Alpha.gov.uk preps for beta, prays for funding

The single government domain prototype being developed by a small team of coders is yet to secure any further funding and the clock is ticking on the deadline for feedback from British citizens. Despite that, Alpha.gov.uk is preparing to morph into a beta. Meanwhile, the Cabinet Office's plans to introduce a new "ID assurance …

[Michael Souris]

What a monumental pile of crap

Doesn't render on my IE9

On FF3.6 at 640x480 (yes, they still exist, reason why left as an exercise for the reader) it gets its knickers in a knot when scrolling. Can't leave feedback on the site for same reason.

Final insult; its sets Google Analytics cookies without the user's prior consent. Somebody in .gov.uk not keeping up with new legislation!

[Anonymous Coward]

£261,000 on a prototype project

Seems like rather a large wad of dosh.

Beer, because £261,000 would come in very handy for that indeed.

[Rustybucket]

Render failure

Oh for pity's sake! Yet another PR-w*nking I.T. make-work project that doesn't work properly. *sigh*

It doesn't even get close to rendering properly for me. Mind you I am on FF5 on Linux so it could be just me.

Apart from that though, if we're supposed to have so little money, why exactly are the Government spending money to knob about with IT systems?

[John Smith 19]

WTF is ID Assurance programme

and why is knocking out it out to Fapbook *any* kind of good idea?

[Ben Tasker]

Pretty much what I sent in my 'feedback'

Though it may have come across as a bit of a rant,

Told them I wouldn't use any ID Assurance programme that used a single-sign on across non-related services (i.e. Facebook, Google etc.)

For christs sake, how long have we been telling people not to use the same password for different accounts, and now they're being encouraged to use one _account_ for everything? Beggars belief

[BigRedS]

OpenID

I wondered that - isn't this precisely what OpenID was conceived for?

[Adrian Midgley 1]

all addresses and links to change again?

It would be sensible fo rthese various successive groups to pick a generic set of names and keep the pages at them even if they move computers and so on around.

That'd be a service to anyone who uses or links or refers to them.

The NHS is particularly crass at it.

[Anonymous Coward]

@Ben Tasker

Cue Lord of the Rings

[Ben Tasker]

A title is reqd

One account to rule them all,

One exploit to find them,

One browser to bring them all,

And in the darkness bind them.

Nah that's naff, anyone got a better one?

[Anonymous Coward]

"Where are you? If we know your location we can give you details of services local to you."

Pfffffff - yeah, right.

It *does* seem to render on Opera 11.11 on Linux but its hard to tell.

[two00lbwaster]

Google analytics

I wouldn't have noticed that it had been blocked if I hadn't read the comments first.

Ghostery plugin is a Firefox necessity (Yes you can get it on Chrome too but it's missing some blockers).

[Jon Press]

Worth £261K for this valuable advice alone...

http://alpha.gov.uk/what-do-if-you-find-stranded-whale/

[Hardcastle the ancient]

err

I thought we just junked one national ID it scheme? why are we doing another?

[Chris 3]

And what exactly is wrong...

... with the name 'DirectGov'?

[Starkadder]

You really don't know?

It was invented by the previous (non-computer literate) government.

It is rather meaningless.

The term gov usually means "the boss".

There is no need whatever for a single website as google (insert other search engine if required) will always find what you re looking for more quickly.