i am proud to say i have now joined the ranks of openid!! the idea behind openid is an open source one login and password for the entire internet! when using an openid enabled website you simply enter your openid login which is an address that directs the website to where it can find the profile information and not only are you logged in but it knows what you entered into your profile over on your openid account. (you can see mine over at darthranma.myvidoop.com/) this means that you don't have to give the new site your birthday, gender, email address, whatever, and all your profiles are managed from one location making everything much more convenient and accurate. the problem is not many sites use this service yet. its very easy to implement, even this website has it enabled for logins. so, what myvidoop.com has done is create a browser plugin that not only manages your openid account but also manages your passwords and form autocompletion. this means that even the sites that don't use openid feel like they use openid. it works with firefox and internet explorer. go grab the program, get your own openid and start bugging your favorite websites to implement it.

course, you don't have to use vidoop, chances are you already have an openid account and you just don't know it. aol, yahoo, and google have already enabled the use of user logins as openid logins. the problem with their service is they do not yet allow you to a third party openid account to your google/yahoo/aol account. but you can use your yahoo or whatever account on openid enabled sites. on yahoo you can find the setup button under your account info page. with google you can use http://openid-provider.appspot.com/*account name* as your openid url. but i must say that the one from vidoop is much nicer and has far more functionality.

myvidoop.com