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  • All Good Things Must Come To An End

    March 15, 2023

    Blog

    After 47 years in Information Technology, including 35 years with Personal Computers, 24 years in software development, 10 years with mainframes, and 33 years in the End User Computing community, I am moving on to another service area: Lions Clubs. I still have my monster lab and work at Flexxible writing technical documentation. But I am shutting down my website, CarlWebster.com, on July 1st, 2023.

    I am NOT retiring. I jokingly say that my boss, the CEO of Flexxible, says he will let me retire when he gets a certified copy of my death certificate! LOL

    Citrix Technology Professional (CTP) Neil Spellings and I are working on the details for him to host the downloads page. All the downloads are still available. The current download links should never expire unless ShareFile expires all my links again.

    All the scripts and some other files are on GitHub, so you should have no problem accessing any of the PowerShell scripts.

    I hope someone steps up and maintains at least the Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops V3 and the Citrix Cloud documentation scripts. The other scripts have had no reported issues or feature requests in a long time, so I assume they are mature and stable.

    I have enjoyed serving various computer, programming, and EUC communities for the past 47 years. The last week of March and the first week of April 2023 are my last planned in-person EUC community events. I have CTP meetings, followed by Citrix User Group Community (CUGC) Southwest (and my last planned in-person Active Directory (AD) Masterclass), followed by the EUC Masters Retreat, followed by IGEL Disrupt Nashville, and finally, CUGC Nashville. All those events make for a brutal 12 days.

    If you see me at any of those events, please come up and say hi and let’s get our picture made one last time.

    I want to thank everyone that mentored me over the past 47 years.

    • Bob Welch (not that Bob Welch) had the unfortunate experience of taking me under his wing and teaching me about IBM System 360/370 mainframes.
    • Mr. Spivey, probably THEE most senior IBM Field Engineer I watched working his magic on the insides of IBM Mainframes. He loaned me several books and audio training courses on how mainframe computers worked on a deep internal basis.
    • Brad Choate is among the most gifted software developers I have ever met. He was 20+ years my junior, but his code-writing skills were something I admired. I was in awe of his skill and how fast he could type.
    • Andrew S. Baker was the first person who helped me learn AD and DNS design.
    • Brian Desmond, who probably answered hundreds of my emails since 2001 about AD and has forgotten more about AD than I ever knew or understood.
    • Michael B. Smith, I consider my #1 mentor in AD, DNS, servers, design, PowerShell, SQL, and technical writing. I still abide by his first criticism of my first blog articles: “Don’t assume knowledge the reader may not have”.
    • Jo Harder, a fellow CTP, helped me become a better public speaker and writer. She helped me reduce the verbal ticks used when speaking (basically, you know, right, and umm, among others).
    • Guy Leech, the master of PowerShell, who, for some reason, doesn’t have an email rule to send my emails to /dev/null.

    I have met some freakishly smart people in the EUC community.

    • Andrew Morgan
    • Benny Tritsch
    • Claudio Rodrigues
    • Hamilton Moore
    • Jarian Gibson
    • Jim Moyle
    • Joe Nord
    • Joe Shonk
    • Nicholas Cookendorfer
    • Patrick Coble
    • Remko Weijnen
    • Shane Kleinert
    • Shawn Bass

    I want to thank Laura Whalen for giving me a skill that has become a great asset in my Lions Clubs service, public speaking. In 2012, the CTPs were “forced” to submit session topics for Synergy 2012 in San Francisco. I submitted a topic I was 100% sure would not get accepted, 10 ways Active Directory can hurt XenDesktop or XenApp and how to fix them. When I received the acceptance email, I threw up! I immediately emailed Laura and told her to please rescind the acceptance and find someone else to speak. I didn’t know how to speak publicly, much less how to put together a slide deck. She refused and said I had to speak. Well, the rest is history. I have given that presentation at least 20 times since and at conferences and for customers in the United States, Belgium, Denmark, England, Germany, Italy, Norway, Oman, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, and the United Arab Emirates. Because of Laura, I have learned to travel and be comfortable outside my comfort zone and country. I may have hated you then, Laura, but thanks for forcing a skill on me that has changed my life. I also want to thank Brian Desmond, Jo Harder, Michael B. Smith, and Shawn Bass for helping me prepare for my first presentation.

    I want to thank:

    • Citrix for the CTP honor in 2009 and the CTP Fellow honor in 2017.
    • Experts Exchange for more than I can count awards, honors, and titles since 2002.
    • IGEL for the many awards and honors over the past few years.
    • Parallels for seven years as a Very Important Parallels Professional.
    • VMware for four years as a vExpert and vExpert EUC.

    I have made more friends and memories than I can list. I have enjoyed working in and serving the Citrix, AD, and EUC communities for the past 33+ years. Now it is on to becoming a District Governor, maybe a Council Chair, and one day, maybe an International Director for Lions Club International.

    Thanks for allowing me to serve you through my website, and I hope you found my articles, files, and PowerShell scripts useful.

    Exit 0

    Life is for Service
    Life is for Service
    2VDG Election Flyer
    2VDG Election Flyer
    YELLOW Pants
    YELLOW Pants






    About Carl Webster

    Carl Webster is an independent consultant specializing in Citrix, Active Directory, and technical documentation. Carl (aka “Webster”) serves the broader Citrix community by writing articles (see CarlWebster.com) and by being the most active person in the Citrix Zone on Experts Exchange. Webster has a long history in the IT industry beginning with mainframes in 1977, PCs and application development in 1986, and network engineering in 2001. He has worked with Citrix products since 1990 with the premiere of their first product – the MULTIUSER OS/2.

    View all posts by Carl Webster

    10 Responses to “All Good Things Must Come To An End”

    1. Scott B. Says:

      Hi Carl, I am trying to update some of my team on Ctx and just saw this. So sad! But you have earned it for all the help you have given people. I appreciate all you did for me in the HP Moonshot trial. I wish you the best!
      Thanks,
      –Scott B.

      Reply

    2. Ronan Says:

      Carl – your reach extends way further than you could ever imagine. ANY techie out there googling for some answers in the ENC arena will undoubtedly have come across one of your articles, followed it, and thought “That was *just* what I needed. I’ve used them myself. I’ve forwarded them on to others. The techies WITHIN the vendors use them. Al that’s left is a hearty round of applause – well done – and thank you for your EUC service! Take care,
      Ronan.

      Reply

    3. Prince Says:

      You will forever be a legend. Thank you so much for all the works you shared and are still sharing. I wish you nothing but many happy returns!!!

      Reply

    4. Leandro Gonçalves Says:

      All the best Carl, a big hug from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Thanks for all information throught my citrix admin career.

      Reply

    5. Jorge LUIS Says:

      well done all the best Carl

      Reply

    6. Raja Talpuri Says:

      All the Very Best Carl. It’s been great pleasure and inspiring as well using your articles and scripts in the Citrix World. Thank you so much! 🙂

      Reply

    7. Pablo Villaronga Says:

      Thanks for the support all over the years , your help is unvaluabke and you have been a great example of hard work commitment and dedication.

      I’m very happy for you, and wish you the best on this non-retirement time !

      Cheers

      Pablo

      Reply

    8. Jon Says:

      All the best Carl

      Reply

    9. Andrew S. Baker Says:

      Well done, Carl. Well done.

      Thanks for the very kind words. Glad to have been able to help over the years.

      I’m very happy for you, and wish you the best on this non-retirement transition. 😁

      Reply

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