I’ve been more and more interested in having Google manage, store, and maintain my entire life. Not just my digital life, but my real life. Needless to say, I’ve been using Google Profiles and have come up with a few neat tips.
Google Profile photo being reset all the time
Some people have noticed their profile photo being reset frequently. I learned that if you use a client such as Pidgin or Adium to login to Google Chat (with the same account as your profile) then it sets your profile photo to, well, nothing.
Simply add your profile photo in your client to the image you want to use across your Google services (chat, contacts, etc.) and it will stick. I added an profile image to Adium and haven’t seen it reset in 48 hours.
Google Profile as an OpenID delegate
I was excited when Google Profiles became an OpenID provider but the domain sucked. Now you can use your profile URL (http://www.google.com/profiles/devin.reams) as the OpenID endpoint.
Even better, you can use your own domain (such as devinr.com) and delegate it to Google. In other words, I can now login to all my OpenID-enabled sites using my own domain but using the secure authentication at Google.
Thanks to Chris Messina and DeWitt Clinton for the following:
<link href=”https://www.google.com/accounts/o8/ud” rel=”openid2.provider” />
<link href=”https://www.google.com/profiles/{PROFILE ID}” rel=”openid2.local_id” />
<link href=”https://www.google.com/accounts/o8/ud” rel=”openid.server” />
<link href=”https://www.google.com/profiles/{PROFILE ID}” rel=”openid.delegate” />
It worked like charm..!!