Dell still doesn't grok Ubuntu

I'm selecting a laptop for my kids. Mostly because they keep pestering my wife for her laptop. I'd love to get them Ubuntu because I'd love to teach them computer programming, and I like Ubuntu as an environment for that. I also like if for kids as it is less succeptible to spyware, viruses, and malware in general. My kids play Wizard 101 online, and according to one user, that works well under Wine.

So I'm configuring a laptop on Dell, going through their twenty page configuration process. On page one I specify Ubuntu. Eight or so pages later, Dell is asking me if I want Norton Internet Security 2009, Computer Associates Internet Security Plus 2009, and QuickBooks Pro 2009. Hello, none of them run on Ubuntu as installed. I'd love it if Intuit offered Linux software, especially Quicken which I use religously. So unless Dell is going to be including Wine configurations for each of these Windows applications they are selling with Ubuntu, they really are doing a disservice to their customer. An uniformed purchaser is going to assume the apps run on the computer they are purchasing, right out of the box. After purchase, do you think Dell is going to let the customer "return" this software?

Audible.com Web Site is Lousy (To Be Polite)

My wife was surprised this week when I told her Audible.com has been charging her $14.95 every month for almost a year. She checked into it and realized she had signed up for a monthly subscription without even know it. That's a problem right there. Before closing the account, she wanted to redeem six book credits her account had accumulated. We decided to divide them evenly.

When it was my turn to select books, I was expecting an experience similar to Amazon.com. First of all, the Audible.com web site is very slow. Not snappy like Amazon.com, or any other website I use by choice for that matter. Seconds lagged each time I clicked a link.

Secondly, the category navigation is not very intuitive.

Thirdly, it looks like the site is quite different depending on if you are signed in or not. The site is more appealing when they are trying to lure you into registration, and frankly it's faster too. Tolerably fast. Audible.com offers fewer categories, perhaps to remove clutter and reduce load times.

Once you log in, its the slow site. Clicking on "Science Fiction & Fantasy" now and you can feel the delay before the page loads. You get to a page that displays, among other sub-categories for fantasy etc:

# Sci-Fi: Classic (217)
# Sci-Fi: Contemporary (555)

That is not a great number of titles. It gets more frustrating after clicking around twenty pages or so, the amount it took me to figure out "Contemporary" means anything since 1980. There is no way to browse with multiple filters, for example all "contemporary" sci-fi that was also on the New York Times best sellers list. The closest thing Audible.com offers is all 555 titles, sorted by how often they are sold on Audible.com.

I clicked on that link, got frustrated at how long the page was taking to load and was able to type "I'm composing this" before the page loaded.

Suffice it to say, Audible.com: now that Amazon.com has entered the audio book market place, you web site needs a huge overhaul to be competitive:

1) Speed. The competition is a click away.
2) Breadth of content: I understand sci-fi may be your weak area, but if you don't have what I want for all my audio book needs, I'll go elsewhere.
3) Navigation. Browsing a book store is easy and pleasurable. You're website needs to be even easier. Let me go to sci-fi, and then narrow down to New York Times best sellers. Then let me sort by newest first. By letting me narrow in, and showing me what path I am on, you would let me feel like I am getting closer to the perfect purchase. Otherwise I'm lost in the woods, and leave.

No ESAPI in Python yet?

I'm considering Python for my next big project. I've been doing ColdFusion for the last 10 years but am liking the karma from open source. So I've been digging into the Python documentation, finished reviewing the Python Standard Library and the Django tutorials.

Next, I wanted to look at some reference implementations in Python as a way of further familiarizing myself with coding best practices. I had stumbled across an implementation of OAuth in Python last week but wasn't ready yet. Specifically, I wanted to look an a reference implementation of ESAPI, the Enterprise Security API from the brilliant folks at OWASP.

Surprisingly, all OWASP offered was the referece implementation in Java, plus some "under construction" pages for .Net and ColdFusion. Elsewhere on the web I found an implementation in pHp, but nothing in Python.

So I know the whole idea of open source depends on the community effort, but I'm not thinking ESAPI can be my first Python app. I'll work on gaining l33t Python skills, but in the mean time it'd be great to see ESAPI in Python. Django community, I nominate you guys!

Google, why do you hate SEO so much?

See the post on GetClicky blog re:Google's new Ajax-powered search results breaks search keyword tracking for everyone.

In a nutshell, the referrers you get from Google SERPs may no longer have the keyword phrase on the query string. So good luck trying to figure out how your customers are finding you!

Web Developers: Don't Reinvent the Non-secured Wheel

I'm thinking about beginning another web project. Before one gets coding the fun part of any web application, though, there is tons of core code that needs to we written: login, user management, session management, user registration, logout etc. But writing secure applications can be tricky, and any attempt to roll your own is likely to have security flaws. Open source can solve both of these problems: the code is already written, letting you get onto the fun stuff; and if it's been vetted by a large developer community already you get the security benefit of past mistakes fixed.

One might think that reference implementations would be readily available for these in all web languages, and that we would all be using them by now.

Kudos to OWASP for developing it themselves, in their Enterprise Security API (ESAPI) Project. It details all the functions that a secure application needs. Much more, though, they also offer reference implementations in Java.

I'd love to see the web development community support this project by developing reference implementations in pHp, ColdFusion, and .net. Implementations in each of the popular frameworks would go a long way toward making the web a safer place, and would make the development of every new web application that much easier.