Posted June 4th, 2008
by Nick
As I said in my comment on my last post, I had planned to do a Step-By-Step how-to for C# and MFCOM. I had also planned on doing a quick and simple video tutorial of the process as well.
I’ve used SnagIt/Camtasia Studio before and while they are great products I did not really want to spend money to create a video that someone may never see. This got me looking around for a free screen capture utility.
I happened along CamStudio which is a completely free (Personal or Commercial), open source application for recording Audio/Video.
I am rather impressed by it’s simplicity and quality so I think my search is over!
The current ‘Stable’ release is 2.0 but the 2.5 Beta is available as well. There is also a tutorial on YouTube which identifies a few good configuration settings.
Posted in Tech
Posted June 3rd, 2008
by Nick
I took some time to create a basic guide on how to configure DCOM permissions for use with MFCOM.
When I first started using MFCOM I found it somewhat confusing to get DCOM permissions straight. This was probably more about not understanding the details of DCOM more than it was MFCOM. Usually if an administrator was running the script/application I had no problems. It was when an elevated user would run the app that I would have the issues.
Over time I began to identify exactly where the permission errors were and found a good system for keeping permissions in line. While the document is written with step by step instructions that most administrators already know, I thought it would be beneficial to detail for those who may be in the same position I was years ago: Confused by DCOM.
The document could be written much better and is absolutely a work in progress.
Any feedback is appreciated.
AdministratorsViewPoint_ConfiguringDCOM.pdf
Posted in MFCOM
Posted May 28th, 2008
by Nick
It was a fun filled week of technology and I loved every minute of it. I’m going to give a quick recap of what the week consisted of:
Monday - Attended CSEIT where there was a great session on Citrix Troubleshooting.
Tuesday - Keynote speech by Mark Templeton announcing a few new products, one of which was XenDesktop. I have reservations about classifying this as a ‘one stop fix’ since to me no technology can cover all aspects of business needs. I more or less agree with what Shawn Bass said on Tuesday while speaking at ‘Geek Speak Live’ where he stated that VDI is not a bad idea it just isn’t right for every situation.
Tuesday was the first night of Geek Speak Live. This was a fantastic event that had a number of CTP’s speaking about whatever they wanted. The room was packed and the conversations contained no marketing BS..Wonderful stuff!. Check out Citrix Underground for videos from each of the Geek Speak events(and more)
Wednesday - Yet more keynote speakers about new products and the industry. Checked out a number of product vendors and attended a lot of Citrix sessions. One theme I noticed from a lot of the product vendors were that there were many that focused on virtualization and XenSource in particular. I assume since Xen was(and still is to a degree) open source for so long that companies already had many products created and just hitched their wagons to the Synergy cart. Visited more vendors and discussed their products more in depth. Continued to attend various sessions, a number of which were immediately helpful. This was the second night for Geek Speak Live and then after that, Geek Speak Barcamp. This was the event that I was going to talk about MFCOM in the Enterprise and thefantastic things you can do with it. Unfortunately as the night went on more and more attendees trickled off. The word was that a company gave away free Houston Astros tickets. By the time it got to where I was to speak there was no one left but Citrix employees. What could I have told them about MFCOM?! Half of the people in attendance were those who likely had a hand in creating it!
We ended up talking to a number of Citrix folks about how the event was going, what we thought of Geek Speak Live and any ideas we had for the future. It turned out to be a great night!
Thursday - More Citrix presentations on various products and wrapped up talking to some final vendors. I had an MFCOM workshop with Dr. SDK himself! Unfortunately by the time I talked to Fred and was out of the session I had missed most of the Geek Speak Live for Thursday. I had some personal business I had to talk to my wife about and then I headed to the final night party. Dana Carvey was the entertainment and it was a fantastic show. He didn’t hold back at all!
Friday - Most people flew out on Friday morning since the conference was officially over but I had stayed to attend two other hands-on workshops.
All in all it was a great event, although I have nothing to compare to since it was my first ‘Tech Conference’
I highly recommend checking out the Citrix Synergy underground site since it has a lot of great content.
Finally, a special thanks goes out to Vishal G. who had asked if I wanted to ’speak’ at the barcamp event. It was a great opportunity, even if the audience consisted of Citrix employees!
Posted in Uncategorized
Posted May 18th, 2008
by Nick
So I packed my bags today and will be heading to the airport tomorrow morning. Destination: Houston, TX and Citrix Synergy!
At the end of the week before last, I received an e-mail from Vishal G. from Citrix asking if I would like to speak at the Geek Speak Barcamp event. I agreed and chose a topic of ‘MFCOM in the Enterprise’ . I plan to talk about how we have used MFCOM at the company I work for and how it has benefited.
What is a BarCamp you say? Well it’s basically a setting where geeks get together and talk about technology…my kind of place!
I’ll try to update throughout the week. I know it’s going to be a blast!
Posted in Tech