Dave Reid

I recently registered both Jenny and I to use the TreasuryDirect website so we could convert our old, obsolete savings bonds into new-fangled electronic savings bonds that I can redeem with the click of a button. I almost think that it pushes the boundry of security vs usability. Once you register, you get a little access card that you use when you login. I really don't mind that so much, but the fact that I have to type in both my password (which has to have numbers, letters and at least one special character) and my access code using the on-screen random-key-locations keyboard is a little annoying. I can deal with the on-screen number pad with my ING Direct account.

The site itself is designed so that if you accidentally hit your browser's back or forward buttons, your session is toast and I have to do the login process again. If you try visiting a help page not in a new tab, you're logged out. I can't tell you how many times I've done this. This is complicated by the fact that it's not clear that you need to press some 'Cancel' button to actually proceed on some pages. As for being able to get to what you need to do within the site itself, that's a whole bigger issue. Just to convert savings bonds, its a convoluted process involving sub-accounts, multiple registrations and hard to find menus.

Now I understand all of these things are designed to make the site more secure and I will rest easy at night knowing that it will pretty much be impossible for someone to hack into my savings bond account. But there has to be some point where there is too much security that it gets in the way of usability. It frustrates me and I consider myself a little above-average web user. For casual web users trying to access it, I would think that it would be even more frustrating. Maybe I'm just a developer thinking too hard about usability...

See also:
http://www.mymoneyblog.com/archives/2006/08/wonkiest-new-security-featur...
http://www.thesunsfinancialdiary.com/random-thoughts/how-can-a-keypad-en...

The 6.x-1.0 beta2 version of the FeedBurner Drupal module is now available, bringing the last few major features I wanted to get in, mainly the email subscription and feed count blocks. My primary focuses for the module are now: Views module feed integration, back-porting the module to 5.x, documentation, and testing. Please give the new version of the module a try and report any bugs! I think I'm also going to try and get my module reviewed by the wonderful chx and Morbus of Drupal Tough Love.

I will have to be closely monitoring the status of the Feedburner to Google Feedburner transition. As of now, the module still works just fine if you have your feeds served by Google. You just need to change the MyBrand domain in the module settings to 'feedproxy.google.com.'

And of course if you like the module, please donate to my laptop fund or review it on drupalmodules.com.

So when I finally started to update this site, I accidentally deleted the database with all my posts. After trying to locate backups of any kind (I know... tsk tsk), searching through Technorati and Google caches to no avail, I found my new best friend: Internet Wayback Machine results for davereid.net. Behold, nearly every single page I've had on this domain since November 2005! Not sure I'll be able to recreate comments though, but I'm so happy right now I could cry.

HAH! As a special bonus, I found my first hand-coded blog from davereid.org.

And don't forget, back up your databases regularly.

UPDATE: I decided this module was too specific and had no room to grow at all, so I created a new module, Statistics Advanced Settings that includes an improved version of Accurate Read Count.

Well that was fun! In about a total of two hours, I was able to code, cvs commit and create the project page for a new module of mine, Accurate Read Count. I think that's pretty good for only my third module.

So what does it do you ask? Do you like seeing how many times your content has been read using the core statistics module? Did you know that every time you view a node, even if you're logged in, the read counter is incremented? Any Drupal user could easily inflate the read counters just by normal site administration alone. Crazy! I've been keeping track of bug #90468: Only record unique hits in node counter stats and I even tried my first core patch there a while back. Seeing as this bug is not going to be fixed in Drupal 6.x (the bug is slated to be fixed in 7.x), I decided to create a simple module that would work with the core statistics module and disregard any non-unique content views.

UPDATE: I just released Drupal 6 alpha version of the module ready for testing! Go get it!

So to everyone who's been using my FeedBurner module for Drupal, I'm sorry that development has stagnated recently. I've noticed that lots of people have been wanting a Drupal 6 port of the module and have had to (sometimes unsuccessfully) resort to using .htaccess hacks.

Things should be getting better shortly. Now that I've resigned from position at HuHot (which will warrant a more personal, longer post), I should be able to better balance normal stuff with programming. I've begun porting/developing the module for Drupal 6.x and will not be working on the 5.x version of the module. Maybe at some point I'll be able to maintain two different versions, but for me right now it's a little difficult. I'll get better at it I suppose. My goal is to get a beta release of the module out by August 4th. I also hope to have a job by then too. Thanks for your support and patience.

If you want to help even more, you can donate to my replacement laptop fund (my laptop is my primary development machine and dying). Just a little plug for that.

My current laptop, a Dell Inspiron 8600, is nearing it's 3rd birthday, (about 80 in human years) and it is definitely showing its age. We've treated each other with the utmost respect but its warranty has expired and I have a gut feeling that it will probably die soon. There's a myriad of issues, including multiple cracks in the case, troublesome suspend/hibernate, troublesome screen, clicky hard drive, non-working LED indicators, and hotter and hotter running temperature. Since my laptop is my primary development computer, I'm looking to replace it soon. I've narrowed it down to two choices, either a MSI Wind or a Dell XPS 1330.

So here's where you come in... if you like my work (well, mostly the Drupal FeedBurner module) or just think I'm a nice guy, any kind of donation is greatly appriciated and will help me be even more efficient and put out even better work! It's a win-win situation I think! Click on the widget below, or if you don't see it, you can visit http://davereid.chipin.com/laptop-fund to put in a donation. If you want to view the gruesome details, you can see some pictures of my current laptop below.