On April 17th 2013 I received an email from Packt Publishing whether I’d be interested in writing a Citrix XenApp 6.5 Expert Cookbook. I did know Packt from a previous encounter as I reviewed a XenServer book for them. But the though of writing a book of my own had never even crossed my mind … until that email planted the idea in my head!
During my college years I did discover that sharing your knowledge with great enthusiasm does have an effect on others. I was leading the information days for high school girls at Twente University for the Computer Science Master program. By sharing my knowledge en enthusiasm for Computer Science I changed their vision on the science and showed them it’s so much more than programming a machine and nerdy guys 😉
So I definitely had to put my money where my mouth was and take this chance to share my Citrix knowledge in another way that the web blog I was running at the time. So after a long talk with my partner, making sure she was on board and aware of the long hours this new ‘hobby’ would ask of me, I replied to the email with a big YES!
On June 26 2013 I signed the contract, taking up the challenge to share my XenApp 6.5 knowledge by writing an Expert Cookbook for Packt Publishing. With no experience in writing technical books, I took on the challenge nonetheless, looking forward to this adventure to discover the writer in me. I dedicated myself to a very ambitious delivery scheme that would have me deliver at least 2 pages per day, with only two days per week to be able to actually write the pages. So I needed to finish at least 7 pages per writing day. And those pages did not only mean I had to write recipes, but I also had to set up a lab environment, test each instruction, build scripts and ensure everything kept running smoothly. And to top it off, I also decided I wanted to make the book not only about me and my knowledge, but show the readers what a great Citrix community is out there as well. So I even picked up some extra tools, tips and tricks from some well known CTPs out there!
And now, 6 months later, that big moment is finally here!
The Citrix XenApp 6.5 Expert Cookbook is released and now you can all become a part of this adventure by learning new tips and tricks to manage, monitor, troubleshoot and script a XenApp 6.5 infrastructure.
I hope you will have as much fun reading this book (and putting it all to the test in your own XenApp infrastructure) as I had writing it.
I welcome your feedback!
This book represents 128 recipes, 12 chapters …. 7 months, 600+ hours of building, testing and writing …. 150+ cans of coke, 25 kilo’s of M&M’s ……. 12 missed birthdays ….. no social life ….. and so much fun putting a lot of the acquired knowledge and enthusiasm from 15+ years in IT into 420 pages full of Citrix XenApp recipes.