Regional RE-Views, the official newsletter of the Palm Beach County Regional MLS, was forwarded us to by a colleague who works for a local luxury real estate broker. The article talks about the limited real estate functionality in the base iPad.

Apple iPad as Mobile Device Limited by Lack of IE

The Apple iPad is an amazing device with loads of flexibility and a wow factor that should not be underestimated in listing presentations. On it you can store home photos, virtual tours, videos, brochures, live maps and many other materials regularly presented to clients. Unfortunately, the Palm Beach County Regional Multiple Listing Service (MLS) doesn’t allow access from anything other than Microsoft Internet Explorer.

That the iPad runs the Safari browser exclusively seems to make the iPad a non-starter according to the trade publication. After all, if you can’t access the MLS with the iPad, it is far more anchor than sail.

Many Web Sites Require Internet Explorer

While the world wide web was designed with open standards and general interoperability in mind, some web sites were designed specifically for and only allow access from Microsoft Internet Explorer. This has been a problem for years for people with Apple or Linux computers. By designing a web site specifically for one browser and one operating system, you are limiting the number of potential visitors. Many of the roadblocks mentioned in the real estate trade publication can be bypassed using a Citrix solution.

HostMyIT Brings Microsoft IE8 to iPad

Fortunately, DedicatedIT has a method for bringing Microsoft Internet Explorer to the Apple iPad: our cloud / hosted infrastructure solution, HostMyIT.

• Nearly any device (iPad, iPhone, Android, laptop, PC or Mac) can access a full suite of applications – even if they aren’t able to be installed or run natively from that device.
• Your business will no longer need a server of its own.
• Employees can work from anywhere with full functionality.
• Never worry about backing up or hurricane preparation as they relate to IT again.

Here is what one of our clients said the first time he used it:

Live IE8 Trial from the Apple iPad

Waterfront Properties and Club Communities, a luxury real estate brokerage in Jupiter, FL was an early iPad adopter. They have a WiFi model, two 3G models and are looking at more.

“The inability to access the Regional MLS data from the iPad was a speed bump for us,” said Matthew Steinhoff, the Waterfront Project Manager. “Fortunately, DedicatedIT was able to quickly craft a Citrix solution. With IE8 running on the iPad, there is no reason why it can’t replace a netbook or laptop mobile use and for presentations. Accessing the RMLS through Citrix on the iPad is transparent.”

I have AVG/Symantec/Mcafee/Spybot Installed. I’m Protected, Right?

Recently, I had an alarm installed at my house. When the ADT fellow showed me the brochure, there were three different levels I could choose from: not expensive, expensive and OH MY G-D!

The differences between the systems were:

• Level 1 – door sensors
• Level 2 – door sensors and window sensors
• Level 3 – door sensors, window sensors, cameras and biometric fingerprint scanners

Price is not a factor when choosing Virus and Malware Protection

Unlike alarm systems for your house, most antivirus software are priced similarly.  With price being a non-factor, the quality of the software becomes the most important part of the decision.

We look for the following qualities (in order of importance):

1. Ability to catch and prevent infection
2. Ability to clean up existing infections
3. Low impact to system performance
4. Centralized management console
5. Easy – set it up and then forget about it

AVG and Symantec Fail Miserably

About a year ago, we lost respect for the Symantec solution. [Note: we are Symantec partners and have been for many years.] Their antivirus software used to be the best thing out there. Not so much any more. Shortly after pitching Symantec aside we began recommending AVG, because it was free and did a better job than Symantec.

About six months ago, we standardized on Sunbelt VIPRE Enterprise. WOW. Let me tell you how awesome it is to have a solution you really believe in and proves itself every day.[Note: we do make money selling VIPRE. However, we could make money selling any of the solutions out in the market.]

Doctors Office Installs VIPRE and finds 12 Infections AVG did not

Just yesterday I spent the day uninstalling AVG and Symantec at a doctors office and replacing it with VIPRE. Within an hour of the first scan being completed, VIPRE had detected and removed 12 different infections.

