So here I sit in my kitchen, connecting to my laptop sitting on my desk at Citrix. I forget sometimes how cool it is to be able to do this. I forget the early days when I never worked from home - because I didn't want to set up my "work machine" as a MetaFrame Server and publish my server. And yes, I'll confess, I still like to install apps locally, just because, well, it's MY computer, right?

Yes, I can log in through Web Interface or other connections and have all my work apps, launch a published browser to get to all my sharepoint sites, and web applications, but it just isn't as homey or comfy to me as knowing I'm on my own computer.

It's funny to see that as I was thinking about writing this post, we had a survey published about the same topic - even though I'm sadly no longer in that age group.

Because who are we kidding - we like working in casual attire (I didn't say PJs). We like snacking on leftovers, and talking to our pets about the latest email we got from our project team.  We like dialing into meetings and walking around the house while making our points.

And yes, I multi-task. I sort laundry while I listen to project meetings, with the phone on mute.  Trust me, it's way better than sitting quietly in a chair at a table with 15 other people waiting for your turn to speak.

So, hooray for remote access! Hooray for GoToMyPC! And hooray for companies that support working from home - I for one, thank you!

So, if you're reading this blog, you've discovered the wonderful new blog site from Citrix. There's loads of posts about current and future products and projects, so I thought I'd try something a little different. As I note in my profile (sorry, no photo there, not ready to expose my mug just yet), I've been with Citrix since the heady days of 1999. I started in Tech Pubs as a tech writer assigned to the (in?)famous SDKs. Back then, that's where all newbie tech writers started at Citrix. My first "real" doc assignment was the SecureICA product - yes, I said "product", back then it wasn't part of MetaFrame - no, MetaFrameXP - no, MetaFrame Presentation Server - no, Presentation Server, right? After a few years on almost every product line, I joined the ranks of Pubs Management but then decided to transfer to the Web Services team and leverage my skills (I hope) with the team responsible (then) for the Knowledge Center, a.k.a. http://support.citrix.com.

Anyway, let's get back from my stunningly interesting trip down memory lane and on to the relevance of my blog title. We've done some pretty cool things to the Knowledge Center recently as noted in my director's post. So if you've got feedback about the Knowledge Center then use the Site Feedback link at the bottom of each page. Not to leave my old Tech Pubs buddies in the dust, (not that I ever would - you know that, right?), for feedback on your current product docs (like an Admin Guide, readme, or good old F1 help), please use the Product Documentation feedback form. You should also check out Andy McAleer's blog for the latest from the Tech Pubs team.

As for me, I'd like to know what else you would like to see Citrix do in our Web space. What have you seen or experienced at other corporate site that you think is cool or helpful to you? Yes, I know I should probably ask what would help you use our products better or help you install or troubleshoot, but honestly, I think the other sites I've pointed you to cover those areas pretty well. We've got forums, we've got blogs, we've got plans for more up-to-date browsable online docs (oops, was I supposed to say that? ), so what else would be helpful? Oh darn, I used that "helpful" word again, didn't I? But you know what I mean, the whole Web 2.0 stuff. At a recent conference I attended, it seemed like the latest buzzword for the ideal user's experience was now "delightful"; not usable, or navigable, but  "delightful" - Wow! So, what would delight you on our Citrix sites? I can't make any promises, and no-one should expect too much, but let's hear it and see what happens, shall we?

Infoworld has an article on Microsoft's planned forced upgrade to Internet Explorer 7. The upgrade is to take place on Feb 12th as part of Windows Server Update Services.  Apparently Microsoft has also posted guidelines for admins who would prefer to stay on IE 6. 

 IE 6 currently makes up about half the IE traffic going to the Citrix support site. It will be interesting to see how traffic to our various Citrix websites changes after Feb 12th.

Internet Explorer Report for http://support.citrix.com

As you may have noticed, we recently launched a major overhaul to the Knowledge Center website.  This initiative was launched several months ago and was sponsored because of excellent feedback from you.   You highlighted some of the shortcomings in our existing site such as search, navigation and notification emails.  You also identified core functionality that is commonplace throughout the industry such as RSS feeds and social bookmarking.

The project started with a full usability study and information architecture review and included several infrastructure changes as well as investments in Google Search technology.  Under the hood, several changes were made to make our site even more friendly for external search engines such as Google.  After all, Google plays the part of our home page for more than 60% of visitors.  You can read more about the changes here.

Now for the real reason I'm posting... 

While most of the feedback from the new site was positive in the first few weeks, we did receive constructive criticism around the ability to find language specific hotfixes and product documentation.  It became obvious that we made a few poor decisions around usability in this area so we focused the team on correcting this in the first follow-up release.  As of last Friday, we added new language specific filters on the product pages to help track down hotfixes and product documentation for the various product specific languages.  Here are a couple screen shots of the new functionality. 

And once you choose a different language:

Please give it a shot and be sure to let us know how else we can improve.  We actively monitor the feedback mechanism that is located in the footer of each page.  This goes for this new Official Citrix Blog site as well.

Thanks,

Saul 

Finally after only a couple weeks of development we are rolling out the Official Citrix Blog site.

• The site has a built-in blog-o-sphere feature which keeps rolling thru the latest published group blogs
• A feature that allows Citrites to collaborate in a group blog around a particular subject
• Individual employee blogs that can be published to the group blog if they have the right privileges

 This launch is considered a beta (aka work in progress) I think it's a good practice to get projects out in front of real users ASAP -- to validate the concept and allow customers to steer the refinement of a project.

 Features on the docket are metrics, search, etc.