PowerShell OutBuffer: How Pipeline Buffering Actually Works
The Script That Hammered a SQL Box at 3AM We had a client whose nightly reconciliation script was melting a SQL server every night around 3AM. The script pulled roughly…
NGINX Serving WordPress: Recommended Config for Performance
Where The Idea Came From While working on a migration for a client running three high-traffic WordPress sites last month, I got an idea for writing up the NGINX WordPress…
PowerShell Select-Object: Master Object Properties Fast
From 300 Lines of Output to Three Columns in One Pipe One of our managed services clients had a junior admin exporting process lists to Excel, then deleting columns by…
PowerShell Module Manifest: Versioning and Dependencies Post-Mortem
The Ticket That Started at 03:17 The pager went off at 03:17. A managed client’s nightly reporting job had failed across 40 endpoints. The error was short: The specified module…
PowerShell Variables: Scope, Types, and Best Practices
Last month we inherited a 3,000-line PowerShell deployment script from a manufacturing client. The thing was riddled with global variables bleeding into functions, type mismatches crashing midnight runs, and zero…
Bash Functions: Defining, Calling, and Returning Values
Last quarter a client’s deployment script hit 900 lines with zero bash functions. Just a massive wall of sequential commands. When something broke at 2 AM, nobody could figure out…
AD Server Parameter: FQDN vs NetBIOS Name Explained
While scripting a bulk user migration for a client last quarter, I hit one of those issues that wastes an hour before you realize what happened. Half the Get-ADUser calls…
PowerShell Module Management: Install, Import, and Update
A client called us on a Monday morning because half their admin team couldn’t run Exchange management commands. The other half could. Same servers, same accounts, same Group Policy. Turned…
PowerShell For, ForEach, and While Loops Explained
Six Hours of Copy-Paste, Gone in One Loop Last quarter we inherited a client environment with 140 Windows servers. The previous admin had been manually checking disk space on each…
Bulk Import Data into SharePoint 2016 Lists with PowerShell
The Problem With Clicking Your Way Through 3,000 Rows A client came to us mid-migration last year with a familiar problem. They had 11 SharePoint lists and roughly 3,000 rows…