Following up from my post yesterday, I managed to get a few really good bargains on eBay today:

• 2 x Dell UltraSharp 1908FP 19" LCD Displays @ £40.00 each
• 2 x Dell AX510 Soundbar Speaker Attachment @ £12.00 each
• 2 x Dell OptiPlex 755 SFF, 2GB RAM, Intel Core2Duo E8400 CPU @ £140.00 each

It looks like I'll be able to transfer over the RAM from my existing OptiPlex 740 / 745 systems into the new ones, which should avoid any further memory purchases - I've also got plenty of spare hard drives, so it will be just a case of making sure the fastest ones are installed. Overall, they'll be two identical pretty well spec'd machines, especially with the E8400 processors - the key will be if I can get XenClient installed and working successfully. If any further 'juice' is required in the future, I can drop a couple of decent PCI Express graphic cards into the PCIE-16 slots, though for the moment I'll have dual-port NIC cards installed in that spot for my own use in the lab.

After also investigating kid friendly software, I've now built up a list of good / must-have software and web sites (and all free!):

• KIDO'Z - an Adobe AIR-based Web Operating System for children between the ages of 3-7 yrs.
• KidZui - a web browser designed for children developed by KidZui, Inc.
• KidRex - Google search, but it's content limited to 'kid friendly' content
• Edubuntu - linux based distribution with education software components
• Norton Online Family - access control and monitoring solution
• OpenDNS - additional site categorisation based access control using DNS

Within Windows 7 itself, the parental controls are not that far reaching - you're able to limit when user accounts can be used (i.e. what days / hours), and what applications can be run, though it seems a number of built in Windows applications can't be limited, including Internet Explorer. Instead, something like Norton Online Family helps, as it layers on top extra controls and limitations, to prevent certain internet content from being viewed or accessed. In addition, using OpenDNS layers more control over site categorisation, and plays it's part of 'defence in depth'.

Access to internet sites through Internet Explorer should not really be a problem with my two at the moment, as I focus their activities through the KidZui and KIDO'Z children oriented web browsers, with access only to pre-filtered, human categorised content. The Edubuntu distribution also has a lot of good educational focused software, which I am currently running inside VirtualBox, until I get the new base units and test / run XenClient.

One other site I randomly came across was KidRex - a portal to the Google search engine, but uses Google Custom Search, and Google SafeSearch to limit access to unsuitable search results... I've set this as the default home page on Internet Explorer, but I also need to add it as the default search site when using the search box or address bar.

If you're not familiar with XenClient by the way, there are some very good introduction videos on the Citrix site:

• How XenClient Works - http://www.citrix.com/English/ps2/products/feature.asp?contentID=2300345

Over on XenAppBlog, Eric ended up switching from XenClient to Hyper-V, but I'll see how far I get with my setup for home use, rather than for my consulting day job.

Up until now, my kids have been using our MacBooks (with our oversight), which is great because they are simple to use, easy to learn, and their applications (such as Kidoz and KidZui) are quick to open from the LaunchBar.

However, as Amy is now learning ICT at school, I am planning to re-jig the setup at home to make the transition back and forth between school and home more consistent - this means primarily a desktop machine with Windows.

A couple of thoughts here - firstly, we've two kids, so what you do with one, you do with the other - therefore two machines are required. Secondly, it would be nice to keep costs down (i.e. ebay), and thirdly, make the setup as useful as possible, both to them... and to me :)

After a few different thoughts, I've decided to experiment with implementing a XenClient solution, a type-1 bare-metal hypervisor - it's free on standalone systems, and allows multiple virtual operating systems to be used at the same time, but without loosing out on performance like you might see with type-2 solution such as VMware Workstation or VirtualBox installed on top of the operating system. On each of the kids PCs, they'll have their own locked down Windows VM, plus possibly another with Edubuntu, while I'll have my own VMs to connect into other parts of my lab.

So, I've already checked what I can reuse of the kit I already have - of my spare desktops, a Dell OptiPlex 740, and a Dell OptiPlex 745 seem likely candidates (8GB of RAM each, as I've been using them as Hyper-V hosts). Any Dell system ending in a '5' will be Intel based, while '0' are generally AMD systems.

With the latest release of XenClient 2.0, it's now possible to run on non-vPro systems - this means as long as you have VT-x, you should now be able to use XenClient, though with just 2D support on those systems, as long as Intel integrated graphics are present. On vPro systems (i.e. those that also support VT-d), you'll get the full 3D support, and therefore, for example, all the Window Aero, OpenGL and DirectX support on Windows 7.

Looking over my own two OptiPlex machines, the Intel based 745 does not have vPro technology, but does support VT-x. I ran through a quick XenClient install, but while being reminded that the system did not support VT-d, it did allow me to proceed. However, I quickly hit a road-block a couple of screens further on, when it could not detect any hard disks, kindly advising to enable AHCI in the BIOS... not possible, as the option does not exist.

