Tuesday, September 20, 2011

Blogger, OpenID, and Stack Exchange

I'm a big fan of Stack Exchange and have invested a fair amount of time on various accounts on there (mostly Stack Overflow, less on English and Music).

However, I have to admit that I do not keep up with their various escapades with OpenID. I hear about it on the podcast/blog, but I haven't paid much attention.

However, every now and then, it seems as though I can't get into my accounts via my Blogger URL. Not good.

Strictly speaking, I should research OpenID, Blogger's implementation thereof, and then study the trials and tribulations of Stack Exchange. Then, I could summarize it for you, dear reader, and we could reflect, philosophically, on the sharp corner-cases of the web while enjoying a beverage in a local pub.

This isn't one of those posts. This one is simply intended as a modest link-post of gratitude (aka "this worked for me!").

The Problem

When I visited a Stack Exchange site recently, I couldn't login via my Blogger URL, and may not have even been presented with the familiar login icon that I had been using.

One Solution

Follow the steps in this post on JMPinline, including creating a Google Profile and updating with the new links.

Presumably, Stack Exchange uses OpenID 2.0 now and this will upgrade your Blogger OpenID to that version.

Either way, I was immediately able to login to Stack Exchange. My sincere thanks to the original author!

HTH

Monday, September 5, 2011

Your Blog... Sucks

Hello CodeToJoy Nation!

Yes, yes, it has been too long since the last post. The internet has weighed in, and we have noticed.

Your friend and mine, Weiqi Gao, notes that "Nobody I know posts much any more".

The inimitable Nate Neff wrote to me with a succinct critique of my writings in the last year:

Your blog... sucks.

Well. On the evidence, assuming small, frequent updates are important (which is fair): guilty as charged.

However, I don't consider this blog defunct at all; in fact, I often talk about "the glory days" from a few years back.

I've been grappling with writing an annual retrospective, now that I have been pursuing a new chapter for over a year. The trick here is that challenges and triumphs have been much more on the soft side of software: team dynamics instead of technical innovation. I wrote an article along these lines for the NFJS magazine back in April. The article drew on years of experience, but the inspiration originated in my new world.

As I write this, I realize that I'll have to shelve that post and simply post smaller chunks. Stay tuned! I'm still here.