So, a lot of my colleagues at PlusNet know that I like a jolly good knees-up, the occasional beer (ahem) and talking about technology, especially where it can enhance my life and work. The chance to combine all three is usually an opportunity not to be missed, and one such opportunity came up last Wednesday at Leeds GeekUp. More…
I blogged last year about the software development teams that we have set up in India so I thought that now was a good opportunity to bring everyone up to date with the progress we have made and of our future plans.
In my previous post I didn’t give the real big picture around why we are diversifying the physical locations of our software development team, so grab a coffee and read on…
PlusNet’s internal Operating System (known as Workplace) is an extremely large and complicated software system that has been built-up over the previous 9 years. Way back in 1999, PlusNet’s software development team consisted of myself and 3 other guys, sat round a single desk at Victoria Quays, Sheffield. The live web-servers were located under the desk, so quite often you’d get up to make a cup of tea, kick the power cable out and the website would go down for a few minutes while we waited for the server to reboot. This is how it was back then; a small group of people around the business worked round the clock, 7 days a week to build up the business, build the system, support the customers, fight the fires and put in place automated software systems that enabled our customers to “self serve” instead of having to call and speak to our customer support centre. More…
(or How Random Internet Funkiness Can Spoil Your Basecamp Experience)
At the end of last week’s hacking session, I was happy to report that I had a working PlusNet beta OpenID and was able to use it to access my Basecamp account.
That following Saturday I wanted to show off to my partner (who uses Verisign PIP for OpenID) my working PlusNet OpenID by logging into Basecamp. It didn’t work. PlusNet’s server wasn’t responding.
“Ah well”, I said, “as it’s a beta, maybe it’s only accessible from within the PlusNet network. I’ll switch back to logging into Basecamp with my username and password like before.” Oh no, I won’t! I clicked the “Login with your username and password” link to switch to the conventional login form and found that I still couldn’t get in. Mild panic ensued.
As it turns out, registering an OpenID against a Basecamp account disables the password-based login! Fortunately, my partner is also the administrator of my Basecamp account. She was able to login, de-register the OpenID from my account and set up a new username/password combination to let me get in.
It was only a minor inconvenience but it worried me for a while. What if my partner’s OpenID provider goes offline? The administrator of a Basecamp account being locked out would be a major inconvenience.
The problem here isn’t with OpenID as such. It’s a problem with the implementation of OpenID on Basecamp but it highlighted for me the good practice of having a backup identity provider for important services. The OpenID specification has an elegant solution to the problem - delegation.
My OpenID identifying URL isn’t my PlusNet one, it’s the URL of my blog. Placing a couple of META tags in my blog header template allows me to redirect the relying party to my identity provider of choice. So, in the situation I found myself in, where my primary identity provider was not available, using delegation allows me to switch to my backup identity provider as and when I need to.
Footnote:
PlusNet’s beta OpenID server was taken off-line last weekend as a security measure to protect it and our customers from an attack that had been perpetrated against one of my colleagues’ accounts. That’s a correct reponse that any provider of OpenID identities will instigate from time to time. Beware random internet funkiness!
In a typical day sitting at my desk on the Web Development floor I’ll come in, take off my coat and drape it over the back of my chair. A bit later on I might get a bit warm and roll up my sleeves. Then the arctic wind starts up and I have to put my coat back on. A couple of hours later it’s tropical again and I’m down to a T-shirt. More…
Update: Added review of VeriSign’s offering below.
As Kelly mentioned yesterday, I have spent a few hours looking at how other sites have implemented their OpenID interfaces. Yahoo!’s new service was my favourite because it explains everything and makes it very clear and simple. On the other hand it lacks some features that I think are essential. More…
There’s been a lot of hype around Microsoft’s bid for Yahoo! and a fair mix of reactions from “Wow! I think they can give Google a good run for their money” to “I’m going to ditch my Yahoo! account if that happens”. So, where do you sit?
You can tell it’s Friday when I spend my lunchbreak creating movies on JibJab with my collegues’ heads. More…
A while ago we announced that we were running an OpenID alpha based off our community site code. Since that we’ve been pretty quiet about it, and to be honest, any further development has stalled.
More…
Progress was slowed a little by the Madasafish project and the initial schedule for this roadmap was perhaps a little optimistic but we’re getting back on track. More…
As part of a freelance job, I recently had to design a small advert to be placed on TruckNet UK. When I visited the site this first thing that struck me was how badly designed it is. Visually it’s not much to look at but just spend a couple of minutes trying to use it and you will see what I mean. It’s almost as though it has been conceived as an example of how NOT to make a website. More…
Here at Plusnet we're always trying to use clever open source things to make our lives easier. Sometimes we write our own and make other people's lives easier too!
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