After doing some sweet talking to my CTO on why we needed an AppleTV, we purchased one for the office. At $99, it costs less than a laptop battery so it didn’t really take much convincing. Once I got it connected on our network, I was able to stream content to it. With AirPlay, you can use an iPhone or iPad to show presentations and other content without a laptop. On current iOS devices (iPhone 4S and iPad 2) you can use AirPlay mirroring which lets you output exactly what’s on the device to your projector. This can be very handy for quick viewing of web content or demoing or training iOS applications. We currently have the Apple TV connected to our internal only WiFi network and any employee with an iOS device on the network can output content to the projector seamlessly.

There are some catches however. Apple TV only outputs HDMI which means you need a projector or TV with an HDMI or DVI input. Anything else (like standard VGA) will require some kind of video convertor which will probably cost more than the Apple TV. Also, as far as I know, there’s no way to share your iPhone or iPad screen via WebEx, LiveMeeting or some other online meeting tool so this would only be useful for meetings where everyone is in the room.

I think this can be a handy tool as long as you have the pre-requisites (HDMI projector and WiFi). It remains to be seen how much this will actually get used. However, at only $99, if it only gets used every now and then for Angry Birds on an 80” screen, it’s still worth it.

I started out running only the Apple OS X operating system. I had Office 2011 for Mac for my productivity suite and I was able to do many work related tasks. However, I found myself using Citrix or my Windows computer for other work related applications such as our Document Management System iManage, our ticketing system ConnectWise and other web applications that only work fully with Internet Explorer.

I then decided to purchase the external DVD drive so I could install Windows directly on the MacBook Air via the built in Boot camp utility. This lets you dual boot between Windows and OS X as opposed to running a virtualization product such as VMware Fusion or Parallels. I use VMware Fusion on my home iMac and it works great. On a laptop with limited RAM, CPU and battery life, virtualization does not make sense.

Running native Windows via Boot camp works VERY well. The Apple hardware runs Windows as good, if not better, than a computer made to run Windows. Apple includes all the Windows drivers and makes the process very easy. Over time, I found myself using Windows exclusively and never booting into OS X as I use this primarily for work duties. I decided to take the plunge and remove the OS X partition so that Windows is the only operating system. I did this to give more space to Windows as I only have the 64 GB solid state drive.

Some notes to you network admins out there.  Apple laptops are missing some key things that Windows laptops have.  They don’t have Trusted Platform Module (TPM) chips.  TPM chips play an integral role in many laptop encryption products.  While you can use encryption software without them, they often require USB keys or something to store the encryption key for the drive.  Also, as far as I can tell, Apple computers can’t do a standard PXE boot to use network based imaging.  You can however, boot to a Windows PE CD and bring down an image that way.  While a little cumbersome, it would allow you deploy Windows on an Apple computer using a standard image.

Overall, I really enjoy using my MacBook Air running Windows.  The performance and battery life are great and I can run all of my standard work applications.  Unfortunately, I wouldn’t recommend clients to go out and buy Apple laptops for everyone during their next upgrade.  There’s still too many issues with management and Windows computers should still be the norm.  However, if you have a VIP user that really wants a Mac, it is possible for that user to have a mostly standard Windows experience while running on Apple hardware.

I contacted Citrix support and learned that the Receiver does not currently support Subject Alternative Name (SAN) certificates (a.k.a. Unified Communications or UC certificates) unless the principal name (the “Issued to” name) is the first entry in the subject alternative name list.  Since the first entry in the subject alternative name list IS the principal name, this is another way of saying that subject alternative names are not currently supported.

In the example below, example.domain.com is the principal name.

It’s also the first entry in the subject alternative name list, so if I want to use it when connecting with the Receiver I’ll be in good shape.

However, if I connect to another entry that’s lower in the subject alternative name list, mobile.domain.com for example, it will fail.

Hopefully Citrix will resolve this issue in a future release. In the meantime I hope you find this information helpful.

After upgrading the OS, enabling this feature was very simple.  I chose to turn it on using AT&T’s website which now had two ‘Bundled Features’ that included tethering.  4GB for iPhone Enterprise for $60/mo or 4GB for iPhone at $45/mo.

