185 - Citrix and Kids

I love Citrix. Working in an environment supporting different networks and having to have different network accounts, with Citrix I can go into all those other networks with the proper accounts to do my job. In the ideal world, one network account can access the entire corporate network, but one side effects of all those mergers the firm had is that some networks are accessible only to accounts in those networks. For the casual user, Citrix provides a lightweight connection to the corporate network from outside. You may have your home drive and a few essential apps like email or office suite, which suffices most of the time. On days that I work from home, I usually have one Citrix connection to do data transfer when needed. I have the choice of using some Terminal Service connection but there are only 2 TS sessions per server so sometimes they get used up. Citrix is the better way to go most of the time.

I recently noticed a colleague, JB in the Citrix Admin group, using a white board as a writing surface. Or to catch peanut shells. What a waste of a good asset. He knew about my drawing skill as I gave him a Qaptain Qwerty qalendar this year. I offered to trade him something for the white board. He was reluctant at first, but then another colleague somehow convinced him to at least loan it to me.

It makes a big difference to have a board right then and there when the idea strikes. I made 184 - Text Twirl using a hand board then added text via Comic Life and Photoshop. The outcome is good but it did take a few hours. With JB's board on my desk, I was able to complete the drawing in minutes. JB himself thought it is a pretty good approximation of his appearance. The ponytail is his trademark.

Ever since I started using Citrix I had wanted to make a pun with Citrix and the Trix commercial. FYI, ica is the extension for Citrix files. Double-click on such files and you are prompted to log into the other network, all while still running apps with your native login.