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When Citrix Technical Support released the Brief Troubleshooting Guide
late last year, it was a very popular download. As I read through the pdf, it reminded me a great deal of a document that I used extensively when I started out as a Citrix SE in 2000 - Rick Dehlinger's Metaframe Tuning Tips.
Rick was a very well known and respected SE for Citrix when I joined the team in April of 2000, and his Tuning Tips document was a fantastic resource. People all over the world contributed to and used Rick's document. It was by far the most popular "unofficial" Citrix technical resource of its time.
Another Citrix SE, Vinny Sosa, told me he was burning the Tuning Tips document and many of the tools and documents it recommended on a single CD and distributing that CD to his customers and resellers as he visited them. After discussing this idea with Vinny, I began to do the same thing in my territory in Atlanta. I quickly realized that I did not have nearly enough time to burn all the CD's I needed. I decided to combine the CD idea with another idea I learned from Rick - creating my own eGroup (now Yahoo Group) mailing list for the Citrix customers and resellers in my area.
My new list became known as the CitrixSE mailing list (as in Citrix Southeast, my territory). I set the group up so that as soon as any one joined the list they automatically received a copy of Rick's Tuning Tips and several other documents and tools. This helped the list grow very rapidly. By the time I left the SE team in 2004, the CitrixSE mailing list had over 5000 members.
The Brief Troubleshooting Guide (BTG) is a very comprehensive and technical resource. The Citrix Technical Support team did an excellent job on this guide. In many ways the BTG reminded me of the original Metaframe Tuning Tips document. One big difference is Rick's document had contributors from all over the world, both inside and outside Citrix. You could say that Rick's document was a community built mashup, a derivative work created from many other documents and by many people for a specific purpose. Rick drove the creation of the document, but worked with people all over the world to create content that was extremely useful to anyone working with Citrix software. The community aspect ensured that many different types of information and tools were included.
One of the first things I did when I downloaded the Brief Troubleshooting Guide was to begin to slowly create a mindmap based on it. I began building a mind map on the XenApp chapter as a reference document (using MindJet's Mind Manager). A mind map gives you the ability to build an organizational structure and link to graphics, web sites, videos and other documents. I find mind maps a very effective way to organize information. The combination of the two dimensional structure, additional graphics, color and links to other content often lead me to come up with new perspectives I would never find in a standard linear document. I came up with a few new ideas as I built this mind map as well.
I worked on this side project while on hold for conference calls or sitting in airports. After working on the mind map here and there for several weeks, I decided to add in links to several of the webinars on the Citrix site related to XenApp. Later I added in links to some of the technical videos on the Citrix site. Soon I was adding in links to some of the Citrix presentations I posted on Slide Share. As I did this, I began to wonder how could I take this XenApp mashup mind map I was creating and add in some of the magic of Rick's Tuning Tips document. I realized the best way to do that was to post the mind map here on the blog and ask for your feedback and help.
I have completed the first draft. Here is a screenshot of the top level structure of the XenApp Troubleshooting Guide mind map -
As you can see, the top level categories are Product Docs, Questions to Ask, Troubleshooting Tools, Relevant Knowledgebase Articles, Videos and Presentations. The first four categories come straight from the BTG. I added in the Videos and Presentations categories.
For the Troubleshooting Tools section, I added in screen shots of several of the tools.
One of the nice features on Mind Manager is you can add in Notes to any object inside the mind map. I did this extensively as I cut and pasted in the content and created links to the web documents referenced in the BTG.
You can download the latest full version of this XenApp Troubleshooting mind map here. You can download a free Mind Manager viewer here. The new browser plugin viewer is available here. You can download a free 30 trial of Mind Manager Pro here.
I hope you find the mind map useful. I greatly appreciate any feedback or any assistance in continuing to build this mind map into the most effective XenApp troubleshooting reference possible. You can post in the comments or email me at citrixblogger @ citrix.com (remove the spaces).
I hope that together we can build this document into a resource that approaches the value of Rick Dehlinger's original Tuning Tips document.
