Every organization is cutting costs, looking for ways to save money - 'doing more with less' CIOs  are making it clear to their IT organization - find cost savings, in one meeting the CIO said we need to find projects that will save us $2M+ and we need a few of these now!

In all the meetings I have had, Citrix has been at the top end of possible projects that can really save money now! Citrix champions within the IT organization are being called on to expand and accelerate their projects. For a long time these Citrix champions were seen as a niche group within IT, now they are being called upon to lead larger projects as their work has been at the core of saving organizations real dollars as they centralize and virtualize their application environments.

Often,  projects around Citrix technology have not been specifically about cost savings, it's usually solving other problems, such as application delivery for challenging apps, providing remote and secure access to applications or giving access to new locations/branches or home users. All these scenarios also include an element of cost saving, using Citrix was always the lowest cost option.

What is not so obvious is that these Citrix projects where not just the best/lowest cost option but also they provided real cost savings to the organization, reducing the TCO for the IT team, and providing best in class ROI. Gartner did some studies that showed Citrix XenApp ROI was less than 9 months. (To get a TCO and ROI calculator done for your organization ask your Citrix partner contact to build one for you.)

Delivering all your Windows apps with Citrix XenApp is at the heart of the real cost savings, Check out the compatibility tool,  http://community.citrix.com/citrixready if your app is not listed it you can add it. Saving of over 40% on your desktop management costs can be realized by running all your apps via XenApp.

Whether it's about TCO or ROI, Citrix have always shown excellent results and now that cost savings are the priority, Citrix champions are shinning a cost savings light on their organizations. To find out more about saving real money for your organization and meet some of the real Citrix champions working at our customer sites come to Citrix Synergy in May 2009 http://www.citrixsynergy.com.
Citrix champions speak out! Are you seeing your projects increase in these financially challenging times? Are you shining a cost saving light for your organization?

Installing XenServer on a USB Drive.

I wanted to be able to use my Lenovo T61 to run XenServer but I did not want to give up on my Vista OS since XenServer won't allow you to partition your hard drive.
So I figured I could use my USB drive to boot from, and then have XenServer installed on it. The good news is that it works, but there are some caveats.
If you want to run XenServer from a laptop while preserving your original O.S., this is what you need to do:
1) Find out if your Laptop (or PC) supports Booting from a USB device. Change the order to have your ATAPI CD first, your USB HDD second and your ATA/SATA HDD third
2) Find out if your Laptop (or PC) supports Virtualization Technology (e.g.: on T61 press F1 for BIOS utility, Config, CPU, and hit Enter under Virtualization Technology to enable it.
3) Because USB support is not preloaded by the mkinitrd image, some steps are required prior to installing XenServer. To get XenServer to boot from a USB drive, follow the steps described on this article written by Chris Wolf, Virtualization Review magazine's "Virtual Advisor". I disabled my Internal hard drive prior to doing these steps to ensure that I did not accidentally wiped off its contents

Installing and Running XenServer 4.1 on an External USB Drive
May 9, 2008 - by Chris Wolf
Source: http://virtualizationreview.com/columns/article.aspx?editorialsid=2618

