The recorded HPO webinar ’Hoe bouw je een High Performance Organisatie’ is in Dutch and takes about 30 minutes. It will explain the definition of a High Performance Organization (HPO) that is being used and which factors are relevant for being/becoming an HPO. You can find the recording of the webinar here.
If you want to know more about High Performance Organizations, take a look at my previous blog posts regarding HPO. These are written in English and also contain links to other useful resources.
While browsing the site I also came across a nice Dutch article about profiles of Dutch High Performing Employees (HPE). This article describes two profiles that have been defined for High Performing Employees (HPE). One of the profiles is defined from a manager’s point of view and is appropriate for evaluating current employees and recruiting new employees. The other profile is defined from a colleagues point of view and can be used for development and coaching programs. For more information, read the article.
There’s also an English HPO Leadership toolbox app available at the Apple Store and at the Google Play Store. This includes a quick test to determine your current HPO scores.
Tags: André A. de Waal, André de Waal, boek, Book, book event, Dutch, Event, Grohe, Grohe Netherlands, High Performance Employee, High Performance Organization, Hoe bouw je een High Performance Organisatie, HP, HP Defence, HPE, HPO, HPO Center, Maastricht School of Management, MSM, Nederlands, What Makes A High Performance Organization
My blog reached 50.000+ views. Thanks everybody, this really exceeded my expectation and motivates me even more to keep going. Special thanks go out to my fellow bloggers in my blogroll and to those who shared my posts on Twitter, Facebook and other social networks.
Even though my blog exists since January 2012, I really started to blog actively around August and ever since I’ve tried to keep posting on a regular basis. At the start of 2013 I even intended to blog every day. I was able to keep it up for a short while, but it was just too time consuming. Now I try to blog something at least once every 5 days. The blog post count is now at 170.
Personally I think Microsoft is on the right track. I’m really looking forward to all new Microsoft product (preview) releases including Windows 8.1, Windows Server 2012 R2 and System Center 2012 R2 and you can expect some blog posts about this in the near future.
Popular posts
From the stats, it turned out these are the blog posts that are being viewed most, if you’ve missed any of them you might want to take a look at them:
Stats
For those interested in the view stats, here they are:
Comments and suggestions
If you have suggestions about what I can do to improve, please let me know. Also if you’d like to see some things covered more or in more detail, just leave a comment.
Tags: Apple, blog, blog post, blogpost, Microsoft, milestone, Mountain Lion, Office 365, OS X, POST, Server 2012, Sharepoint online, views, Windows 8, Windows Server 2012, wordpress
One of the least favorite tasks of many administrators is to document. Good administrators also don’t want to manually do things when it can be automated. This is where Active Directory Topology Diagrammer (ADTD) can help to automate documenting your Active Directory environment.
Recently I have been working on a new Active Directory OU design and used the Active Directory Topology Diagrammer to create a Visio diagram for the AS-IS situation. I have to say it worked great. Keep in mind though that it will show the OUs and not any other containers.
Besides documenting AD OUs, the Active Directory Topology Diagrammer can document many other things as well. Take a look at the article “How To Use The Active Directory Topology Diagrammer” or play around with it yourself to see what it can do.
The tool can also be very helpful when:
- You’re in a new environment and need to get a quick overview of the Active Directory.
- When there’s no documentation available or when the available documentation is outdated.
- When you’re auditing the quality of documentation.
For more tools, take a look at my website: http://bjornhouben-web.sharepoint.com/Lists/Applications/Summary.aspx
Tags: Active Directory, Active Directory Topology Diagrammer, AD, ADTD, automate, automation, Diagram, document, document active directory, document AD, documentation, Microsoft, tool, Visio, Windows, Windows Server
At TechEd 2013 North America, Microsoft has announced a lot of new stuff. Many of the TechEd sessions have been recorded and can be viewed on Channel9. I’ll try to blog more about it as well.
For Windows Server 2012 R2 and System Center 2012 R2 the Microsoft Virtual Academy is hosting jump start sessions next month. For more information and registration take a look at this blog post.
Tags: channel9, ICT, jump start, jumpstart, Microsoft, Microsoft Virtual Academy, MVA, server 2012 r2, system center 2012 r2, teched, teched north america 2013, windows 2012 r2, Windows Server 2012 R2
I’m not a big fan of most Google services, but I do use iGoogle and Google Reader intensively. Both services are ending this year unfortunately though.
Fortunately in most cases there are alternatives. In a previous blog post I’ve written about some iGoogle alternatives. There are also Google Reader alternatives of course, and some (like Feedly) have even made it easy to migrate. Still it’s never a bad idea to export your RSS feeds manually just in case. If you want to export your starred items, there are some external methods to do this as well.
Another annoying aspect is that you might have bought applications to access these services (better) which might not support the new service you are migrating to. Even though all of this is not that big a deal for personal use, it’s still inconvenient.
