To send mails via PowerShell, you can use Send-MailMessage. However, this requires that you have access to an SMTP server, and mails sent this way...
database-tools
How to tune SQL Server in the cloud
As organizations migrate their databases to the cloud, database administrators need to consistently manage databases on-premise and in the cloud...
Mind Jogging Generator
The human mind can read sentences even if the characters are scrambled as long as the first and last letter of each word stays intact. Here is a...
Speeding Up the PowerShell Pipeline
PowerShell scripts can grow very slow when you (a) need to process a lot of items and (b) you are using the PowerShell pipeline. Let’s today...
Where-Object: Just A Pipeline-Aware If-Clause
Where-Object is one of the most frequently used PowerShell commands, yet it looks unfamiliar to new PowerShell users. Those who are familiar with...
Using Custom Prompts for Mandatory Parameters
When you define mandatory parameters in PowerShell, the user gets prompted for the value if it is missing. The prompt uses the parameter name only...
Checking Cmdlet Availability and Script Compatibility (Part 3)
Not all PowerShell cmdlets ship with PowerShell. Many are part of 3rd party modules which in turn ship when you install certain software, or use...
Organizational changes and the need to inventory SQL Server environments
In recent headlines, we have heard or seen the news on company mergers in different sectors of the economy. “Cigna and Express Script”...
How to backup and restore SQL Server in the cloud
As organizations migrate their data to the cloud, database administrators need to consistently manage data on-premise and in the cloud with existing...
Checking Cmdlet Availability and Script Compatibility (Part 2)
Not all PowerShell cmdlets ship with PowerShell. Many are part of 3rd party modules which in turn ship when you install certain software, or use...
Monitoring Windows Services with SQL Diagnostic Manager
As we all probably already know, SQL Diagnostic Manager is a powerful performance monitoring and diagnostics solution that proactively alerts...
Checking Cmdlet Availability and Script Compatibility (Part 1)
Not all PowerShell cmdlets ship with PowerShell. Many cmdlets are part of 3rd party modules which in turn ship when you install certain software, or...
Colorful ASCII-Art from Images
In the previous tip we showed you how you can take any image or photo and turn it into a black&white ASCII art. Today, we have a revised...
SQL Diagnostic Manager for MySQL 8.8 General Availability
We are pleased to announce the general availability of SQL Diagnostic Manager for MySQL 8.8. Existing users may upgrade to this version through...
Testing Raw Data with Checksums – A Real-World Example
With PowerShell entering the IoT world, sometimes it is necessary to deal with binary sensor data and ancient checksum models to verify data...
Inverting Bits
Occasionally it is necessary to invert the bits for a number. Most often, this is part of custom algorithms or checksum calculations. It raises the...
Benefit from these free resources to learn more about the cloud
This blog post is an update to the previous blog post “Learn more about the cloud with these free resources” from Thursday, May 3, 2018....
Calculating Most and Least Significant Byte
Numbers are stored internally as bytes. An Int32 value, for example, uses four bytes. Sometimes it is required to split up the number into its byte...
Accepting Parameters without Quotes
In the previous tip, we introduced a function that generates nicely centered headers and accepted a single string. Here is the function and its...
Creating Aligned Headers
Reporting and writing log files is a common task in PowerShell. Here is a simple function to create nicely centered headers. Adjust $width to the...
SQL Diagnostic Manager 10.4 General Availability
We are pleased to announce the general availability of SQL Diagnostic Manager 10.4. Existing users may upgrade to this version through...
Computer Name, DNS Name, and IP Address
Here is a simple one-liner that returns your computers’ current IP address and its full DNS name: PS>...
Managing Windows License Key (Part 4)
Slmgr.vbs is an ancient VBScript used to automate Windows license management. In the previous tip we started bypassing slmgr.vbs by reading the WMI...
Managing Windows License Key (Part 3)
Most Windows license and activation tasks can be automated using an ancient VBScript called slmgr.vbs. It does not make much sense to use this tool...