"I often get asked about running hypervisors from portable storage devices and in this column, I'd like to talk about a method for installing and running XenServer 4.1 from a portable USB hard drive. This is useful if you are testing multiple hypervisor solutions and do not want to multi-boot the hypervisors on local server storage. Since XenServer Express Edition is free, you can evaluate the product for as long as you like and eventually upgrade the license if you want to unlock the product's enterprise-class features.
Of course, the physical host server is going to need to meet XenServer 4.1's system requirements. Servers with support for hardware-assisted virtualization (one of XenServer's hardware requirements) should also support USB device boot. Many USB flash drives offer enough storage space for a XenServer installation (16GB is required per the official requirements). Note that the actual software installation will only consume about 2GB. However, keep in mind that USB flash drives perform considerably slower than traditional hard disks. So if performance is a consideration, I highly recommend using a 2.5" external USB drive. In preparation for this article, I used a Seagate external USB 2.0 40 GB hard disk.
While not required, I disabled all internal hard disks in the test server's BIOS so that the XenServer installation would only see the external USB drive. This prevents accidentally installing XenServer on an internal server hard disk.
At this point, you should be ready to install XenServer 4.1. You can do so by following the installations steps documented in the XenServer 4.1 Installation Guide. Note that you will only be prompted to select the installation drive if the system can see multiple attached drives. If you take the cautionary step to disable all locally attached physical drives, you will not see this option. If multiple drives are present, you will also be prompted to select the drive for virtual storage, which again should be the external USB drive.
Once the XenServer installation completes, you will be prompted to hit Enter to reboot the server. This is where the trouble will begin. USB support is not preloaded by the mkinitrd image, by default, which will eventually cause a kernel panic and automatic reboot when XenServer starts. Note that if you are not seeing XenServer boot, that's probably because the USB drive was listed farther down in the boot order than another system drive. You can select to boot from the USB drive by clicking the hotkey to access the boot options menu and selecting to boot from the USB drive at that point. For example, the boot options menu on many Dell servers is accessed by hitting the F11 key when the server boots.
To get XenServer to successfully boot on an external USB drive, follow these steps:
1. When the server boots, hit the hotkey for the boot options menu.
2. Ensure that the XenServer installation CD is in the CD-ROM drive.
3. In the boot options menu, select the option to boot from the CD-ROM.
4. As soon as the Welcome to XenServer setup screen loads, immediately press the F2 key to view the advanced setup options.
5. Now type shell and hit Enter.
6. When the system finishes booting, run the following command to create a temporary folder where you will mount the external USB drive:

mkdir /tmp/sda
7. You will now mount the USB drive to the temporary location. Note that I'm assuming the USB drive is the only drive attached to the system and therefore is mounted as /dev/sda. To mount the first partition of sda to the /tmp/sda folder, run this command:

mount -t ext3 /dev/sda1 /tmp/sda
8. You will now need to copy the sys/block drivers from the setup environment to the USB drive. However, you will first need to change the driver file permissions prior to the copy. To do this, run this command:

chmod -R 664 /sys/block
9. You can now copy the contents of /sys/block to the USB drive. To do this, run this command:

cp -R /sys/block/ /tmp/sda/sys/block/

Note: Disregard the resultant "Input/Output error" message. The file copy will complete successfully.
10. Next you need to change the root location to /tmp/sda. You can do this by running the command:

chroot /tmp/sda
11. Now let's change to the /boot folder on the USB drive. To do this, run the command:

cd /boot
12. Now we will rename the original primary initrd image file because the new image file will have the same name as the original file for ease of configuration. To rename the primary initrd image file, run this command:

mv initrd-2.6.18-53.1.13.el5.xs4.1.0.254.273xen.img initrd-2.6.18-53.1.13.el5.xs4.1.0.254.273xen.img.old
13. Next, we'll create a new initrd image that includes the USB driver. To do this, run this command:

mkinitrd --with-usb initrd-2.6.18-53.1.13.el5.xs4.1.0.254.273xen.img 2.6.18-53.1.13.el5.xs4.1.0.254.273xen
14. At this point, you will now be able to successfully boot XenServer from an external USB drive. To reboot, the server, type exit and hit Enter and then type reboot and press Enter. Remember to select the external USB drive from the boot options menu when the server boots.
When the XenServer system successfully boots, you should see that the post installation script that XenServer attempts to run will fail. The post install script will try and configure the third partition created during the XenServer installation as a data store for VM files, but will fail in the process. Since the script fails to add a local data store, you'll just need to do this manually. Note that this assumes that you have enough additional storage on the external USB drive for VM storage.
If you plan to use local storage for VMs, follow these steps:
1. Login to the XenServer console using the root account and the root account password you specified when you installed XenServer.
2. Run fdisk -l to view the available partitions on the attached USB drive. The command execution and output is shown below:
[root@xensrv1 ~]# fdisk -l

Disk /dev/sda: 40.0 GB, 40007761920 bytes
64 heads, 32 sectors/track, 38154 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 2048 * 512 = 1048576 bytes

