As is mentioned in this new post to the Seabourne site by Mike Reich, the FCC (Federal Communications Commission) has launched their new portal, MyFcc (beta). The Seaborne post talks about the technology they used to create this widget-based dashboard.

MyFCC is a personalized dashboard for power users that provides a simple way to access a broad range of content coming out of the agency. MyFCC content is powered by the Content API module, and is built using our very own Cumula Framework.

The site is based on an API the FCC provides and makes it simpler to hone it down to just the information you need.

MyFCC is a new approach to open government - making the content easily available to everyone, everywhere via APIs. Using the Content APIs, the public can create their own tools like MyFCC.

You can find out more about the launch of MyFcc in this official press release.

Brandon Savage has taken some of the good practices in object oriented application development and related them to some of the things that the government can teach you about them:

However, the ubiquity of governments around the world also gives us a unique opportunity to learn some lessons from them as developers, particularly about principles of object oriented programming. Governments serve as perfet object lessons (pun intended), demonstrating some of the good, the bad, and the ugly object-oriented practices we see.

He looks at five topics - abstraction, encapsulation, implementation of dumb objects, decoupling and the concept of "one class, one responsibility".

In a new article on the Personal Democracy site Nancy Scola looks at the recent change of the Whitehouse.gov website over to use the Drupal content management system.

After months of planning, says an Obama Administration source, the White House has ditched the proprietary content management system that had been in place since the days of the Bush Administration in favor of the latest version of the open-source Drupal software, as the AP alluded to in its reporting several minutes ago.

The change was made so the site could be both more effect and easier to maintain with the added benefit of being built on a well-developed and supported Open Source platform. Nancy also suggests that a more towards Open Source like this could help things lean towards more openness in the general democracy.

Zeev Suraski has posted about a French government-organized PHP seminar he spoke at yesterday, held by the DGME.

It was held in a conference room in one of the Minefi (Ministry of Finance) buildings, no less. Most of the attendees were coming from various governmental agencies and ministries, to learn more about PHP success stories and best practices. Presenters came from Oracle, alapage.com, DGME, Zend and others.

He describes the seminar as being the first of its kind in France, especially organized by such a large entity as the government there. As the trends in PHP adoption shift, however, things like this will be happening more and more.

Zeev Suraski has posted about a French government-organized PHP seminar he spoke at yesterday, held by the DGME.

It was held in a conference room in one of the Minefi (Ministry of Finance) buildings, no less. Most of the attendees were coming from various governmental agencies and ministries, to learn more about PHP success stories and best practices. Presenters came from Oracle, alapage.com, DGME, Zend and others.

He describes the seminar as being the first of its kind in France, especially organized by such a large entity as the government there. As the trends in PHP adoption shift, however, things like this will be happening more and more.