As the web becomes ever more complex, as new online platforms and services try to stimulate and satisfy a rapidly growing market, the average user struggles with keeping track of accounts, IDs and passwords.

How many online accounts do you have? Do you Twitter, do you Plurk, do you blog, do you chat on Yahoo or MSN or Skype, do you check your mail with GMail or Hotmail, do you play any online games, do you hang out on social networks like MySpace, what else do you do online? Over the years, I certainly signed up with over a hundred websites, and in the meantime many services have been discontinued or merged, just think of everything Yahoo took under its wings. Keeping track of your online accounts is a huge challenge these days.

It’s quite clear that there is a great market to manage virtual identities. Browsers and software tools may temporarily solve the problem by providing password management or auto form fillers. However, these convenient solutions are always accompanied by the bitter taste of possible failure, loss or exploitation of data.

The best and most simple solution would be to just have one single ID, managed by an independent service that let’s you take full control over your profiles, which information is being shared, and with a record of sites and services you joined using your single online ID.

Yes, this may initially pose a threat by giving the lucky hacker who cracks your OpenID access to many of your accounts. However, the same risk exists if you store your passwords in any way outside your own brain or if you use the same password for all of your accounts to give your brain a rest. The advantage of a centralized ID is clear - if any of your personal information changes, there’s just one stop to change all. And it can easily be made extremely safe, for example by adding technology such as a PIN system or even fingerprint readers.

So less than two years ago, OpenID came along to make this dream partly come true. OpenID is a service to manage your logins, giving you a single account with which you can log into all services that support OpenID. Being decentralized, free and open source means any website can use the protocol and run its own OpenID server to handle logins.

At this point, nearly 10k sites support OpenID, among them Google, Yahoo, Microsoft, Digg, LiveJournal, and many more. Check out the OpenID Directory and myOpenID Site Directory for a comprehensive record of supported websites.

So, how can you get your OpenID? In fact, if you have a GMail address, you already have one through the Google App Engine. Of course, there are several more options, the most obvious one being OpenID.org, which is where I signed up for an OpenID. Google doesn’t need to know all.

What do you think? Do you support the notion of having one virtual ID or are you scared of identity theft and someone knowing about all your online activities? Would you consider creating several OpenIDs to conceal your habits?

In the age of cashless payments we’re all challenged with having to remember several numbers. The more credit cards, cash cards and bank accounts you have, the merrier. So what do most people do in their desperation? They write the numbers down. Quite obviously, that’s pretty stupid not a smart thing to do! But yes, I have done it too…

Now there are numerous programs and devices that will save your passwords and PINs and protect them with a single master password of your choice. Great tools, great idea, however, programs are always on your computer (static), small devices can be lost or stolen or simply break, and both can be hacked, which will give one person access to all of your passwords by solving just a single one. Not good.

There are several non digital ways to safely store passwords and PINs outside your brain, and the one I’m going to share now is a very simple one. If you make your passwords numbers, this will work for passwords as well. Otherwise it’s just good for PINs, unless you code letters with numbers and make it a lot more complicated for yourself and others.

What you do is, you take your PIN and add a number to it. Let’s say one of your PINs is 6321 and your home phone number is 302104. When you add the two you’ll end up with this totally random number: 308425
You can safely write down this random number and all you will have to recall is your phone number. When you need the PIN, you subtract your phone number from that odd number and voilà, there’s your PIN. Sure, you may need to carry around a small calculator and the list with random numbers, but that’s easily done and if someone steals it - good luck!

By the way, I’m far behind with my concert reviews, it’s been an incredible four weeks. The reviews for Gavin Rossdale, Hurricane festival and Stereophonics are coming soon.

June 6th - June 8th

I arrived late on Friday - Deutsche Bahn at its best. The weather in Nuremberg was wonderful - sunny and cool. I quickly found the festival area, exchanged my ticket for the wrist band and headed in to find the Alternastage. I had no idea where I was going, the area is huge, but after passing the Center Stage I knew I was close. Unfortunately, I missed the Eagles of Death Metal. I found my friends just when The Fratellis had started performing. We were in the far back of the Alternastage, sitting on the gras and the music didn’t impress me much. I quickly realized that this was not the place to be. After the Fratellis had finished we moved over to the Center Stage to watch the Toten Hosen. They were ok, but again we were in the far back, not my place for sure! It was fun to watch the people, but the constant small talk that was going on all around me and in which people tried to involve me got on my nerves. I came for the music, will you please shut up. We parted half through the show of the Hosen and after they were done fought our way back to the Alternastate where HIM were doing their show. It was awful. I was tired, we stood right in the way of everyone, people were drunk and rude, and I was tired. So damn it, we didn’t wait for the Queens of the Stone Age, but went “home” even before HIM had completed their show. I had organized accommodation through Couch Surfing and we found our host’s place right in the middle of the city.