Makes you wonder….Which system did you choose and was it the right choice?

Yes, using Citrix XenDesktop to turn your Apple TV into a real computer seems a bit frivolous. That’s not the point. (But it is a pretty darn cool Apple TV hack.)

Citrix XenDesktop Allows for Innovation

Anytime, anywhere, anything is what you make of it. Citrix XenDesktop is the means to an end, not the end in itself.

You’re at home for the night catching up on TV shows, and something you see triggers a waterfall of innovation for that big project you’re working on. Your office is on the other side of the house (away from the TV), and your laptop bag is still in the car. How are you going to get this cascade of creative goodness out of your brain and onto (electronic) paper before it vaporizes? Your set-top box!!

XenDesktop on the Apple TV

Where Does Your Company Need Technology Innovation?

Innovation is not dead. In fact, it is alive and well at DedicatedIT. While you probably don’t need to hack an Apple TV to make your business more productive, some virtualization and other aspects of anywhere, anytime, anything computing could give your company a competitive advantage.

When you need creative innovation or just good, solid technology help, please contact DedicatedIT: 561-491-5725.

Personal adoption of the Apple iPhone has been rapid. Corporate adoption, however, has been slow. Phones running the Microsoft Mobile Operating System were welcome in business because they better meshed with the Microsoft servers those businesses used.

Citrix Receiver Brings Microsoft Applications to the Apple iPhone

Want to display that PowerPoint presentation on your Apple iPhone? Good luck without the Citrix Receiver. Need to edit a Microsoft Word document from your smart phone while on vacation? You’re not able to with your brand new Apple iPhone 3Gs.

Fortunately, Citrix has teamed with Apple to bring the Citrix Receiver to the iPhone. With the Citrix Receiver and Apple iPhone, you can run all your Microsoft Office Applications — including Outlook, Word, Excel — from your phone. Suddenly, thanks to Citrix, the iPhone has become a viable business tool.

Video Overview of Citrix Receiver for the Apple iPhone

How Does Citrix Deliver Microsoft Applications to the iPhone?

Citrix Receiver a lightweight client which allows application delivery to any device, iPhone, laptop or desktop. The app is a free add-on to the Citrix XenApp application delivery platform. Once Citrix Receiver is installed on the Apple iPhone, it waits for signals from the corporate “delivery center”. Any application which runs under Citrix XenApp or Citrix XenDesktop is available for publication to the Apple iPhone or other device running a copy of the Citrix Receiver.

DedicatedIT: Apple iPhone XenApp Citrix Receiver Support

Your employees already have the Apple iPhone and carry it with them everywhere. They love their iPhone. Turn their smart phone toy into a business tool by publishing your business applications using Citrix XenApp. Please contact DedicatedIT today, 561-491-5725, to learn how to leverage the Apple iPhone with Citrix XenApp.

As Citrix XenServer becomes more mature and gains wider market exposure, performance comparisons to VMware are being made in a rigorous fashion.

VMware vs. Citrix XenServer

Recently, VMware published a XenApp virtual machine performance comparison between ESX (3.5U3) and XenServer 5.0. Citrite Simon Crosby submitted a response in which he sites third-party test results from the Virutal Reality Check project.

Additional hypervisor configuration tests were performed by the Tolly Group. VMware respected the Tolly Group’s work so much they allowed the results to be published. Neither independent test — VRC’s nor Tolly’s — turned out quite the way VMware’s internal testing did.

These two hypervisor publishers obviously are working under two completely different philosophies. Here is one outsider’s perspective:

VMware vs. XenServer: Different Priorities

VMware focuses on feature set first while performance is secondary. Citrix’s XenServer centers on efficiency and performance first at the potential expense of features.

VMware vs. XenServer: Storage Multipathing

Being closed source had slowed VMware’s ability to bring certain storage capabilities to market.

