Citizensheep. "Michael Grimes lives in Birmingham (UK). This is his blog about anything that he fancies."

This page has been around for a good while. I’m flagging it up now because I’m trying to build up a sort of toolkit and primer for colleagues managing websites; the rather unsophisticated ‘every user should have exactly the same experience on our website’ is – sadly and surprisingly – still a common attitude. This [...]

Education Eye is a pretty tool from Futurelab, showcasing online educational innovations. “Education Eye is a free, engaging and easy-to-use online space that gives access to a wide range of useful and relevant innovations across educations’ varied communities. Connecting people with innovative uses of digital technology, new resources and new approaches to teaching and learning [...]

For months I’ve been having conversations with people about how we should set up a Rails beginners group in Birmingham, so now I’m actually going to do it. I realise that even among beginners there will be a wide range of expertise levels. Therefore I ask attenders to have at least started trying to write [...]

On the train this morning I had with me my laptop, iPhone, Flip video camera and Zoom audio recorder. But my brain wanted pen and paper: why? It wasn’t that I couldn’t use what I had, but that in order to get my thoughts out of my head relatively intact my brain needed another conduit. The thing [...]

The first session I went to at yesterday’s Talk About Local un-conference was on the legal problems of managing sites that allow user feedback or investigate stories of public interest. It’s very depressing to hear of the crippling situations people repeatedly find themselves in, simply through a determination to get at the truth in the [...]

Nibbler is a free online tool for testing websites. Give it a URL and it will test five associated pages against a range of criteria. It's still in Alpha, and I haven't looked closely to see how it actually works, but it could be very useful as part of a web developer's toolkit. Visit Nibbler [...]

This appears to be Google's belated answer to StumbleUpon, which has been around for ages. It claims to find cool stuff on the internet based on your interests. I quite like it, but it's bloody hard to find. There was a temporary message in Google Reader shouting 'Try it now!', but that's now gone and [...]

I’m concerned about the Digital Economy Bill so I’ve just sent one of those standard lobbying emails to my MP. I used the online form at 38 Degrees because it was easy, but I made substantial changes to the message (I would have added more but I was in a hurry, hence the convenience of [...]

A very good piece by David Schneiderman on the effect of the internet on journalism. I particularly like his 'Final Perspective', which I think applies to organisations acroos sectors: "Many of the fundamental, underlying principles of effective public relations remain unchanged by this emerging world without newspapers. "But make no mistake, the revolution is indeed [...]

"Downloading music without the permission of the copyright holder should qualify for copyright laws' exemptions for 'fair use', a Harvard academic has said. Partial responsibility lies with the music industry itself for failing to adapt, he said."

Visit Harvard professor says downloading is 'fair use'