   Device Boot  Start   End   Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1    *      1  3907  4000752 83 Linux
/dev/sda2        3908  7814  4000768 83 Linux
/dev/sda3        7815 38154 31068160 83 Linux
3. As you can see, most of the drive's storage blocks are allocated to /dev/sda3. This is the partition you will configure as a local data store for VM files. Next, you need to query the host universal unique identifier (UUID) which is generated when XenServer is installed. To do this, run this command:

cat /etc/xensource-inventory

The command execution and its output is shown here:

[root@xensrv1 /]# cat /etc/xensource-inventory
PRODUCT_BRAND='XenServer'
PRODUCT_NAME='xenenterprise'
PRODUCT_VERSION='4.1.0'
BUILD_NUMBER='7843p'
KERNEL_VERSION='2.6.18-53.1.13.el5.xs4.1.0.254.273xen'
XEN_VERSION='3.1.0'
INSTALLATION_DATE='2008-05-05 17:44:15.745293'
PRIMARY_DISK='/dev/sda'
BACKUP_PARTITION='/dev/sda2'
INSTALLATION_UUID='d3e7e1e6-80f3-4241-a6cf-3bf83971c0e6'
CONTROL_DOMAIN_UUID='3e5b935a-c14e-4059-aae5-45bb87b8b864'
DEFAULT_SR_PHYSDEVS='/dev/sda3'
DOM0_MEM='752'
MANAGEMENT_INTERFACE='xenbr0'
4. Note the INSTALLATION_UUID value listed in the cat command's output. You will need it to create the new local storage repository. You can now add the local storage repository by using the xe sr-create command with the following syntax:

xe sr-create content-type="localSR" host-uuid=<INSTALLATION_UUID> type=ext device-config-device=<disk partition> shared=false name-label "<friendly label>"
On my test system, the following values were used:
INSTALLATION_UUID: d3e7e1e6-80f3-4241-a6cf-3bf83971c0e6
Disk partition: /dev/sda3
Friendly label: "Local USB Storage"
The full command used to configure the local storage repository in my test environment is shown below:
[root@xensrv1 /]# xe sr-create content-type="localSR" host-uuid=d3e7e1e6-80f3-4241-a6cf-3bf83971c0e6 type=ext device-config-device=/dev/sda3 shared=false name-label "Local USB Storage"
The remaining configuration can be performed with the XenCenter management server, which can be installed on any Windows system in your environment. XenCenter is the GUI-based central administration tool for XenServer environments. You can get more information on XenCenter on the Citrix XenServer page.
You should now be able to login to XenCenter and manage the new XenServer with its available local USB storage. At this point, you are ready to install a VM on the local storage. Of course, if you do not have additional room on the local disk, you can configure network storage (i.e. NFS, iSCSI, Fibre Channel) and store VM files on the network storage array.
Now you can create a new VM by clicking the "New VM" object in the XenCenter toolbar and entering the required information in the New VM wizard.
When you're done testing, just shut down any running VMs and shut down the XenServer. If you disabled any local hard disks in the system BIOS, just re-enable them and your test server is returned to its original configuration. "
May 9, 2008 - by Chris Wolf
Source: http://virtualizationreview.com/columns/article.aspx?editorialsid=2618

Let the games begin...before you even get to Las Vegas!

Register for Citrix Synergy before April 24 for seven chances to win self-paced online training from Citrix Education valued at $2,000!*  Simply indicate your desire to enter the Lucky 7 drawing under the Options section of your event registration form and qualify when you complete Synergy registration.

This newly-released delivery format allows users to benefit from the cost savings and convenience of training from the comfort of home or office.  Featuring a robust technical curriculum and 30 days of unlimited lab access time, self-paced online training equips learners with the skills and hands-on experience to master their Citrix solution.

Winners will be posted at the Citrix Education booth during tradeshow hours.  Visit the booth to find out if you are one of the Lucky 7!

Register Now

Already registered for Synergy?
Access your My Synergy account to update your event profile and enter to win.

*Please see terms and conditions for eligibility.