Storage multipathing is available in VMware ESX but has not been active/active (at least, not for iSCSI) until the recent release of version 4.

The open-source dm-multipath module for XenServer allows for active/active storage multipathing and has been officially supported since Citrix XenServer 5.0.

VMware vs. XenServer: Relative Strengths

Each server virtualization product has own strengths. There are quirks from XenServer that still bother me, such as a lack of support, and interface, for making guest performance improvement changes to Domain 0. VMware has allowed and supported customizations for the service console and guest VMs and provided the interface to do so with relative safety.

I am pleasantly surprised by XenServer’s recent improvements. Not long ago a colleague expressed his immense disappointment in XenServer’s I/O performance. Recently that same individual put his first XenServer installation into production and hasn’t looked back. Progress is being made very rapidly.

VMware vs. XenServer: Product Summary

When in doubt, test — never make assumptions. Maintain an open mind and find out for yourself  which products combine to make the best solution for your technical and business needs. Don’t be afraid to ask questions, either. The biggest sins (I can’t say they are the ‘only’ ones) in this industry are to assume without confirmation and to deny the opportunity to obtain more knowledge.

Need Help with Server Virtualization?

Please let us know if you need server virtualization support or advice.

Feel free to speak up here with comments.  Why let the other sites have all the fun, eh?

Even with the growth in the Linux OS (Operating System) market for DataCenter use, Microsoft Windows Server is still holding fast… and growing.

InfoWorld reports that both Red Hat and Microsoft are both integral parts of the industry and are now working together more like partners than bitter enemies.

Regardless of whether you choose a single operating system (OS) or you use both Microsoft Server and Linux, your ability to support the chosen server operating system is critical.

Microsoft Windows Server Version 2008 Support

Microsoft’s current flagship product is Windows Server 2008 with Server 2008r2 on its way later this year.

Microsoft Windows Server 2008 is primarily used as a 64-bit operating system (only 64-bit when using the SBS edition) with native virtualization. Even though Windows 2008 with Hyper-V is not our primary choice of virtualization, it enabled many companies to take advantage of virtual machine technology without specialized training. That said, virtual machines without specialized training is a recipe for trouble.

Windows Server 2003, 2003r2

Windows Server 2003 and Windows Server 2003r2 have been the mainstay of Windows Server implementations for five years.

Microsoft Windows Server 2003 was a robust and reliable server product though there were the inevitable service packs and security patches. While these are fairly easy to apply if you follow the instructions carefully, regular support for the OS is best left to professionals.

DedicatedIT did its first Windows Server 2003 installation while the product was still in beta. Our staff is trained and certified to support clients still using the Windows 2003 Server platform. There are a few tools that are regularly asked about by Network Administrators and we usually point them to the ‘Support Tools for Server 2003′ site.

DedicatedIT can evaluate your network and show you a few of the gotchas you have looming in the shadows given the chance.

Microsoft Support Ends for Windows Server 2003

On July 13, 2010, Windows Server 2003 and Windows Server 2003 R2 will transition from the Mainstream Support phase to the Extended Support phase. Call DedicatedIT today (561.491.5725) to learn what you should budget in terms of time and materials for an upgrade to Windows Server 2008. While you may not want to upgrade immediately, you should be aware of the costs involved and put the upgrade in your long-term strategic plan. (Don’t have a plan? Don’t just call today, call right now.)

Windows Server 2008

Windows Server 2008, in my opinion, is the best Microsoft server operating system since Windows for Workgroups 3.11.

Not only does Microsoft Server 2008 take full advantage of the 64-bit server architecture, they overhauled the kernel for large performance gains. Microsoft Server 2008 also added the optional Hyper-V virtualization modules and produced a ‘Core Only’ edition for locked down servers such as Web Servers. The Microsoft Server 2008 Core Edition is a command prompt and not much more: no GUI.

