David Eaves's Blog – July 2011 Archive (13)

My friends over at Greenpeace recently published an interesting report entitled "How dirty is your data?

A Look at the Energy Choices That Power Cloud Computing."

For those who think that cloud computing is an environmentally friendly business, let's just say... it's not without its problems.

What's most interesting is the huge opportunity the cloud presents for changing…

This post is a discussion about making bug tracking in Bugzilla for the Mozilla project more efficient. However, I believe it is applicable to any open source project or even companies or governments running service desks (think 311).

Almost exactly a year ago I wrote a blog post titled: Some thoughts on improving Bugzilla in which I made several suggestions for improving the work flow in bugzilla.…

When the News of the World scandal began to really explode at the beginning of the month some intrepid reporter went and tracked down members of the Bancroft family - the former owners of the Wall Street Journal - and asked them if they regretted selling their controlling stock of the newspaper to Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation.

Many did.

Since…

Despite the assurances of US Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner it is increasingly likely there will be no debt deal. The United States is going to default on its debt. I know it sounds crazy, but I believe it is going to happen. If it does, this is the black swan event no one imagined or was prepared to contemplate. It's impacts are going to be significant. Possibly immeasurable.

For history, August 2nd, 2011 could end up…

So now I've been a couple of weeks with Google+ and I'll be honest, I'm really struggling with the service. I wanted to give it a few weeks before writing anything, which has been helpful in letting my thinking mature.

First, before my Google friends get upset, I want to acknowledge the reason I'm struggling has more to do with me than with Google+. My sense is that Google+ is designed to manage personal networks. In terms of social networking, the priority, like at Facebook, is on a…

(for readers less interested in Open Data - I promise something different tomorrow)

In February I wrote how 2011 would be the year of the license for Canada's open data community. This has indeed been the case. For public servants and politicians overseeing the various open data projects happening in Canada and around the world, here is an outline of where we are, and what I…

I love Mozilla. Any reader of this blog knows it. I believe in its mission, I find the organization totally fascinating and its processes engrossing. So much so I spend a lot of time thinking about it - and hopefully, finding ways to contribute.

I'm also a big believer in data. I believe in the power of evidence-based public policy (hence my passion about the long-form…

It is really, really, really hard to believe. But as bad as internet access is in Canada, it just got worse.

Yesterday, Shaw Communications, a Canadian telecommunications company and internet service provider (ISP) that works mostly in Western Canada announced they are launching Movie Club, a new service to compete with…

At the 2010 GTEC conference I did a panel with David Strigel, the Program Manager of the Citywide Data Warehouse (CityDW) at the District of Columbia Government. During the introductory remarks David recounted the history of Washington DC's journey to open data.

Interestingly, that journey began not with open data, but with an internal problem. Back around 2003 the city had a hypothesis that towing away abandoned cars would…

For those not in the United Kingdom a massive scandal has erupted around allegations that one of the country's tabloids - the News of the World ( a subsidiary of Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation) - was illegally hacking into and listening in on the voicemails of not royal family members and celebrities but also murder victims and family members of soldiers killed in Afghanistan.

The fall out from the scandal, among other things, has caused the 168 year old newspaper to be…

A lot of movement on the open data (and not so open data) front in Canada.

Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) Open Data Portal Launched

Some readers may remember that last week I wrote a post about the imminent launch of CIDA's open data portal.…

This is not a complicated post. Just a simple idea: Can we create Open311 API add-on for Ushahidi?

So what do I mean by that, and why should we care?

Many readers will be familiar with Ushahidi, non-profit that develops open source mapping software that enables users to collect and visualize data in interactive maps. It's history is now fairly famous, as the Wikipedia article about it…

My friends over at Code for America have created this awesome twitter visualization for July 4th.

It's a reminder that you've got to love what you do, and probably no more so if you are trying to help governments reinvent themselves.