This is a follow up to my earlier blog.

Do you wish to use your iPhone to access Flash based applications? So far you are out of luck. According to the recent news article from CNET, "Flash 10 coming to most smartphones in 2010". And iPhone is not on the list.

But why wait? With the upcoming Citrix receiver for iPhone, you will be able to run Flash based applications not only from iPhone but also from many other popular mobile devices. Initially the focus will be to support business applications.

The Citrix technology also adds another additional layer of security by only transmitting the display to the mobile devices. A typical flash based business intelligence report may contain sensitive data. If downloaded directly to a mobile device, the data may be vulnerable to leaks. For business users,the added security may be important.

Here is a quick preview of what is to come.

Here is the iPhone friendly version

A business intelligence application is demonstrated above. You can find the demo application at this Adobe web site.

If you know any Flash enabled web application/sites that may be useful when accessed from iPhone, could you let me know by posting comments?

Please check out our iPhone project community site for more details.

Ray (Ruiguo) Yang
Check out my other blogs

Do you wish to use your iPhone to access Silverlight enabled web sites? Silverlight is growing in popularity. Check out the Silverlight showcase.

While currently iPhone doesn't support Silverlight natively, you will soon be able to view Silverlight powered cool web sites via Citrix Receiver for iPhone. Here is a quick preview of what is to come.

Did I forget iPhone doesn't support Flash? Here is an iPhone friendly version. I will blog about Flash on iPhone soon.

A business intelligence application is demonstrated above. You can find the demo application here.

Some Silverlight applications will work better on iPhone than others. But at least you have an option to use them now. Citrix also enabled opportunities to optimize Silverlight enabled web sites for iPhone. More on that later.

If you know any Silverlight enabled web application/sites that may be useful when accessed from iPhone, could you let me know by posting comments?

Please check out our iPhone project community site for more details.

Ray (Ruiguo) Yang
Check out my other blogs

One of the most requested features from Service Providers and Enterprises is IP Address Management (IPAM). I can't tell you how many times I have listened to customers ask for a platform that manages IP Addresses effectively on a large scale, even to the point of managing disparate classes and subnets. What happens when two companies merge, do you munge spreadsheets or do you have this software yet? It's not only the software that is unique but that it runs as a XenServer VM in Para-Virtualized mode, meaning it is high-performance. Even better is these run in linux.

Nixu Software specializes in software designed for DNS, DHCP and IP address management. To run Nixu Products in a virtual machine environment, simply download the ISO installation media from their website and boot up a new virtual machine. The installation media auto-installs the entire server stack.

Unlike traditional computing appliances that require specific hardware to run on, Nixu Products provide a quick and cost-efficient way to migrate and consolidate core network services such as DNS and DHCP to virtualized computing environments. By streamlining tedious network and system management routines, Nixu Products offer exceptional availability and ROI.

Here are some of the Highlights of using NIXU DNS and DHCP in a XenServer VM:

• Centralized IP Address Management
  • Merge/Join IP Blocks
  • Split IP Blocks
  • Subnets in use – report
  • Subnets free – report
  • Addresses in use – report
  • Addresses free – report

• Runs in XenServer as a VM, optimized for Para-Virtualization
  • Supports pv-ops

• Supports IPv6
• Uses secure communication between secondary name servers, using keys
• Role based administration
  • Assign subnets to administrative domains

• Supports BIND syntax
  • For the BIND junkies

• Has a configuration checker
• Automated installation and maintenance reducing management overhead
• Centralized management of all nameservers
• Hardened design for security

WATCH this video tip:

Download the Nixu / XenServer Integration Guide.

Read about Nixu Software here.

Download Nixu Software here.

Read about Citrix XenServer 5.0 here.

Download Citrix XenServer 5.0 here.

Tap into the power of AppExpert!

Virtualize your servers, desktops, applications; the benefits are clear, it's a question of when not if - sure get that. Virtualization is not an end point, but an enabler of a more flexible and efficient compute environment - ok get that too. Ultimately virtualization must enable IT to contribute to better business results. What about other parts of the IT infrastructure beyond servers, clients and applications? Are we evolving to having islands of virtual clients and servers connected via a static network infrastructure? See this post in Archimedius for more on this theme.

