Google's new Gemini CLI allows up to 60 model requests per minute and 1,000 daily requests. Professional developers might hit these limits quickly, but many IT admins will find the free plan sufficient. Compared to Anthropic Claude Code and OpenAI Codex CLI, I find Google's open-source AI-powered terminal more useful for the AI-augmented admin.

Source

Rebooting a Windows PC via PowerShell is a routine administrative task. This guide will teach you how to use the PowerShell cmdlet Restart-Computer to reboot a local Windows PC, restart a remote computer, and automate the reboot process for multiple systems.

Source

The VS Code May 2025 update (version 1.101), released a few days ago, introduces a range of new features primarily focused on GitHub Copilot. My favorite addition is the custom chat mode, which lets you create a personalized mode alongside the built-in options: Ask, Edit, and Agent. In this post, I'll also explore the new chat tool sets and the undoing edits feature. While the Simple Browser feature was included in the previous release, it deserves discussion. Furthermore, I will briefly summarize the MCP enhancements.

Source

The MCP catalog in Docker Desktop has been available for a couple of weeks now. However, MCP support only works properly in the just-released Docker Desktop 4.42. The Docker Desktop MCP server catalog significantly simplifies installing MCP servers for any MCP client. I tested it with Gordon (Docker Desktop chatbot), Anthropic Claude Desktop, and VS Code GitHub Copilot on macOS, but the process should be identical on Windows.

Source

Warp, the top terminal app with AI support, has introduced new features in its GA release, including MCP support and Refine for AI responses. The Preview release now allows image uploads and the saving of reusable AI prompts. I also found a few new features that weren’t mentioned in the Launch Log 3 post.

Source

Microsoft. has recently launched Edit, a lightweight terminal editor for Windows and Linux. It revives the spirit of the MS-DOS Editor, which debuted in 1991 as a full-screen text editor for DOS and early Windows systems. Edit eliminates the need to leave the terminal to edit files. While Edit doesn't feature a traditional GUI, it supports tab management and can be navigated using a mouse. On Linux, the open-source tool can be seen as an alternative to nano.

Source

In a remarkably short period, MCP has established itself as the standard for secure and efficient connections between AI models and external data sources and tools. Microsoft has integrated MCP into VS Code, Windows will get it, OpenAI plans to implement it for ChatGPT, and the top terminal application, Warp, has introduced MCP support in its Preview version. I installed the official Perplexity MCP server for my test and incorporated it into Warp.

Source

The relatively new VS Code technical terms chat participants, chat variables, and slash commands can be accessed with the prefixes @, #, and / in GitHub Copilot. This post explains the differences and gives usage examples.

Source

While GitHub Copilot prompt files are related to the instruction files I discussed in my previous post, they serve a different purpose. Prompt files are custom Markdown templates that allow you to automate coding tasks through custom AI-driven slash commands in GitHub Copilot for VS Code. Prompt templates are powerful, as they can utilize MCP server commands as tools. In this article, I will explain how to create prompt files and provide a simple usage example.

Source

In Visual Studio Code version 1.100, Microsoft introduced GitHub Copilot instruction files, which mirror the Rules feature in AI IDEs like Cursor and Windsurf. Instructions allow you to guide the AI assistant’s behavior by providing specific, context-aware directives tailored to your coding standards and project requirements.

Source

Perplexity is an AI search engine that answers questions by combining real-time web results with conversational, natural language responses. Installing Perplexity's official MCP server on your Mac or Windows PC allows querying Perplexity from any AI model in VS Code GitHub Copilot. Enabling your AI to search the web for the latest updates is a must-have feature for scripting or working in the terminal.

Source

OpenAI Codex CLI is a new open-source command-line tool that integrates AI models into any terminal. It enables you to generate, edit, and execute code using natural language prompts. I tested Codex CLI on Windows and Mac and concluded that it is no match for advanced AI CLIs such as Warp, Cline, or Roo Code. Do not mix up Codex CLI with OpenAI's Codex model, which was discontinued in March 2023. Perhaps Sam Altman should seek advice from ChatGPT before naming future products.

Source

Windows 11 and Windows Server include additional components and utilities that are not installed by default. Depending on the operating system and the source used for installing these features, Microsoft provides various GUI tools and PowerShell cmdlets. Unfortunately, the overall concept lacks consistency and often leads to confusion.

Source

I compared six frontier AI models—DeepSeek V3, Anthropic Claude Sonnet 3.7, Google Gemini 2.5 Pro, Meta Llama 4 Maverick, OpenAI GPT 4o (GPT 4.1), and Mistral Large 2—in terms of their capabilities in interacting with MCP servers. Surprisingly, the performance in terms of accuracy, token usage, and API costs are quite different..

Source

Roo Code and Cline are popular AI-driven coding extensions for VS Code. Both assistants indicate whether they support Images, Computer Use, and Prompt Caching when selecting a model. In this post, I explain these model features and whether you need them when coding with AI assistance.

Source

For security purposes, it may be beneficial to restrict Active Directory account logins to regular working hours. These logon times can be configured using the calendar widget in Active Directory Users and Computers (ADUC). However, PowerShell provides a more efficient and flexible alternative, particularly because it offers reporting capabilities that the graphical interface does not.

Source

LLMs' knowledge cutoff date is a significant issue, often resulting in outdated responses. Some frontier models can browse the web, but they frequently skip this ability because they think they can handle things on their own. Bringing in an MCP server that can search the web helps the AI stay updated and assist it when struggling with a problem. Tavily is a research search engine designed to summarize online content for AI models. In this post, I will guide you through installing the Tavily MCP server on Windows. Installing on a Mac follows a similar process.

Source

Playwright is an open-source framework by Microsoft for automating web browsers to perform end-to-end testing, scraping, and UI interactions across Chromium, Firefox, and WebKit. The Playwright MCP server lets AI agents like GitHub Copilot control a web browser using Playwright’s automation capabilities. Microsoft introduced support for MCP in Visual Studio Code 1.99 (March 2025), enabling tools like the Copilot Agent to connect with external services. In this post, I explain how to install the Microsoft Playwright MCP server in VS Code for the GitHub Copilot Agent.

Source

In March 2025, the release of VS Code version 1.99 introduced support for Anthropic's Model Context Protocol (MCP) in GitHub Copilot's Agent Mode. This open standard is now backed by leading AI companies such as Google, Amazon, Microsoft, and OpenAI. MCP provides a standardized framework that allows AI models to interact with external tools and data sources. In this post, I will guide you on how to install, start, stop, activate, and deactivate MCP servers. You will also learn to configure settings in mcp.json and settings.json, as well as import MCP servers from Claude Desktop, Cline, and Roo Code.

Source