FindMeOn.com was down on 2006.12.10 from 3PM EST too 6pm EST
We’re truly sorry.
There was a bug in our proxy server, and it took a while to realize what it was.
Everything is fixed, and we rolled the system back to an earlier imprint.
Phase 1 of our OpenID integration is about to launch…
All public records on FindMeOn.com ( the /user/ and /findmeon/ directories ) are now ususable as OpenID ‘Urls’. They also all point to the http://openid.findmeon.com server.
The OpenID server is used to handle all logins and simple-registration. Right now, it requires a seperate login — but it does use the same email/password as your FindMeOn.com login, as well as account information from your FindMeOn.com profile.
The service also uses abstracted FindMeOn.com identitifiers — so each account you list with FindMeOn.com has its own identity URL. Everything uses the same login/password and profile description — but this approach keeps your identitiy urls shielded from one another.
Within the next week Phase2 will launch – which is mostly our own extensions to the OpenID protocol.
FindMeOn.com plans on offering mulitiple login/identity services for its users. OpenID is just the first implementation.
A fieldname typo resulted in the “Current Location” of OpenSN profiles to not be auto-filled on updates. That has been fixed.
Shouts have been bumped up to 200 characters, which is the max available screensize on the the Interactive badge. Some clipping may happen when flash justifies text. To get around that, a scroller will be introduced ( and text may go up to 300 chars )
There’s a major update being worked on right now. Its very hush-hush, but I think many people will be excited by it !
//Jonathan
I originally thought that CrossSiteVisits (under the stats section) would be receiving the largest number data.
I was dead wrong.
Identity record views are getting massive hits across the board- about a 20:1 ratio between their use and cross site visits.
Upcoming versions of the stats system will definitely take this into account.
The bulk of the the temporary UI improvements are now in effect.
There are 3 big changes:
1- 90% of pages now fit within 800px wide.
2- Some ’steps’ and ‘icons’ are being used in confusing portions of the site.
3- The site now has a preliminary color scheme.
The scheme will undoubtedly change during redesigns and upgrades. But for now, here’s the color code:
viewing a public findmeon record
light blue
viewing a public user record
light green
security alerts
red
account stuff
orange
search
green
corporate stuff
yellow
I pushed an update live @5am, and at 11am woke up to find that it broke the search function ( the page wasn’t in svn somehow ).
Search is back. More updates on the way.
After listening to lots of constructive feedback, we’ve been plugging away at the problem areas.
There’s going to be a pretty decent UI update within the next day ( the /user and /findmeon sections have already been upgraded a bit )
This isn’t an official / big upgrade — we’re still working on getting resources to bring an expert in. This is more like the first of a long series of ‘band-aids’.
I just updated the server – 20 second of downtime. I hope no one got mad.
The upgrade procedure is pretty stupid: modperl goes down, a barebones ‘be back shortly’ goes up, the servers sync, and modperl is replaced.
What should happen is this: modperl-2 goes up, nginx gracefully reloads to proxy content from modperl to modperl-2, modperl goes down. the end.
unfortunately, i need to figure out a way to do that and not have the system serve js/imgs from one version to another. so this update procedure will painfully be around a bit longer.
So anyways, the updates (nothing exciting):
- The ‘public’ facing pages just got reskinned to be 800px wide. They’re a bit better laid out too.
- Fixed a bug that caused a Critical Error when trying to create OpenSN profiles
- Fixed a bug that caused friendships to not display correctly on page views.
There’s an update with the verification history that will go live sometime later tonight. I’m a bit unhappy with the display, so I’m trying to fix that up.
What was exciting about the updates, is that the behind-the-scenes changes to force the updating required a bunch of upgrades that were in the queue for from the RoadSound system (RS and FMO use the same backend). I cleared 11 internal tickets — woo hoo.
Two updates will be pushed live sometime within the next few hours — there will be a 30 second downtime in order to push it live.
A_ Better Passwords
At the moment, the system is set to regex against a ‘word’ field, not a password field.
The regex is using the correct field right now- letters, numbers and the following characters are valid:
-_!@#$%^&() ={}:”;’<>,./?|
B_ Change your password link re-integrated
This amazingly got lost during earlier HTML reorganizations. I’m terribly sorry. Thanks to several people for pointing this out.
This is coming up a whole lot in reviews, so here are the points that I answer with:
FindMeOn was heavily inspired by OpenID, but has nothing to do with it — OpenID is a decentralized service focused on interactive identity ( login , authentication , secure transport ), Fndmeon is focused on passive identity — no interaction with any server is necessary.
Findmeon grew out of a use where I *really* wanted to use OpenID , but the design of the protocol just didn’t support it.
OpenID is simply amazing though, and I encourage everyone to use it when applicable.
ClaimID is focused on publicly claiming an ID for search / analytics. It’s great for the things that you want people to know about — like your family photos, personal blog, corporate email & writings — and in that arena, claimID is incredibly useful and your best choice for promotion. Most people I know are either already using it or should be using it.
FindMeOn, on the other hand, is compltely different. We’re focused on being able to claim an ID through a specific ‘lens’ of another ID, and shielding it from the rest.
Lets say you have a myspace page thats a little ’sketchy’ — you probably don’t want your mom& dad googling you, finding that profile, and seeing you flirting with 16 yr old girls who make jokes about you buying them beer the night before.
You probably also don’t want those people on myspace seeing your family photos on flickr ( maybe your regular photos are ok, but the ones with pix of your house, and your brother & little sister )…
So thats why we have FindMeOn. Using public/private key cryptography, instead of linking accounts to one another, we link accounts to keys — and then we can control which account can see the other accounts through the keys.
In my opinion, the 3 projects — while they are very similar — their design/function/features are mutually exclusive and serve completely different purposes. I’d like to think there’s not just room, but a need for all 3.