In my case I use the great Windows 8 app Nextgen Reader that has no Feedly support yet. Fortunately, it is expected that support will be added before Google Reader goes down. Feedly also plans to create Windows 8 and Windows 8 phone apps.
So even though cloud services are great because they’re available from almost any device as long as you have internet access, you have to keep in mind that you depend heavily on the companies providing the services. So before you start using a cloud service always take into consideration how easy it is to backup, export and migrate your data (data portability). If you don’t you run the risk of losing data and having to spend time to recreate it.
Tags: Cloud, Cloud Service, Cloud Services, data portability, export, export google reader starred items, Feedly, Google, Google Reader, Google Reader alternatives, iGoogle, iGoogle alternatives, Nextgen Reader, rss, starred items
Future events
Before starting with my summary of 2nd DuPSUG meeting, I want to inform you about some future events first:
- Dutch PowerShell User Group Meetings
- To keep track of news, use the links to LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter and the RSS feed on the DUPSUG website.
- In the future, the plan is to meet every June and November.
- The next meeting will probably be at November 7th at VX Company.
- The idea is that community members will also present their own experiences, use cases, scripts, tools, methods. If you want to do so, please contact the DUPSUG group.
- Remko Weijnen | Blog | Twitter | LinkedIn might be one of the people presenting at a future DUPSUG meeting.
- Jeff Wouters might be able to arrange one or more copies of the PowerShell Deep Dives book from Manning since he’s contributing to it. The book isn’t complete and released yet, but Manning has an Early Access Program which means that you will get access to the completed chapters now and will get the full version when it’s done. Until June 13 there’s even a promotion to get a 40%-50% discount and it also applies to other great PowerShell books.
- Inter Access Microsoft Summer Summit (Hilversum, July 2nd 2013 17:30-22:00 CET)
This event
Last Thursday I attended the second Dutch Powershell User Group meeting in Hilversum hosted at Inter Access and sponsored by Sapien Technologies Inc.
Just like I mentioned in the summary of the first meeting there were manu interesting sessions that provided me with more insight and inspired me for practical uses. It was also great to discuss current developments with other knowledgeable and passionate people. The main differences with the previous meeting was that:
- This meeting was completely in Dutch, while the previous one was completely in English. As such, the workshop descriptions were also in Dutch and you needed to bring your own laptop.
- The format of this meeting was more of a workshop, while the previous one was mainly presentations.
Thanks go out to all attendees, especially those presenting, organizing and sponsoring the event. Special thanks to Daniel Bot for helping me fix a (stupid mistake in a) script I was working on 🙂
Goodies and giveaways
Workshops / presentations
And now on with the really interesting stuff, the sessions/workshops. Below are the sessions with some info about the speakers and their sessions. I also added notes I took and other information I looked up afterwards. If you come across any errors or have comments, please leave a reply so I can fix it.
Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: $PSBoundParameters, -asjob, -passthru, Azure, background jobs, Cloud, Compliance Settings, DCM, Desired Configuration Management, Desired State Configuration, devops, DHCP, DHCP failover, DNS, DSC, DuPSUG, Dutch PowerShell User Group, error handling, Event, Exe, Filters, flickr, forms, Functions, graphical user interface, gui, GUI applications, high availability, Hilversum, HTA, HTML Application, Integrated Scripting Environment, Inter Access Microsoft Summer Summit, InterAccess, InterAccess Microsoft Summer Summit, Interface Video Training, IPv4, ISE, Jaap Brasser, Jeff Wouters, job, jobs, Manning, module, msi, nslookup, Out-Gridview, parallel, parallelization, passthrough, Ping, PowerGUI, Powershell, PowerShell 3, Powershell 3.0, PowerShell 4.0, PowerShell Deep Dives, PowerShell GUI, PowerShell GUI applications, PowerShell Runspace, PowerShell RunSpaces, Powershell v3, PowerShell Workflow, presentation, PS2Exe, Resolve-DNSName, Richard Siddaway, runspace, runspaces, SCCM, script block, script blocks, scriptblock, scriptblocks, ShowUI, splat, splatting, System Center Configruation Manager, Test-Connection, The MSI Wizard, VisualStudio, VX Company, Windows, Windows 2012, Windows 2012 Server, Windows 8.1, Windows Forms, Windows Presentation Foundation, Windows Server 2012, Windows Server 2012 R2, WinForms, workflow, workshop, WPF
Duncan Epping is offering his books vSphere Clustering Deepdive 4.0 and 5.0 for free, but only today and tomorrow.
