If someone told me a couple years ago that I would have my own Windows PowerShell website by now, I might’ve thought they were crazy. It was back then when I was relatively new to PowerShell. I had pieced together a few scripts by then, but I wasn’t anywhere near where I am now. This isn’t to imply I know it all; I’m certainly still learning something every day — that’s actually the way I became successful with PowerShell.

But, here I am. It’s just over 20 months now, that I’ve had my own site, and have been sharing scripts, providing some quick learning, and generally, talking about PowerShell in one way or another. Prior to my most recent position, I was spread too thin; I knew a little about a lot. Today, I know a lot about only a handful of technologies, allowing me to gain a deeper perspective and understanding. My knowledge of PowerShell proves this.

Yesterday, I received a PM on Reddit. That’s happens a fair amount of the time, as it is one of the places I go to learn and read, and assist with PowerShell questions when I can. While these are typically comment replies, this one was a direct message, straight to me, from some unknown person. Here’s a screen capture of the message.

First off, I don’t get anything tangible from this website. In some ways, it’s just a storage for things I may want to reference later. More so, however, it’s to give people that want PowerShell content to have another place to consistently find it. I remember those nights, not quite ready to fall asleep and looking for some PowerShell content to read on Twitter. I often found something, and then learned something in the final minutes before sleep. This actually led to several dreams about PowerShell, which was fine. I think I tried to convince myself I was learning in my sleep, too. The posted articles on Twitter made me successful, in that they provided an opportunity for continual learning. At some point I decided I wanted to give back.

All of this to say, that while this site isn’t lining my pockets in cash, it’s serving a purpose, and now I know it for sure. It’s refreshing to know that I’m not writing to myself. That said, hopefully it’s more than just me and “that person from Reddit.” I think it is; I think this site is truly helping people learn PowerShell, and that right there, is my reward. I’m happy that I get to play a part in helping current, but most likely new, members of the PowerShell community.

In closing, I’m reminded of the final Microsoft TechEd Conference in 2013 in New Orleans. I was in this giant room — maybe even at two different times — to hear Don Jones and Jeffrey Snover speak. I didn’t really know who these speakers where then. There must’ve been several hundred people in that same room waiting to hear Don and Jeffrey. Out of that entire room full of people, here I am, writing and publishing PowerShell content. I’ve included my notes from those sessions below. Based on the notes, you can likely judge how little I knew then. I had to write down Out-GridView, as I hadn’t heard of the cmdlet yet. Actually, I only wrote Out-Grid; I’m glad I didn’t get hung up on that one later.