The next day we went for a brunch in Nuremberg. Supposedly one of the cheaper places, the prices were considerably higher than what I’m used to here in Berlin. However, the atmosphere was completely different, rural and gemütlich, relaxed and friendly. We sat at the veranda, enjoying a cool breeze and the sun. Nuremberg is great, I felt at home! It was mid afternoon when we left the Café for the festival. We had already missed Gavin Rossdale, which I didn’t find too dramatic since I was going to see him the coming Tuesday either way. When we left the tram it started to rain. Lightly at first. But it didn’t stop for over an hour and it progressed into heavy rain, hail, thunder & lightning. My rain jacket did a good job, but everything below the waist level was dripping wet. I loved it! I went straight for the Center Stage and entered the wave-breaker area. My friend came with me but soon left for the Alternastage where she was going to reunite with the others for Bad Religion. I had the perfect spot in the middle of the wave-breaker, right by the security corridor which parted the wave-breaker area in two parts (left and right of the stage). I could see and hear perfectly and standing behind a big male Pocahontas ensured that no one would come to compete for my spot. The Streets were completing their set when we arrived and they were pretty good. Next came Fettes Brot. The show was ok, the music is not my favorite, although I knew almost all the songs. Next was Serj Tankian, definitely the positive surprise of the night. I love System of a Down and although his solo material is different, he didn’t disappoint. The show was awesome, the lyrics pretty interesting, and I thoroughly enjoyed the music.
Then came my highlight of the day: Incubus. I adore Incubus and have seen them live twice in Berlin. However, I had seen them in small clubs and that’s so totally different. This time around the band didn’t communicate much with the crowd and hence they didn’t go along at all. It was a bit disappointing, but they did play my favorite songs (esp. Drive) and it was so good to hear them live again. I can’t wait for another club tour.
By the time Rage Against The Machine came on stage my pants and shoes had dried and I was in the mood for party. So was Jesus who decided to send some more rain. Pocahontas attempted to put on his provisional rain coat, basically a plastic awning with a hole for the head in the middle. But people around him instinctively grabbed it and held it in place over their heads. And then everyone went Pogo, holding the rain cover, yelling out the lyrics. I couldn’t help but laughing, it was such an amazing atmosphere, totally crazy.

Rage Against the Machine is said to be the best live band around and I can understand why one would say so. They got the crowd moving, they were wild on stage, they played loud and very well, but after two or three tunes everything sounded the same in my ears. If you love their music they will certainly seem like the best live act ever, while to me that would still be Tina Turner and maybe Incubus, and I’m glad I didn’t buy a ticket for the Rage Against the Machine show in Berlin.
After the show I was exhausted and tired and decided against The Prodigy. I pushed out of the Center Stage area surprisingly quick and hurried to the tram, since my friend was already on the way and I wanted to catch her. In the end I must have overtaken her in the crowd and she reached the train station a few minutes after me. Well, I’m a fast walker, even in wet shoes.

On Sunday we had a small Couch Surfing meeting over a brunch in the same Café we had already had breakfast at the day before. Only one guy from the community in Nuremberg dropped by, but it was fun nevertheless. Again the weather looked very, very promising that morning, but when we left the Café it started to rain yet again. Rock im Park without rain is unthinkable I guess. The others looked for shelter in a cinema, but I wanted to get to the festival asap, and yet again we parted. I ended up in first row of at the Alternastage, just in time for the performance of Peter Murray. Good music, check it out!
Hot Chip were next. When they were installing the set I could already see this was going to be lightly annoying, it turned out to be a drama. A bunch of nerds making a mix of techno and game console sound, 90% electronic keyboard mix plus some guitars. I do not like that kind of music in a live show. To top it off the bass and speakers were way turned up and after the first couple of seconds my ears were burning. I switched form regular protective ear plugs to my noise exclusion headphones, which brought the noise down to a bearable level, but still extremely loud. Some deaf teenagers were dancing wildly in the mud behind me. Geez, I was so glad when that part of the evening was over.
Kate Nash was a relief, but not an enlightenment. Madsen on the other hand totally blew me away. I sort of didn’t like them before, but I had not seen them live and I had no idea! The music suddenly sounded awesome, the lead singer was beaming with joy and the band rocked!

Some potheads jumped into the little mud sea that had formed just infront of the stage and so I put my rain jacket back on, even though the sun was shining. After just a few songs the security guys were sprinkled with mud and the showers kept coming. I found it hilarious.

Madsen were followed by my personal pre-highlight of the festival: the Stereophonics. As always Kelly came on stage with leather jacket and sun glasses, but unlike the club shows he didn’t make a transformation into a more sympathetic guy by taking the stuff off, he kept it on and remained cool. They opened the show with The Bartender and The Thief.