Not to be left behind in the dust of server virtualization, network interconnects are also marching toward being enabled in dynamic virtual environments. Case in point is HP's recent introduction of its Virtual Connect Flex-10 technology, a new component in HP's Virtual Connect architecture. Flex-10 enables you to add 4x more NICs to each server blade without more hardware. In addition to supporting oodles of connections and NICS, Flex-10 provides the ability to dynamically adjust bandwidth for each network connection on the fly. With HP Flex-10 technology, you choose how many NICs are on each server and can adjust the bandwidth of each NIC in increments of 100 Mb.

This HP Flex-10 product is an example of how it is not just servers that can be virtualized and illustrates how the days of static infrastructure will soon be over. HP product details are posted here. Seems those HP hardware folks have some cool few new virtualization solutions to share beyond their XenServer based virtualization solutions. I'm now wondering how long before those virtualized server workloads are able to talk intelligently with the network infrastructure to automate and optimize the cloud ....?

For those who are looking for a place which aggregates Autodesk and Citrix related technical information, I've created a page on Citrix Developer Network at

http://community.citrix.com/display/xa/Autodesk+Citrix+Best+Practices

Your feedbacks are welcome.

At Shannon Ma Virtualized I've recently posted a blog about the release of XenAppPrep. Check it out here.

Citrix technologies have been around for almost 20 years, we have helped other companies to stay on their feet during time of economic crisis by implementing access and application virtualization technologies that not only helped them succeed with their business needs but also reduced their operational costs.

With the economy outlook looking so obscure, companies have begun seeking for new ways to reduce costs while challenged to provide their customers with unchanged level of services and products.

Understanding what technologies to invest in times like this can be crucial decision; while researching some market trends I stumbled upon a recent post on ZDNet by Dan Kusnetzky with the title "Can virtualization help when times get tough?"

After a brief analysis Dan pointed our six ways virtualization can help a company financially, here they are:

• Access virtualization, such as that offered by Citrix and Microsoft, can make it possible for administrative and operational cost reductions while still making needed applications available in a secure, reliable way.

• Application virtualization, such as that offered by Citrix, Microsoft and many others, can make it possible for applications to be made available to staff members in a reliable way and even make it easier to update these applications without having to visit each and every laptop or desktop computer.

• Processing virtualization, such as that offered by Citrix, IBM, HP, Microsoft, Oracle, Sun, Virtual Iron and many others can either allow many machines to work together to get tasks done more quickly to optimize staff member's time or consolidate tasks onto a smaller number of physical machines. This approach can result in hardware, software, operational and administrative cost reductions.

• Network virtualization can make it possible to reduce the costs of administrative and operating costs.

• Storage virtualization can do for storage what processing virtualization does for processing.

• Management and security software for virtualized environments may be the area having the biggest opportunity for cost reduction.
  

Citrix was mentioned not once or twice, but at least 3 times and shows how we've managed to grow exponentially our portfolio; Citrix is now more than ever the ONLY end-to-end virtualization company from Network (NetScaler, WanScaler), Server (XenServer, Provisioning Server), Application (XenApp) all the way to Desktop (XenDesktop).

To compliment the great work done by Dan pointing out the values of virtualization, I will list below some extra reading that can help you define the best strategy to save money while using virtualization technologies:

The Economic Impact of Provisioning Server Streaming Platform
This study describes the financial impact of moving from a traditional datacenter environment, where individual servers are dedicated to specific functions, to an environment where applications and content are streamed to an individual server that exists in a pool of shared servers dynamically using Provisioning Server.

Virtual Desktop ROI Calculator
Calculate your savings with a desktop delivery solution you can take to the bank!

Green IT: Reducing Your Carbon Footprint with Citrix
This white paper explains how Citrix solutions can help bring environmental and organizational objectives into alignment, by alleviating the energy impact of equipment needed to serve both the datacenter and the desktop.

