It’s definitely been a fun and tremendously educational run, but our time with the VMware VCP5 blueprint is at its end. Brian Tobia will be finishing the series with a BOOM! when he presents Section 7 of the blueprint this Wednesday February 22nd at 7PM CST. Register for the Brownbag with Brian today!

Brian Tobia is a technology consultant at RSA, The Security Division of EMC, with a specific focus on cloud and virtualization security. Previously, Brian has held various systems and network administration roles within VMware environments since the ESX 2.x days. He currently holds his VCP4 and VCP5 and is active in the VMware communities and can be found on Twitter via @btobia.

Not that you need any reminding, but February 29th is the deadline for existing VCP4′s to earn the VCP5 certificate without taking an accompanying class. If you haven’t scheduled the exam yet, you should! :)

In spite of the friendly teasing on the call and on Twitter, Josh did a fantastic job at presenting Section 6 of the VMware VCP 5 Blueprint! :) Thanks, Josh & everyone who attended live, I found it to be very informative and fun. As always, you can find the Brownbag recording on ProfessionalVMware.com, iTunes, and through the standard podcast RSS feed.

One last note: if you haven’t had a chance to listen to the APAC Brownbag, you should! They’re working on VCAP-DCD for vSphere 5; I think you’ll find it to be very informative and useful as well.

This Wednesday, February 15 at 7:00PM CST, we’ll have Josh Atwell (web/twitter) on the Brownbag to present Section 6 of the VMware VCP5 blueprint. Register now!

Josh Atwell is a systems administrator with CH Reynolds Electric working at Cisco systems where he helps manage a large VMware virtualization environment. He focuses his efforts on PowerCLI scripting and automation. Josh currently holds VCAP-DCD, VCAP-DCA, and VCP3/4 certifications.

Another great show with our friend David Davis. Thanks to David for presenting on 2/8/2012, and thanks to all who participated on the call, chat, and on Twitter. You can find the podcast video on professionalvmware.com.

This Wednesday, February 8 at 7:00PM CST, we’ll have David Davis (@davidmdavis) on the Brownbag to present Section 5 of the VMware VCP5 blueprint. Register now!

David Davis is the author of the best-selling VMware vSphere video training library from TrainSignal. He has written hundreds of virtualization articles on the Web, is a vExpert, VCP, VCAP-DCA, and CCIE #9369 with more than 18 years of enterprise IT experience. His personal Website is VMwareVideos.com.

Jason Boche (web/twitter) presented Section 4 of the VMware VCP5 blueprint on Wednesday February 1st. You can find the video on ProfessionalVMware.com, on the RSS feed or on iTunes.

I was thinking today about a number of things that really annoy me about the overall user experience of browsing the Internet on a mobile device. (For the record, I use mobile Safari.) And before you think that I’m going to go all Andy Rooney on you (“You know what I don’t like about gophers?”), I just ask for you to bear with me; I’m certain that there are a number of things on this list that annoy you too.

Before I begin, a quick note: I understand that I’m just one guy on the internet with just one little voice. However, I’m hoping that somehow, in some way, this message gets out to site developers to start making their user experiences better. My frustrations listed here aren’t found only on old-school companies trying to be hip or cool (think Dr. Evil attempting the Macarena), but can be found on sites that should know better, like Mashable.

Modal windows

You know what I’m referring to, although you might not have known what they’re called. They’re those little windows that pop over a website, typically while darkening the site behind it; something akin to the Windows 7 User Account Control experience where the screen dims around a box, prompting you for input. Admittedly, I used to think modal windows were cool, especially when used in conjunction with photo galleries; who knows, perhaps there still are cool use cases for them. However, on a mobile device they tend to be a giant pain to use, causing a poor user experience.

Most modal windows take the size of the browser window into account when attempting to position themselves right smack dab in the middle. While this behavior may be OK for a desktop based browser, on a mobile it’s terrible. I can’t even remember how many times I’d be zoomed into some content on a mobile browser and a modal window popped up (often times, all by itself), not in the middle of my screen (making it easy), but rather down in the far right hand corner. When this happens, I’m forced to try to zoom out my view in an attempt to get to the X or close button. Even this doesn’t always work well, as the script that’s popping up the modal window might fire again when it senses a browser resize and again puts it in the far right hand corner. My assumption is that the script that’s calculating the centering is interpreting the dimensions of the browser to be bigger than the screen itself. Honestly, I don’t know if it’s because a site isn’t doing a good job on identifying the browser user-agent (user agents are a browser’s means of announcing who they are to sites), or if it’s lazy development from the folks who built the site, or an issue with mobile Safari – ultimately, it’s a poor user experience and has to stop.

