Dell has been selling Ubuntu loaded computers for long time. I think it is a very important move for Linux desktop. But Dell seems to be using Ubuntu to its advantage rather than passing the cost savings to the customers. Today I found this deal in deals2buy.com. A Dell M1330 loaded with Ubuntu (30 day support) is only $10 less than Windows loaded machine with extra fingerprint scanner.

I don’t know if Dell is giving a better pricing with other models, but this is just ridiculous. I don’t think users will be buying Ubuntu loaded Dell due to cost. But at this price difference any rational consumer would buy the Windows model and load Ubuntu in it FOR FREE.

I spent the spring break in Smithsonian Natural History Museum, Washington DC. I was working with the web branch team to create RSS feeds for a few sections of the websites. The RSS feeds had to manually generated for two reasons. The website uses a CMS that didn’t support RSS natively. Many sections were not updated in a manner suitable for generating feeds.

Some quirks I noticed while working on the project:
* RSS 2.0 is not a standard yet. ATOM the competing format has been approved by IETF.
* RSS 2.0 spec is copyrighted by Harvard University under creative common license
* IE6 doesn’t recognizes RSS XML files. Many enterprise applications are still support only on IE6
* Analytics on RSS is a challenge. It is not easy to find the number of subscribers without using third party services Feedburner. Feedburner has only a limited free service.
* Apple refuses to the use the conventional orange icon for RSS; may be due to its similarity with thier AirPort icon.
* Most website have the RSS icons unobtrusively in the corners, hence many users don’t notice them.