Microsoft Windows Home Server

Microsoft, in an attempt to compete with Apple’s Time Capsule, has given Windows users a home based server for media and file storage/serving. The Microsoft Windows Home Server may be an option for families that have a lot of photos, videos and documents they want consolidated in one place. The thought of a business — even a small business — attempting to use Microsoft Windows Home Server, however, is cause for concern. Don’t trust your business-critical data to consumer-grade tools.

Miami to Palm Beach: Windows Server Support

Windows Server Support for small and medium businesses is not optional. When you have critical data, you need skilled, trained and certified people to support your needs. The sooner you get a support staff such as DedicatedIT involved, the better off you will be. While we can provide immediate support in an emergency situation, it is far better if we help you to prevent critical problems.

Stay tuned for information on Microsoft Windows 7. I’m using the release candidate right now.

Remote Office Experts

Back in February of 2009, I posted a blog entry (The Remote Office – Eating Our Own Dog Food) about our business moving from a centralized office to everyone working from home. There were three primary reasons for this decision:

• Why incur the  cost associated with maintaining an office that, generally, no clients ever saw?
• Why make our guys come into an office, if we can make it work otherwise?
• We wanted to ‘eat our own dog food’. We sell this remote stuff, why not use it ourselves?

We have survived a few months working remotely. This article is about our communication improvements as a result of the transition.

Real-time Communication is Key with any Remote Office

One of the biggest things, that we knew we had to overcome before moving out of our office, was finding how to replace the the different types of in-person communication that we had throughout the day.

• Eye contact – You could look at someone and tell whether he was on the phone and, generally, how much longer he thought he would be.
• The drop by – With all of our desks within walking distance, it was no big deal to walk over and interrupt someone’s day if he didn’t look busy.
• Gathering around a monitor – Often, the guys would find a new utility, a funny video or they needed help with something they were troubleshooting. Having everyone near each other made this easy.
• Whiteboard/notes – If someone was on the phone, it was typical to write a quick note and hold it up and get a nod for either yes or no.
• “Love taps” – We had these little yellow foam golf balls and other projectiles in our office. It was standard operating procedure to send one over to an unsuspecting co-worker just for fun.

While seemingly very small, eye contact and “love taps” enabled us to be a quick-moving team that really understood and cared about each other.

How would we replace these? Or should we, in some cases?

Microsoft Office Communication Server (OCS)

We determined that a chat system would be the most likely candidate for replacing these types of communication. We investigated a few different chat systems and determined that we wanted something that was internally hosted and had enterprise features.

Microsoft Office Communications server fit the bill for us.

• Person-to-person and group-based instant messaging
• Complete integration with Outlook
• Presence – Available, Away, Do Not Disturb, Offline and Out of Office
• Desktop sharing with individuals and groups
• Video streaming for face-to-face communications

[It also doesn't hurt that we are a Microsoft partner and get the majority of the licenses for free.]

Microsoft OCS Makes us Better

New whiz-bang technology is great and all, but unless it makes a business better, it’s just an expensive toy. Microsoft Office Communications Server makes our business better. The biggest change I noticed is the way our team responds to company-wide issues for our clients.

Pre-Collaboration Wide-Spread Event:

Previously, all of our help desk phones would begin ringing, and we all would have our heads down focused on that one person on the phone. The higher-level engineers would realize that it could be a wide-spread problem, but they couldn’t get in touch with the other people on the desk, because they were focused on their own call. An email would be sent, but if just one person doesn’t reply-all, the communication forks and some staff members end up losing critical information.

Post Collaboration Wide-Spread Event:

When a wide-spread issue is taking place, that same lead engineer now starts up a group chat with all technicians [three clicks]. This way all communication is done in real-time and captured in a single place. If for some reason, one technician feels that seeing his/her screen would help, a single click publishes that person’s desktop to all of the people in the group chat. Amazing!

