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Cover Story: XenApp 6 Is Here!
April Foolery
Asleep At the Wheel - Tips on Staying Alert While Driving
Tell Us How You Want to Receive This Newsletter
Trivia Quiz - Diamonds Are a Girl's Best Friend
Moose Logic Coming Events
Egg Trivia

(Moose Views is a monthly newsletter prepared by Moose Logic to bring you information and tips on maintaining a trouble-free network)

No sooner did we put the March issue to bed, than Citrix announced the release of XenApp 6, as well as Feature Release 3 for XenApp 5.

If your Subscription Advantage was current as of March 17, you are eligible to upgrade to XenApp 6, and if your Subscription Advantage was current as of September 18, 2009, you are entitled to XenApp 5, Feature Pack 3.

The big differentiator is that XenApp 6 is designed specifically for Windows Server 2008 R2—and, in fact, will not run on anything earlier. (That’s what XenApp 5 Feature Pack 3 is for—it makes several of the new features available to customers who are running XenApp 5 on Windows Server 2003 or Windows Server 2008.)

But there are a lot of other features that make XenApp 6 very, very different from anything that has come before:

• A new streamlined installer helps you install XenApp 6 in (according to Citrix) half the time required by previous versions.
• The new installation wizard uses a new “server role” classification to help you make sure that you’ve installed the components you need.
• All Platinum Edition features are integrated into a single installation wizard.
• XenApp 6 is much more tightly integrated with Active Directory Group Policies. (See our Moose Logic Blog post on “worker groups” for one of the coolest applications of this.)
• There is a new management console called “AppCenter” that allows you to manage all facets of your XenApp farm, and looks very much like the Microsoft Management Console.
• All management console tasks can be automated with PowerShell, enabling more control over your environment with tools like Workflow Studio.
• A new audio/video codec enables VoIP support between Windows clients and 2008 R2 servers.
• Better multi-monitor support.
• Dynamic plug & play for Windows USB devices, including USB storage devices.
• 32-bit graphics support.
• The ability to deliver Microsoft App-V packages via Citrix streaming.

Most of these features require Server 2008 R2. But XenApp 5 Feature Pack 3 does offer some nice features for those who aren’t ready to make the jump to R2:

• HDX MediaStream for Flash (uses client-side resources to process flash content).
• Real-time plug & play for USB storage devices.
• HDX “IntelliCache” to improve ICA acceleration when used with Branch Repeater.

April Foolery

"The first day of April is the day we remember what we are the other 364 days of the year.” - Mark Twain

April Fool’s Day is not a national holiday—at least not officially. Although the government doesn’t recognize this annual day of fun and pranks, it has found its way into the hearts of people young and old. It is believed to have started in the sixteenth century in France, when Pope Gregory, changing the beginning of the year from April 1st to January 1st, introduced a new calendar to the world. Some people either hadn’t heard of the change or didn’t believe it. When they continued to celebrate New Year’s Day on April 1st, they were called “April Fools.”

The tradition of playing tricks on others became popular in Europe in the eighteenth century, and was brought to the New World by early American settlers. Early pranks in colonial America included pinning signs on people's backs, putting salt or pepper in candy, telling people they had a hole in their clothes or food on their face, or holding items in place by a string. Teachers in the nineteenth century used to say to pupils, “Look! A flock of geese!” and point up. The prankster would then yell, “April Fool!”

The advent of the Internet took the April Fool’s tradition to a whole new level. This year was particularly good with tricks like:

• Google changing its name to “Topeka” for the day.
• Gmail apologizing that a malfunction was preventing all vowels from being displayed (although they subsequently announced that “y” was not affected).
• Starbucks announcing the new 2-ounce “Micra” and 128-ounce “Plenta” sizes.
• ThinkGeek.com advertising bogus products like a plush bacon toy and canned unicorn meat.
• Even the White House got into the act, announcing that they were opening Camp David to the public.

But my all-time favorite is still the BBC’s 1957 broadcast of a 3-minute “news story” about the bumper spaghetti harvest in southern Switzerland! Thanks to YouTube we can still watch this classic (although the quality is not the best):

Asleep At the Wheel - Tips on Staying Alert While Driving

According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), drowsiness or fatigue is the principal cause of up to 100,000 passenger vehicle crashes every year, with over 1,500 deaths and 71,000 injuries. Many people think that those most at risk are long-haul truckers, but less than one percent of all sleep-related crashes involve truck drivers.

