I love python and Django is probably the best Web application framework I have ever worked with, but it isn't without its issues.  It has an absolutely great built-in, auto-generated admin interface for directly modifying database objects.  It is incredibly convenient and takes care of most common Web application administration needs for the vast majority of applications.  That being said, if it doesn't work for your application it can be painful to shim extended admin interfaces into it.  

For example it doesn't really fit with Formunculous or File Manager than it is pretty much the exact opposite of convenient.  I have wrestled with integrating other application's admin interfaces into the Django admin with out much success.  The look and feel is easy thanks to template extensions, but just creating a simple link to your extended admin views is just not there, and there isn't really a recommended way to do it.

A quick update about my Dell Latitude saga.  I called customer service today at 7:00 a.m. and had a pleasurable and productive, albeit lengthy, exchange with their representatives.  I have managed an exchange for the ill-fated Latitude XT, and the process is everything that it should be.  They are sending a replacement laptop, and when I receive it, I'll just have to send the broken one back.  Hopefully they will ship it overnight, but that is doubtful, and I still haven't received any confirmation e-mails or phone calls that the exchange is going to actually happen.  I am cautiously optimistic.

Quick Update (2/10/2010):

I have heard back from Dell, and everything appears to going well so far.  I will say that I was dismayed that the standard laptop exchange takes 10-12 days to process.  They have assured me however that my exchange is a high priority and will be shipped overnight when it is ready.

Another Quick Update (2/18/2010):

 So, I received the replacement laptop as of yesterday, and everything works.  Well, pretty much everything.  The battery it came with was near dead, and while I did receive two CD-ROM attachments, one doesn't fit the CD-ROM, and the other, which does fit the CD-ROM uses e-SATA instead of USB, which the laptop doesn't have available.  So 8 days, and overnight shipping means it wasn't too bad of a wait for exchange, and just as I was about to call Dell about the not quite right bits I received a call from them.  They were OK with me swapping batteries, and tech support should take care of getting the right CD-ROM bit to me.  All in all, it took about three weeks to get everything straightened out, which was a tremendously long time, but on the plus side everytime I interacted with Dell's customer support staff, it was delightful (minus the call about the original shipment of the first laptop).

Dell has been the primary provider of commodity hardware in my current and last job.  At the NITC they were our primary provider of commodity servers, but the more exotic kit such as SAN, switching, and routing gear were left to field leaders in those areas.  I was extremely happy with their servers, we had great support, good pricing, and rock solid reliability.  At the KU School of Engineering Dell is the primary provider of all our IT systems including desktops, laptops, some switches, and all of our storage gear.  Again, I have been satisfied for the most part, though the prices and features for some of their re-branded storage kit has been painful.  The point of all that is that when it came to purchasing a replacement tablet for my girlfriend choosing a Dell Latitude XT series tablet seemed like a no brainer.  Wow, was that a mistake.  The entire experience has just been a nightmare.

So recently I have run into some fun to do with the apache Web server, and I thought it was worth sharing.  Well I didn't really, but my buddy Jeff did.  Just about every time there is a holiday over the weekend at my work, at some point the Web server would run out of memory so badly it would crash.  It would crash so hard in fact, that it had to be hard power cycled.  I have tried just about everything short of sacrificing a chicken to try and figure this out.  Everything from cron jobs to bad PHP scripts (not mine of course ), but never really figured out the root cause.  Of course that was until MLK Jr. Weekend.

I just released a new version of formunculous to the Internets.  It has

a bunch of new features for managing database or email backed Web forms.  It offers a lot of new functionality, and continues to bring easy form creation and processing.  Check it out at the Formunculous Source Forge page.

Here are the release notes:

I just finished designing and rolling out a Website for my brother in-law Alan.  I didn't really need to do it, nor was I asked too, but as I am currently working on my design skills and thought it would be a good Christmas present.  He gets a site, and I get to play around with design and try out using a new CMS.

I ran across this today while updating one of my clients Web pages, and I simply had to share.  Incredible.

Oh, and another representative line:

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I've posted a code project on SourceForge I've been working on for the last couple months called formunculous.  The project page is at sf.net/projects/formunculous. It is a Django application that makes creating database or email based forms easy.  It uses a fairly advanced drag and drop based interface for building forms.  It can be used for anything from simple email contact forms to complex authenticated applications for programs, event registrations, etc.  It handles several types of data including files, pictures, and documents.

I have been waiting years for something like mod_gnutls to show up.  Finally I can use named hosts with SSL/TLS.  I just setup a new VPS and needed to setup three sites with SSL.  The problem is that I only have two IP addresses and an additional one would cost $1.50/month.  I was going to be happy with paying that extra money to have secured Web communication for authentication purposes, but I'm a cheap skate.

I have been quite feverishly moving alot of my Internet services to new server.  As I have been going through these, I thought it would be a good time to make a change to the site's theme.  I decided to roll my own, and go with a dark background type thing.  I am still working on it, but I figure it is good enough for now.  I doubt the dark will last very long, as while I love the idea of a dark background with light text, it almost never ends up looking good.