What do I mean by silo or walled garden? It basically means that users are inputing data and the site provides no way to get that data out. For example, I use web based email where all my contacts are stored. Am I able to use that contact list outside of my webmail? Why would I want the contacts? An example would be to use the addresses of some of my contacts to send Christmas cards to. Or using the contacts to find friends on any given social network.

One of the jobs I had in the past, this was a common theme. A huge enterprise with many applications. The employees had to login to each app separately. This is a pain for both the users and from an administration standpoint.

Is this a big deal? Probably not for most people. But for me, it’s a huge deal.

Over the past few years, many apps have given access to data through means of an API (application programming interface). With the API, you can use your data stored in one app in a totally different app. This is a mashup. Cool applications come from mashups. Your customers’ data is being used in ways you never would have thought of. The customer should be allowed to do whatever they want with their data.

Even export it into a rivals app. This is a big deciding factor for me. Many of my friends who aren’t technical have blogs hosted on blogger. Google has provided ways to export a user’s data to other blogging engines such as wordpress. Not that Google is going out of business anytime soon, but what if they decided to get rid of blogger all of a sudden, much like they decided to get rid of Notebook. Apparently, not many people used Google Notebook. But I did. The important thing is is that they have provided me with a way to get that data out. They always have.

When times are tough, employees get laid off. Companies big and small consolidate and possibly go under. Make sure you have access to your data. Especially, if you have invested a lot of time compiling the data.

Just something to think about.

But before I talk about the solutions, I first want to ask why there are so many sites that still don’t offer RSS feeds, except for their blog (assuming they have a blog). I remember wanting this all of the time when I was looking for a job. Most companies’ pages with job openings listed do not contain an RSS feed. This is an easy way to allow a potential employee to find you a lot easier.

I’ll get off my soapbox and tell you how I found it. You’ll never guess. I used Google (search). The first solution had a whole list of services/sites to use.

I’m trying a few of the services but one of them had exactly what I was looking for:

Page2RSS monitors web pages for changes and notifies you of those changes by RSS. Simply type in the URL of the page you wish to monitor and then add the feed URL to your favourite feed reader. Excellent tool for pages that do not offer their own RSS feeds.

It was as easy as expected to use. I hope it gives me the results I want. I can see lots of uses for a service like this.

What is OpenID?

OpenID.net says it best:

OpenID eliminates the need for multiple usernames across different websites, simplifying your online experience.

You get to choose the OpenID Provider that best meets your needs and most importantly that you trust. At the same time, your OpenID can stay with you, no matter which Provider you move to. And best of all, the OpenID technology is not proprietary and is completely free.

For businesses, this means a lower cost of password and account management, while drawing new web traffic. OpenID lowers user frustration by letting users have control of their login.

For geeks, OpenID is an open, decentralized, free framework for user-centric digital identity. OpenID takes advantage of already existing internet technology (URI, HTTP, SSL, Diffie-Hellman) and realizes that people are already creating identities for themselves whether it be at their blog, photostream, profile page, etc. With OpenID you can easily transform one of these existing URIs into an account which can be used at sites which support OpenID logins.

How I Did It

I first had to do some research on exactly what I needed to do to make this happen. I found a few sites that ultimately helped me.

• OpenID for Non-SuperUsers – Sam Ruby gets a little geeky in this simple how-to.
• claimID OpenID help – already having a profile on claimID made this a good reference.

After learning what I needed to do, I had to enable my blog by finding and adding the necessary plugins.

• WP-OpenID – lets users log in to a blog or leave comments using their OpenID.
• OpenID Delegate WordPress Plugin – add OpenID delegation abilities to your blog, thus allowing you to sign in to various OpenID supported sites using your blog’s URL.

Why I Did It

Now I can use my site to login to OpenID enabled sites. I have already started my identity/brand here on my blog and continue to add to it.

It’s part of my goal of owning my data.

And while I was OpenID enabling my site, I made it possible for others to use their OpenIDs.

Many people already have an Open ID and don’t know it. I know lots of people with Blogger accounts. Blogger is Open ID enabled. Many sites provide this service. I just wanted to do it from my own site.

I have been using it for about two weeks. I’ve installed it on 3 computers-1 Vista, 1 XP, and a Mac. It was really easy to do on each one. I can access my backed up files from each computer using the Jungle Disk client, through each OSs file browser, or any of the many other methods because it is using Amazon’s S3 (Simple Storage Solution) web service.

My Backup Requirements

After hearing many stories of people losing data such as images because of a hard drive going bad, I have thought what I would like a backup service to do. It’s inevitable. Your hard drive will go bad. It could be tomorrow. Or in three years. It sucks when it happens.

Everything, at least for me, is going digital. All of my family’s pictures are digital. All of our music is digital. Although in some cases I have physical copies (CDs) I don’t want to spend time to do it again. Soon I will have all of our movies converted as well. It would be horrible to lose this data. Lots of time, money, and memories gone.

A lot of data is being moved to the cloud. I don’t use a word processor any more. If I want to create a document or a spreadsheet, I do it in Google Docs. This is great for some things and bad for other reasons. But I feel very confident that I am not going to lose my data.

In the past, I have had multiple computers or hard drives and have stored backups that way. This saved me a few times. But what if your house were flooded or burnt down without you having the chance to rescue your backup. Personally, I’d be worrying about other things besides my backup in situations like this.

It is absolutely necessary that you have a backup in a different physical location.

What I Like About Jungle Disk

One of the reasons why I chose Jungle Disk is the pricing model. I pay a one-time fee ($20) for the software and then pay for what I use for bandwidth and disk space from Amazon. Free upgrades and pretty cheap

I can install the software on as many computers as I want. It runs on all OSs (at least the ones I use). The software is really easy to use. I specify which files and/or folders to backup. I can create scheduled times to perform the backups. I love the configuration options. You can add encryption. It can be used by my mom (hopefully) but is geeky enough for me.

Another great thing is that you can access your backups through your file browser. In Windows that would be Windows Explorer. If you want to backup a file, just copy it over. Again, this makes it really easy.

Oh ya. You can also restore your data if you need to.

Now I’ll get to the part I really like. It is built using Amazon S3. I can do whatever I want with the data once it is backed up. The possibilities are endless. I’m working on a few side projects to take advantage of this.

What Does JungleDisk Lack?

In a word, nothing. It is a wonderful piece of software. It was made to backup your data and that is what it does a good job at.

I highly recommend this software. I’m fairly confident that you have data that you need backed up. It’s about time you do it.