Microsoft Outlook Integration and OCS

Another feature, that I really love, is the integration between Outlook and Microsoft OCS. The two biggies are:

Out of Office status with message

I leave the “office” pretty regularily to meet with prospects and clients (want a meeting? – contact me), and I always want my team to know where I am. When I update my out of office message, it will automatically set my status to ‘Out of Office’ (displayed with a red dot) and put my out of office message next to my name. Immediately, my team can see that I’m out – because of the red dot – and where  am just by hovering the mouse over my name.

Ability to reply to an email with an instant message

If you receive an email from anyone in your organization, there is a little dot next to the sender’s name with his current status. This not only allows you to see whether they are available for chat, out of the office, or away just briefly, but also allows you to respond to the email with a chat instead of a standard reply. [shown in the image above]

This is a huge time saver. How many times have you had one of your email threads accumulate 15 replies and take 30 minutes to complete? Instant messaging, directly from email, quickly put an end to that.

Did we Replace all of the Communication Methods, above?

• Eye contact – Mostly replaced by the status indicators. Next step: integrating our phones into it so we can see whether you are on the phone or not.
• The drop by – Gone and hopefully never replaced. What a time waster!
• Gathering around a monitor – Replaced by desktop sharing. Faster, and allows remote people to participate even if they are at client sites.
• Whiteboard/notes – Replaced by instant messages. And, groups of people can be involved, now.
• “Love taps” – This one is hard to replace, although I’ve started to see a trend of sending YouTube videos to each other unannounced and without saying what’s in them (for instance: Video1 or Video2 – both clean) or some clever banter in a group chat window for no reason.

No, we haven’t, replaced all the communication methods, but we’re getting closer. And, I think we have improved, as a service organization, because of the communication methods we have implemented.

Although, I really do miss launching little yellow foam golf balls around the office.

Because we are a Citrix partner, we get to sit in on pre-release conference calls for all of the latest technology coming out. Today’s conference call was about the new release of Citrix’s VDI solution: XenDesktop 3 with HDX.

You could tell that the gentleman hosting the seminar was really excited about this release just by the tone of his voice. Here’s what I gathered as the most important things that you’ll see in XenDesktop 3:

Greatly Reduced Server Requirements

Citrix claims that 1000 concurrent users can be hosted from just 25 highly-equiped servers. This is a 50% reduction in server hardware to host the same number of users. I’m sure that this is because the base platform has moved over to the XenServer 5 codebase, which significantly improved the performance of XenApp servers when virtualized.  If you are currently running XenDesktop, moving to the latest edition will really make the green folks in your organization happy.

The Best User Experience

High Definition User Experience (HDX) is the buzzword/acronym that Citrix is using to convey that they are the dominate force for delivering desktops over any type of connection to any type of device. Citrix XenDesktop is currently able to stream multimedia to low-bandwidth clients with connections “just above a standard modem”.  Next on their roadmap is to be able to deliver 3D rendering and fully-functional CAD.

Also, with XenDesktop 3, is the ability to use a wide range of plug-and-play USB devices like iPods, smart cards and PDAs. While they said that some web cams and will work, they don’t officially support it, yet.

Profile Management was added to XenDesktop 3. They never mentioned it in the conference, but my guess is that this is what they are doing with the Citrix User Profile Manager technology that they aquired from Sepago.

Fully-functioning multimedia across WAN links + plug-and-play USB devices + centralized profile management makes XenDesktop WAY better than any other VDI solution on the market. Stick that in your pipe and smoke it, VMware.

An Application Delivery System - not just VDI

Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) is getting more attention than server virtualization. In fact, according to Google Trends, people search for “VDI” more often than “server virtualization” by a factor of 100. However, Citrix’s solution is much more than justVDI; it’s an end-to-end application delivery platform.  Citrix’s solution encompasses application packaging and delivery, profile management, desktop virtualization and delivery, desktop streaming to standard PCs, application performance monitoring and WAN acceleration.  

