June 2011
1 post
Irrelevant and spammy email from the QCDA
I’ve just received this email from the UK’s Qualifications and Curriculum Development Agency (QCDA). I was about to reply that I don’t know why they’ve sent it to me and that I don’t understand a word of it anyway, but I can’t because it’s been spammed from a ‘noreply’ email address. Bad form.
Dear colleague, Following the letter sent by...
February 2011
1 post
Econ Technologies fail at security
An email from Econ Technologies starts:
You (or somebody pretending to be you) have requested a copy of the license keys for the products you have purchased from us. These license keys are listed below.
So if it is someone pretending to be me they’ve now got my keys. Nice one, Econ.
January 2011
4 posts
More clarity please about the jurisdiction of... →
I keep coming across neat tools that claim to support ‘open government’ and ‘open standards’, but have no indication of which governments or regions they are relevant to.
The Open Data…
Yet another tuppence on why traditional media... →
New government website aims to draw in digital... →
December 2010
9 posts
If charities are to deliver public services then... →
The UK government yesterday confirmed its commitment to devolving some power to the voluntary sector, and to ensuring data is made available for the public scrutiny of public services.
“The best…
‘Open data’ is not the same as ‘publicly available... →
In an interesting article on opensource.com, Melanie Chernoff complains about how the terms ‘open data’ and ‘publicly available data’ are being used interchangeably. I have to confess I’m…
Government to review the impact of transparency on... →
As part of its drive to open up public data, the Cabinet Office today announced a review that they hope will help them strike the right balance between transparency and privacy.
It will be led by…
Publishing is not enough: government data needs to... →
I was looking at my rss reader and noticed four identical entries from the government’s open data website; why?
Three of them appear to be exactly the same entry but with slightly different…
Do you have examples of local authorities using... →
Some people in local authorities are taking advantage of open data to develop tools and services for people to use. So let’s have some examples.
There is quite a lot happening at the moment, so it…
Guess what? Digital tools are not a panacea for... →
At the end of October I went to a conference in Birmingham about ‘delivering public services for less’, which looked to digital technology for the answer to delivering more efficient public services…
Phishing from Gmail
I had this message claiming to be from Gmail and asking for my login details. I didn’t fall for it of course. For a start, I never reply to these; if I’m in any doubt I will contact the organisation in question. Secondly though, the poor punctuation and misspelling of ‘replies’ in the email address suggest it probably wasn’t from the communications team of one of the...
Charities encouraged to follow the public sector... →
NCVO , The National Council for Voluntary Sector Organisations, has started publishing data to its Voluntary Sector Datastore. It wants the sector to match government in opening up data. Should…
November 2010
7 posts
So open data is a good thing? Why? [LocalData] →
We’re encouraging people to open up their data and helping them to do so easily and effectively. But can we show why it’s such a good thing to let other people re-use that data?
I wrote…
School age comparison table [citizensheep.com] →
Integrity is more important than format when... →
When promoting open data to people, we could worry less about explaining the importance of file formats and more about inspiring them to publish good data.
The argument for open data is often…
Poll: When politicians capitalise on the... →
I know I’ve posted this before, but I think it’s still worth touting.
“Tune in next week when mollycoddled privileged snob Quentin Letts chooses a...”
– Bob from York, commenting on some Daily Mail drivel from Quentin Letts.
I’m still proud of the BBC... →
October 2010
6 posts
‘I’m proud of the BBC’... →
Beyond 2010 [citizensheep.com] →
September 2010
4 posts
What works for dogs in social media doesn’t... →
The Electronic Civic Council encourages you to... →
A web presence can be a bit like a public park... →
School student learning preferences: a... →
So far I have not been very good at demonstrating our work visually. To begin redressing this I have had a go at visualising some of the results from last year’s political engagement research.
In one part of our survey, school students in the 11-19 age range were asked which topics they thought they should be taught more of. I took the data I wanted to visualise and created a new
August 2010
16 posts
Smart Swarm [citizensheep.com] →
“… for people who are accustomed to centering their social interactions and...”
– Palser, B., 2010. The Hazards of Hyperlocal, American Journalism Review, [online] Available at: http://www.ajr.org/Article.asp?id=4902 [Accessed 31 August 2010].
Creating Database-driven Apps with Sinatra... →
Sinatra itself has useful help pages, but (so far) this the best tutorial I’ve found.
Creating Database-driven Apps with Sinatra Possibly related posts A Beginner’s Sinatra…
1 tag
Spam
From Pellecchia779 of naturaleyelashgrowth.com:
“Truly nice desgin of your respective internet site. It is person and compares to your posts. Don´t give up and make your private point!”
6 out of 10 for effort, but not good enough I’m afraid.
Would you be interested in collaborating on web... →
Usability testing for websites is something many of us should do much better, and I’m as guilty as anyone. So why, I thought, don’t we do it together?
A lot of money can be spent on usability…
Unsuck It →
laurawhitehead:
:)
British Bugs Home - An online identification guide... →
(via laurawhitehead)
xkcd: University Website →
laurawhitehead:
So so true!
July 2010
1 post
June 2010
7 posts
YUI Graded Browser Support [citizensheep.com] →
This page has been around for a good while. I’m flagging it up now because I’m trying to build up a sort of toolkit and primer for colleagues managing websites; the rather unsophisticated ‘every…