I've been working on Drupal distributed search for a while now, releasing a beta of the OpenSearch Aggregator as well as a release of the OpenSearch feed module. The aggregator has a friendly UI for setting up any number of sources and the feed contains relevance information from the Drupal search system. Results are also cached on the aggregator for performance reasons.

More information about these modules can be found in my earlier blog posts about OpenSearch.

The ultimate goal however is to set up distributed search for a Bryght client between a network of secure Drupal sites. The searches for logged-in users should include content that is visible to them across all the different Drupal sites.

OpenID is the obvious choice as an identity mechanism for the users, but it does not immediately help us with the authentication. I've written a document after some research that details possible approaches and solutions. Because we're talking about frontier technology here, it seemed best to repost it publically to sollicit feedback from anyone interested. I could certainly use some extra opinions on this, as it is all very new to me.

So, today I've been living in Vancouver for a month and a half. I've had time to get settled in, so I figured it was time for a little retrospective.

Tomorrow I'll be boarding a plane heading to Vancouver. Unlike the last two times, this trip will be one-way. Once I land, I get to walk the immigration gauntlet, after which I'll hopefully get a valid work permit.

Apparently, my life comes down to a big bag of clothes, a suitcase stashed with media, a backpack full of electronics and a box of books trailing behind. Plus, two bottles of beer.

Aside from my friends and family, I'll be missing the national sport of sandwich-making, sweet sweet Pêcheresse and fries that have anything but ketchup on them. Oh, and buildings that are older than 150 years.

The Belgium-Vancouver Beer Pipeline is the first of several steps intended to remedy this problem.

Well I guess a little status update is in order, as I've just had a very busy and exciting week go by ;).

Vancouver, Canada

... is not bad at all. The people are friendly and the sights are amazing (coming from someone whose land of origin is flatter than a pancake). Pretty from most angles, anyway; -1 on the expensiveness, all the homeless people and the difficulty in finding a proper sandwich. Seriously people, meat salad is only the beginning.

Bryght

... is a fun place to work at. The environment is very relaxed and the Bryght guys are a very sensible bunch (which all Drupaleers should already know). Part of the deal I have with Bryght is that I can spend a certain amount of my work time on arbitrary Drupal stuff (e.g. writing or reviewing core patches), which is working out great.

BarCamp Vancouver

... was a blast. This is the second BarCamp (and third *Camp) I've been to, and it just gets more fun every time. A ton of people showed up, all with tons of ideas buzzing around in their head. The opening party was at Bryght's new office, but the actual event was at Workspace in Gastown, an awesome shared working environment for geeks and non-geeks alike.

The Weather

... has been awesome. Today was actually the first overcast day I've ever seen in Vancouver, and even then it didn't actually rain. I wonder how long my "Rainless Vancouver" streak will last (18 days and counting).

The Scenic Tour

... starts here as I'm borrowing a digital camera at the moment. I've been uploading the photos that don't suck to flickr.

After five years of studying I'm finally the proud owner of my university degree "Master in Electrical Engineering: Multimedia and Signal Processing" (phew). So, what do I intend to do with it now? Well, absolutely nothing.

See, the past year Drupal has taken up more and more of my spare time. It was still managable when combined with my carefree student life, but in combination with a full-time engineering job, I think I'd burn out pretty quickly.

So I decided to turn my hobby into my job and sign up with one of the Drupal shops: Drupal is hot at the moment, pays well and is interesting, innovative work.

After considering all my options, Bryght came out as the most interesting choice. Aside from getting to spend a significant amount of my time working on Drupal itself, they're also giving me the chance to move to Vancouver. Once the paperwork goes through (which could take a couple of months), it's good bye chocolate and beer and hello mounties, maple leaf and mountains.

I have to admit Belgium has become less and less interesting over the past years: crappy broadband, high taxes, insane bureaucracy and an unfriendly political climate. Still, I don't think I'm saying good bye forever. It's just that one does not get the chance to live and work in a whole new part of the world that often, so I at least want to give it a shot. Canada, here I come ;).