If you were one of the many that missed Jeffrey’s standing-room-only presentations at TechEd, the kind folks at TechNet feel your pain. They’ve decided to host a series of “Best of TechEd” webcasts, and our two presentations are among them. If you want to learn more about the capabilities of Monad, be sure to check these out.

**Session 1: Next Generation Command Line Scripting with Monad (Part 1 of 2) (Level 300)
**This session provides an architectural overview of Monad, and begins to introduce many of its powerful features.
http://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/WebCastEventDetails.aspx?EventID=1032277850&EventCategory=4&culture=en-US&CountryCode=US

**Session 2: Next Generation Command Line Scripting with Monad (Part 2 of 2) (Level 300)
**This session discusses some of the advanced scripting constructs, such as script blocks, dedicated streams, ubiquitous parameters, errors, exceptions, debugging, and tracing.
http://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/WebCastEventDetails.aspx?EventID=1032277852&EventCategory=4&culture=en-US&CountryCode=US

Now, I would be remiss without including something for the hard-core geeks that already have Monad installed:

MSH C:\Temp >$organizer = "http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?linkid=41781"
MSH C:\Temp >$summary = "Monad TechNet Webcast"
MSH C:\Temp >$description = "Next Generation Command Line Scripting with Monad (Part 1 of 2)"
MSH C:\Temp >$location = "http://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/WebCastEventDetails.aspx?EventID=1032277850&EventCategory=4&culture=en-US&CountryCode=US"
MSH C:\Temp >$start = [DateTime]::Parse("Wednesday, August 03, 2005 09:30 AM")
MSH C:\Temp >$end = $start.AddHours(1).AddMinutes(30)
MSH C:\Temp >.\new-calendaritem $organizer $start $end $summary $description $location -out:TechEd_1.ics
MSH C:\Temp >
MSH C:\Temp >$description = "Next Generation Command Line Scripting with Monad (Part 2 of 2)"
MSH C:\Temp >$start = [DateTime]::Parse("Wednesday, August 10, 2005 9:30 AM ")
MSH C:\Temp >$end = $start.AddHours(1).AddMinutes(30)
MSH C:\Temp >$location = "http://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/WebCastEventDetails.aspx?EventID=1032277852&EventCategory=4&culture=en-US&CountryCode=US"
MSH C:\Temp >.\new-calendaritem $organizer $start $end $summary $description $location -out:TechEd_2.ics
MSH C:\Temp >
MSH C:\Temp >.\TechEd_1.ics; .\TechEd_2.ics

## new-calendaritem.msh
## Create a new calendar item using the iCal (.ics) calendar format
## new-calendaritem -organizer:"http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?linkid=41781" `
##   -start:$([DateTime]::Now) -summary:"Monad TechNet Webcast" `
##   -description:"Monad TechNet Webcast: Next Generation Command Line Scripting with Monad (Part 1 of 2) (Level 300)" `
##   -location:"http://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/WebCastEventDetails.aspx?EventID=1032277850&EventCategory=4&culture=en-US&CountryCode=US" -out:output.ics

param(
 [string] $organizer = "",
 [DateTime] $start = $(throw "Please specify a start time."),
 [DateTime] $end = $start.AddMinutes(30),
 [string] $summary = $(throw "Please provide a meeting summary."),
 [string] $description = "",
 [string] $location = $(throw "Please provide a meeting location."),
 [string] $out
)

## We want to convert the times to Universal, so that we can be unequivocal about
## when they start.  The RFC supports appointments in the local time zone (ie: lunch,)
## but that's not very helpful when we're sharing most appointments.
## All input times will be assumed to be local times
$utcStart = $start.ToUniversalTime()
$utcEnd = $end.ToUniversalTime()

## Convert them to the ICS format
$dtStart = $utcStart.ToString("yyyyMMddTHHmmssZ")
$dtEnd = $utcEnd.ToString("yyyyMMddTHHmmssZ")

## A very simple calendar item
$template = @"
BEGIN:VCALENDAR
BEGIN:VEVENT
ORGANIZER:$organizer
DTSTART:$dtStart
DTEND:$dtEnd
SUMMARY:$summary
DESCRIPTION:$description
LOCATION:$location
END:VEVENT
END:VCALENDAR
"@

## Dump it out to the file or the screen
if($out)
{
   $template | out-file -encoding:ascii $out
}
else
{
   $template
}

[Edit: Monad has now been renamed to Windows PowerShell. This script or discussion may require slight adjustments before it applies directly to newer builds.]