An online notebook
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An online notebook
Matt Mullenweg, the irritatingly youthful founder of WordPress, has announced that his company, Automattic, have purchased the internet polling service PollDaddy, and immediately integrated in into WordPress.com and made a plugin available for self-hosted WordPressers. I took a secret trip…
Browser, that is. I was rather interested to hear what people used as their ‘home page’ in their browser – ie the page that loads when you first open your browser. Firefox makes this more interesting with its tabs, which…
I love my MacBook, I really do (although I am rather tempted by one of these). However, of late I have been having a really annoying problem it and my home wireless broadband. I generally turn off the router during…
Domain hacking is defined by Wikipedia as: an unconventional domain name that combines domain levels, especially the top-level domain (TLD), to spell out the full “name” or title of the domain, making a kind of pun. What does that mean?…
I had an enjoyable time at the MySociety shindig last night at The Hub in King’s Cross. There were lots of cool people there, and I got the chance to bend people’s ears about digital mentors, which was fun for…
To pick up on the thread of Digital Mentors – the role outlined by CLG to help disadvantaged communities find a voice online – I have started a new site along with a growing bunch of collaborators to develop the…
Marvellous piece on the background of Sarah Palin by Jonathan Raban in this fortnight’s London Review of Books: What is most striking about her is that she seems perfectly untroubled by either curiosity or the usual processes of thought. When…
David Wilcox has blogged again about the efforts at the RSA to reform itself to meet the needs of fellows in the networked society. It would appear that the more forward thinking fellows are a little disappointed at the pace…
The Power of Information Taskforce has shared some great advice on their blog for local authorities to help them share their data with people who want to do interesting stuff with it. It includes making it clear to folk exactly…
My local authority, Kettering Borough Council, is doing some great work in the democratic engagement field, firstly by taking part in an excellent nationwide democracy project, and also by promoting local online communities. First up, Kettering is taking part in…
Some research from Ipsos Mori tells us what we already knew, that using the internet can make disadvantaged people’s lives better. This from the report from 24dash: Based on 20 UK online centre-led projects involving hundreds of local partners, the…
The Open Knowledge Foundation is holding a workshop on ‘Finding and Re-using Public Information’ on Saturday 1 November, at the London Knowledge Lab. The wiki promises the event will: …bring government information experts together with those who are interested in…
DFID have launched a new blogging platform, with various members of the department who are based abroad telling their stories through a group blog. The site looks beautiful, which is perhaps to be expected when you consider that it was…
I’m a type 1 diabetic, which means I have to inject myself with insulin four times a day. It’s great. Anyway, I like to keep my eye out for interesting webby stuff that’s happening in connection with diabetes, and a…
The Department for Communities & Local Government did some great work in engaging people with the Empowerment White Paper entitled Communities in Control. Some of the activity included a blog, forum, Twitter feed, online video and photos hosted on Flickr.…
I’ve spent my last two Saturdays at events running social media surgeries. I nicked the idea from Birmingham Blogger extraordinaire Pete Ashton, who has a regular afternoon spot in a cafe, where folk can come and ask quick questions about…
One of the great about using a blog as a publishing platform is the flexibility of it. Every blog platform worth its salt has a editor built into it, a place online where you can type your stuff and hit…
Lovely piece in Prospect this month from Peter Jukes, talking about the occasionally fractious community of Democrat bloggers in the US: For many in Britain, blogging, especially political blogging, is a bit of a disappointment. Many of our political sites…
One of the highlights of yesterday’s UKYouthOnline unconference was Steph Gray‘s presentation of some Forrester research commissioned by DIUS on what online services are regularly used by young people. Steph has generously posted his slides on Slideshare: [HTML1]
It’s been a great start to the day at UKYouthOnline. You can follow the twitter back channel (no snarkiness spotted yet, must be a record) at and I’m uploading a few photos at Do join in by leaving…