Comments (12)
Oct 08, 2008
Anonymous says:
I originally got that tuning tips doc when I joined your citrixSE list back in 2...I originally got that tuning tips doc when I joined your citrixSE list back in 2001. That was a great doc.
At first glance, this looks like a great tool. I am looking forward to digging it to it a bit.
Oct 08, 2008
Anonymous says:
Wow. This rocks! I can use parts of this as a source for a doc the other peo...Wow. This rocks! I can use parts of this as a source for a doc the other people on our team so I dont get paged on vacation when something goes wrong with the citrix servers.
Oct 08, 2008
Barry Flanagan says:
Thanks for the feedback. That is certainly one way such a document could be used...Thanks for the feedback. That is certainly one way such a document could be used.
Oct 08, 2008
Anonymous says:
I agree this is excellent. One quick addon idea I thought of - add in screen rec...I agree this is excellent. One quick addon idea I thought of - add in screen recordings of some of the troubleshooting steps or using some of the tools.
That will help alot for people who are new to citrix or havent used a particular tool (or ever captured a memory dump).
Oct 08, 2008
Barry Flanagan says:
That is an excellent idea. The free UTipU tool would be ideal for that. I will s...That is an excellent idea. The free UTipU tool would be ideal for that. I will start looking to see if any videos already exist for some of the troubleshooting steps and the software tools.
Oct 08, 2008
Anonymous says:
One more thought - I like the portability of this format (though I do not want t...One more thought - I like the portability of this format (though I do not want to buy mind manager). This would be great to have as a web page.
If you have one version you can take with you on the road and we web based one that can be constantly updated by multiple people, that would be ideal.
Oct 08, 2008
Barry Flanagan says:
It would be great to have this as a wiki. I think that is the ideal form for suc...It would be great to have this as a wiki. I think that is the ideal form for such a community effort. If there is enough interest, we may be able to get a wiki page for this on the CDN. Someone else is responsible for that, however, so they will have to be convinced.
Oct 09, 2008
Bryon Thomas says:
I am a big fan of mind maps as they help you see relationships that may not be o...I am a big fan of mind maps as they help you see relationships that may not be obvious. Your mindmap is a great collection of disparate XenApp resources. So that the power of the community can be leveraged, I second the previous comment to convert this mind map into an external wiki. Wikis are a standard tool that people are familiar with, which should accelerate collaboration.
Anonymous replies:
Oct 09, 2008
Barry Flanagan says:
Thanks Bryon. I am looking to see if their is an automated way to convert this t...Thanks Bryon. I am looking to see if their is an automated way to convert this to a wiki. Their are so online mind mapping tools available now so I am going to look into those as well.
Oct 09, 2008
Kennedy Staples says:
Nice job Barry! I'm also a mindmap/mind manager fan. Great format for this....Nice job Barry!
I'm also a mindmap/mind manager fan. Great format for this.
I'm experimenting with a free mind map program called freemind as well. It supports importing Mind Manager imports although I don't think it picked up the screenshots. I'll do a comparison with MM and see what it missed. But for readers who don't want to buy MM it might be an option.
Oct 09, 2008
Barry Flanagan says:
Thanks Ken! I didnt realize you were a mind mapper as well. I used Freemind whe...Thanks Ken! I didnt realize you were a mind mapper as well.
I used Freemind when I first tried min maps several years back. I didnt realize it could open mmap files. That is a great free option. I will find the links to the other free mind maps tools and post them in the comments.
Oct 10, 2008
Barry Flanagan says:
Here are some links to two online (and free) mind mapping tools - Bubbl.us Mi...Here are some links to two online (and free) mind mapping tools -
Bubbl.us
MindDomo
Here are a couple of free tools that combine Wikis with the power of mind maps -
WikkaWiki (works with the open source FreeMind)
Pimki (works with GraphViz)
Here are some other commercial mind mapping programs -
iMindMap - Tony Buzan originally developed the concept of mind mapping.
Concept Draw
3D TopicScape
NovaMind
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