I’ve had a number of experiences where I’ve had to fight a modal window in order to return to the content I wanted to read, but was unable to. What happens then? I leave your site. Seriously. So if you care about click throughs, time spent on site, or site exit pages; STOP making it hard for me to read something.

Please. I’m begging you here.

Tiny little click-boxes

Ok, seriously folks, this is a mobile device. The accuracy of a touch screen interface powered by a human hand isn’t the same sort of accuracy you might get from a mouse and a desktop browser. Stop making it hard for me to click things on your website, especially the !@#$ tiny little click-boxes in your modal windows.

Mobile sites that don’t translate full-version links

What do I mean by this? I’m sure you’ve had the experience by now where you’re using a mobile device and click on a link in an email, Twitter, or Facebook. Instead of getting the content you wanted to get, you’re instead presented with a mobile version of that same site WITHOUT the content you wanted. WHY? If you have a mobile version of a “full desktop” website, PLEASE make the both of them aware of the other; otherwise, you have no stinking business even making a mobile site in the first place. I don’t want to have to search your mobile site for the content, and I don’t want to have to find your “switch to full version” link (if you have one), then re-click the link in the hopes that I’ll actually get to your content. While I’m on the subject of mobile sites, please for the love of all things good and right…

Stop forcing me to use one version of your site or the other

If I get presented with the mobile version of your site, and then choose to go to the full desktop experience, please remember my choice. DON’T force me back to your mobile site. There’s a reason why I made that choice, wouldn’t you think? Make your site smarter, or frustrate and potentially alienate a huge part of your site’s audience.

Advertisements

Sometimes I feel like mobile browsing has taken the overall Internet experience that most have become accustomed to in the past decade and thrown it in the trash. Why in the world do I still have to view all sorts of ads and pop over windows and flashing crappy gif animations, etc? A mobile equivalent of AdBlock needs to exist. (Admittedly, it might in the Android world of mobile devices, but since I’m an iOS user… Well, we all know how much Apple loves to control the user experience and the platform by which it’s delivered, but I digress.) Somehow this sort of functionality is needed. Will someone please get the scientists working on this already?

OMG Stop complaining

OK. That’s enough for now; I think I’ve managed to get most of this out of my system. Site developers, please take my concerns into consideration. I’m sure I’m not the only one frustrated.

Thanks to Scott Lowe for dropping some science on us on the last Brownbag. The video is available on professionalvmware.com, and should be available in the RSS feed and on iTunes.

This Wednesday February 1st 2012, Jason Boche (web/twitter) will be presenting Section 4 (VMs and vApps) of the VMware VCP 5 blueprint. Jason is a long time friend of the show, having presented a number of times and actively participating in the webinars as his schedule allows. I’m quite grateful that Jason has made the time to visit with us about Section 4, and I trust that it will be a valuable use of your time as well.

Jason Boche is an IT industry veteran, a VMware Virtualization Evangelist, and a blogger with nearly 15 years of professional experience. Boche maintains a top-10 VMware blog at boche.net, has twice been awarded VMware vEXPERT, is the Minneapolis Area VMware User Group Leader, is a frequent VMware/VMTN Communities Roundtable podcaster, and is a contributor/moderator at the VMware VMTN Communities as well as the Petri IT Knowledgebase. Boche holds the following technical certifications: VCDX3 (#34), VCDX4, VCAP4-DCA (#14), VCAP4-DCD (#35), VCPx3, MCSEx3, MCSAx2, MCP, CCAx2, A+.

Register for the Brownbag and join us on Wednesday February 1st at 7pm CST.

[Note: Somehow I missed posting this after the video was available, but for the sake of continuity, here it is.]

Huge thanks to vExpert Shane Williford (twitter) for coming on the Brownbag podcast and presenting section 3 of the VMware VCP 5 blueprint. As always, the video can be found on professionalvmware.com, the Brownbag RSS feed, and on iTunes.