Puffbox.com

Adventures in government, politics and open source. Mostly WordPress-related.

Simon Dickson, principal consultant at Puffbox, has been blogging about e-government, online politics, and WordPress since 2005. Some important people read it.

Archive for December 2010

Puffbox launches site for Djibouti presidential candidate

22 December 2010 5 , ,

borehbiogA month or two ago, to be perfectly honest, I would have struggled to find Djibouti on a map. But for the last few weeks, I've been working on a project to launch one man's campaign to become its President: and the site went live this week. Djibouti is a former French colony, located on [...] read on »

LibDems’ underwhelming web revamp

21 December 2010 0

farron-foci2The world of Liberal Democrat websites is dominated, almost monopolised, by one company - Prater Raines, based in Folkestone. They offer local LibDem parties a corporate website template, plus mailing list facility, plus a shared photo library, plus hosting, plus email, plus DNS, etc etc, for a staggeringly low £250 (ish) a year. When a [...] read on »

DCLG’s WordPress questionnaire

17 December 2010 3 ,

barrierbustingJust a quick post to record that Communities and Local Government have launched what I believe is their first WordPress-based project: Barrier Busting. Based - apparently - on something originally done by BIS, although I don't immediately recognise it, it's a fairly modest site built around a one-page survey form, asking people about the 'bureaucratic [...] read on »

Cabinet Office heralds shift to Drupal

13 December 2010 9 ,

New Cabinet Office site on DrupalMake no mistake about it: today's launch of the new Cabinet Office website isn't just a much-needed facelift for the least usable departmental site in Whitehall. It's a signal of things to come. The new site is pretty, modern, and at first glance, very well put-together. There's evidence of planning for re-use, with the simultaneous [...] read on »

Confirmed: skunkworks running late

3 December 2010 0 ,

The Cabinet Office's latest structural reform plan admits that they've missed the November 2010 target for establishing a 'government skunkworks'... but there is progress to report. Good progress has been made on IT skunk works with development lead appointed, a concept developed and a CIO-Council led initiative in place to help shape development of skunk [...] read on »

Skunkworks status update

2 December 2010 0

I think I had my first Mr Kipling's mince pie of the festive season as long ago as September. Yes, it had the festive holly on the top; and amusingly, it had a best before date well before 25 December. But now, with two doors open on the advent calendars, I can now confirm it's [...] read on »

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