the mellow tigger's musings

I've mentioned before that I can feel my brain starting to think again, thanks to an extended reprieve from the very busy months before now. As further evidence of this improvement, I spent my spare time between tickets today actually learning something!

Many places use Canvas as their educational platform. Both Penn State and the University of Minnesota do, for example. Today, I learned how to use PowerShell to pull information from the Canvas platform. It was surprisingly easy, after I figured out that they provided very easy access to the text token you use to interact with their servers. They provide API access to all students, for example.

After I manually generated my token, it was easy to insert "api/v1/" into the url that I would normally use at the webpage for their gui platform, then use my script instead. The Course ID is just the part of the url that shows whenever you access that class through the webpage (and not the SIS ID as I first assumed). Here's a sample of the short code, with a few key text strings redacted for security safety.

$headers = @{ Authorization='Bearer [redacted]}
$idCourse1 = '[redacted]'
$uri=”https://[redacted].instructure.com/api/v1/courses/$idCourse1/discussion_topics"
$response = Invoke-RestMethod -Method 'Get' -URI $uri -Headers $headers -ContentType application/json
$response | Select-Object posted_at, title, message | Out-GridView

And that brief code showed me a list of all the Discussions in my course sandbox.

It's nice to be able to think again.

1. Figure out what version of Ubuntu you're using, which will affect which installer package you need.
   
   1. more /etc/os-release
      It shows you info about the current distribution, which in my case is Linux Mint 20.1.
   2. more /etc/upstream-release/lsb-release
      It shows you info about the "parent" distribution, which in my case is Ubuntu 20.04.
2. Based on that Ubuntu version, choose the appropriate instructions on this Microsoft page:
   https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/powershell/scripting/install/installing-powershell-core-on-linux?view=powershell-7.1
3. That's good enough for a basic shell interface, but let's go fancy with the full Visual Studio Code experience. Follow their instructions again:
   https://code.visualstudio.com/docs/setup/linux
4. Launch "code", then change it to the old fashioned powershell ISE experience.  I also approve of using text editors like Notepad on Windows, but I feel the urge tonight to modernize.
   
   1. Call up the Palette within Visual Studio Code by pressing CTL-ALT-P.
   2. Click on the listing for "PowerShell: Enable ISE Mode"
5. In preparation for installing Desired State Configuration on Linux, you will probably need to update some packages like I did that depend on your version of OpenSSL. I didn't know about it, and I had to follow a nested dependency to solve it. To find out your system's version, use this straightforward command:
   
   1. openssl version
6. Choose the correct package of Open Management Infrastructure (their version of the free cross-platform standard of CIM) to install, based on that OpenSSL version:
   https://github.com/Microsoft/omi
7. Choose the correct package of Desired State Configuration to install, based on that OpenSSL version:
   https://github.com/Microsoft/PowerShell-DSC-for-Linux/releases/tag/v1.2.1-0

# Demonstration of Microsoft Agent controls.
# NOTE: These agents are deprecated.  They were never supposed to be on Win7.
# http://www.microsoft.com/products/msagent/main.aspx

# The primary Agent control can be downloaded for Windows 7 as a hotfix.
# It will install c:\windows\msagent\chars\merlin.acs, plus other supporting files.
# Download the hotfix from this url:
# http://support.microsoft.com/kb/969168

$MI6 = new-object -com agent.control.2
$MI6.connected = $true

$MI6.characters.load('Merlin','Merlin.acs')
$agent = $MI6.characters.character('Merlin')
$agent.Show()
$agent.think('Hello!  I''m over here!')
$agent.play('Wave')
$agent.moveto(800,600)
$agent.think('I and the other Microsoft Agents are here.')
$agent.Play('Pleased')
$agent.think('I am Merlin.')
$agent.think('Only 1 agent can be loaded at a time.')
$agent.hide()
while ($agent.visible) { sleep -Milliseconds 100 }
$MI6.characters.unload('Merlin')

# You can download the other official agents at these urls.
# Genie  @ http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=4957
# Robby  @ http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=12327
# Peedy  @ http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=17076
# Clippy @ http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=11215
# list of their animations @ http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms695821.aspx

$agentlist = @(('Genie','Genie.acs'),('Robby','Robby.acs'),('Peedy','Peedy.acs'),('Clippy','Clippit.acs'))
foreach($name in $agentlist.GetEnumerator()) {
    $MI6.Characters.load($name[0], $name[1])
    $agent = $MI6.characters.character($name[0])
    $agent.moveto(800,600)
    $agent.show()
    $agent.think('Hi, I''m '+$name[0]+'.')
    $agent.play('Wave')
    $agent.hide()
    while ($agent.visible) { sleep -Milliseconds 100 }
    $MI6.characters.unload($name[0])
}

# A Microsoft Office agent no longer downloadable from Microsoft (that I could find).
# Not all animations from above are available on this character.
# Rover @ http://www.tinmith.net/wayne/rover/index.htm

$MI6.Characters.load('Rover','rover.acs')
$agent = $MI6.characters.character('Rover')
$agent.moveto(800,600)
$agent.show()
$agent.think('Hi, I''m Rover.')
sleep -seconds 6
$agent.hide()
$MI6.characters.unload('Rover')

# Non-Microsoft agents that people have developed:
# http://www.msagentring.org/chars.aspx
# http://www.zero2000.com/microsoft-agent-characters.html