In the meantime I stood next to an Israeli guy who had come to Nuremberg to see the Phonics among others. He knew all the lyrics and was totally involved, which was a delight, because I’m the same. However, the rest of the people around me were rather quiet and didn’t move a lot. The Phonics were too cool, which was a little sad. Looks like my favorite bands perform best in small clubs, or maybe that’s just where I like them best.
The Manic Street Preachers were ok, nothing special, didn’t impress me much. I was waiting with anticipation for the Babyshambles and I was not to be disappointed. They were late, the band came on, started to play and Pete Doherty followed clumsily. Apparently he was stoned or drunk or something. He wore a suit with suspenders but without shirt and the infamous hat. His pants were wide open and when he realized it he turned around to close zipper and button. Then he crammed for cigarettes and looked at the audience with the virgin cigarette in this mouth. They promptly threw lighters onto the stage, he picked one up and lightened his cigarette and that of his guitarist. The show went on like this, the two of them smoking, people throwing stuff on stage, Pete picking it up, looking at it, throwing it back and all the girls screaming in delight trying to catch the precious item he had touched. I felt like back in 1995 when I was at a Take That concert in Stuttgart with two friends and none of us had ever seen wild fans like that before. Never before have I seen a stoned singer draw such a fanatic crowd. I have to say though that the music was good, he did sing fine and the show was fantastic - one way or the other.

At some point he started to take off his jewelry and placed it infront of an amplifier. During the next song he took off his hat and attempted to climb off the 2.5m high stage. He fell into the arms of the stunned security and next he jumped straight into the screaming crowd that sucked him up about 3m to my right. Within seconds some nervous guys from his crew jumped off the stage and just got him by a foot and pulled him out. The moment he was back on his feet they pushed him back up onto the stage. Everyone was pushing and shoving to be closer and touch him. Moments later security had to pull out dozens of girls. Stoned but good. Back on stage he proceeded with his wild show, knocking over the microphone, attempting to throw the microphone into the crowd, but it was held back by the cable and almost crashed on one of the security guys. Inbetween he picked up his jewelry and stuffed it into the hands of a girl that was standing on the side.
Die Söhne Mannheims were the last act I saw. I really wanted to see Xavier Naidoo, but for now die Söhne Mannheims had to do. They were good, nice show, loved the stage setting and the dynamics in the band. In the end I was too tired to wait for The Verve, although I badly wanted to see them. But then again I was worried I wouldn’t catch the last tram to the station and that would have been bad. It was an awesome festival and it was so worth having a bad Monday due to lack of sleep on the train back to Berlin. I took home some great memories.

★★★★★★★★★ 9/10 for our accommodation and the breakfasts
★★★★★★★★ 8/10 for the weather, the city, the atmosphere, Madsen and the Babyshambles.
★★★★★★★ 7/10 for Rage Against the Machine
★★★★★★ 6/10 for Incubus and the Stereophonics
★★★★★ 5/10 for Xavier Naidoo announcing the result of the soccer match Germany vs. Poland

The Rock im Park festival is drawing closer and I’m so looking forward to it!

I finally managed to organize accommodation for me and a friend. I totally relied on her to book a room for us. She’s a Rock im Park veteran, but it turns out the guesthouse she’s been staying at all those years is not available during the festival this year. Bummer! So while she’s with her boyfriend in South America, I was assigned the mission to find a place to sleep 10 days before the festival starts. I was delighted…not. Thanks to Couch Surfing we’ll now be staying with Couch Surfers in the center of Nuremberg. That’s if my friend manages to be at our host’s place by 10am on Friday. I hate to rely on people who have disappointed me once, especially when I know getting up early in the morning and being on time is not their strength. She will have to get up VERY early. *sigh*

Oh well, for me there’s nothing left to do but anticipate the weekend. I first (and last) attended Rock im Park in 1999 with a group of friends for only one day. I recall how excited we were when we got our day tickets from an east European guy. The weather was pretty good and the atmosphere was awesome. I saw Zucchero, Heather Nova, Robbie Williams, Bryan Adams and a few others. Although I lived only 2.5 hours from Nuremberg until 2004, I never managed to return to Rock im Park, I simply couldn’t afford it.

So right now I’m sitting here making plans. I’ll miss a few good bands on Friday since I’m arriving so late. And I have to decide between Manic Street Preachers and The Offspring on Saturday. I definitely prefer to see The Offspring, but I’ll have to see how packed the Alternastage is and whether I’ll risk not getting back in to see The Verve after The Offspring have completed their performance on the Centerstage. Decisions, decisions. Oh I can’t wait!

The image above was graciously provided by Gabriella Fabbri via sock.xchng.

After Tabmarks was such an utter disappointment I decided to go with Symbaloo for now. Isn’t it pretty? even the weater is nice!

It took me quite some time to customize it. Not all of these beautiful pictures actually link somewhere, they are just pretty placeholders.