/ Andreas | System administrator /

As you read this, my blog has moved to wordpress.com. While I do have my own (virtual) server, the blog still ran off a rather vanilla WordPress installation. This way I at least get it hosted with some real redundancy.

As part of the move there is a switch in domain name. The new address is http://blog.bogosity.se/.

(Please updated your bookmarks, feed subscriptions, etc.)

Just for the consistency in change, the blog has also gotten itself a slightly different look.

One of the keys I carry around on my keyring is a YubiKey. This post really isn’t about the YubiKey itself, but more about me sharing a few insights I’ve gained on using the key.

• If you already run a WordPress blog you can easily turn it into an OpenID provider to be used with your YubiKey.  What you need is the OpenID plugin and the YubiKey plugin.
• If you decide to personalize your YubiKey I can very much recommend the DuckCorp YubikeyHelp, in addition to the official documentation.
• The new 2.x version of yubikey-val-server-php seems to prefer being part of a group of validation servers, being kept in sync with each other. Failing to figure out how to configure my standalone installation to disregard that synchronization I modified ykval-verify.php (see patch) not to perform those checks.
• The YubiKey WordPress plugin mentioned earlier is hardcoded into using the official Yubico validation server. Apart from  the validation URL, set in the function yubikey_verify_otp(), there is also the length of the key id. Just look for the numeric value 12 and you will find where the key id is being used.

No, this post is not meant to make sense on its own. You probably need to be at least somewhat familiar with the YubiKey as well as the services provided by Yubico.

As hopefully apparent by now, my blog has returned. In addition to giving the blog something of a redesign, I have also been doing some thinking on how to keep it updated.

One reason I tend not to write overly much is that it takes quite a bit for me to accept a post as sufficiently well written, interesting and/or relevant. Of course, no blog posts are no fun either. Twitter (@andol) on the hand comes very natural. Hence I will actively try to allow myself writing shorter blog post, with a simpler language. For now, my blog won’t be pushed to any blog planets.

The new layout is basically a modified, and striped down, version of the default WordPress theme. In short, I’ve primarily made three changes to the design.

• Removed all image elements from the theme, saving me the hassle of  having to using anything else than Emacs to modify the layout.
• Changed the theme color to something else than the default blue. The new color just happened to end up being green.
• Made sure the right-sidebar-layout is also used when viewing a single blog post.

If anything looks broken, please let me know.

While moving my blog to a new server I also took the time to give my wordpress installation a long overdue upgrade.  Not feeling very weby currently I decided to stick with the default theme for the time being.