Tech Geek

I've commented a few times about wanting to talk about OpenID. This is not a new federal identification system that will allow us to get on airplanes without standing in line. It is a system that will hopefully slow down the accumulation of IDs and passwords that all of use have to various websites.

OpenID provides a method for using one username on a variety of websites. It is free and allows for access to almost ten-thousand different websites. It is an intentionally open source concept that does not charge for users or providers.

So how do you take advantage of it? First, you have to establish an online presence using any one of the following sites. If you have an account, and therefore awebpage, with one of these providers, you already have an OpenID. The list is from OpenID.net, at the How do I get an OpenID page.

AOL

openid.aol.com/screenname

Blogger

blogname.blogspot.com

Flickr

www.flickr.com/photos/username

LiveDoor

profile.livedoor.com/username

LiveJournal

username.livejournal.com

Orange (France Telecom)

http://openid.orange.fr/

SmugMug

username.smugmug.com

Technorati

technorati.com/people/technorati/username

Vox

member.vox.com

Yahoo

http://openid.yahoo.com

WordPress.com

username.wordpress.com

I have been using my blogger site as my OpenID for a few months now. Even if you don't update your blog, you can still use it as an OpenID. I'll take you through the process I used to login to MyMileMarker.com, a site that I'm using to track my cares gas mileage.

1. Visit the website, mymilemarker.com .
2. Click the Login with OpenID >>  link
3. Enter pastorandy.blogspot.com into the hard-to-see, black-on-black, box.
4. Click the Login >> button.
5. Now, some magic happens, and I am asked by Blogger to login to my account. This is actually a Google Account, since Google bought Blogger, but I verify in the toolbar that it is Blogger/Google asking for my information.
6. I fill this in and then some more magic happens (there is the passing of a bit of cyber-information) and I'm logged into MyMileMarker.com.

There are at least two advantages to this system. First, I don't need to remember yet another username and password for the new website. Second, if I'm already logged in to Blogger, I don't have to re-enter my username and password a second time. As the number of websites using this system increase it will continue to become a more and more viable alternative to collecting dozens ofusernames and passwords.

Whenever you go to a new website, look for the OpenID Logo and click on that to use your OpenID to create an account on that site.