Firefox also has a password manager, however it is fairly primative. I can’t store arbitrary information about a site or passwords for arbitrary systems. I can’t store the password data at a specific location or switch between password files for personal use and password files for work without switching Firefox profiles.

I can’t easily open up the password file in other applications.
The password manager doesn’t help me to generate passwords.

Someone, please make the password manager in Firefox more fully featured. Compatible with standalone apps and powerfull enough to use as my main password manager.

Specifically , if I want to share a folder I should be able to designate an iFolder and create invitations that give the bearer the rights to access the share. Letting the user figure out how to get the invite to people, reduces complexity. Most people know how to send a attachment in email. Consider the invite a key, although an optional additional level of authentication, say a password, would be nice.

Other ideas:

Embed a user name inside the invitation.
If I send an invite to Fred and I suddenly see 300 simultaneous connections from computers using Fred’s invite, then I can disable that invite and possibly issue Fred a new one. If I want to issue seperate invites to 30 different friends, all to the same iFolder share, I can assign rights and even revoke the invites individually. If I want to issue a single invite to all my friends then I can. I can name the invites user as an individual “Bill”, or as a group “Website design team”. Individual machines IP addresses may change, and users may use same invite on more than one machine, but the name tells me who is connected. Allow the host to see who (based on name I assigned in invite) is accessing a share and on how many simultaneous connections.

File name only sync.
Create all the files and subdirectories but don’t sync any of the data (0 byte files). This allows for a quick sync, I can decide if I really want to subscribe to this iFolder, and lets me pick individual files to sync fully.

Secure / blind sync
Client computer gets only encryped copies of the files, allows users to let friends or family to host blind backups. Make sure to encrypt the file names too.

Move sync.
Moves files from host/server to client. Once the sync is complete, the file is deleted from the host but remains on the client. This allows me to easily move files from one machine to another.

Multiple levels of access on the same share.
Bill has read and write, but Ted only gets read access.

Revision control system built in.
Track versions of files and show who and when made what changes.

Scheduled / throttled sync
Allow the host to limit number of files to sync to others per day.
Don’t sync file until specific day and time.

P2P with Authoritative host
A central host has the Official versions of all files, all peers sync their changes with that host.
But when host is down, peers sync their files with each other until Authoritative host comes back online and straigtens things out.

Force Peer sharing.
Once server knows that there is a full copy of a file out on the peers, point all other peers to the peer copy of the file. Saves host bandwith.

P2P redunancy
Peers keep record of all other peers (and hosts) latest IP, peers only need to find one other peer still connected with the share to get reconnected to the host. Works even if host is not on stable ip. Have the host go out and try to find peers when the host restarts iFolder.

So the Universal Login System (ULS) should allow you to give or remove a website’s right to see your email address, credit card number, home address, or any individual bit of information about you. It is important that the ULS gives you the ablity not only to allow a website to see your information, but also to revoke it.

A ULS user should be able to login to the ULS site and:

1. See what information is being made available to what websites.
2. Grant and remove a websites rights to specific information.
3. Approve and reject requests from websites for additional rights.
4. Change password, edit personal information, ect.

A user should be able to login to a ULS enabled website using their ULS account transparently. Essentialy if you have a ULS account you already have an account on any ULS enabled website. The key is that unless you specifically authorize otherwise, that account is empty and contains no information about you.

ULS offers the website operator two main advantages.

1. A lower barrier to entry for users. I don’t have to go through the effort of creating yet another username and password, I’ve already got one.
2. The ULS handles fixing lost passwords, expired email addresses, old and outdated personal data.

Eventually I’ll add these to OpenSourceList.org. Which I’ve decided I will start adding to soon, even though the code isn’t complete.

Slowly JAirlie.com, a vanity site is being transformed into OpenSourceList.org. Very slowly. With a sudden burst of productivity I was able to get some basic functionality, just short of usefullness. However since then, neither I, nor any of those kind enough to volunteer to help out have managed to get any further. Don’t think for a minute that I’m denigrating the volunteers they owe me nothing, and I know real life must come first. I am asking for more help. I have a sneaking suspicion that for some one who knows what they are doing it is an afternoons work, but I’m just guessing. So take a look at the project, browse the CVS, and help out if you can. I’ve got a huge backlog of software to add, and don’t need any extra excuses to put it off.

Currently I am using both 1and1.com and HostRocket. Both are fine hosts and I am quite happy with both. Except for how they handle log files.

HostRocket required me to write a script to put a copy of the log in my directory, because HostRocket clears and restarts them every day. Bizzare, but with the script it works out ok. Every so often I fire up FileZilla, download the accumulated log files, then delete them from the server. I’ve even been able to add my own log file naming scheme into the script, so it works out to be almost a positive experience in the end.

1and1 is a little more sensible. They put the log files in my directory, but the names look like this:

access.log.21.gz
access.log.22.gz
access.log.23.gz

Easy enough to download, but what about processing after? Ok, un-gzip the log files and now you have extensions like “.23″ and “.24″. Additionally the file names tell you nothing about the content. What time range do the files cover? What account or domain were they associated with? I can’t delete the files from the server so I often find I’m downloading the same files I downloaded last week The log files will vanish on their own and if I’m not dilligent about downloading them they are gone forever.

A more sensible scheme would include the end date in the file name; year, month then, day. This allows the files to automatically sort by date in a typical directory listing. The file should also include the account # or domain name to help users with multiple accounts and end with the extension “.log” . Include the service the log file is for, web, mail, ftp. Gzip the files and you’re done. If the log files are regularly rotated on a specific day, users (and scripts) can already figure out file names ahead of time.

[account#].[service].[YYYY].[mm].[dd].log.gz
99999999.web.2004.12.09.log.gz
99999999.web.2004.12.30.log.gz
99999999.mail.2004.12.09.log.gz
99999999.mail.2004.12.30.log.gz
99999999.ftp.2004.12.09.log.gz
99999999.ftp.2004.12.30.log.gz

or

[domain].[service].[YYYY].[mm].[dd].log.gz
example.com.web.2004.12.09.log.gz
example.com.mail.2004.12.09.log.gz
example.com.ftp.2004.12.09.log.gz

These files automatically sort themselves and group according to domain, service, and date.

I’m almost as interested in the aggregation sofware running these sites, Planet . I’m already thinking if I can justify the time to set it up.

Oh, and it’s open source, using the Python License.

60 days from now however, I’m changing registrars to GoDaddy.