Dave

Dave

  • Joined: January 6, 2026
  • Articles: 3152
  • Comments: 518

iPads and apps

I’ve been playing with a new iPad recently – and I love it. The screen resolution on these things literally has to be seen to be believed. I had an original iPad before – the one without a camera –…

What I’ve been reading

I find this stuff so that you don’t have to. Are open standards a closed barrier? | Government Digital Service – "Fresh out of a roundtable discussion on the Open Standards: Open Opportunities consultation, Linda Humphries discusses whether open can really…

Avoiding hyperlocal tragedy

From Rich Millington, in his post “The Tragic Story Of Hyperlocal Communities“: If we want to build hyperlocal communities, we have to change the way we think about them. This isn’t a technology problem to solve (Facebook-style). Enabling everyone to…

Galaxy Nexus

So, a couple of weeks ago I had an accident* and my iPhone broke for good. I needed a replacement, which gave me a good opportunity to assess the options. It came down to the iPhone 4S and the Galaxy…

What I’ve been reading

I find this stuff so that you don’t have to. Exploring how digital technology can support young people to engage socially and economically in their communities : Tim’s Blog – Tim is "launching an open research project to find key…

What I’ve been reading

I find this stuff so that you don’t have to. Nelson Mandela Digital Archives – "Our aim is to locate, document, digitise, and provide access to all archival materials related to Nelson Mandela. This is a work in progress. Here…

What I’ve been reading

I find this stuff so that you don’t have to. cpsrenewal.ca by Nick Charney: Mapping Internal Policy to the Hype Cycle – "I've been thinking a lot this week about how organizations issue policies to govern the use of new…

Some useful BuddyPress plugins

BuddyPress is a plugin for WordPress that turns your site into a simple social network. It’s a remarkable thing, but I think it is fair to say that while it makes creating a social network easy, creating a good social…

Options for curating online content

Curation is an answer to the problem of information overload. There’s so much stuff online these days – how do you read it all? Or rather, how do you decide what’s worth your attention? A way for an individual or…

What I’ve been reading

I find this stuff so that you don’t have to. Tales of the city: the rise of the local blog – "In its daily blogposts, Spitalfields Life aims to portray the full colour of life in London's East End. But…

What I’ve been reading

I find this stuff so that you don’t have to. Facebook’s ‘dark side’: study finds link to socially aggressive narcissism – "Psychology paper finds Facebook and other social media offer platform for obsessions with self-image and shallow friendships." The UK…

John Naughton on the iPad

So true: The iPad is great for some things, but hopeless for others. I’ve had one since its launch in 2010 and I use it every day. It has a terrific battery life, springs instantly to life when opened, is…

Reimagining town centres

I’ve been an interested follower of the debate around town centres since the Portas review of last year, not least because I live close by to a small town, and indeed it’s one where a debate is raging about the…

WordPress for local government

WordPress, the open source content management system that I use here on this blog, is growing in its utilisation across government. It took root a bit quicker in central government, with the Number 10 site, Defra, Wales Office and the…

Ideapad S205

For the last couple of months I’ve been playing around with a Lenovo Ideapad S205. It’s a slightly bigger than a netbook machine that runs Windows 7. I’ve been a pretty dedicated Mac user for the last five years or…

Some recent dead tree reading

Now and again I find time to read books about work-related stuff. Here are three I have been tucking into recently. John Naughton is a hero of mine. His weekly column in The Observer is required reading, and A Brief History…