As I was going through my morning routine, scanning news feeds and sipping coffee, my attention was grabbed by the TechCrunch headline “Skype Opens Up SkypeKit SDK To All Devices And Desktop Apps.” Being a developer and wanting deeper technical details, I eagerly click on over to SkypeKit. Rather than the detail I’m expecting, I’m greeted with marketing fluff concluded with this final sentence:
Developers can register for an invitation to the SkypeKit Beta Program beginning on July 23.
So, let me get this straight. You’re announcing that I can sign up for a future announcement. Gee, thanks!
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The ongoing efforts to define standard protocols for common web services have resulted in a wide variety of specifications. If you’re interested in the Internet’s plumbing, as I am, these are truly exciting times. One of the common pieces of functionality needed by all these specifications is discovery.
The most recent, and recommended, format for discovery is XRD (currently at Working Draft 15). XRD supersedes the older XRDS format, which has a convoluted evolution that can be traced in twists and turns through XRI Resolution, Yadis, and XRDS-Simple.
These older specifications define both a data format and a resolution protocol. The resolution protocol suffers a problem, however: it can’t distinguish between a host and a root-level resource. A succinct technical statement is provided in Eran Hammer-Lahav’s host-meta draft:
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Back in October, Tantek Çelik wrote an entry on the Microformats blog, featuring my online identity, jaredhanson.net, as an example of a beautifully styled hCard.
While I don’t claim to be particularly adept at web design, especially compared to the other two featured individuals (Tim Van Damme and Rogie King), my use of Ajax to display a status indicator was highlighted.
Since that time, I’ve had numerous people inquire as to how I added this functionality to my website. In response, I’m supplying the source code that I use. Download: web-presence.zip
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Two weeks ago, I attended Internet Identity Workshop 9 at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View. IIW brings together a group of people working on user-centric identity, and gives them a common time and place to collaborate with one another.
In the past, I’ve followed previous IIWs through blogs and mailing lists. I’ve always been impressed with the caliber of people that attend and the quality of work that results. This was the first IIW I attended in person, and my expectations were met.
IIW is organized in unconference style, with the agenda set by the participants. A grid is drawn on the wall, with meeting areas along the X-axis and time sessions along the Y-axis. With each day divided into slots, anyone can propose a topic and schedule it for an available room and time. The format works very well, and allows people to tailor the event to their desired focus, be it business, legal, technical, or cross-discipline.
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