

Server 2008 R2 feature map.

One of the popular giveaways at our events this year has been the feature poster for server 2008-R2...

Author: James ONeill Date: 12/15/2009

Add-ons and plug-ins – do you have a favourite ?

I was chatting with a couple of colleagues yesterday about internet explorer. Someone grumbled “When...

Author: James ONeill Date: 12/15/2009

Hyper-V resource round-up.

I spent this morning with a group of our partners and one of the comments which came back was “we...

Author: James ONeill Date: 12/10/2009

Offline Virtual Machine Servicing Tool update

I had a mail about an update to the Offline Virtual Machine Servicing Tool , which I thought was...

Author: James ONeill Date: 12/10/2009

Search stories … or “how do people manage on XP”

I know from experience that the people I meet in this job , and those who read this blog are more...

Author: James ONeill Date: 12/08/2009

Get-Scripting podcast

I was pleased to get asked to record a Podcast with Jonathan and Alan to become episode 14 of their...

Author: James ONeill Date: 12/08/2009

Security updates.

There are some rumours circulating about problems with the latest round of security updates. The...

Author: James ONeill Date: 12/02/2009

The nights are drawing in, stoke up the fire and listen to some senior Microsoft Execs

My colleague Graham Watson has a secured a number of senior folk based in Redmond to do some on-line...

Author: James ONeill Date: 11/30/2009

Shouldn’t regular reboots be a thing of the past ?

A few days ago I linked to a post of Viral’s which showed some of the holes in the hype around...

Author: James ONeill Date: 11/30/2009

Windows Deployment information

A couple of posts back I put talked about how easy it is to use Windows Deployment Services with a...

Author: James ONeill Date: 11/29/2009

How easy is it to deploy a Virtualized server ?

A couple of posts back I showed the video of deploying an operating system with Windows deployment...

Author: James ONeill Date: 11/28/2009

Decisions Decisions, and “When is a phone not a phone ?”

Someone at work (no names, no packdrill) keeps telling me I’m set in my ways, and I keep...

Author: James ONeill Date: 11/27/2009

How to deploy Windows: Windows deployment services.

I saw something recently – it must have been in the discussion about Google’s bootable browser new...

Author: James ONeill Date: 11/26/2009

Panel discussion: So, you want to be an MVP ?

Since I just mentioned Andy Malone, one of our MVPs, I should also say that he got a session...

Author: James ONeill Date: 11/25/2009

Interview: Cybercrime , defence against the dark arts.

When I was at Tech-ed in Berlin a couple of weeks ago I recorded an interview with Andy Malone, one...

Author: James ONeill Date: 11/25/2009

Announcing the PowerShell Configurator.

For a little while I have had a beta version of a project I call PSCONFIG on codeplex. I’ve changed...

Author: James ONeill Date: 11/25/2009

Two Posts from Viral worth a read

I don’t normally blog just links, but after Google took the chrome OS into the open last week I was...

Author: James ONeill Date: 11/25/2009

A few thoughts on the power of social media

Back in the middle of October I started writing about couple of big events so-called “world of...

Author: James ONeill Date: 11/23/2009

A Windows 7 trick for multiple sound cards

I’ve mentioned here before background noise drives me nuts (it’s one of boxes that gets ticked doing...

Author: James ONeill Date: 11/21/2009

“ThriveLive! Online IT Professional Virtualization Tour

My colleagues from the other side of the Atlantic  Dan Stolts, Blain Barton, Yung Chou and John...

Author: James ONeill Date: 11/19/2009

Saving the world, and your sanity, one gadget at a time.

For as long as we have been talking about “Green IT” I’ve thought the opportunity to save carbon...

Author: James ONeill Date: 11/17/2009

Making word clouds (Part 2: how to use it , and clouds from twitter).

Attached to this post is a Zip file containing Twitter.ps1 the PowerShell script I use to get...

Author: James ONeill Date: 11/17/2009

Making Word clouds (Part 1: how it works).

I’ve been playing with word clouds on and off for the last couple of months, and finally I’ve...