For more, visit: Citrix.com/Solutions

Best,
Gus

PS. Sorry if some of the links require a sign up; I hate signing up for stuff, but these docs are totally worth it...

...And don't forget to check out Chris Fleck's posts about Cloud Economics:

Cloud Economics 101 - Part 1

Cloud Economics 101 - Part 2

Citrix and Microsoft announced our first joint appliance this year at Citrix Synergy. The new Citrix Branch Repeater combines the powerful WAN optimization of WANScaler with several key native infrastructure services from Windows Server. The embedded presentation below provides a technical overview of Citrix Branch Repeater.

(click here to see the presentation in full screen)

You can watch a brief demo of Branch Repeater (from the Synergy keynote) below -

The Branch Repeater Admin Guide is available here. Download the Installation Guide here. You can read a Tech Note on how to discover Citrix Branch Repeater with Microsoft Systems Center Operations Manager here.

Over at Shannon Ma Virtualized I've recently blogged about using the XenServer 5.0 SDK to take and revert snapshots. Check out the post here.

XenApp and XenDesktop provide the means for users to access their Apps and Desktops from a wide variety of platforms and devices. At Citrix our vision is to create a world where anyone can work and play from anywhere. Mobility is not new to Citrix. There are XenApp clients available today for Windows Mobile and Symbian devices, but small form factor devices have had their challenges. Slow, unreliable wireless networks, small screens and awkward user input models have relegated hand held access to small and highly specialized market segments. But that's all about to change.

The latest generation of hand held devices with their large, high definition screens and the availability of high-speed wireless networks are changing the game in a big way! A hand held device such as an iphone connected to XenApp via a high-speed 3G network yields a remarkably usable experience.

While serious content creation might have to wait for an external keyboard and monitor, consuming content like reviewing a spreadsheet or a patients records and simple tasks like approving an expense report are quite frictionless. And because you're accessing your content via XenApp and XenDesktop your access is fast and reliable and you never need to worry about your valuable data being compromised if you misplace or loose your phone.

I've been fielding quite a few inquiries lately about our strategy and plans for the iPhone. I thought it was time to let everyone know where we are and where we're going. The guys on our Mac development team in Chalfont, UK have just recently finished porting the core XenApp engine over to the iPhone platform. This was a great deal of work and the guys have done a brilliant job.

As you can see, pretty cool, but we still have quite a bit of work to do. During the next stage of the project we will be crafting a user experience that provides a natural, transparent and effortless user interface in keeping with the high standards set by our friends at Apple.

It's tough to say at this stage when we would have something that we could share with you but I promise if you watch this space we will provide regular updates on our progress and schedules as they reveal themselves.

Its the continuous and enthusiastic feedback we have collected from you all that has helped get this project off the ground. If you haven't done so already please check out Chris Fleck's iPhone blog and cast your vote.

Al-

One of the attractions of virtualization is the ability to deploy applications as pre-built virtual appliances. An article in CIO Magazine describes a virtual appliance as "an application is designed, certified and delivered, with its own little OS, to run as a virtual machine on your existing physical server, or to run in a VM via a "cloud computing" service like Amazon's." Virtual Appliances are expected to provide rapid deployment, simplified support, improved performance (OS and Application Tuned by ISV), and increased security. There are many advantages to virtual appliances. But is this deployment method the best solution to your deployment issues?

With all the buzz about virtualization and cloud computing, the interest level from both IT departments and vendors in virtual appliances is rising rapidly. Citrix has offered an Evaluation Virtual Appliance of XenApp for over a year. It has been downloaded over 11,000 times, according to Kurt Moody. Microsoft nows has virtual appliances for Windows Server 2008, System Center Configuration Manager, SharePoint Server 2007, Exchange Server 2007, and more.  Many virtualization vendors like Marathon Technologies, Platform Computing, Fortisphere, VMLogix, deliver their product as a virtual appliance.

Some application vendors have also jumped on the virtual appliance bandwagon, such as Business Objects and Satori. Several virtual appliance sites have been launched, included rPath, VirtualAppliances.net and JumpBox.com in addition the the existing VMWare Virtual Appliance Marketplace. Even Paralells has started offering virtual appliances from their website.

