Nonimage

OpenID is starting to make an impact, and I’ve been using it for a good while to log into various sites I use which have the capabilities. The idea is that by logging in using your OpenID url, you only have to remember one url and then one password, and use them across many sites. Many services provide free OpenID urls, such as OpenID.org, myOpenID, Yahoo, LiveJournal, Vox and many more. But you can use your own domain as your OpenID, as long as you can add a snippet of code to the header of your index file. I thought this was widely known, but when a friend of mine, who is much more into these things than me, asked how I used my own domain as my OpenID recently, I thought I would share.

The procedure is as follows:

1. Sign up with myOpenID.
2. Add this code to the header of your website index page:

<link rel="openid.server" href="http://www.myopenid.com/server" />
<link rel="openid.delegate" href="http://*username*.myopenid.com/" />
<meta http-equiv="X-XRDS-Location" content="http://*username*.myopenid.com/xrds" />

3. Change the two instances of *username* to your myOpenID username.
4. That’s it.Now you can simply enter your own domain eg. nonimage.com on any site which allows OpenID login. When you do this, you will be redirected to your myOpenID page to enter your password, then returned to the site you were using.

You can also do this with other OpenID providers, but I like to keep it simple.