Yahoo! Implements OpenID

It’s nice to see that Yahoo! is jumping on the OpenID bandwagon. That just leaves Google and Microsoft. I supect we’ll see the former before the latter. Microsoft does , it but only via Windows CardSpace. That’s means a smaller audience than the other guys. I’d like to see them support it via regular a Window Live/MSN ID.

Google only supports it via Blogger commenters. I’d llike to see Google support it via your plain old Google ID. I can’t imagine we will have to wait too long for that to become a reality.

I’ll probably end up with Yahoo! when all is said and done.

Meanwhile, I use OpenID on a number of sites. My problem is I can’t decide on one provider and I often forget which one I use where. I started off with LiveJournal (which is where OpenID originated) and then later, Vox and more recently AOL (in my case I use my AIM ID). What I’d like is to use a more “neutral” provider that I know won’t be going out of business next week.

I know all of the above are pretty safe bets. They won’t be going anywhere anytime soon, but I think I like the idea of Google or Yahoo! best

The Yahoo! beta starts on the 30 January. I hope Google gets around to it pretty soon as well.

In the meantime I guess I’ll stick with my mix of LJ, Vox and AOL. I hope that there is an easy way to switch from one to the other on the sites I use them on. So far, I’ve not seen that such a thing exists. Starting over would suck.

Will Gawker kill Gawker media?

Gawker has been been a hot topic as of late around the blogsphere and in the media.

Between Nick Denton firing much of the (now former) staff to the infamous Nick Douglas post describing (among other grossness on teh Internets) 2 Girls, 1 Cup.

After that post, Gawker-watchers said that Gawker had finally “jumped the shark“. Even the New York Times has written about it.

My biggest fear is when Gawker finally (deservedly) does die, that it doesn’t take it’s parent company (Gawker Media) with it.

I like a number of their sites. It would be a shame to see them all go. I’d miss Consumerist, Gizmodo, Fleshbot, Valleywag and most of all, my beloved Lifehacker.

I can’t imagine that Gawker would take it’s sister sites with it, but you never know. If this does happen, let’s hope the editors of the sites I’ve mentioned (are you listening, Gina?) have already made alternate plans to keep their sites going.

Facebook is FUBAR

I keep reading stories around teh Internets™ about how Facebook randomly “punishes” its users for some supposed bad deed, but won’t tell them what it is.

Well now it’s my turn. About a week or so ago, I added (or tried to add) friends via the “find a friend” feature (where you copy addresses from your Yahoo!/MSN/Gmail address books).

I gained 4-5 friends this way.

Today one of my frineds on Facebook announced she had a new ID and asked us to add her. So, I followed her instructions only to be greeted with this.:

(Note, In order to protect privacy I’ve obscured the user’s name and photo in this screenshot).

Now as I said, I’ve added nobody in several days.

And no I’m not going to bother contacting Facebook about it. I’ve read users that have ended up with zapped accounts when they tried. I’ll just simply ask the user to add me.

But is this FUBAR or what?

Netscape’s Legacy – Thank them for the web as we know it.

What do JavaScript, SSL, cookies, blogs, Mozilla Firefox, Mozilla Thunderbird, SeaMonkey, RSS, rich web images, color web page backgrounds and text, “shopping carts” (see JavaScript and SSL), AJAX , Digg.com (see AJAX) and most anything now taken for granted on the World Wide Web have in common?

Were it not for Netscape, they wouldn’t exit.

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The end of an era.

I somehow overlooked (till now) this rather significant (semi-recent) news from the world of teh Internets™.

On 28 December 2007, AOL/Netscape announced the end of an era. There will be no further development of Netscape after this month.  The current version (9.0.5  - I’ll bet you didn’t even realize there was a current version – if you’re old enough to remember Netscape from it’s “glory days”) will continue to receive security patches through the end of this month. All support for Netscape software will cease on 1 February 2008.

Back in the stone age (years, before Dubya pluarlized “Internet”), Netscape was the browser. I remember using its 0.x beta versions in 1994 (before the release of 1.0) on Windows 3.1(!).

I abandoned Mosaic (the original graphical browser) for Netscape (whose developers – notably Marc Andreessen - were also the original developers of Mosaic).

Netscape kicked ass for a few years. Then it all went downhill.  The first “browser wars” began. Microsoft shoved Internet Explorer down everyone’s throat.  By 1998-99 Internet Explorer was king. And frankly, Internet Explorer was the better browser by then.

Then in late 1998, AOL bought Netscape Communications.  Netscape fans feared the worst. And AOL did neglect Netscape as feared (and laid off most of it’s employees over time). However, the good news was that earlier in 1998 AOL had released the Netscape source code (and to make a long story short) users of Firefox and Thunderbird today have AOL(!) to thank for that (I hate to admit that, but it’s true).

Despite the Netscape browser being virtually ignored for years, I’m still sad to see it go.

So for you wise folks who today use Firefox and/or Thunderbird, you can thank the “original” Netscape.  Without Netscape there would have been no Mozilla.org, which is where this most excellent software comes from.

Thank you Netscape, and R.I.P.

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