Twenty percent of crashes and 12 percent of near-crashes are caused by tired drivers. Surprisingly, most of these occur during daytime hours rather than at night. Many nighttime crashes, however, are more serious because they are more likely to occur on high-speed highways and rural roads. Researchers have also found that the 18-20 age group is the one most likely to be involved in fatigue-related accidents. All other age groups had the same percentage of drowsy-driving crashes.

How can you keep from becoming a tired driver? Here are the best things you can do to protect yourself and others:

1. Don’t drive if you feel sleepy. Pull over to a safe spot and stop your vehicle.
2. If you want to use caffeine to stay alert, be aware that it can take up to 30 minutes for it to enter your bloodstream. Do not drive during that time—instead, use it to take a short nap.
3. If you’re planning a long road trip, be sure to get at least six hours of sleep the night before.
4. It is not safe to work or go to school all day, then drive at night.
5. Try to only drive at times when you are normally awake.
6. Take care during the “tired” parts of the day—usually midafternoon, and the hours between midnight and dawn.
7. High-protein snacks are better than high-carbohydrate snacks when on a long driving trip.
8. Cold, flu, or allergy medication can make you drowsy, as can some prescription drugs and sleep aids. Only take these medications if you are finished driving for the day.
9. Having an alert passenger with you can help keep you awake. Engage in conversation to keep from drifting off. A radio, however, is not a good substitute for having a person with you.
10. Take a break every two hours, even if you don’t feel like you need it. Get out of the car, do some stretching, and chat with someone for a few minutes.
11. Try to limit your total driving per day to less than 400 miles.
12. Look for these signs of drowsiness: frequent yawning, inability to remember the last few miles driven, difficulty focusing or keeping your eyes open, and missed traffic signals or exits.

Tell Us How You Want to Receive This Newsletter

Beginning this month, you can choose to receive Moose Views by email instead of (or in addition to) printed form.

When we re-launched this newsletter back in 2005, we made a deliberate decision to print and mail it rather than emailing it. That decision was based on our own experience with emailed newsletters, which suggested that:

1. We all have way too many emails clamoring for our attention already, and
2. The chances are that, despite the best of intentions, if you don’t have the time to read the newsletter when it hits your inbox, you will probably never go back and read it.

We figured that if we mailed you a hard copy, it would be easier for you to read a little bit, set it aside, read a little more later, pass it around the office, put it in your lobby, etc.

On the other hand, we don’t want to kill any more trees than necessary, and we don’t want to keep sending hard copies to you if you’d prefer getting it by email.

So, beginning with this issue, if we have your email address, we will be sending you an email version of Moose Views in addition to a hard copy. The email version will contain some simple click-through links that will let you tell us whether, in the future, you would rather receive your copy by email, or continue to receive a printed copy, or both, or neither (which would make us sad, but if that’s really the way you feel, we’d rather know about it). If you don’t select a preference, we will continue to send you both.

If you don’t get an email version of the April issue, it means one of two things: either we don’t have your email address, or it ended up in your spam filter. If we don’t have your email address, but you would prefer to get this newsletter by email, just shoot us a quick email at sales@mooselogic.com.

We enjoy putting out Moose Views, and hope that everyone finds it useful, funny, and a good reflection of the people who work here. We will continue to put out the same kind of content we have since we started the newsletter—but now you will be able to just click on the links that we suggest rather than manually typing them into your browser, which should make it easier to sign up for an event, investigate one of our “Recommended Reading” links, or quickly visit our blog (which is also full of useful information).

Finally, thank you for being a Moose Views subscriber, and if you ever have any suggestions for how we can make it better, please let us know!

Trivia Quiz - Diamonds Are a Girl's Best Friend

April's birthstone, the diamond, has been beloved for centuries around the world. How much do you know about this sparkly gem?

1. Although diamonds have been around for millions of years, it is believed that they were first discovered by man over 5,000 years ago. Where were they first found?
2. A diamond can only be cut by what?
3. How much is a carat?
4. The largest uncut diamond on display today is at the Smithsonian. How many carats is it?
5. How old are most diamonds?
6. Diamonds with very strong colors are very rare, and are called _________?
7. What is the largest cut diamond?
8. What are diamonds made from?

Answers:

1. India.
2. Another diamond
3. One-fifth of a gram (there are 140 carats in an ounce).
4. 254 carats.
5. Between one and two million years old.
6. "Fancies."
7. The "Cullinan I," also known as the "Star of Africa," is 520.2 carats.
8. A diamond is crystallized carbon.

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