Author: James ONeill Date: 11/17/2009

In my previous post I mentioned a correspondent – his name is Andy – who’d written asking the...

Author: James ONeill Date: 11/06/2009

Car trouble – a possible metaphor for new software ?

A little over a year ago I mentioned I had taken delivery of a big Citroen. It’s my seventh, I’ve...

Author: James ONeill Date: 11/04/2009

You can’t be a 21st century admin without PowerShell

When I was at school my father gave me a copy of an article he’d seen at work. I remember nothing of...

Author: James ONeill Date: 11/02/2009

How to cut the crap in IE8 (IE and Privacy Part 2)

  I mentioned IE87 pro in the last post, but recently I was doing some work on a server 2008 R2...

Author: James ONeill Date: 10/26/2009

IE8 and privacy , part 1

I wanted to talk about the privacy enhancements in IE8, and to save you from reading something of...

Author: James ONeill Date: 10/23/2009

Can Bing do twitter search better than twitter ?

First off to avoid any frustration, you need to set your country to United States, because this...

Author: James ONeill Date: 10/22/2009

A uniquely good day to be at Microsoft

I don’t think you can have missed that today was the day Windows 7 became generally available. I’ve...

Author: James ONeill Date: 10/22/2009

More on VHD files

I’ve had plenty to say about the uses of VHD files on different occasions. They get used anywhere we...

Author: James ONeill Date: 10/17/2009

Microsoft Security Essentials

Somehow, in all the other activities of the last couple of weeks I missed the release of Microsoft...

Author: James ONeill Date: 10/16/2009

A quick thank you

The theft of my laptop, bag, fleece, keys, etc was a pretty galling experience as I described in the...

Author: James ONeill Date: 10/09/2009

My life in a bag

I have became a crime statistic. It was only a bag. And I didn’t realize the significance it had...

Author: James ONeill Date: 09/30/2009

Hello Exchange 2010

Inside Microsoft we have this custom of “dog-fooding” new software, and Exchange 2010 is now at the...

Author: James ONeill Date: 09/28/2009

Windows 7… “Media for everyone !”

From the betas of Windows Vista until the start of September I ran the Ultimate edition of Windows,...

Author: James ONeill Date: 09/27/2009

On Scanners, Cameras and their USB modes, and lifting the lid on how they can be scripted.

Long title, and I’m afraid I’ve been on a bit of a voyage of discovery about some of the things...

Author: James ONeill Date: 09/23/2009

Story of a photo.

My last two working days were spent at a team “off-site” – and these things tend to bring out the...

Author: James ONeill Date: 09/20/2009

On PowerShell function design: vague can be good.

There is a problem which comes up in several places in PowerShell – that is helping the user by...

Author: James ONeill Date: 09/14/2009

How to view RAW image files on Windows 7 (and Windows Vista).

My photography posts appear to be a bit like busses. I don’t make one for a while then two together...

Author: James ONeill Date: 09/14/2009

Photosynth re-visited

One of the things that I’ve said many times is how great today’s technology seems. The first...

Author: James ONeill Date: 09/14/2009

For your viewing pleasure …

For the last few weeks, on and off, Andrew and I have been working on a set of Videos on Windows 7...

Author: James ONeill Date: 09/12/2009

How to use $myInvocation to do simple command profiling in PowerShell

One of the things I’ve noticed on our internal PowerShell DL is that some of the Redmond cognoscenti...

Author: James ONeill Date: 09/12/2009

Select string. Finding a PowerShell *

I've thinking about odd figures of speech. Like telling one's naughty children "I'll swing for you...

Author: James ONeill Date: 09/12/2009

Windows 7 upgrades: my experience

I’ve done more than my share of Windows upgrades. I’m fond of telling people that my first proper...

Author: James ONeill Date: 09/10/2009

How to load files into the PowerShell ISE editor – or “What’s in your profile”

(another in the “Things you’ll want to do with PowerShell V2” series) One of the tricks I have been...

Author: James ONeill Date: 09/02/2009

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