There are some concerns about this new model. As this article points out, there are questions about licensing of the OS and application (especially for Windows based applications) as well as export and security issues.

With all these new virtual appliances becoming available, I am curious to know if you use virtual appliances, and, if so, for what purposes? What do you see as the advantages and disadvantages of virtual appliances?


Please vote in the polls below. Once you have voted, please post in the comments if there is anything else you would liek to see from virtual appliances.-

Have you ever used any virtual appliance?	Choose
Yes
No

If you have used a virtual appliance, did you use it in test, production or both??	Choose
Test
Production
Both Test and Production

Improvements in EasyCall 2.0

EasyCall 2.0 contains many of the improvements you have suggested:

-         Simpler phone selection

-         Simpler directory search, which now searches both the corporate directory and your  Outlook contact t the same time

-         New call status and cancel features

-         Further improved number recognition

 EasyConference Tech Preview

A new feature called EasyConferencewill enable you to use EasyCall for audio conferences. 

New EasyCall Directory

You can leave the new Directory Bar on your desktop so you can use it anytime. Just start typing a name, a few letters of the first name space then the last, or now last name comma first name.
 

More EasyCall 2.0 Tips

-         Use EasyCall to call telephone numbers in Email signatures, GoToMeeting invites, Salesforce.com contacts, Outlook Contacts, etc.

-         Use EasyCall to place calls from your office or even the conference rooms you frequent.

-         Use EasyCall whenever working remotely for business calls. No more long distance charges on your home phone. No more international calls on your mobile phone. No more airtime overages.

-         Use the EasyCall Directory to look up and call coworkers. Finding phone numbers has never been faster.

 

-         If you don't want to share your home or mobile number with the folks you call, use the Hideoption. The folks you call will see the main number and not your personal numbers as your calling line ID.
-         If you are using EasyCall from the campus environment, you can save the company a little more money by configuring your extension as one of your location options. 

-         Make sure you enter "X" or "ext" before your five digit number.  Everywhere else, just use your regular office telephone number. 

 

The NY Times published an interesting front page article (Aug 9) and online post discussing how NBC attempted to block web sites hosting video clips and live feeds of the Olympic Games opening ceremonies in the United States. According to the Times article NBC "sent frantic requests" to web sites asking them to remove videos and feeds of the Olympic ceremonies - amounting to a game of "digital whack-a-mole". Web sites including YouTube (Google) and Justin.tv pulled down clips, but could not keep up with users who traded links via Blogs and Twitter to stay ahead of NBC. NBC was attempting to protect its' TV broadcast coverage of the ceremonies which were tape delayed and presented in the USA during the evening hours on Friday August 8, a full 12 hours after the opening ceremonies actually occurred.

So why is this interesting for a Citrix marketing type like me? This interests me because NBC had an opportunity to engage its user community - and didn't. User communities are a fundamental component of today's and presumably tomorrow's web, and at Citrix we are fortunate to have a long-standing and vibrant user community that Citrix needs to engage with and make successful. Citrix has a renewed focus and commitment to make our community more successful via the newly re-designed and enhanced Citrix Communities site. We care about our users and our community and are investing to help make our community successful.

Is there more to this NBC video thing beyond the notion that traditional media outlets like NBC apparently still don't get the net, or that video has finally arrived on the net? NBC is posting thousands of hours of its Olympic Games coverage online, using Microsoft® Silverlight™ technology, so they do get the net, or do they? (this Silverlight aspect is a topic for another blog - can you say DRM!) NBC's decision not to live stream coverage of the opening ceremonies might be considered somewhat odd. NBC is obviously working to manage access to its Olympic video footage in an attempt to maximize its audience so as to charge higher advertising rates. This all makes sense - old school sense - or rather cents!

