Jonesieblog

The title says it all.  I’ve registered on http://www.freeyourid.com for the free 90 day trial.  I was amazed that robert.jones.name was still available.

The .name tld is supposed to be used to provide a clear, unique URL for one’s identity.  This can then be used as an OpenID… if you’ve been reading my previous posts then I’m sure you get the picture.

I’m wondering whether or not it’s worth paying for this URL.  I can’t really see why it’s any better than using, say, robertmjones.co.uk which I already own, but on the other hand I can’t help thinking that I might look back in 5 years time and curse myself for not grabbing it while I had the chance.  What do you think?

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I recently installed the wp-openid plugin on this blog, to allow people to identify themselves with an OpenID in comments. One downside (pointed out by John) is that when you do this, your name above the comment will link to your OpenID URL rather than to your blog. Bummer!

So I deactivated the plugin and hunted around the Web for a solution. This post will explain the solution: how to delegate from your blog to your myopenid URL, so that in effect your blog URL becomes your OpenID URL. Once you’ve done this, you’ll be able simply to enter your blog URL in the Website field of the comment form. Neat!

OpenID delegation works like this:

1. You set up an OpenID URL at www.myopenid.com (or some other openid provider)
2. You put some fancy code into the header of your blog that points openid authentication requests to the OpenID URL you set up already
3. There is no step 3.

The fancy code should be as simple as this:

<link rel="openid.server" href="http://www.myopenid.com/server” />

<link rel="openid.delegate" href="http://robertjones.myopenid.com/” />

but unfortunately not all OpenID implementations seem to support this - some, including the wp-openid plugin, only recognise the more sophisticated YADIS format. Setting up YADIS involves putting something like this in the header:

<meta http-equiv=“X-XRDS-Location” content=“http://www.jonesieboy.co.uk/yadis.xml” />

along with a  matching yadis.xml file on your server that looks like:

<?xml version=”1.0″ encoding=”UTF-8″?>

<xrds:XRDS xmlns:xrds=“xri://$xrds” xmlns=“xri://$xrd*($v*2.0)”

xmlns:openid=“http://openid.net/xmlns/1.0″>

  <XRD>

    <Service priority=“10″>

    <Type>http://openid.net/signon/1.0</Type>

    <URI>http://www.myopenid.com/server</URI>

    <openid:Delegate>http://robertjones.myopenid.com/</openid:Delegate>

    </Service>

</XRD>

</xrds:XRDS>

If you are using Wordpress, the wp-yadis plugin takes care of the whole thing automatically. If not, you can get full details of how to set delegation up on Sam Ruby’s blog: OpenID for non-SuperUsers.

As always, this technology is way too user-unfriendly now, but over the next few months I’m sure that euqivalents to the wp-yadis plugin will come along for most blogging platforms.

I’ll post a couple of comments to this post to show the use of my myopenid URL and the use of this blog as a delegated openid.

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Scott Wilson has a superb diagram on his blog showing how institutional software and user-controlled spaces should interact in an efficient learning environment.

He also has a slide show about OpenID and education, in which he says:

Far from threatening institutional viability and control, distributed, user-owned technology offers an escape route from escalating costs, liabilities, and bureaucracy that come from a supply-driven model. Rather than spinning us out of control, they offer a way to get back under control.

Oh yes!

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A while ago, I blogged about Dapper - a web tool to create structured, machine readable data from Web sites.  Yahoo have just announced the arrival of Pipes, which allows Joe Average to create new web services by joining together existing feeds, search engine queries etc.  It’s very cool, hard to explain in words but easy to see - check out this example, which searches a bunch of different places for stuff about Shrewsbury Council

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