Archive for the ‘Technology’ Category

Emergency Web Updates Are Snow Joke

Thursday, January 7, 2010 10:00 168 Comments

Right: let’s just get this straight. On Tuesday night, overnight, there was what is known in meteorological circles as a ruddy great lot of snow over North-East England. As this was expected, according to the forecasts, when I’d picked up Bigger Lad from school on Tuesday, I asked his teacher whether I should check the [...]

This was posted under category: Local Interest, Public Sector, Ranting, Technology

Worst Value In Government IT

Monday, January 4, 2010 7:20 56 Comments

With thanks to the delightful @IanCuddy for bringing this to my attention… Basically, it would appear that a “high profile public sector organization” is looking for a web editor, as evidenced by an advert on a particular job site. For this post, certain skills are essential — you need to understand the internet, HTML, be [...]

This was posted under category: Public Sector, Technology

Decade Bug: Consultancy Services Available

Thursday, December 31, 2009 7:40 41 Comments

Some of you may remember that, ten years ago, there was some concern that all of the computers in the world would crash, melt down, catch ahad, and generally civilisation would come crashing to a halt, and there would be gangs roaming the streets in a post-apocalyptic future with only Max Rockatansky to stand between [...]

This was posted under category: Funnies, Technology

An End To Lineker’s Wimbledon-Watching

Saturday, December 12, 2009 7:20 190 Comments

And that’s it: the end of an era. Teletext’s news and information service is switching off on December 14/15. Teletext.co.uk “Untitled Page” For readers outside the UK, teletext is — was — a text based service available through the telly. It had TV listings, news, sport and stuff all available to read, in chunky 1980s [...]

This was posted under category: TV/Film, Technology

Data Recovery Disasters

Wednesday, December 9, 2009 7:20 30 Comments

As usual, Kroll Ontrack have produced their annual report of the top 10 data recovery disasters. It’s one of those things which can be interesting when you want something vaguely IT-related to read at work on the run up to Christmas but you can’t really be bothered to actually, you know… work. Obviously the stories [...]

This was posted under category: Technology

WebAIM Screenreader Survey Results 2009

Monday, November 2, 2009 7:20 4 Comments

As the title of this article suggests, WebAIM have released the results of their second screen reader survey. I would therefore suggest you head over there and read those results for yourself. Or you can head over an look at their summary. If you can’t be bothered to do either of those things, you might [...]

This was posted under category: Accessibility, Social Media, Standards, Technology

Who Goes Here? (Site Statistics)

Saturday, October 31, 2009 7:20 4 Comments

One of the problems for people who trawl through their site statistics from time to time is a tendency to start looking at them too regularly and trying to find patterns which don’t actually exist. This is when you start asking yourself things like “how come my page visits are 0.3% down on last month?”. [...]

This was posted under category: Blogging, Technology, The Pickards

Accessibility Allies Against A11y

Wednesday, October 28, 2009 7:20 43 Comments

One of the things common to all web geekery is the use of the acronym. Everyone has their favourite TLA even if some people will argue about the precise semantic definition of an acronym in the first place. I don’t really have a problem with the use of acronyms, provided that they are expanded (whether [...]

This was posted under category: Accessibility, Standards, Technology

Super Mondays Barcamp-tastic Whiteboard Skills Atrocious

Tuesday, October 27, 2009 7:20 11 Comments

Yes, as you might have guessed, SuperMondays, which I attended last month have had another event, and it has had a barcamp kind of a feel to it, with three different breakout sessions, each offering the chance to take in one of three different discussions (well, in theory). There was a little introduction to the [...]

This was posted under category: Local Interest, Technology

An Analytics Problem for the UK Public Sector

Monday, October 26, 2009 7:20 35 Comments

In short: if you’re a government site, you must have a stats audit, and you’re potentially about to head into a major problem with using cookies in future… It is mandatory for Government sites to have stats audits: In the current climate of open, transparent and accountable government, it is now mandatory for government websites [...]

This was posted under category: Accessibility, Public Sector, Standards, Technology