Post to Twitter
This is a continuation of an earlier post on XenApp Platinum related video interviews from Citrix Synergy.
As part of Synergy Underground project, we interviewed many of the people in the XenApp booth in the TechLab to talk about the different features and components of Citrix XenApp Platinum.
(Each of these videos were shot and streamed live to the Underground site via a Nokia N95 cell phone. The convenience and ability to stream live video directly to the net is the trade off for the lower audio and video quality. Read this post for an explanation of the process and a video on how the live streaming worked.)
Smart Auditor for Citrix XenApp with Kiran Kulkarni
Citrix Edgesight Monitoring for XenApp with Sean Connelly
Citrix EdgeSight for Load Testing with James Millington
As part of Synergy Underground project, we interviewed many of the people in the XenApp booth in the TechLab to talk about the different features and components of Citrix XenApp Platinum.
(Each of these videos were shot and streamed live to the Underground site via a Nokia N95 cell phone. The convienience and ability to stream live video directly to the net is the trade off for the lower audio and video quality. Read this post for an explanation of the process and a video on how the live streaming worked.)
Here are three of those video interviews -
Jay Tomlin on Smart Access
David Wagner talks about the new User profile Manager Tech Preview
Victor Thu talks about Easy Call
(low audio in first half)
Many you have seen the Synergy Underground site by now. As I wrote in the post announcing Synergy Underground prior to the conference, the goal for Synergy Underground was to give those of you unable to attend an inside view into the event. I have received many questions about how the concept came into being, how we did the live video, and how many video views the site has had since the site launch last week. I put together a presentation that answers these questions.
Several of my friends have given me a lot of well deserved grief over the live interviews I shot where you can hear me do a count down at the beginning. Yes, you can hear me say "two, one" in several of the videos. I did a countdown to help the interview subject prepare for the beginning of the live video. Some people were more than a little nervous about being broadcast live on Citrix.com (very understandably) so I thought a countdown was a good idea at the time. In my defense, most of the time when I hit the stream button on the N95 there was a couple seconds delay before the connection was established and the video began to stream. Obviously, that delay was inconsistent, so on some videos you do hear me count down. I have also heard about how many times I opened a video with "Okay". The interview subjects were not the only ones being broadcast live for the first time on the internet, the guy behind the camera was new at this as well. C'est la vie. I could have spent a lot of time editing that part out of all the videos I did and reposted them, but I decided to leave them as is, warts and all. 
Despite the audible count downs, the intermittent data signals and the eternity it takes to upload videos to BrightCove, this project was a lot of fun and a big success in my opinion. I hope we get the opportunity to do this again.
Right after closing keynote the gang got together with Mark Templeton @ backstage and we had a blast sharing classic computing stories and Mark delivered a special message to our Underground viewers.
The Gang: Charles Aunger, Brian Madden, Rick Dehlinger, James Rabey, John Fanelli, Alex Danilychev, Rich Crusco and I was the guy behind the camera!
I hope you guys enjoyed the event and all content posted on Synergy Underground.
cheers,
Gus Pinto
"Here's to the crazy ones. The misfits. The rebels. The troublemakers. The round pegs in the square holes. The ones who see things differently. They're not fond of rules. And they have no respect for the status quo. You can praise them or glorify them. About the only thing you can't do is ignore them. Because they change things."
The text above wasn't quite written by me, it shipped with my new Mac, if you have one, open finder and take a closer look at TextEdit's icon.
Although the thought above wasn't written by me, it reflects exactly how I feel today.
- Geek Speak
An experiment, that is sure enough in its infancy. Although for years censorship surrounded the hallways of Citrix now we have a direct channel to allow our customers, partners, employees and most passionate geeks to speak up - speak whatever they want good or bad.
The ability of criticize or praise is within everyone's heart, however those speak their minds open the path for those who listen, and smart ones take advantage to improve when the road of improvement is presented.
I could make my above statement easier if removed the metaphors and simply say. We are open to hear from everyone our greatness and weakness - now more than ever we are open to act upon it and make the wrong, right.
Thanks for all those who helped us put together Geek Speak, for helping make it a naked conversation with our most important audience.
We will shape Geek Speak based on things we've learned, expect to see us rattling the cages in Vegas next year.
- Synergy Underground
Another learning curve for both our team and Citrix, over 17,000 views in 3 days, 190 updates on our twitter feed, tons of live shots on Qik, over 70 veedios.
More than numbers Underground was a concept, the concept of change - no agendas, no holds bar format. Go out there be yourself show people what you see, give you very own view of the conference, while helping those outside to share the same experience.
We put together this little site together in two days, next time we will spend more cycles creating a more unique experience, more information, better formatting, more contributors and heck of a lot more fun!
If there's anything I highly regret is not being able to cover breakout sessions and keynotes, but since this Synergy is behind us, I won't spend my time in sorrow, instead I will make sure we focus and deliver what our visitors have asked us.
- In Sum
I can't thank everyone enough for putting their time and effort on pulling off Geek Speak and Underground. If you want to know the ones I'm actually speaking of, here they are: Adam Marano, Barry Flanagan, Chris Fleck, Vishal Ganeriwala, Sunil Kumar, John Fanelli, James Rabey, Myself and Rich Crusco.