One thing of note is the fact that after I changed my plan, I lost the ability to go back to the ‘grandfathered’ unlimited data plan.  This may be a small concern for some users who might exceed the 4GB (2GB non-tethering plan) limit.

Once enabled, my iPhone now included a Personal Hotspot section under Settings where I can turn it on and set a WiFi password.  It offers three methods of tethering including USB, Bluetooth, and WiFi with each of these methods activated when I turn on Personal Hotspot depending on what is enabled and what I want to use.  While it allows for up to five connections it does differ from the MiFi card by only allowing three WiFi connections at once.  You have to round out the five connections with either one USB connection or up to three Bluetooth connections.

Now for the experience.  My typical usage was a trip from Grand Central to White Plains via Metro North along with the usual ‘no WiFi’ locations I found myself in.  The first thing I noticed was that while sitting on a train in Grand Central, waiting for it to depart, I could now tether.  This was not possible with my old Sprint MiFi card.  Understood that’s more of a function of Sprint vs. AT&T, but still huge.

I also noticed that not only was the speed much faster, the connection dropped less while commuting to and from White Plains.  There were times where my Sprint device would have outages between two stops along the route almost every time.  This didn’t happen with AT&T.  And while there were the typical ‘I have five bars why is nothing working’ instances with Hotspot, it seemed to be pretty stable once a connection was made.

Overall I am happy with the experience.  It’s one less device I need to carry and all in all an upgrade in connectivity, as well as speed, moving from Sprint to AT&T.

The user interface has been updated since the original release.  Like the Citrix Receiver for Mac, you can create shortcuts to commonly used applications and desktops.  This is especially helpful if you have a large application set.

Application selection screen showing available applications. Apps with a dark plus sign are already subscribed applications.

You can now switch to another iPad app and back without the client disconnecting.  This is due to the newer Citrix Receiver client being able to take advantage of the multitasking capabilities of the current iOS version.  You still can’t have more than one published app running at a time, but Citrix has a utility called Citrix Doc Finder you can publish to get around that limitation.  The receiver does reconnect pretty fast to disconnected sessions, so even if you don’t use the Doc Finder utility, it’s still not too bad.

Looking through the settings I found a track pad feature.  Instead of trying to click on icons that weren’t meant to be touched by a finger, you can enable the track pad feature which basically enables a mouse curser and turns the touch screen into a giant track pad.  This gives you much more control over the mouse input and makes it much easier to click on menus and buttons.

Full screen desktop showing on screen keyboard and track pad mouse cursor. Notice how I moved my task bar to the top of the screen. This leaves it accessible while the keyboard is displayed.

I looked through the help guide and learned the finger gestures built into the Citrix Receiver.  This makes navigation much easier.  There are gestures for scrolling, arrow keys as well as ALT+TAB.  Also, you can show / hide the on screen keyboard by tapping the screen with three fingers.  I found this to be much more convenient then clicking to through the on screen menu to show or hide the keyboard.  I’m a big fan of using the on screen keyboard as I feel if you have to use an external keyboard with the iPad, you might as well carry around a small laptop.

Based off of these features, I’m much less anti Citrix client on the iPad.  It’s still no substitute for a laptop, but using Microsoft OneNote via Citrix with an iPad is very useable for taking light notes during a meeting.  And for playing Angry Birds when a meeting goes south.

I got the new 11.6″ MacBook Air with 1.4 GHz processor and 4GB of RAM with a 64 GB SSD drive. This thing is tiny. Its about the same width as the iPad, super thin and only weighs about a pound more than the iPad at 2.3 lbs. My primary work machine, a Dell Latitude E6410, seems like a boat anchor in comparison. I was concerned about the slower 1.4 GHz Core2 Duo processor, but it seems to be holding up quite well. However, I won’t be running any Windows 7 virtual machines with this, especially with only having 64GB of storage. The only part where I notice slight lagging is in Outlook 2011. Every now and then, my typing will lag for a second, but then is fine. I never noticed any performance issues with the built in applications, even when I had my entire mailbox downloaded with the built in mail app. I have 25,000 items in my Inbox, so that probably doesn’t help.

