Archive for January 2010
Government beefs up open source policy – a bit
A bit out of the blue, this morning saw a revision of the UK government's open source policy. And whilst it still doesn't quite endorse the notion that open source solutions are fundamentally better solutions, it does ratchet up the expectations. Last year's revision to the 2005 policy statement introduced a subtle - but, I [...] read on »
Language matters
I'm still gathering my thoughts from Saturday's UK GovCamp: not sure what I can or should say. Several people told me fascinating things, on condition I didn't write them up here. Several things I would truly love to blog about, but I know I shouldn't. I'll piece together the rest in due course. But one [...] read on »
Photo-sharing function for Health consultation
One of my longest-running projects has been the consultation around Care and Support, and the creation of a National Care Service. It's been a huge engagement process on many fronts, moving through numerous phases - and the website has reflected that, with frequent changes, additions and updates. The latest enhancement went live last week - [...] read on »
WordPress powers Scotland's new national newspaper
A hearty congratulations to Stewart Kirkpatrick whose project to launch a new online national newspaper for Scotland got off the ground at the weekend. It's called the Caledonian Mercury, and its rather ambitious mission statement is 'to revive Scottish journalism by using the internet rather than railing against it.' If you remember the days when, [...] read on »
Creative Commons coming to data.gov.uk
There's something almost unnerving about the launch of a government website getting so much positive coverage. But today's been data.gov.uk's big day, and everyone seems to agree it's a jolly good thing. For now. James Crabtree's piece for Prospect magazine hails it as 'a tale of star power, serendipity, vision, persistence and an almost unprecedented [...] read on »
UK Location: our new microsite for Defra
One department making steady steps into WordPress has been Defra: it started with a 'public beta' blog on third sector issues late in 2008, then a Commentariat-based consultation in mid-2009. I've been working with them since late last year, and the first fruits of that relationship are now starting to appear. First to go public [...] read on »
NHS Choices budget in eyepopping detail
A written answer in response to Conservative MP Grant Shapps has provided the best breakdown I've yet seen of spending on NHS Choices, one of the government's three £20m mega-portals. You kinda know what's coming, don't you? 2007-08 Strategy and planning: £3,291,659.57 Design and build £4,266,748.79 Hosting and infrastructure £1,871,933.81 Content provision £3,010,242.69 Testing and [...] read on »
Don't watch that, look at this
Tom Watson (West Bromwich East, Labour) To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions what the total cost to her Department was of the directgov advertising campaign, Go DirectGov. Jim Knight (Minister of State (the South West), Regional Affairs; South Dorset, Labour) The cost of production and airtime purchased to date combined is [...] read on »
A few freeware recommendations
It's taking a while to get my 2010 blogging up to speed - so I thought I'd share a couple of the utilities which have been making life with Windows a little easier. One which took a while to get used to, but is now a must-have, is the open-source Launchy. I was finding my Windows [...] read on »
Geolocation: getting worse?
About a year ago, I ran a short experiment, with the assistance of the various misguided fools who choose to follow me on Twitter. I was intrigued by the possibilities offered by the geolocation element within Google's javascript API. With one line of code, you could theoretically make a good guess as to where the [...] read on »