31 Oct 2012
Yes, it’s been a while, but here are some more great books I have read in the recent past.
Pirate Cinema - Cory Doctorow
A really enjoyable book based in a near future London, where the only difference to reality is the harsh hammer of copyright law. It’s a fun adventure and an interesting premise, but I’ll have to read it again before I make a decision on whether it’s good, or great.
The Departure - Neal Asher
Zero Point - Neal Asher
Enhanced intelligence, emergent AI, guns, space travel and a ‘1984’-esque government. There’s a lot to ponder, plus a good adventure and the overthrow of an oppressive government rolled in. Based on these two books, I can’t wait for the third book of ‘The Owner Trilogy’.
I, Alex Cross - James Patterson
A modern day murder mystery and a big conspiracy involving the mob, the secret service and some other less than reputable characters. It’s a good story, if a bit short, but then theres a bunch of others in the series to read, so they’re next.
Covenant - Dean Crawford
Alien remains and the uplift humanity concept explored in this Indiana Jones type adventure for a burnt out war journalist. It’s an OK story, but almost all of the concepts have been explored before.
The Restoration Game - Ken MacLeod
It’s quite difficult to talk about this one without spoilers. MMO’s, a Russia-Georgia conflict and all sorts of weird history and secrets make this one a real rollercoaster. It’s probably one of the best books I’ve read from Ken MacLeod.
24 Oct 2012
I’ve made a fair amount of changes to the shadow group sync script, it’s a fair amount more powerful and much more flexible than the first version. You can now sync user and computer objects into groups from an OU, but with the added functionality of filters to narrow for specific user or computer attribute values. There are a few changes to the format of the CSV, detailed in the script comments, along with an example of the filters that you can use (see the Microsoft TechNet article on PowerShell Active Directory filter syntax for more information).
UPDATE
There’s some more changes here, the script now takes the CSV as an argument to the script file. For example:
.\shadowGroupSync.ps1 ".\TheCSVFile.csv"
.\shadowGroupSync.ps1 -file ".\TheCSVFile.csv"
are both valid ways or running the script.
As before, feel free to use it in any way you want. It’s pretty straightforward, but may contain bugs which I take no responsibility for.
Current version:
Older versions:
Thanks to i3laze for his work with this. I probably wouldn’t have made the effort to extend the script without it.
04 Sep 2012
I’ve done a bit of work with Windows PowerShell lately, here’s a little script to sync AD OUs with ‘Shadow Groups’.
I couldn’t find a full solution that I could pick up and use, so I rolled my own to sync some OUs containing computers with some groups.
The script reads from a CSV that defines the source OUs and the group names you want to populate. Inside the script, the destination OU gets set, where the shadow groups will exist.
I’ve linked to the code below, feel free to use it in any way you want. It’s pretty straightforward, but may contain bugs which I take no responsibility for.
Download: shadowGroupSync.zip
UPDATE
i3laze (i3laze ‘at’ yandex ‘dot’ ru) supplied an updated script that deals with syncing mail-enabled users and child domains, and not just computers. As with the first version, I take no responsibility if the script has bugs or somehow manages to nuke your domain.
Download: i3laze-shadowGroupSync
I’ve done some work to merge the two versions, which will give the script a lot more flexibility as to the object types it will sync, but there’s still got a bit of testing to do before I post it.
UPDATE 2
Newer versions of the script are here. This post is kept as a reference to the first version of the script.
10 Mar 2012
I haven’t been doing much on here in the way of computing lately, so to get back to it, here’s a WordPress plugin I wrote to get a better idea of how the plugin settings API works.
It’s very basic, all it does is change the ‘Howdy’ text in the toolbar (front and backend) to whatever you want by altering the toolbar by injecting the new greeting.
It was good fun to write, so here it is!
WP-AlterHowdy
23 Feb 2012
Download the text file - The Starting Line - Making Love To The Camera
Title: Making Love To The Camera
Artist: The Starting Line
Tuning: EADG
Intro
G|------------------------------------------------------------------|
D|----2-----2--11-----2-----2--1-1----------------------------------|
A|---------------------------------44-4-444-4--22--44-4-444-4--22---|
E|-00---000--------00---000-----------------------------------------|
Verse
G|------------------------------------------------------------------|
D|-22-2-222-2--11--22-2-222-2--1-1----------------------------------| x3
A|---------------------------------44-4-444-4--22--44-4-444-4--22---|
E|------------------------------------------------------------------|
Pre-Chorus
G|------------------------------------------------------------------|
D|------------------------------------------------------------------|
A|-0-0--0-00--00-0-4--4--44--------0-0--0-00--00-0-4--4--44---------|
E|-------------------------4--4--44------------------------44-4-4-4-|
G|----------------------------------------------------------|
D|----------------------------------------------------------|
A|-0-0--0-00--00-0-4--4--44--------2--2--224--4--447~-------|
E|-------------------------4--4--44-------------------------|
Chorus1
G|------------------------------------------------------------------|
D|------------------------------------------------------------------| x2
A|---------------------------------0-0-000-00-0-0-00-0-000-00-0-0-0-|
E|-00-02~----------00-02~-------------------------------------------|
Intro
Verse
Pre-Chorus2
G|------------------------------------------------------------------|
D|------------------------------------------------------------------|
A|-0-0--0-00--00-0-4--4--44--------0-0--0-00--00-0-4--4--44---------|
E|-------------------------4--4--44------------------------44-4-4-4-|
G|------------------------------------------------------------------|
D|------------------------------------------------------------------|
A|-0-0--0-00--00-0-4--4--44--------2--2--224--4--447~------7~-------|
E|-------------------------4--4--44---------------------------------|
Chorus2
G|------------------------------------------------------------------|
D|------------------------------------------------------------------| x2
A|---------------------------------0-0-000-00-0-0-02-2-222-22-2-2-2-|
E|-00-02~----------00-02~-------------------------------------------|
Bridge
G|------------------------------------------------------------------|
D|-----------------------------4-67---------------------------------|
A|-0~------0~--0---0~------0~------7-------7---070797------7--07079-|
E|------------------------------------------------------------------|
G|------------------------------------------------------------------|
D|-7--7--7--6-4---7--7--9--11-11-117-------7---070797------7--07079-|
A|--------------7---------------------------------------------------|
E|------------------------------------------------------------------|
G|----------------------------------|
D|----------------------------------|
A|-0-0--0-00--00-0-0-0--0-00--00-0--|
E|----------------------------------|
Chorus3
G|------------------------------------------------------------------|
D|------------------------------------------------------------------|
A|---------------------------------0-0-000-00-0-0-00-0-000-00-07090-|
E|-00-02--22-22-22-00-02--22-22-22----------------------------------|
G|------------------------------------------------------------------|
D|------------------------------------------------------------------|
A|---------------------------------0-0-000-00-0-0-00-0-000-00-0-0-0-|
E|-00-02--22-22-22-00-02--22-22-22----------------------------------|
G|----------------------------------|
D|-----------------------7-77-7-7-7-|
A|-0-0-000-00-0-0-00-0-00-----------|
E|----------------------------------|
Tabbed by David Green (david.green'at'tookitaway.co.uk)