Eleven years ago today, on May 13, 2005, also Friday the 13th, I wrote my first post for this Discovering Identity blog, then hosted on the Sun Microsystems blog server.  In my maiden post, entitled Sun-Microsoft Interoperability – Focus on Identity Management, I wrote about Scott McNealy and Steve Ballmer speaking about enabling interoperability between Microsoft and Sun platforms.  

In line with my focus on Identity Management, I commented:

Identity Management is the key to enabling interoperability. It is the pivot about which the Microsoft/Sun relationship turns. Why – because Identity, by its very nature, transcends platforms. Regardless of which application or platform is being used, a user’s basic identity doesn’t change. So, in a naturally heterogenous world, an ability to rise above the differences between computer platforms is necessary if companies are to reach goals of efficiency and connectivity they require for business success.

Although I might now change a word or two in that paragraph, the essence of the statement still holds true –  Identity is definitely a key enabler for digital interactions among people, systems, applications and devices.

As a novice blogger, I also commented about my excitement in joining Sun the previous October:

I’m delighted to be here, on the front lines of a market with high customer demand, multiple business benefits, interesting innovation, strong competition and real-world results.

It turned out that publishing my blog was the single most beneficial thing I did for my career at Sun. It opened doors, solidified my credibility, triggered new opportunities and launched new friendships with people all over the world.

A lot of water has passed under the proverbial bridge in the last eleven years. Just think – my blog is older than the iPhone and almost as old as Facebook!  Once a formidable giant, Sun Microsystems is no more. Interesting terms like the “Internet of Things” and “selfie” hadn’t yet been invented when this blog was launched. The number of channels for sharing information on the Internet has skyrocketed exponentially since then. But the content of this blog still hangs around. 

Although the frequency of my posts diminished dramatically after joining Oracle six years ago, and my blog’s popularity in the IAM industry certainly waned, I still find it enjoyable to make my little contribution to the blogosphere every now and then.

It makes me wonder, what will the next eleven years bring?

About a month ago, I began in earnest to renew my commitment to blogging.  Since then, I have been much more diligent in posting to this Discovering Identity blog.  Yesterday and today, I made a few long-overdue adjustments to the structure of the blog.

I added the following buttons so visitors can more easily post links for individual blog posts to Twitter, LinkedIn and Google+, with the option of using Buffer to delay the post to a later time if desired:

You can now link to the social networking sites I pay attention to via icons on the sidebar:

A couple of months ago, I started sharing some photos on SmugMug.  The SmugMug photo bar in the right sidebar gives you a glimpse of some of the photos I have shared.

Last night, I was experimenting with IFTTT to see if it would automatically announce my blog posts on Twitter and LinkedIn.  Last night, it worked on LinkedIn, but not Twitter.  Apparently there was a problem with authentication to my Twitter account. That fixed, it seemed to work just fine this morning … albeit not very quickly.

I am testing a new recipe on IFTTT.com.  If an announcement of this post automatically appears on Twitter, it works.

 

If it works, it will save me a few keystrokes each time I blog, but perhaps more importantly, will demonstrate a simple form of cloud based programming.

It’s almost 3:00 AM. In a moment of insomniac epiphany, I found the meaning of life …

… in a Non Sequitur sort of way!

As I search for a decent blog editor, I am re-visiting ScribeFire, a brower extension which I used back in the Windows days before I found LiveWriter.  It seems to do a decent job, but I can’t find support for Technorati tags or Twitter messaging.  Image management is limited.  

I am posting this via the ScribeFire extension to Google Chrome.  We’ll see it the Safari extension works any differently.

A real surprise for me when migrating recently from Window to Mac is the dearth of good blogging clients on MacOS.  I have tried Ecto and MarsEdit, both of which are drastically inferior to the LiveWriter blog client for Windows by Microsoft.  Particularly, I miss the great image handling capability, with built in sizing, borders and alignment GUI that helped make blogging fast and effortless.

I am posting this note with Qumana, hoping it provides some relief.  Its image handling is a bit better, but it doesn’t appear to handle WordPress tags correctly.

Tags: blogging, Mac

Well, let’s see how this blog client works. I can embed a photo, but couldn’t figure out at first how to put it on the right side of the page, despite a tool that should do just. I’ll keep at it. It does appear to have a location feature.

Location:2646 E El Moro Ave, Mesa, United States

Tis is my first attempt at using my new iPad to author a blog post. I am using the WordPress blog client

Sorry, there doesn’t appear to be a way to embed a photo in the post.

This is a test of the MarsEdit blog client.  I hope it is better than the previous ones I have tried.  I find it ironic that Windows-only Microsoft Live Writer seems to be head and shoulders above blog editors I have seen on the Mac.

But MarsEdit looks like it will be sufficient for the fairly simple formats I use.

Technorati Tags: Blog, MarsEdit, Mac