Listingslab Productions
Siege.org (http://openid.net)
OpenID is an open, decentralized,
free framework for user-centric digital identity
But what does it mean?
Well, basically OpenID is a way to authenticate yourself to various places (websites) by verifying your identity as the owner of a particular URL (say, a website of your own). Instead of giving a username and password to a login form, you just give it your URL. You're then directed to your "identity provider" to log in, and when it authenticates you, you go back to the site you were orignally trying to get into. Why this is good or bad, and what the actual implications of it are... well, that's all mostly outta scope as far as phpMyID is concerned. Suffice it to say, phpMyID acts as an "identity provider" so you can log in to OpenID enabled sites.
From a user point of view, OpenID is a neat concept, but it has a few flaws. For example, when I wanted to actually, y'know, get an OpenID thingie of my own so I could log into OpenID sites, I found there was no satisfactory way to get one. My options were:
- Download a ready made application to handle serving up identities and create myself an account in it. - There aren't many of these, and what few there are seem to be geared towards multi-user setups. Since there's only one of me, this option seemed like overkill.
- Download a complex set of libraries and build an application to handle serving up my identity. - Again there are not many of these, and what few there are seem a bit overcomplicated for my needs.
- Set up an account with a third party provider. - A bad option for me because I really don't like the idea of coupling a theoretically decentralized framework to one of a handfull of third party providers (and giving them my account credentials). Sure, someone who doesn't have their own site and server technology will probably go this way, but not me.
Since I couldn't find the simple solution that I wanted, I did what any [idiot|geek] would do, and created the missing option for myself: a single user OpenID server. phpMyID.
Why Use it?
- The whole point of OpenID is to allow you to manage your own identity, and phpMyID lets you do that without giving control to a third party.
- It's easy to install and easy to configure. Edit just a few lines in your config file, and you're off and running!
- Allows "Smart Mode OpenID" (more secure) transactions, even if you don't have a "big math" library available. Seriously, phpMyID comes with a pure-PHP math library which can be used if you want to demand that extra level of security.
- Ensures secure password transmission even if you don't have SSL! By using HTTP Digest authentication, phpMyID ensures your password is never sent or stored anywhere in clear or decypherable text.
How to Use
phpMyID is a single user (though, if you were so inclined, you could easily turn it into a multi-user setup) IdP, or "Identity Provider" for the OpenID framework. It's a single PHP script with minimal dependancies. You don't need a database, you don't need to make your filesystem writable, you don't need to download any libraries, and you don't need to recompile PHP. Okay, well, you shouldn't need to do any of that.
Installing phpMyID requires an MD5 hashing utility. Why? Because you have to authenticate to it using a password. phpMyID uses HTTP Digest authentication for security and your password must be encrypted when you enter it during installation. Say it with me: "passwords should never be stored or transmitted in plain text" (one of the advantages of phpMyID and OpenID is that they never are).
For Linux or OSX (or any other Unix-like OS), I suggest using OpenSSL to encrypt your password. For Windows, there are a number of utilities available, but I recommend this one by Colin Plumb. It's public domain code, and it will do exactly what you need (yes, the hash it create is all upper-case - don't worry, phpMyID will convert it for you). You can use PHP's md5 function to generate your hash for you on the fly, but I must discourage doing so. Not only does it take all the fun out, but you have to store your password in plain text to make it go.
Tags
digital identity, free framework, open id, open source, user-centric,This means that we take 'free' open source software platforms such as wordPress and Drupal and make them work for your business. The value we add is in the configuration, background knowledge and maintenance of these systems. We've learned how, so you won't have to.
Here is what wikipedia has to say about the business model.
As open-source software began to become popular in the 1990s with the introduction of Linux, there was a growing stigma that such a package could not be trusted as stable or supported. As a consequence, larger businesses would often choose commercially distributed software over a product that was released under an open-source license.
However, there has been the growth in the number of professional open-source companies - made popular by companies like Liferay, Inc., Red Hat, MySQL AB, and JBoss. The business model of these companies tries to offer open-source software with a free license, while using professional services, maintenance and support for these products to derive revenue.
We're pleased to add Joomla to the list of great open source software which we offer professional services in.
Our first experience of Joomla was to install, host and configure a website called
The Environment Syllabus
The website is part Listingslab Production's pro bono scheme where we aim to make good web technology available to individuals and groups who could make great use of it, but don't have the financial budget to make it happen.
In this case the website is driven by the Joomla CMS, which can now say with some certainty is very good indeed. We have also discovered that we are now able to joomla hosting, configuration and design services to our list which alo includes wordpress and drupal.
The new "My Location" (beta) feature on Google Maps for mobile helps you know where you are on the map, even if your phone doesn't have GPS. Just press [0] to move the map to your approximate location. Save time and tedious keystrokes finding where you are, what's around you, and how to get there.
Tags
google, open source, professional open source,We're please to welcome ahmed and mark to the team.
A drupal/php social media type developer who has decided our projects are interesting enough to work with have kindly agreed to write a blog about our drupal development.
With the work piling up and the demand for drupal marketing sites gets only stronger, we're going to need many more web developers who can turn things around quickly for a reasonable hourly rate.
You can get in touch about that here.
Tags
apache, drupal, MySQL, open source, php, web development, xml, open source,www.adventure-addicts.com
Adventure Addicts is a domain name we registered a few years ago for a project which never fully got going. Because the domain, PHP5 hosting, MySQL databases, not to mention email addresses etc were all taken care of, it seemed a shame not to use it as a development environment.
When we work with other developers, we generally clean and open up this dev area to the new team of professionals to give them a chance to work together in a space where it doesn't matter if something goes wrong.
Currently we are experitmenting with a Drupal Aggregator/Twitter RSS mashup application called Spectrum Twitter.
We develop on an open source platform called AMP, which stands for Apache, MySQL and PHP.
- Apache : www.apache.org
- PHP : www.php.net
- MySQL : www.mysql.com
Rapid web development services in the following areas
- Drupal
We have been part of the Drupal open source movement for several years and have become experts in using this amazing free technology.
