Internet Forensics

This has been a whirlwind tour of PowerShell's core features and capabilities to whet your appetite. So what's next?

• In Chapter 2, you'll get a chance to write a useful PowerShell script so you can quickly see this new shell in action.

• Chapter 3 focuses on PowerShell security, which is very important to securing and protecting both your scripts and your environment.

• An overview of PowerShell technologies in Chapter 4 will help you understand what PowerShell is built on, and provide a background for core technologies that you'll utilize within PowerShell.

Then we'll move into the core of PowerShell scripting in the next group of chapters:

• Chapter 5 begins a look at how PowerShell deals with data including variables, arrays, and objects. These are really the building blocks of PowerShell scripting.

• Chapter 6 covers operators, which is how values are compared and what PowerShell's logical constructs are built upon.

• Chapter 7 covers regular expressions, which is a powerful technique for comparison string values to one another.

• Chapter 8 covers those logical constructs including loops and decision-making constructs that give your scripts some intelligence.

• Creating attractive output with PowerShell is easy, and Chapter 9 shows you how to do it in a variety of ways.

We're on to advanced topics in the last few chapters:

• Modularization is the topic of Chapter 10, where you'll learn to create and use functions, script blocks, cmdlets, and snapins.

• Error handling and debugging-two things you'll definitely want to learn-are covered in Chapter 11.

• Finally, Chapter 12 wraps up with a supply of real-world examples of PowerShell scripting including scripts to work with WMI, services, Access Control Lists (ACLs), event logs, processes, the registry, directory services, and the Web.

Chapter 13 through 16 are relatively short, and cover some highly-advanced topics that not everyone will need-but we wanted to include them for folks who do.

• Chapter 13 is a small collection of tips and tricks we've learned while using PowerShell.

• Chapter 14 covers database scripting, including a short tutorial on the basic concepts and some examples of using databases from within PowerShell.

• PowerShell's internal data types can be extended, and Chapter 15 shows you how.

• Chapter 16 is for readers who already know VBScript. While there's no easy conversion of scripts to PowerShell, we wanted to use this chapter to give you a jump start by relating your VBScript skills to similar things in PowerShell.

Finally, two appendices provide a basic cmdlet reference and a reference to PowerShell's major data types.