For more info take a look at his great blog:
http://www.yellow-bricks.com/2013/05/28/free-kindle-copy-of-vsphere-5-0-clustering-deepdive/
Tags: Book, Clustering, Duncan Epping, e-book, ebook, Free, ICT, virtualisation, virtualization, VMware, vSphere, vSphere Clustering Deepdive, vSphere Clustering Deepdive 4.0, vSphere Clustering Deepdive 5.0
In WordPress an RSS feed can easily be added and by default it will show all the blog posts. I however wanted to have an RSS feed only containing blog posts of a specific category. Since I couldn’t easily find it on wordpress.com I googled around a bit and these are my findings.
- You can go to the RSS feed of a blog by simply appending “/feed/” to the url like this:
https://bjornhouben.wordpress.com/feed/
- If you want an RSS feed of a blog containing only blog posts in a specific category, append
“/category/<category name>/feed/” to the url like this:
https://bjornhouben.wordpress.com/category/Microsoft/feed/
- If you want an RSS feed of a blog containing only blog posts with a specific tag, append
“/tag/<tag name>/feed/” to the url like this:
https://bjornhouben.wordpress.com/tag/ICT/feed
For even more options, take a look at this great article:
http://codex.wordpress.org/WordPress_Feeds
Tags: category, custom rss, custom rss feed, rss, rss by category, rss by tag, rss feed, tag, wordpress
Even though the website http://office.microsoft.com provides a comparison of the different Office 365 plans, it is not always entirely clear which features are available or what the restrictions are.
Luckily, Jasper Osgaard created a great blog post comparing the different plans in more detail without having to go through tons of documentation:
http://blogs.technet.com/b/lystavlen/archive/2013/03/30/office-365-comparing-p-m-and-e-plans.aspx
Tags: comparison, ICT, Microsoft, Office 365, Office 365 comparison, Office 365 Plan, Office 365 plan comparison, Office 365 plans, Office365
I’ve been using Flickr Pro for a couple of years now and I’ve always been really happy with it. With the newly added changes I think it has become more appealing for many people so I decided to dedicate this blog post to it. I hope it is useful to you.
What is the Flickr photo sharing service
Flickr is a photo sharing service that allows you to store, sort, search and share your photos and short video clips online. You can keep your photos private, share them just with friends and/or family or share them publicly. The service is accessible through the website, but also using apps for all platforms.
Flickr can also be considered a social photo platform because there are a lot of photographers sharing their photos and forming communities by taking part in groups and discussing and giving feedback on photos.
Last week’s changes to the Flickr service
Last week Flickr.com announced some major changes to its online photo service. The biggest changes are that:
- The service and website have been redesigned.
- Flickr Free accounts get 1 Terabyte of free storage, but ads are shown and there are no detailed statistics.
- Flickr Ad Free accounts cost 50$ a year. This gets you 1 Terabyte of storage, but no ads are shown and you get detailed statistics.
- Flickr Pro accounts will not be offered anymore. Existing pro accounts can renew or switch to free and get a refund.
For more information including pictures, take a look at their blog and their website:
http://blog.flickr.net/en/2013/05/20/a-better-brighter-flickr/
http://www.flickr.com/new/
http://www.flickr.com/pro/
Why you might want to use Flickr
Some of the reasons for using Flickr include:
- Easily viewing, uploading, searching and sharing photos and short video clips with all kinds of devices.
- Having an online backup of your photos.
- Participating in the community.
In the past I’ve seen many people who lost precious photos from PCs, smartphones, photo cameras and storage devices. Now with the free Terabyte of storage and app integration on all platforms (including WiFi photo cameras) losing photos due to broken/lost/stolen devices should be very minimal.
Keep in mind though that it is a best practice to keep multiple backups. Also you have to know that there is always a chance that photos will become visible if Flickr gets hacked or if they have a bug in their website even though you configured them as private. So if you are really concerned about this, don’t upload these kind of sensitive photos.
If you have a lot of other data to backup (non photos), you might want to take a look at other backup services like by example CrashPlan.
Comparison of account types
Flickr free account
- Free.
- 1 Terabyte (1000 Gigabyte) of storage.
- An additional Terabyte of storage costs 500$ a year (doublr).
- Shows ads
- No stats
Flickr Ad Free account
- 50$ a year.
- 1 Terabyte (1000 Gigabyte) of storage.
- An additional Terabyte of storage costs 500$ a year (doublr).
- Ad free.
- Detailed stats.
Flickr Pro account (no longer available for purchase)
- 25$ a year or 48$ for 2 years.
- Unlimited storage.
- Ad free.
- Detailed stats.
Since the Flickr Pro account is no longer available for purchase. People who had a Pro account before before May 20th 2013 can:
- Convert their old Flickr Pro account to a Flickr free account and get a refund.
- Keep paying the old subscription fee of 25$.
Tags: Ad Free, doublr, flickr, Flickr Ad Free, Flickr Free, Flickr Pro, Flickr.com, Free, online, online storage, photo, photo sharing service, photos, storage, terabyte
blog.bjornhouben.com 