Weekend Scripter: Find Information on the Hey, Scripting Guy! Blog
Summary: Ed Wilson, Microsoft Scripting Guy, talks about how to find stuff on the Hey, Scripting Guy! Blog.
Microsoft Scripting Guy, Ed Wilson, is here. It is hard to imagine that it is 2016. It’s even harder to imagine that I have been writing the Hey, Scripting Guy! Blog since 2008! With the current pace of twice a day posts, 7 days a week, there are literally thousands of Hey, Scripting Guy! Blog posts—plus there was a team writing Scripting Guy content before there was a Hey, Scripting Guy! Blog.
One of my first major projects after becoming the Microsoft Scripting Guy was to work with my editor and the TechNet team to create the Hey, Scripting Guy! Blog. We are now in the process of another migration…but that is another story.
Swamped by a plethora of way cool content
With so much Hey, Scripting Guy! Blog content available, I cannot imagine anyone going back to the first published posts. (The archives have content from August 2004, and this content was migrated from static web pages to the Hey, Scripting Guy! Blog.)
Note Your desire to keep up-to-date with the content is a really good reason to start reading the new Operations Management Suite Blog. There are only ten posts published to date. It is a rare chance to jump into a series when it is just starting. If you do this, eight years from now you will thank me (probably sooner than that).
Remember, I have only been writing since 2008. I can tell you that if you had been reading this blog all along, and if you could remember all of that content, you would be an awesome scripter. The following image shows where to find Archives section of the Hey, Scripting Guys! Blog:
Using the Tags
I rarely browse the archives by date. Occasionally I do, but to be honest, after a while the posts in the Archives section do not even tell you a date. I can choose the month and year, but the page says something like “Over 7 years ago.” If I am browsing the archive, it is because someone said, “On June 8, 2004, you had post that said blah blah blah.” Of course, the hyperlink is not included, or for some reason, Outlook decides to strip out the hyperlink, so I am stuck browsing.
On the other hand, if I am looking for something related to working with text files, I can click Text Files from the Tag cloud. The following image shows the location of the Tags:
I especially use the Tags when I want to send a link to a collection of Hey, Scripting Guy! Blog posts. When publishing blog posts, the Scripting Editor, Dia Reeves, checks to ensure that posts are properly tagged. We have a list of “approved tags” that we use to ensure we do not end up with, for example, “TextFiles, TextFile, and Text Files.” That would dilute the effectiveness of the tag system.
Using a scoped search
By far, the best way that I have found to navigate content on the Hey, Scripting Guy! Blog is to use the scoped search widget. The Search widget appears in the upper-right corner of the blog page, and it says Search TechNet with Bing. Under it there are two radio buttons: Search This Blog and Search All Blogs. I always use Search This Blog. I can’t remember everything I write either—especially not after eight years, and the search engine on the blog works better than searching the local source files on my laptop. Generally it is much faster too, so I use this technique every day. Here is a screenshot of the Search area of the blog:
Other ways to find Scripting Guy information
Here are some other ways you can find information on the Hey, Scripting Guy! Blog.
Google Of course, most people simply use Google to search the Hey, Scripting Guy! Blog. Google does an excellent job of indexing the blog, and I constantly see people who say that whenever they have a question about Windows PowerShell and they use Google, they arrive at my blog anyway.
Bookmarks A lot of people have the Hey, Scripting Guy! Blog bookmarked in their browser. I know this because in my traffic reports I see a lot of people coming by direct link. Of course they may be clicking a link on Twitter, but those show up as coming from a different referring source.
RSS feed I use RSS to ensure that the blog published correctly and on time. It is a great way to monitor the blog.
Windows Phone app The Hey, Scripting Guy! Blog has a phone app that basically picks up the RSS feed and permits an easy way to read the blog. I use this from time-to-time when I am at a conference and want to quickly show someone the latest blog post.
Well, that is it for the week. Join me next week when we have a really cool guest series about Windows PowerShell Desired State Configuration from MVP, Will Anderson.
I invite you to follow me on Twitter and Facebook. If you have any questions, send email to me at scripter@microsoft.com, or post your questions on the Official Scripting Guys Forum. Also check out my Microsoft Operations Management Suite Blog. See you tomorrow. Until then, peace.
Ed Wilson, Microsoft Scripting Guy
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