Learned from our audience: Less PPTs showing how our products work and more Demos of them in action during Breakout sessions, Let's always give out our do's and don'ts when it comes down to showing the capabilities of our products.
This was an event like no one I've been before, it started a revolution and will continue to do so during our next years to come.
See you all in Vegas.
Cheers,
Gus Pinto
Pete Downing Explains the new features on Provisioning Server 5.0 at the Citrix Synergy TechLab booth.
Cheers,
Gus Pinto
Microsoft MVP - Virtualization
Twitter.com/GusPinto
We were rocking out to AC/DC playing over ICA using Apollo, an YouTube video with audio and a phenomenal quality. Video taken on Geek Speak Lounge.
Oh Hail Apollo!
Cheers,
Gus Pinto
Synergy Underground
This are the principal announcements Citrix released during keynote at this years Synergy Conference.
- XenDesktop Product Line
- Express Edition (Free VDI for up to 10 users)
- Standard Edition ($75)
- Advanced Edition ($195)
- Enterprise Edition ($295)
- With XenApp for VDI
- Platinum Edition ($395)
- With EVERYTHING
- With EVERYTHING
- Citrix Branch Repeater
- Jointly developed with Microsoft
- Stages streamed apps closer to branch users
- Consolidates Microsoft Branch services
- Accelerates apps over WAN
- Citrix App Receiver
- Runs on every corporate desktop
- tuned to receive any app from anywhere
- Ensures great performance, security, experience
- Supports citrix and 3rd party plug-ins
- Size: 1.09Mb
- Citrix Desktop Receiver
- Comes embedded in the new desktop appliances
- Turns old PCs into new desktop appliances
- Lets users access virtual desktop from home PC
- Ensures great performance, security, experience
- Light weight software client
As this is a summary, expect a lot... and I mean a lot more from our crew in the new next few days...
In the mean time visit: Synergy Underground
A quick chat with Stephen Yoo from IGEL on what they have been up to and things they have done around XenDesktop.
More at: Synergy Underground
Ah this is my very own keynote entrance... I always wanted to do this!!!
More at: Synergy Underground
We entered the CTP Lounge and guess what we have there? Did I hear Wii? That's right we have a Wii there! Too bad Rich is such a newbie on Wii tennis!
More at: Synergy Underground
A few hours later and bam! we have a bunch more NetScalers in the rack!
More at: Synergy Underground
Meet Marsha Maxwell, she's been fundamental to the entire Synergy planning. Thank you Marsha for putting up with us!
More at: Synergy Underground
There are many changes at the Citrix user conference this year. The new name, Citrix Synergy, is only the most obvious difference.
iForum is now a breakout session track, and the IT 2.0 Business Symposium track, the Application Delivery track and the Geek Speak track (including Geek Speak Live! and Geek Speak BarCamp) are all new. There are more technical sessions than ever (over 90 total). There are more industry heavyweight keynote speakers than ever before, and a keynote by a Senior Vice President from the largest software company on the planet (and our most important partner).
For the first time ever, we have an opening keynote from a best selling (and controversial) author on technology and business, and a closing keynote by a very accomplished comedian and actor. Citrix Synergy is shaping up to be the most engaging, interactive, technical and relevant Citrix user conference in our history.
I recognize that many of you across the world will not be able to attend Citrix Synergy for a number of reasons (such as the rapidly increasing costs of energy and fuel). Due to constraints such as distance, time or an overwhelming work load, several of you may have not been able to come to a Citrix conference in sometime (or ever).
The members of the Community and Solutions team at Citrix would like to bring a taste of this conference directly to you. We have put together a plan to show you the face behind the name Citrix Synergy - the faces of the attendees, partners and Citrix employees who all come together to make this event happen. We want to bring you an inside (and unofficial) look at the people and events at our user conference.
Citrix Synergy Underground will bring you inside the George R. Brown Convention Center in Houston during the conference. Our team (including Rich Crusco, Vishal Ganeriwala, Gus Pinto and me) will bring you instant text updates from the keynotes via Twitter. You will see numerous live video (via Qik and Mogulus TV) and recorded video interviews (via BrightCove TV). These video will be taken inside the Convention Center common areas and halls, the Exhibit floor, Tech Lab, and Geek Speak Live and Geek Speak BarCamp (no keynote or breakout videos). We plan to speak to as many customers, partners, resellers, and Citrix employees as we can at the event, and show you many of the great demos and new technology that will be unveiled. We hope to give you an inside look at the event that you have never seen before at any user conference.
Our team put together a short video to introduce themselves and the Citrix Synergy Underground
site.
(Thanks to Bryon Thomas for pointing me to Qik. Thanks to Gus Pinto for putting together the web page with Microsoft Expression Engine, and Saul Gurdus and his Web Services team for hosting the site for us and providing tech support)
Our underground coverage will begin formally on Tuesday, May 20th. Tune in to http://community.citrix.com/underground to watch.