automation and DevOps tasks. I also create reporting dashboards from the data within the work items. One such metric I report on is how much time we save when implementing a new automation.

aspect of maintaining robust security and ensuring uninterrupted service. When application secrets expire without timely renewal, it can disrupt business operations by causing application failures. Proactive management of application secret expirations helps enterprises avoid last-minute issues, enabling a more secure and efficient operational environment.

whitelisted IP address. While this is generally a good idea, a problem arises when you need an Azure Automation Account to access one of these Storage Accounts.

work phones. Currently, they are sending a .vcf file and then having the employees manually save the contacts. While this works, the problem is if you need to send a new contact, you now need to send a new .vcf file to every employee and instruct them on how to save it. Similarly, if you ever need to remove a contact, you need to instruct your employees to manually delete that contact.

managed identity. The module has several parameters:

front end, and PowerShell, the Graph API, and Azure Runbooks as the back-end.

Individual, Business, and Enterprise customers. In this post, I will show you how you can get download and install the CLI and Copilot extension, authenticate to use Copilot, and the available commands and use cases.

process. A service hook is triggered when a new Pull Request is created in Azure DevOps, sending a webhook to an Azure Function. This function analyzes the request body, gets all commits in the Pull Request, and sends it to Open AI's API, which generates a Pull Request message detailing all of the proposed changes from the commits and writes it back to the Azure DevOps Pull Request.

using the Microsoft Graph REST API, you would have to iterate through Entra ID sign-in logs. With new recent additions to the Microsoft Graph API Beta Endpoint, you can now return the UTC value just by parsing the user details and properties. The Microsoft documentation regarding the signInActivity resource type can be found here.

including Classic Run As accounts, will be retired so you will need to migrate your runbooks to managed identities for authentication.

years. One problem that has brought with it is the high probability of being somewhere with no cell phone data service or poor cell phone data. Couple with my incredibly poor memory, I have often forgotten to turn off servers to save on cost in my dev or test environment until I'm out in the woods. Also, I wanted the ability to use Google Voice as well as Siri in my car or even at home, to turn off, turn on, or check the status of my servers in my Azure tenants. This has even come in handy when I didn't have my phone on me and had to use the wife's phone to turn on or off some servers in my tenant. (I set it to only accept messages from my phone number as well as my wife's so if someone happened to figure out the phone number, they couldn't give any commands anyways - we will get into this later).

upload a file and attach it to a service ticket. This led me to the following article, but after doing some testing, I found that some file types were not properly rendering on the Connectwise side, making me believe there was something wrong with the encoding.

basic user attributes in Active Directory. Like anyone else, I presented the idea of using RSAT to let them modify users in ADUC or ADAC. This was not an ideal solution because ADUC can become overwhelming to someone that isn't technical. They wanted something that was extremely basic, easy to follow and work in without any guidance or instructions, and did not show the user anything else that they could not modify or needed to see.

due to COVID-19. Now using PowerShell, you can get your registered polling places based on your address, all early voting locations around you, and drop off ballot locations. All of the information is retrieved using Google's Civic Information API.

familiar with the game, its a text-based game where you have 6 tries to guess the word. Letters in a Gray box are not letters found in the word. Letters in a Yellow box are found in the word, but are in the incorrect spot. And finally, letters in a Green box are in the word and in the correct location.