Here is a collection of photos from day 5 activities for Synergy 2008 in Houston, TX

Continue to the Photo Album:
http://cid-ec08edacfe9c6608.spaces.live.com/photos/cns!EC08EDACFE9C6608!512/

Here is a collection of photos from day 4 activities for Synergy 2008 in Houston, TX

Continue to the Photo Album:
http://cid-ec08edacfe9c6608.spaces.live.com/photos/cns!EC08EDACFE9C6608!431/

Here is a collection of photos from day 3 activities for Synergy 2008 in Houston, TX

Continue to the Photo Album:
http://cid-ec08edacfe9c6608.spaces.live.com/photos/cns!EC08EDACFE9C6608!266/

Here is a collection of photos from day 2 activities for Synergy 2008 in Houston, TX

Continue to the Photo Album:
http://cid-ec08edacfe9c6608.spaces.live.com/photos/cns!EC08EDACFE9C6608!107/

Here is a collection of photos from day 1 CSEIT activities for Synergy 2008 in Houston, TX

Continue to the Photo Album:
http://richcrusco-frameworkx.spaces.live.com/photos/cns!7CEE7FC8F528290A!299/

Here is a collection of photos from day 3 of the setup activities for Synergy 2008 in Houston, TX

Continue to the Photo Album:
http://richcrusco-frameworkx.spaces.live.com/photos/cns!7CEE7FC8F528290A!298/

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.

Here is a collection of photos from day 2 of the setup activities for Synergy 2008 in Houston, TX

Continue to the Photo Album:
http://richcrusco-frameworkx.spaces.live.com/photos/cns!7CEE7FC8F528290A!297/

Here is a collection of photos from day 1 of the setup activities for Synergy 2008 in Houston, TX

Continue to the Photo Album:!http://richcrusco-frameworkx.spaces.live.com/photos/cns!7CEE7FC8F528290A!296/

All twenty speaking slots for the first ever Geek Speak BarCamp are filled and the scheduled is locked in tight. (Read background on Geek Speak BarCamp here, here and here). This event happens on the evening of May 21st at Synergy in Houston (in room 360 right after Geek Speak Live).

I have communicated to all the speakers the schedule, and this is now the final one I will post before Citrix Synergy. We have had a few changes (including one speaker dropping due to another commitment) but we have twenty full sessions.

The line up now includes FOUR Citrix Technology Specialists, four consultants, two Escalation Tech Support Engineers, four Product Managers, a HP Print Driver Developer and a Senior Architect from a large healthcare company.

If you have not yet registered for Citrix Synergy, you can click here to to complete your registration. I look forward to seeing you at Synergy and the Geek Speak BarCamp.

I blogged about the Flip Video contest on Wednesday you can read all the about the contest here.

Here is a list of questions I have received via email

• Can I record the demos at the exhibit hall?
  Yes go ahead record any interesting demos you see at the exhibit hall. We will be having some very interesting demos around XenApp, XenServer, NetScaler in Techlab.

• Can I record sessions at the Geek Speak Bar camp event?
  Absolutely, You can interview geeks and record their sessions.

• What color of Flip Video will I win?
  You will a white color Flip Video.

• How will I get the Flip Video after my Video wins the contest by having most views on YouTube?
  We will contact you via email and then ship the Flip Video to your office address.

here are some reviews and fun to watch videos of Flip Video

• http://www.amazon.com/gp/mpd/permalink/m19O7AGT0BP8PR:m7KZHLZBM4RWC  (As easy as making a peanut butter and Jelly Sandwitch)
• http://video.on.nytimes.com/?fr_story=71d05f5c938be70c6e84e4b5ea8dcd0e2be70830 ( Review by David pogue NY Times)
  
  

Sadly this year I missed PubForum, Rich however, made it all the way to Dublin and brought us some awesome pictures and videos, you can check them out on his blog.

I stayed in Fort Lauderdale really jealous of Rich. However the guys (AlexY/AlexD) who organize PubForum were kind enough to think of people like me and all those who didn't make to Dublin, for the BeerForum, ops.... I mean PubForum.

They recently posted all the videos and presentations for PubForum 2008, and you can do exactly what I did, download them all.

One session in particular caught my attention, Simon Frost, a colleague of ours here at Citrix, presented on the topic "AppReceiver", and he did a fantastic job explaining how Citrix will aggregate all its clients into one universal application receiver client.

You can meet all the rock start who put together this awesome user group event, during Citrix Synergy in Huston from May 20th to 23rd.

See you in Huston.

Cheers,

Gus Pinto
Microsoft MVP - Virtualization
Twitter/GusPinto

What are the rules for the contest?-         

• No video from the keynote.

• No video from any breakout sessions.

• Ask customers/friends/colleagues to withhold their last name and company to protect them from legal liability.

• Do not Interview any Press or Analysts.

• The video clips have to be less than or around 5 minutes.

• Citrix may use these videos for promotion purposes and can decide not post a video if we find the content inappropriate.

Can you give me few examples of video clips to record?
You can record interesting XenApp or XenServer demos or partner product demonstration at the exhibit hall. You can interview your friends, colleagues or vendors and capture their view about the Synergy. Just be innovative and record fun, cool and informative videos. Show us Synergy through your eyes.

How will I recognize you at the registration desk?
Here is my picture. Click to enlarge.

How will I win a Flip Video?
I will upload all the videos to YouTube and tag them Citrix_Synergy08_flipcontest. The top 3 most viewed videos on YouTube will win the Flip Video. The contest will end on 6^th of June 2008 at 6 PM EST.

I have a question not answered above where do I ask it?
Just post a comment on this blog post and I will get back to you