On the 740, being AMD, I didn't expect much success, which proved to be true - it didn't even reach the installation screen, with my monitor complaining of being unable to display the video mode.

So after some further researching, the Dell OptiPlex 755 seems like the next best option, fully supporting vPro, and so fully capable of supporting XenClient 2.0 - this was further confirmed on the Xen Wiki. The 755 also has the bios option to enable / disable AHCI support.

I am now planning on picking up two 755 systems, along with a couple of refurbished Dell 19" LCD monitors - when you've two kids of similar age, everything has to be the same... trust me :) In the mean time, I am going to install Windows 7 on the 740 / 745, and remind myself of the Windows 7 parental control options, possibly also revisit the latest version of Norton Online Family.

Update: Kids, Computers and XenClient - Part 2

Having recently been focused on a Citrix Presentation Server 4.5 migration, I took some time out to build a development 64-bit environment just to become familiar with any 'gotchas'... This was a single, stand-alone Windows Server 2003 R2 Standard SP2 64-bit operating system, with the 64-bit Citrix Presentation Server 4.5 Enterprise Edition installed, running inside XenServer 4.1 RC7 XenServer 4.1 - I chose to install .NET Framework 3.5 (which includes the required .NET Framework 2.0) and JRE 1.5.0_09.

Additionally, I installed the following components onto the same box:

• Citrix License Server 11.3 (inc. Microsoft Visual J# 2.0 )
• Citrix Web Interface 4.6 (plus required Access Management Console Extension)

The following hotfixes were then applied to CPS:

• Citrix Hotfix Rollup Pack PSE450W2K3X64R01.msp
• Citrix Hotfix PSE450R01W2K3X64003.msp
• Citrix Hotfix PSE450R01W2K3X64004.msp
• Citrix Hotfix PSE450R01W2K3X64005.msp
• Citrix Hotfix PSE450R01W2K3X64012.msp
• Citrix Hotfix PSE450R01W2K3X64014.msp
• Citrix Hotfix PSE450R01W2K3X64016.msp
• Citrix Hotfix PSE450R01W2K3X64019.msp
• Citrix Hotfix PSE450R01W2K3X64020.msp
• Citrix Hotfix PSE450R01W2K3X64023.msp

As a side note, I had installation errors on the rollup, and hotfix 005, but all seems to be working ok... anyway, at some point post-installation the Web Interface decided to stop working. The following error was recorded in the application event log:

Event Type: Error
Event Source: .NET Runtime
Event Category: None
Event ID: 1023
Date: 13/03/2008
Time: 13:05:20
User: N/A
Computer: VM4
Description:
.NET Runtime version 2.0.50727.1433 - Fatal Execution Engine Error (79FFEE24) (80131506)

For more information, see Help and Support Center at http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/events.asp.>

Server reboots / iisresets had no effect, and after lots of Googling, it looked like there might be a specific .NET hotfix to address the issue (KB913384), however it was only applicable to an older version of the .NET Framework 2.0 - it is supposed to be included / resolved in SP1 (build 1433). Another google confirmed this. After much frustration from a lack of solutions on the Citrix forums / knowledge base, I ended up uninstalling .NET Framework completely (you have to uninstall 3.5, then 3.0 SP1, then 2.0 SP1 in that specific order), then reinstalling the .NET Framework 2.0 RTM (build 42).

Once I then re-installed Web Interface 4.6 (enabling 32-bit mode in the process, as prompted) and then deleted and re-added the existing site within the Access Management Console, it all sprang back into life. I've not yet re-patched .NET to see if it remains functional...

Update 1

The error has occured again:

Event Type: Error
Event Source: .NET Runtime
Event Category: None
Event ID: 1023
Date: 14/03/2008
Time: 08:18:27
User: N/A
Computer: VM4
Description:
.NET Runtime version 2.0.50727.42 - Fatal Execution Engine Error (7A05E2B3) (80131506)

For more information, see Help and Support Center at http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/events.asp.>

This time, the only change I've made is to install the latest Citrix XenCenter console 4.1 RC7, which itself is .NET application. I ended up having to install the KB913384 fix, which this time was appliable to the version of .NET I had installed. I am going to do a bit more testing to see what is causing it to re-fail.

Update 2

And again...

Event Type: Error
Event Source: .NET Runtime
Event Category: None
Event ID: 1023
Date: 17/03/2008
Time: 10:55:32
User: N/A
Computer: VM4
Description:
.NET Runtime version 2.0.50727.63 - Fatal Execution Engine Error (7A05F093) (80131506)

For more information, see Help and Support Center at http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/events.asp.>