I installed Office 2011 Business edition. This includes Word, PowerPoint, Excel and Outlook. Outlook was missing in the older versions of office, but is now back. It looks very much like Office 2010 for Windows complete with ribbon bars. It connects to Exchange via RPC the same as Outlook for Windows and doesn’t rely on WebDAV that Entourage used. You get the same full functionality as the Windows version as far as I can tell.

That said, I think there are some limitations. I haven’t really used Excel, PowerPoint or Word yet (other than to draft this blog post), but at first glance, they look and operate the same as the Windows versions. I also got hold of a copy of the Office Communicator 2011 client for Mac. This works just like the Windows version and connects directly to the OCS servers. It doesn’t need to proxy through a Communicator Web Access server like the Blackberry or iPhone clients.

Outlook 2011 for Mac complete with Ribbon Bar

I am a big user of OneNote for taking notes in meetings so not having an OS X version of OneNote was very disappointing to me. However, a colleague of mine told me about Microsoft’s OneNote Web App. By storing my OneNote files on our company’s SharePoint server, I can work in my OneNote files via Web browser using the Web App version of OneNote. I can also use standard OneNote 2010 while at my desk to work in the files stored on our SharePoint server. There’s no need to store two different sets of files. There are some limitations of the Web App version of OneNote, but for basic note taking, it works great. The only caveat is that you must have an Internet connection to access the application and data.

OneNote Web App Integrated with Sharepoint 2010

For applications that don’t have a native OS X version, I’m using Web versions of the application or Citrix published applications.  Many legal applications, such as Document Management Systems, do not have Mac versions of their applications.  Again, I’m not replacing my primary laptop with the MacBook, so this is not a deal breaker for me. The full Citrix Client for Mac is very nice and a user can create application shortcuts to individual applications easily themselves through the “Dazzle” interface.

As much as I love Apple hardware and software, I still don’t think going native OS X on a Mac is ready for prime time at our law firm clients. By native OS X, I’m referring to running only the OS X operating system and not running a Windows operating system via virtualization or by running the full Windows OS instead of OS X. However, Office 2011 is a big step in the right direction. Its much better than the built in Mail program that comes with the Mac. For someone looking to use an iPad in the work place, they should look at the MacBook Air as an option. The only downside is having to support Apple equipment. iPads and iPhones are one thing, supporting OS X is a whole other animal as it’s a full operating system that needs to be managed and secured just like a Windows machine.

Overall, I find the MacBook Air is a great secondary machine and compliments my work Windows laptop and home iMac very well. I love the MacBook Air hardware. It’s so small and light and plenty fast for my needs. I see myself using this much more than the iPad.

Primarily, the 11.0 plug-in finally enables seamless functionality of published applications on Macs.  Seamless published applications (opposed from the desktop) present themselves to the user as if they are running locally.  This in turn allows the user to run published and local applications side-by-side for an improved experience.  More importantly, this seamless functionality opens the door for corporate environments who serve applications through the Program Neighborhood Agent or Citrix Web Interface to give Mac clients a user experience that is in line with what Windows clients have supported for years. 

Also included in this update is the introduction of Citrix’s Dazzle interface.  It looks like Citrix has larger plans for Dazzle suite, but from a client perspective, applications served through the Program Neighborhood website are presented in an iTunes like interface.  I think the logic Citrix is following is that users would be acclimated easily to an application delivery interface that mimics iTunes on the assumption that most users are already familiar with iTunes. The interface is clean, intuitive and even gives the user the ability to add the application to the OS X dock. The “Add” function threw an error for me when I was testing testing the client , but in theory it *should* work.  I’ll post the fix when I come across it, but this bug doesn’t takeaway from the huge functionality upgrade in this client.

It is unfortunate Citrix took years to finally give Macs the same support that the Windows client has had for years, but better late then never, right?  Download it here.

Dazzle interface of the 11.0 Mac plug-in: