Blog posts

Since I wrote my first piece on extending a rails app to accept OpenID quite a few other tutorials and an official plugin have appeared to make that process easier. OpenID is quickly becoming quite mainstream, at least amongst developers, and that is very good news. It’s becoming so mainstream in fact, that recently I’ve been asked to implement an OpenID server on top of an existing user database so that those users can have an easy single-sign-on option across a range of sites. Writing the server side piece is not quite so straightforward and there’s not much documentation yet. A few sample servers are available but the rails examples don’t run cleanly on the latest gems, so while I took some code from them it made most sense to start from scratch. Over the past couple of days I’ve hacked together something that works for me and even though it could still do with some polish a few notes follow. Please do use the comments to correct anything I may have gotten wrong or skipped over. ...

Ryan’s Scraps: What’s New in Edge Rails: Filters get Tweaked Filters in rails controllers no longer halt on false, but instead on render or redirect. I’ve been hoping for that change for quite a while, but had better make sure my apps running on edge still work (tags: edgerails filters rubyonrails) ongoing · End of a Chapter The Atom Publishing Protocol is published. Now hopefully lots of client and server support will follow. ...

I usually try not to post twice in a day, particularly not on the same topic (there is more techie content coming soon, honest) but this has the potential to be big news: the Danish branch of the International Federation of Phonogram and Videogram Producers “has seriously proposed allowing unrestricted downloads of music over peer-to-peer networks, in exchange for a modest monthly fee to be charged to all ISP users.” Andy Oram notes: ...

There are many good reasons to make sure that your web presence follows the advertising maxim “if you’re not everywhere, you’re nowhere.” For one thing, it makes it very hard for people to miss you, but increasingly it also means that as web sites become more and more interconnected, your profile will rise still higher. The latest example of interconnectedness comes as last.fm announce they’re going to be hooking in youtube videos alongside their own video service. So all those musicians who have videos over at youtube will now have them represented at last.fm too, making their profiles all the richer and more compelling. ...

Paste Magazine :: Extra! Ray Davies ships new album with newspaper (Page 1) Ray Davies followed Prince’s example and gave his new album away free with the Sunday Times. (tags: freemusic music musicindustry raydavies sundaytimes thekinks) Brain Off » OpenStreetMap on the iPhone! Very nice. Now if O2 just had a decent data plan available, an iPhone might be tempting. As it is, I’m probably going to pick up an N95 this week (tags: iphone mapping neogeography openstreetmap) BBC NEWS | AT&T offers Napster music service ...

The non-profit blogging community has been awash with discussions of how to use facebook, particularly for fundraising. Most of the commentary is sensible, in so far as it goes. Any non-profit looking to engage facebook users would be well advised to create a group and explore the use of the causes application, but a strategy to really propel growth in engagement with a campaign will need to go beyond that. ...

Web2Summit: Flickr Places Announced Nice looking new interface connecting up all flickr’s geotagged photos around places (tags: flickr geocoding geotagging places) Home - Involve - peopleandparticipation.net Newly launched by the UK government to help people work out how to “involve people”. Sounds rather vague, but could be useful as it grows. (tags: engagement participation ukgovernment)

Since I mentioned the initial survey, it seems only right to note that the A List Apart Web Design Survey findings have now been published. Eric Meyer has some notes about the analysis process which are worth a look for anyone who may find themself managing surveys. Even though the demographics of the community are fairly well known, it’s a little startling to note just how male (82.8%) and white (84.6%) the respondents are. If you’re wanting to follow up on that, the coverage of " why are the arts so white?" in this week’s Time Out London and the recent demos report Inclusion, innovation and democracy looking at issues arising from the growth of the “creative and cultural industries.”

journa-list.com Tracking journalists from the 12 biggest UK (mainstream) news sources. Allows you to keep tabs on those you admire (or don’t) and analyse bias. (tags: analysis bias journalism news) Steve Lawson: recorded music as an advert for gigs - the death of an artform? A response to the argument that (entirely) free recorded music is a good thing because it leads to attendance at gigs. That’d be one thing if most gigs paid well, but that’s not how things work for most independent musicians ...

DougCoupland channel on youtube 9 videos to accompany The Gum Thief. Thanks to the wonderful TubeTV I have them all saved for later viewing. (tags: douglascoupland thegumthief video youtube) The Case for Open Immigration: A Q&A With Philippe Legrain - New York Times Blog “It is abhorrent that the rich and the educated are allowed to circulate around the world more or less freely, while the poor are not — causing, in effect, a form of global apartheid.” ...