I'm sensing NBC has missed a glorious opportunity to engage its community who could have supplied content snips from their perspective, content that could have extended the NBC viewpoint. This user supplied content could have been a great complement to live streaming feeds of NBC's "official" Olympic games opening coverage - if NBC had in fact supplied a live internet feed. They have the infrastructure -see myNBC.com. My searches on myNBC.com turned up 2 Olympic Games clips, both of which returned "the requested video is not available" message"...

NBC blew a significant opportunity to begin re-inventing themselves to be more than just a source of content created in-house and to begin engaging and fostering a user community of associate content providers. Many news outlets, CNN, Fox News are attempting to leverage user supplied content to support their official coverage - NBC missed the opportunity to build their community and leverage the Olympics.

Hello Mac Users

First I would like to thank all of you for downloading version 1.0 of our blogs widget. We currently have 1400+ downloads, and this goes to show that the Citrix community has indeed a large number of Mac users.

I also would like to thank those users who sent us their feedback, this version of the widget is here because of you, so keep sending your feedback and comments.

 Meet the Citrix Blogs Widget

 Version 1.0:

• The latest 30 Citrix Blog posts
• Adjust view from Full to Summary
• Collaborate with your comments
• Open posts on Safari or Firefox
• Spotlight Search (Instant search)
• Push updates (no refresh required)
• Watch blogged videos
• Check for updates
• Send feedback

 Version 1.2:

• Widget Resizing
• Bug Fixes

Requirements:

• Mac OS X 10.4 or greater

Download:

Citrix Blogs Widget

In the age where Agua or Aero-glass interfaces are somewhat as important as the underlining kernel, same rules have been applying to Scripts and utilities, after all not everyone wants to be using complex scripts and endless command-line combinations.

For those who are not so keen on Scripts and CLI, our French friend Pierre Marmignon created an app that doesn't solve a new problem, but tackles it more elegantly. Pierre has created an GUI app that (bulk) imports/exports all your published applications.

If you have an useful Citrix app or utility that you would like to share with the world by showcasing it here on the Citrix communities, feel free to send an email to: gus.pinto@citirx.com with the title Community App.

I an earlier post, I asked "How do you make Technology decisions?". According to a recent survey, Google is by far the most used tool by technology buyers (83% ALWAYS use Google). The poll on my post found similar results.

Again Google is the clear leader, but not nearly by the same margin as in the external survey. I am curious if the is partly because the question in the poll was phrased a bit differently.

Instead of guessing why, I decided to ask you. Please vote below on whether you always, sometimes, or never use these different resources when researching a new technology before making a decision on a solution to implement.

Do you always, sometime or never use Google when researching technology?	Choose
Always
Sometimes
Never

Do you always, sometimes or never use another search engine (Yahoo, MSN Live, Ask, etc..) when researching technology?	Choose
Always
Sometimes
Never

Do you always, sometimes or never use a vendor blog when researching technology?	Choose
Always
Sometimes
Never

Do you always, sometimes or never use an independent blog when researching technology?	Choose
Always
Sometimes
Never

Do you always, sometimes or never use a vendor product site when researching technology?	Choose
Always
Sometimes
Never

Do you always, sometimes or never use a vendor support site when researching technology?	Choose
Always
Sometimes
Never

Do you always, sometimes or never use a third party analyst site when researching technology?	Choose
Always
Sometimes
Never

Do you always, sometimes or never use a user group when researching technology?	Choose
Always
Sometimes
Never

Do you always, sometimes or never use Wikipedia when researching technology?	Choose
Always
Sometimes
Never

Citrix is all about virtualization. They have a suite of tools that enable IT departments to virtualize almost everything. Citrix is a Microsoft Certified Partner and, to some extent, a competitor. How does this Partner Competitor relationship work? Microsoft is very interested in virtualization technologies and with the advent of our hypervisor technology, HyperV, and application virtualization software, SoftGrid, you can bet that we'll compete hard with other virtualization vendors.

Here, we meet Simon Crosby, formerly of XenSource now working for Citrix (Citrix purchased XenSource). We discuss the relationship between Microsoft and Citrix, the complexities of building scalable, sercure, reliable and performant virtualization technologies and the future of virtualization. It's a very interesting conversation and Simon is quite the conversationalist. Enjoy.