Howdy ya'll. When I checked in on this thread earlier I thought yeah cool. I was pretty satisfied that you had updated the cookie to refresh itself. But the more I thought on it the less sense it makes to have a 30 day cookie on a feature titled "Save Password".
Consider this, when you log onto AOL, Yahoo, Amazon.com, Ebay, Half.com etc... assuming that you have an account with one of these... does that website ever forget who you are when you tell it to remember you?? It goes to a bit of that old logic, if any of you have ever worked in retail, or well the public in general, you'll know what I'm talking about. All of these websites understand one very fundamental thing, build a repore with the customer and the customer will return again and again. How do you build a repore with the customer, well in a live environment, you use their first name, you remember their face... details about what they like and don't like. Its the blueprint of good customer service.. which is the blueprint itself for a successful business. Of course most, if not all, ask for a password before allowing access to sensitive information, but I mean come on, this is a programming forum here not an issue of national security!
Let me ask you this... forget everything you know about technology, the internet, or that you work for Wrox or Wiley, when you're surfing the internet and come across a website, register with that website and login to that website and while you are logging in you encounter a box labeled 'Save Password' what do you expect that box to do? I can tell you this I can go months without logging onto Amazon.com, but when I do get around to getting back on the site they remember who I am, what I like and use my first name, every time. I like that, its good business. It makes life easier on me because they remember my information, what I like, etc.
My take on the whole thing is the cookie should be set for the maximum possible lifetime.. Wrox should remember who I am and treat me like a potential customer, as most other websites would do. Shortening the life of the cookie to three days would be annoying and completely undermine the logic of having a feature that remembers who you are at all (Which I think you were only joking about that anyway ;)). But definitely not in the good customer service practices. If you were to do that change the box to read "Save Password? ... well for a few days anyway.".
I'm not trying to challenge your decision or anything... because I visit the site so often that suits me just fine.. just food for thought. IMHO I think the only way the cookie should get toasted is if the user explicitly logs out or clears their cookie cache.. Its quite easy to determine if the user has checked the box, so that part of it shouldn't be of consequence. My website, personally, that dude is set up to expire twenty years from now!
Just my two cents anyway fellas, thanks for updating it just the same!
: )
Rich
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Smiling Souls
http://www.smilingsouls.net
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