Removing the "Mystery" of how to: Sign Up as ANYONE'S Blog Follower, Post Comments on ANYONE's Blog & a Few Other Things on the Internet!!

Over the past month, I've had soooo many questions about this, so I've decided to just take the bull by the horns & remove the mystery of how to do these things. I'm also going to show you how to know which "Internet IDs" you may ALREADY own & not know about!!!

So, I'm going to slip into "instructor mode" here & when I'm done, I really hope this will answer a LOT of these questions. I also hope it will help many of you out there to feel more secure moving around the Internet & signing into different places, knowing that you already OWN an ID capable of all that, so you don't feel as if you have to keep signing up for all these various IDs all over the place. When you're finished reading this, I think many of you will be surprised to find out just how many of these IDs you may already own!!!

The main things that have generated these questions and concerns are:

- What type of ID do I need to sign up as a Follower for ANYONE's Blog?
- What type of ID do I need to be able to post a COMMENT on ANYONE's Blog?
- What the heck is an "OPEN ID"?

These are all legitimate questions & frankly, sometimes when you try to go in to do some of the above-mentioned tasks, it looks a little overwhelming & especially for those who are not seriously internet savvy, it looks a little scary!!!

There are many ways to get an internet ID & over the years, I'd bet some of us have collected quite a few!!! The main ones right now that we want to address are those that help us with the tasks above. When you click in to either sign up as a Blog Follower, or to post a comment on a blog (and I'm talking about the BLOGGER/BLOGSPOT blogs in this article!!), it will typically take you to a sign in screen where it will ask you for one of the following IDs (and BTW, if you've ever signed up for an email account or for Chat with any of these, there's a great chance you ALREADY have an ID!!):

- GOOGLE ID
- YAHOO ID
- AIM ID
- OPEN ID

I think the first three are self-explanatory; if you've signed up for either the email service or the Chat services of GOOGLE, YAHOO or AIM, you likely already have an ID for that service, which will work just fine to use as a sign-in ID for the tasks we talked about before. But many of you might now be asking, just what the HECK is an OPEN ID, how do I get one, or how do I know if I ALREADY have one????? Surprise, surprise!!! Once again, you may already have one. If you use any of the following services, you likely already have your own Open ID:

AOL
openid.aol.com/screenname
Blogger
blogname.blogspot.com
Flickr
www.flickr.com/photos/username
LiveDoor
profile.livedoor.com/username
LiveJournal
username.livejournal.com
Orange (France Telecom)
http://www.orange.fr/bin/frame.cgi?u=http%3A//openid.orange.fr/
SmugMug
username.smugmug.com
Technorati
technorati.com/people/technorati/username
Vox
member.vox.com
Yahoo
http://openid.yahoo.com/
WordPress.com
username.wordpress.com

So, if you've used any of these services, go check to see if your OPEN ID is working, using the format shown below each provider (example: for AOL, you'd type: openid.aol.com/yourAOLscreenname).

In other words:
If my screen name in AOL was: "glendasblogishelpful", then to log in with my AOL Open ID, I would type: openid.aol.com/glendasblogishelpful

Or, if the name of my blog in BLOGGER was "glendasblogishelpful", then to log in with my BLOGGER Open ID, I'd type: glendasblogishelpful.blogspot.com (So for all of you that already have your own blog, you already HAVE your own OPEN ID!!! Also, those of you who might have your own website/your own URL, you ALSO have your own OPEN ID!!)

Does that explain it well enough?? You need to use the format to type in your ID that each provider dictates for their users.

I really hope this help answer a lot of the questions that many of you have had about sign-in IDs on the internet. But even more importantly to me and I'm sure to YOU, I hope it helps you feel more secure when you're faced with those ID Log in screens when you try to sign up as a blog Follower or you want to post a comment somewhere.

For more information, you can go into your favorite search engine & look for OPEN ID--there's a LOT of information out there about it. I'd suggest however that you start at the main OPEN ID site, where they explain "what" it is: http://openid.net/what/ , then "where" it can be used: http://openid.net/where/ and last, "how" to get one (or find out if you already have one!): http://openid.net/get/ . You'll find a lot of the same information there as I listed here, I just tried to take some of the "geek-speak" out of it for you, as that site seems to be written more for those who are fairly internet savvy!!!

Please let me know if these types of posts are helpful to you (in addition to my crafting posts!!!),as well as what other things you'd like to have me help you with, because I am here for YOU. You can do that by posting a comment (and now you know how to actually log-in to do so, woo-hoo!!!!)!!! Please, let me hear from you!!