One other thing to note is that a single operating system base image can be used for both the VDI-based server delivered desktops as well as the standard PCs that have their operating system streamed to them across the LAN.

Is it Time to Deploy in your Environment?

There are many reasons to deploy Citrix XenDesktop in your environment. The most important one is Total Cost of Ownership (TCO).

On-going support costs will be reduced. I guarantee it. When there is a single base operating system image, a single application image, real-time profile assembly and it is controlled and delivered centrally, high-level support tickets to your senior team will stop. Most support calls will be resolved by saying “have you rebooted, yet?”

There will be little need to refresh your workstations every two to three years, because much of the horsepower will come from the data center. And, when a PC does need to be replaced, it can be replaced with thin client, which in-turn, has its own very compelling TCO story to tell.

If you are considering a large-scale workstation refresh in the near future, you are a perfect candidate for this solution.

What to know more? Contact one of DedicatedIT’s Solution Experts today.

Telephone: 561-491-5750

Email: sales@DedicatedIT.com

Or for immediate help, Chat with a Solutions Expert

On December 17th 2008, I sent this message to all of Steinhoff Consulting’s (DedicatedIT’s parent company) contacts:

Steinhoff Consulting is moving
Please update all addresses in your system(s) to:
Steinhoff Consulting, Inc.
620 Wilmot St.
West Palm Beach, FL 33405

Why are you moving?
Steinhoff Consulting has always believed in providing excellent services to you with as little impact to our Earth as possible – even before being green was cool.

Besides recycling and running nearly a paperless office, Steinhoff Consulting was one of the first IT consulting companies to begin supporting our clients via remote access. Not only did this directly benefit you by not having to wait for a tech to arrive on site to have your issue tended to, it indirectly helped you by reducing carbon emissions and conserving gas.

Our lease was up and that prompted us to sit down and calculate the amount of miles our employees drive to work each day, and it was mind-numbing: 94,738 miles each year to be exact. While some of us have more efficient cars than others, this amounted to nearly 4,712 gallons of gas each year.

As a company we decided to take another bold step in our efforts to be as green as we can be: stop commuting to work. We will be in a trial phase for 90 days while we test our customer service levels and the ability for our team to continually advance their technical expertise. Likely, this will not directly affect you in any way. Indirectly, however, we’ll be reducing carbon emissions, conserving fuel and pushing remote group collaboration technology to its limits with the hope of helping your company communicate better as a result.

What makes your move so easy?
We use the technology that we offer to you:
• Datacenter – Our equipment is in a datacenter on the Internet backbone – not in our office.
• Centralized storage from NetApp – it’s so fast, reliable and feature-packed, it’s scary.
• HP servers virtualized by Citrix XenServer – what used to take eight physical servers, takes three; and they are more reliable
• Applications delivered by Citrix XenApp – Our applications come from our datacenter and are delivered anywhere in the world over the Internet
• Voice over IP (VoIP) – Our dial tone comes from our datacenter and is delivered anywhere in the world over the Internet. I can take my phone with me anywhere.
• MS Exchange and Office Communication Server – Our team can communicate (in pairs or in groups) instantly and easily.

Moving soon? We can help! Give us a call.

I had a pretty good idea of what we were in for technology-wise, because we have been using much of the technology listed in that email since our company’s inception in 2002. What I was not sure of was how customer service was going to be impacted, what our clients and prospects would think about a company being run completely remotely and if our employees would still put in a hard-day’s work.

To quote Donald Rumsfeld:

There are known knowns. These are things we know that we know. There are known unknowns. That is to say, there are things that we know we don’t know. But there are also unknown unknowns. There are things we don’t know we don’t know.

Over the next few months, I’ll be writing about these “known knowns”, “known unknowns” and the “unknown unknowns” and how our business has changed because of them.

Have you been considering a remote office? Are you in a remote office already? Are you in a remote office and considering a “real” office?

I’d love to hear about your thoughts and experiences.