OpenID Primer

I'll bet you have user accounts at several online services and that you might add an occasional comment to a bloghere or there. Each of these require a username and password to access the service/platform. Wouldn't it be niceif there was one single sign-on account that would give you access to all your favorite sites?You're in luck! A new technology called OpenID does just that. OpenID is a free technology which provides users away to maintain one ID to log in to a growing number of online sites and services.This primer introduces you to the basics you'll need to take advantage of OpenID's benefits.

What is OpenID

OpenID offers you the ability to use one ID to access the web sites and services you regularly visit. It's completelyfree and easy to use. There are two components to OpenID - providers and consumers. A provider provides theregistration and authentication platform to manage your online identity and a consumer is any site or service thatallows OpenID as a login option.Before you can begin using OpenID, you need to set up an account with a provider. If you already use Blogger,WordPress.com, LiveJournal, Yahoo, Flickr or any number of other services, you may already have your ownOpenID account. If not, or if you'd like to use a provider offering more flexibility, you can use any of thesewell-known providers:*myOpenID*VeriSign's Personal Identity Provider (PIP)*ClaimIDFor the purpose of this demonstration, I will use myOpenID in my examples.

OpenID Primer - 1

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Creating an OpenID Account

To set up your own OpenID identity, you must first register with an OpenID provider such as myOpenID. The setupprocess is simple and straight-forward.

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Choose a username for yourself. The setup process will let you know if your choice is already taken. Yourusername will become part of a URL (web address) that is your actual OpenID user identity. In this example, theOpenID identity is

http://littlecreek.myopenid.com

/.Choose a password for yourself. The Strength gauge moves as you type to show how easy it would be to crack.Strong passwords are more than 8 characters long and include combinations of lower- and upper-case letters,numbers and special characters.

Dinner@7

would be a strong password.Enter your email address - used for retrieving lost passwords - and make sure your email allows mail from yourprovider's domain.Read and accept the terms and conditions, then click the

Submit

button to complete your registration.

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